The Equipped For Life Podcast
The Equipped For Life Podcast is dedicated to providing men with spiritual knowledge and insight from the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. Whether you're just starting your journey of faith as a Christian or you're a seasoned disciple, Equipped For Life is here to ensure you have the tools you need to handle life's many challenges.
The Equipped For Life Podcast
Empty Mosques, Full Hearts: Christianity's Unlikely Growth in Iran
A spiritual earthquake is silently rumbling beneath Iran's surface. While news headlines focus on politics and tensions, something far more profound is transforming the nation from within - a Jesus revolution that's emptying mosques and filling underground churches.
The numbers are staggering: over one million Muslims have abandoned Islam to follow Christ in Iran. An estimated 50,000-75,000 mosques now stand empty as Iranians grow increasingly disillusioned with the Islamic regime that has governed them for 45 years. When confronted with rampant corruption, widespread poverty, and one of the world's highest drug addiction rates, many Iranians are questioning what their faith has actually delivered.
What's most remarkable about this movement isn't just its size but how it's happening. Countless Iranians report encountering Jesus through dreams and visions - supernatural experiences that bypass the need for traditional evangelism in a country where sharing the gospel openly means risking imprisonment or death. These new believers gather in secret home churches, knowing that authorities regularly conduct raids, questioning everyone present and arresting leaders. For them, following Jesus isn't a path to prosperity or comfort - it's a decision that could cost them everything.
This phenomenon extends beyond Iran's borders. Christianity is growing rapidly throughout parts of the Middle East, including Yemen, Afghanistan, and even showing early signs of tolerance in Saudi Arabia. It challenges our Western understanding of faith, reminding us that where people are most desperate and have nothing left to depend on, God often moves in the most powerful ways.
Whether you're facing persecution or comfort in your faith journey, this story reminds us that boldness is required to truly follow Christ. As divine transformation sweeps across seemingly impossible places, what might God be calling you to boldly pursue in your own life?
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Something incredible is happening in Iran.
Speaker 2:A revolution is underway in parts of the region, a Jesus revolution.
Speaker 1:Over one million Muslims have left Islam and put their trust in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:An unprecedented number of Muslims are fors islam and choosing to follow christ, especially in iran.
Speaker 1:You have a country with one of the highest drug addiction rates in the world. Corruption runs rampant. People of iran are looking at this and they're saying, if this is what islam has brought us in the last 45 years, we're not interested.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to the Equipped for Life podcast. I am your host, brandon C Ricks. I am very, very excited about today's episode. We're going to be talking about a topic that's very dear to me, and it is persecution in the church. If you did not know, there are a lot of things happening around the world, a lot of things that you, as a follower of Christ, should be very aware of. But just for you that do not know, equipped for Life I'm rocking the Equipped for Life shirt here today. So if you want to go to EFLmencom, eflmencom, you can get all of the EFL merch. We've got some pretty cool threads that you can pick up and you don't got to be a part of EFL to rock the merch, because you're just rocking and representing Jesus. So, eflmencom, and also to let you know that we are a men's fellowship. We meet three times a week in the Texas area. Texas area, that's a huge place right, texas is a whole state but we meet in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We have meetings across the city and it's a great opportunity for you, as a man, to come and fellowship. But on the YouTube channel this is for everyone, for men and women. But Equipped for Life is what gives us the ability to do this channel. So, with that being said, I'm so excited to hop into it. You're not going to want to miss this.
Speaker 3:So let's look at a little bit of what's going on in the church in Iran. That's right. Yes, there is the church in Iran. What's powerfully happening in Iran is that people are leaving the mosques in droves. Yeah, that's right. I think there is somewhere like 70% of the mosques are now empty. Okay, people are leaving. Islam is what's happening Now.
Speaker 3:Since Iran is a closed off country, you do not get to see as many reports, because it's dangerous to report these kinds of things if you're living in Iran. But this has been going on for quite some time now, where Jesus, as they would call him, esau, is showing up in Iranians' dreams like crazy, and there's a lot of authors that are writing about this too as well. One of the authors that you can look up is Tom Doyle. I'll have to put the name of the book. Maybe I'll put it in the video, maybe here or here in the corner as I'm speaking, so you can see it, but it's a dreams and visions book by Tom Doyle, who is a missionary to the Middle East that I have a privilege of meeting some years back, and he's got a passion for the Middle East and he preaches the gospel in these areas, from you know, in places like Jordan and other places too as well. So let's go to see what's happening with the church in Iran.
Speaker 4:Iranians are growing tired of the Ayatollahs and a nation led by the empty promises of their Islamic theocracy. An anonymous internal poll found that 80% now prefer a democratic government and many are leaving Islam. You have?
Speaker 1:a country with one of the highest drug addiction rates in the world. You have a country where corruption runs rampant. You have a country where more than half the people live below the poverty line.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that. I didn't know that they had one of the highest drug problems in the world. That is interesting. You know, drugs are a funny thing, right? I think that America we have a huge drug problem here too as well. Like we are addicted to all manner of things, from opioids to stimulants, to coffee, to food. I mean, we are one of the most addicted nations you know in the world nations you know in the world.
Speaker 3:And to me, addiction is just a sign. It's a symptom of a deeper problem, and what it is is discontentment. You know, when you are abusing substances, it's because you are escaping your reality, you're discontent with your life, you're not satisfied, there's a void, there's an emptiness, and so you run to drugs. And alcohol is also a drug. So I don't like to say drugs and alcohol, because alcohol is a drug. Anything that's mind-altering, that alters your state of consciousness, is considered a drug. It's an intoxicant, it's something that you're participating in, partaking in in order so that you can not think about or be removed from the reality of a situation that you're going through or circumstance, whether that be temporarily or long term, based off of your level of addiction. But the fact that addiction is running rampant in Iran to me is a testament of the emptiness that people are filling, and they're trying to fill the void with something because what's happening on a day to day basis is not satisfying.
Speaker 1:And the people of Iran are looking at this and they're saying wait a minute, if this is what Islam has brought us in the last 45 years, we're not interested. We want to know what the other options are.
Speaker 4:According to Todd Nettleton of the Voice of the Martyrs, the faith option many are choosing is Jesus, with at least a million Muslims reportedly leaving Islam for Christianity. How's the regime reacting to this? We've heard 50,000 of 75,000 mosques have closed and I'm sure they aren't accepting that very well 50 to 75,000 mosques closed.
Speaker 3:That. Imagine if we replace mosques with churches, and I told you that 50,000 to 75,000 churches in America have closed. I mean, we're talking about an avalanche of apostasy here. Okay, that is a vast percentage of your population choosing to leave Islam. Okay, that is significant. That is significant. And I believe that, in the age of the internet, that Islam is dying as people are able to translate the Quran into different languages and to understand the Quran and the Hadiths and what they teach.
Speaker 3:Islam is not attractive, it's just not. And the Iranian people? They were not always Islamic right, they were conquered by Islam. The Persian people have a beautiful spirit and beautiful culture and they were some of the most brilliant artists in the world until Islam. Islam has a way of stamping out all of your creativity, all of your ideas.
Speaker 3:Just look and do a review on the places where Islam is the primary source, religious view, and show me where there's artistic growth and expression and innovation. You don't have it outside of Dubai, which they've modeled Dubai after capitalism. It's kind of a little gem within the, in the, in the desert outside of Dubai, in the Emirates. You don't find growth in progression in Islamic states. Look all throughout northern Africa, look through Asia, places like Indonesia, places like Afghanistan, pakistan, yemen. These places are not places that people want to live and, in fact, people in those countries are moving to places like Britain, into Holland, into Sweden.
Speaker 3:Okay, they're leaving Islamic regimes to go to places where they have the ability to express themselves and to live freely. Okay. So it's not surprising to me that in Iran, they're leaving Islam, because for centuries, before Islam came, the people that were living in Iran, in what was then called Persia, were following Zoroaster. There was Zoroastrianism, there was Christianity, there was Judaism, there were a myriad of different beliefs, and they certainly see the growth of the church they certainly see Christian evangelism as a form of dissent.
Speaker 1:We have heard multiple stories this year of a Bible study, a home church being raided, everyone there is photographed, everyone there is questioned, but then the leader of the meeting is held onto. They are arrested, they are detained, they're put in prison.
Speaker 4:Moreover, Nettleton contends family members and friends are more tolerant than the government about leaving Islam.
Speaker 1:They're kind of had the attitude of hey, if you found something that works for you, if it's Jesus or if it's atheism or if it's whatever, if it works for you. I know Islam doesn't work, so I'm happy you found something that works.
Speaker 3:So, in other words, anything but Islam is pretty much what the Iranian people are saying, but, by the grace of God, many of them are choosing Jesus, and you know, again, that leads me to another scripture. There's so many verses that I can read about persecution of the church. One of them is 2 Timothy 3, verse 12 and 13. And it reads like this In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived Right, and I think that this is again one of these points.
Speaker 3:That's to me is really sobering is that if you persist in wickedness, then you get the results of that. You get wicked results, and I don't think like the spiritual warfare is more covert in a place like China, because there's not an acknowledgement of spiritual authority, whereas in Iran you have the worship of Allah and you know, just to be clear, allah and Yahweh are not the same, they're not the same deity, very, very different standards, practices. And the Quran is a very different piece of literature than the Tanakh, the Torah and the, and wonders, despite an oppressive regime. To me it's just a testament of the truth, of the gospel, and I think it's a testament to the power of the body of Christ is that when we, as Christians and as followers of Jesus, choose to make it our business to spread the good news and to live a life that's worthy of the gospel, we find the Holy Spirit really actively doing work.
Speaker 5:Well, I think what's happening there is actually representative of what's happening in the Islamic world.
Speaker 4:Don Schenk serves as executive director of the Tide Ministry. He explains how Muslims are experiencing dreams and visions leading many to find purpose and a different understanding of God.
Speaker 5:We get responses from listeners who say you know, now I understand that God loves me. I always thought that God wanted to punish me and I think there's an awakening, as I said, that's taking place across the Muslim world. An awakening, as I said, that is taking place across the Muslim world.
Speaker 4:Schenck states that Tide Ministry radio broadcasts are receiving positive responses in Afghanistan, where the Taliban pose great danger for those seeking information from secret Christians within the country, there's a lot of suspicion.
Speaker 3:So for those of you who don't know, in Afghanistan they also speak Farsi, so this is the reason why the broadcasts are working there. I'm not sure if most people knew that, but Afghanistan is a Farsi-speaking country. Pakistan they speak Urdu primarily, but in Afghanistan they speak Farsi, and Farsi is the language of the Iranians, of the Persians, so that's why that's working. That's amazing that that's working. One of the things that I think is interesting to me is the again, the miracles, signs and wonders, the dreams and visions.
Speaker 3:For us that live in the West and the post-modern Western world. I think that we struggle with the idea of God speaking to us in what we would call supernatural ways, because we have the enlightenment, we have intellectualism, we have logic and reason, so we are more interested in the practical applications of scripture. It's like it's become like a self-help program. Jesus and his teachings are how do I use the Bible to better my life? Not how do I use the word of God to transform my life. How do I surrender my life to the Holy Spirit so that I can be transformed and made anew?
Speaker 3:And for people that are desperate and in dire situations and really, really need a transformation, god shows up, the miraculous happens in those places, whereas we don't see those kinds of things happening in America, because we're depending on ourselves to make things happen, even for those of us that call ourselves Christians.
Speaker 3:Right, because if I have money, well, I can just go buy, I can go fix the problem with money, I can go get a credit card, I can go, you know, I can go get healing from a doctor. I don't have to pray for it, I don't have to pray for myself to be released from prison, because I can just go post bail if I need to right Like. There's so many things that we can do in America that we don't think it requires God, which is the reason why we don't get to see some of these things that are happening that we would call supernatural, whereas in a place like Iran they need God's help they really do because they can do nothing, because the strain of Islam is around their neck so tight that it's difficult to even breathe, to even move, and so they have to call out and seek miracles for things to occur, and that's where you see the Holy Spirit showing up, and it's a wonderful and beautiful thing.
Speaker 5:If I'm going to meet with these people and share that I'm now a believer. Are they really true believers or are they just trying to identify me? It's more than simply being ostracized or disowned by your family. It is actually the threat of death. So accepting new life in Christ means accepting the possibility of your life ending in this world.
Speaker 4:Christianity is also spreading in Yemen, where the Joshua Project reports Christian growth is almost double the global average. Next door Nettleton sees the Saudi Arabian monarchy becoming a bit more tolerant of Christians and their churches.
Speaker 1:Not necessarily welcoming, but with open arms obviously.
Speaker 3:OK, so that's crazy, I've got a comment right. So I mentioned Yemen earlier, not necessarily welcoming, but with open arms. Obviously. Look at the, the haplogroup markers, the, the genome of a lot of yemenis. They are descendants of the 12 tribes.
Speaker 3:But because once again islam with a sword came through and pretty much forced conversion, because in in the quran it's you know, either you uh convert to islam or you uh die, or you pay the jizya, which is a tax if you're, if you going to, and they would just tax terribly the Jews and the Christians. It's another form of humiliation and embarrassment. And they would do this all throughout the places where they conquered, all throughout northern Africa, into the Arabian Peninsula, all throughout the Iberian Peninsula, which is Spain and Portugal peninsula, all throughout the Iberian peninsula, which is Spain and Portugal. And then you know east going, going east into into Asia, which is where you have all the you know stands right, turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, and you know Afghanistan, pakistan, all the stands Right.
Speaker 3:So Islam spread in these places and it smashed everything out. It was in its wake. But there's a lot of ethnically Israeli well, not Israeli. Israeli is a nation state but there are descendants of the 12 tribes. There are Yemeni Jews there, but they are Muslims, so it's interesting that you see that faith is spreading in Yemen. There's one thing, too, that I think is interesting is that you notice that the thread of deception and how the enemy operates, how he's always participating in espionage, that there's always this fear of is somebody going to be perpetrating or or gallivanting around like they're a Christian so that they can entrap you. There's these stories that happen like this. It's the same tactics that the enemy uses in China as in Iran.
Speaker 1:But just the understanding that that it could happen, that there could be Christians here, and maybe that's not the worst thing in the world.
Speaker 4:That's such a change from what we would have seen 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, a move of God's spirit bringing change that may eventually transform not only Iran but the entire Middle East. Gary Lane. Cbn News.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's amazing. So there's another scripture that comes to my mind. It's in Revelations 2, verse 10. It says this Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for 10 days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor's crown.
Speaker 3:So, as we kind of close today for today's episode, the thing that I really want to communicate is that in the body of Christ, boldness is required. If you're going to follow Jesus, there has to be a courage that the Spirit gives you, no matter where you're living, no matter if it's in China or Iran or Great Britain or if you're living here in the US. Be bold in your faith, recognize that you made the right decision, despite what's happening on around you, circumstantially in your life, how difficult things get, how hard they are, just know that the holy spirit is with you, that god is with you, that transformation is occurring, and the harder things get, and the more you lean on him, the more of his spirit pours out and the more power you see. And that is how the gospel spreads You've been listening to Equipped for Life. I'm your host, brandon C Ricks. I hope you enjoyed this episode. God bless and be strong on your journey, peace.
