GLOBAL VOICES
The Best Thing that Ever Happened Jeff King “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Romans 1:16 (ESV) “I just got my satellite dish a week ago, and I want to pray to receive Christ.” Hormoz, the leader and host of an Iranian satellite TV ministry, sat in shock on the receiving end of the line. The voice on the phone belonged to an obscure Muslim villager in Iran. It wasn’t rare for a Muslim Iranian to convert to Christianity after hearing the gospel from his Christian television program, but, making such a bold and illegal proclamation on air was a death-wish. Iran’s Islamic government seeks to control every aspect of its citizens’ lives, from clothing and speech to internet access and religious affiliation. Swift and severe punishment quickly follows any perceived threat to the regime, especially involving the advancement of Christianity. But in the age of internet and satellite TV the government is losing control. In 1994, the government passed a law that banned the use and ownership of satellite dishes. Under the Iranian constitution, radio and television were to be “aligned with the course of perfection of the Islamic Revolution and served the promotion of Islamic culture, and to this end benefit from the health collision of different ideas and seriously avoid spreading and propagating destructive and anti-Islamic tenets” That didn’t stop rogue Christian broadcasters like Hormoz and others from blasting the gospel into Iran from space. One research center estimated that renegade TV stations like his reach 70% of Iranian households. “Do you know who Jesus is?” Hormoz asked the man. “Jesus is God.” The man answered. “What? In one week, you came to understand that? It takes years for people to overcome that hurdle!” Hormoz exclaimed, amazed. Jesus’s death and resurrection as the reincarnate God is the demarcation line between Christianity and Islam. Muslims consider Jesus to be merely a prophet of Allah. His deity is the biggest stumbling block for Muslims in coming to Christ. “Jesus told me himself. I slept and he came to me in my dreams,” said the Iranian. His nine-year-old son was dying of cancer and when he brought him home from the hospital to live out his last days on earth around family. He felt utterly forsaken by Islam and Allah, in whom he had believed.
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“Doctors couldn’t do anything, nor could praying to all the saints of Islam. I watched your program and got a little bit of hope. I went to take a shower, and in the shower, I just cried, ‘Jesus you have to save my son’s life. Jesus appeared to me and said, ‘It’s done, it’s done.’ Three months ago, our son was healed.” That day, another Iranian joined the ranks of Jesus’s followers, knowing full well that that he would probably pay dearly for his decision. Another man called into Hormoz’s program asking to receive Christ on air. He said, “I have sincerely followed Islam and for 30 years done everything that I could. Now I look at it objectively hasn’t done anything for my life, I don’t have peace. I look at the society after 30 years, and it is worse off now… [there is] more corruption, prostitution, and drug addiction. Islam doesn’t do anything for my society, so it’s not the way. I want to pray to receive Christ.” This man is one of many Iranians who turned their backs on Islam once Iran’s Islamic Republic failed to bring the restoration to Iran that it promised. THE APPEAL OF THE GOSPEL Today, Iran is a house built on shifting sand. Despite its immense oil wealth, it is an economic basket case. Its leaders steal oil revenues and use them for military outreach and influence, ultimately to encircle and destroy Israel. Iran sits next door to Afghanistan, the world’s number-one producer of heroin. Much of that heroin flows through but also ends up in Iran, creating a nation of junkies who rely on crime and prostitution to feed their habits. Islam has no answer to the pervasive hopelessness that stems from such a toxic culture.
