The following is a pre-recorded program. Hey friends, Michael Brown delighted to be with you on the line of fire where it is our goal, our purpose, our prayer, our burden to infuse you with faith and truth and courage to help you stand strong on the front lines. Muslims being healed and hearing the gospel in mosques in Iraq. First-hand accounts with our grads out on the mission field, our fire grads, an extension of this ministry out doing the work of the gospel, folks that we love and support and stand with. Well, it so happens one of our team members, one of our fire missionaries in Iraq is in the States and was able to join us in studios.
So I had a bunch of questions to ask, update questions. I'll tell you what, let's just do it on the air. Before we do that, I want to encourage you, if you're not getting the Frontline newsletter, sign up now. This next one is going to motivate you to make radical lifestyle changes. You will not want to miss it. Plus, an amazing testimony of a Hindu guru coming to faith with one of our team members in India.
So go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org and click subscribe. So in the midst of the Brownsville Revival, God called me to raise up a school of ministry. We got a great team together, raised up a school, continued that school for years as fire school of ministry. And our grads have been serving God around the world. And one of our key teams just being used by the Lord in amazing ways is in Northern Iraq in Kurdistan.
And they openly share the gospel as Christians and lovers of the people of Iraq. But one of the team leaders, David, just used his first name, but it's his actual name. David is here in studio with us.
He's here with family in the States for a couple of months. David, for the first time, welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Ron. Yeah.
Amazing that we're here together. So you've been in Iraq now 12 years. About 12 years. Right. And you get four kids. Yes.
All right. And so they've basically grown up in Iraq. Most of their life, yes. Yeah. How did you get the calling to go to Iraq, to the Middle East, to the Muslim world? Yeah. So ever since, just as you mentioned, just as from when I was first in Bible school, BRSM, fire school ministry, the Lord really began to speak to me about his heart for the nations.
Of course, the 1040 window, the unreached, the unengaged. And even after we finished school and going back to my home church in Chicago and plugging in, that fire was still very much a part of my DNA, so to speak. Explain that, because I've seen you preach with passion and love for Jesus. Explain that fire.
Yeah. So I mean, when I first got born again in 1998, God completely transformed my life. And all the more, during my three years in Pensacola, Florida, God continued to deposit his word and encountering him in powerful ways in times of worship, in times of prayer, where when I went back home to my local church, one thing was for sure, is that I'm not yet fully what I know that the Lord desires me to be, but I will never be the same. And so when you experience the presence of God in such powerful ways, in the midst of real revival, encountering God in classes, in corporate services, in my own prayer time, and in the Word, it's very difficult to go back to anything less than that. You want to press into more and more. And so I wanted to give my life for the glory of God and for the Great Commission.
And so we started doing outreach there in our own context there in Chicago and taking trips overseas. And more and more the Lord began to speak to me about the Muslim world. Yeah.
And you with your dear friend Fabian. Yes. Yeah.
So you went over there, been there 12 years now. What are some of the unique obstacles in reaching the Muslim world? Well first, let's break this down.
Sure. Within a rock, you've got different kinds of Muslims and different types of people. So give us an overview. So Iraq is about 40 million, 40 million people plus. The majority of Iraq under 21 years old.
It's a very young nation. Some of that is because of poor health care, wars, people immigrating. High birth rate also. High birth rate as well.
Yeah. It's Iraq as well as is divided into different sections, even based upon religious, religiously. We have probably about 40% of the nation is Sunni Muslims. Close to 60% of the nation, Shia Muslims, a very small Christian population.
Out of 40 million people, we have about 250,000 Christians left. So what was it before ISIS? Well, before the fall of Saddam, it was about 1.5 million. But then the population was maybe 24 million people at that time.
And so I'm not sure exactly what it was before ISIS. But currently, it's about 250,000. And out of those, evangelical believers would be maybe 3,000 to 4,000. Wow. That tiny.
So by evangelical, we're not just talking about some strict type of Protestant beliefs as much as people that have been born again and are not just traditional Christian. Right. Right. So what happened for the 1.5 million to 250,000? Were they killed? Did they flee? Most of them fled. Most fled when the fall of Saddam and have continued to leave the country year by year, even to current times. I mean, the last number I heard was about 250,000.
It may be less than that. Right. So Saddam, as much as he was an evil guy, brought a certain stability to the society.
Right. In many ways, he did. And the Christians, at least the secular Christians or Christians in general, many of them really did. They had affinity for him because he did protect the Christians. But at the same time, missionaries could not get into the country. And evangelical Christians were very marginalized and closely monitored and watched. And so if you were a more traditional Christian that was not going to preach the gospel, that was not going to do evangelism, then you were protected and taken care of. But if you were going to be a missional Christian, if you were going to have prayer meetings in your home, if you were going to connect it at all to the church outside of Iraq, then certainly that would be frowned upon.
All right. And as far as the Muslims within the country, what percentage would you say are very religious? What percentage?
Nominal? And then what percentage of the country would cast our religion entirely? Yeah.
Yeah. And so where we live in the North, you know, amongst the Kurds, a lot more open to the church in general and to relationship with the church in the West, Westerners in general amongst the Kurds. But it's hard to know exactly how much. But if I had to guess, I would say maybe 25 percent of the country is, you know, very committed to Islam, radical Muslims.
Maybe another 25 to 30 percent are secular and 50 percent, I would say somewhere in between. Got it. So how did you get an open door to go on a rock and to stay all these years?
Because you're open about who you are. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And now we do have a church that's registered as well in the Kurdish region as well, an international Arabic speaking church there. And we also have an NGO there, you know, on the ground. But but we've worked there for 12 years with local churches and where we live. Yeah. You know, they do again.
They do. They're fond of Christians and supportive of Christians, especially because it's a persecuted minority. And just as the Kurds themselves were a persecuted minority underneath Saddam.
And so we've been there for 12 years. When we first moved there, of course, we were not aware that a year and a half after we would move there, that the breakout with ISIS in the region was going to take place. But the Lord knew.
And so the timing was was, I believe, sovereignly and divinely arranged by the Lord. Did you have Muslims seeing the atrocities committed by ISIS and the radical nature of what they wanted to establish with an Islamic state? Did that open the eyes of other Muslims to say, we don't like this, this is not who we are? Absolutely.
Yeah. I mean, you had some Muslims who wanted to defend Islam and say ISIS is not truly represented Islam. But then when we would when we would walk with them through the history of Islam and Quranic passages, they were confronted with the fact that this actually is very much in keeping with Islam. And so, you know, we tell Muslims all the time, we love Muslims, Jesus died for all people, including Muslims. But ISIS was actually very much a representation of the very spirit of Islam and Islam historically. And so as a result of that, many people, especially young people, started to get a lot more disillusioned with Islam, recognizing what the foundations of Islam teaches. And many as a result became atheists. And some of those that became atheists, or perhaps agnostic and walked away from their faith, started having encounters with Jesus. Give me an example. We want to glorify the Lord and talk about this.
We've got like three minutes before the first break. But give me an example of an encounter, not just hypothetical, but suddenly a tangible one where someone has a dream, something, you know, and Jesus appears to them. Just give us an example of something you've seen.
Sure. I mean, I could think of a couple of them, but I'll tell you one that I could think of right now, which is that when we're going to refugee camps and praying with people, coming from Syria, coming from Mosul, coming from the areas, primarily from the areas that were now underneath the control of the Islamic State. And so we would go in and, you know, try to provide whatever care we could for different, even practical needs, praying with people, sharing the gospel, the love of Jesus Christ with people. And I remember meeting, going to this one family's tent and this lady who maybe was in the early 50s, we start to share with her and immediately as we're sharing with her, her eyes are open, you know, wide, wide open eyes. And she says, you know, years ago, over 10 years ago, I had this powerful dream that I will never be able to forget. She said, I've had hundreds of dreams since that I can't remember, but this one particular dream has stuck with me. And in this dream, she said, I saw a man descending from heaven, dressed in white with a golden sash across with a crown on his head.
His face was brighter than the sun. And when he was, when he descended from heaven, I knew he was the king sent from heaven. And he descended down into my bedroom. She saw this in a night vision. And he handed me a book and he said, this is the Bible. And he said, read this, and I'll return back for you one day. And so she says, as you as you're talking about this Jesus, she says, that's the one I saw on the dream. So I asked her, so have you in the last decade plus since you've had that, that powerful dream or night vision? Have you found a Bible and read a Bible? She said no. So he said, well, there's good news.
We have one for you today. You know, so we, we handed her a Bible and we took her to Revelation chapter one, where it describes Jesus, just as she saw in her in her dream over a decade prior. And so she ended up, you know, receiving prayer and hearing the gospel.
And we've lost touch with her since. But so many, so many situations like that, even prior to Isis, but then even during the time of Isis, where people are having encounters with God, even before we get to meet them. And we're just connecting the dots through the gospel message.
Yeah. And that, that friends is such a common story, but you're hearing it firsthand. You're hearing it direct from someone on the front lines, watching these things happen, moved there with his entire family, wife, raising four kids there and seeing Jesus move and then mostly male. It was real. It was amazing. And we're going to talk about Jesus. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again, is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us on the line of fire.
Michael Brown. I'm not taking any calls today, but a special guest, one of our friends, colleagues, spiritual sons, coworkers, fire missionaries out in Iraq, in Kurdistan with his team doing an amazing work. Hey friends, just want to give a shout out of appreciation to our co-sponsor TriVita.
Thanks for these great healthy supplements that are part of my life as well. All right, David, we we've done some workouts together too. Yeah, we've done some workouts.
Got to make sure our missionaries are fit. Just going back to the story you told about the woman who had the dream. When you showed her in an Arabic Bible, Revelation chapter one, here's you just described this Jesus.
Now it's in the book here that he told you to read. What was the reaction when she saw that? Shock, joy, faith. Her heart was full of faith. It's as if we were giving her like a present she had been eagerly waiting for, for a long time. Yeah, and you know for the skeptics, the dream was Jesus telling her, read the Bible.
How are you going to argue with that, right? And then in the Bible, she finds there is this Jesus, so may God finish his work in her life. David, we were talking before about the different mosques, a total of four now, that you've actually preached the gospel in. So, I'm going to ask you to tell us a little bit about the gospel. So, you're doing a lot of humanitarian work, caring for widows and reaching out, serving the community, because that's what you do as followers of Jesus. Then you end up getting an invitation, this is the first one, to speak in a mosque. There's a fellow worker, Chris, that's there with you.
What happened? Yeah, well, so first we didn't know it was going to be at a mosque. And so, because some different people had heard about care that we provided and we had somebody who had gotten born again, formerly used to be a Muslim, he said, hey, I'd love to introduce you to some of my friends and people in my community. And so, he said, I want to introduce you guys and you can come and pray for the sick and for some of the needs of the people because the truth of the matter is, I would say the majority of all that, all the Muslims that we've seen either come to Christ or have a life transforming encounter with God have come as a result of encountering the power of the Holy Spirit.
Of course, the gospel is proclaimed and preached, but it's when the Holy Spirit really touches somebody, somebody is healed or somebody's child is delivered from devils or something like this, that there's something that opens up their heart and a desire and a willingness to hear out the gospel story. Jesus is real. Jesus is real.
He's ripped from the dead. The Spirit's here. Yes. Amen.
Yeah, just the way it should be. And as a result of that, so this gentleman that was with us who formerly used to be a Muslim is now a follower of Jesus, said, hey, I want to introduce you to these guys. So I'm going to set up a thing and you can come pray for them and you can come share about what you believe as a Christian.
And I was expecting that there may be, you know, 15, 20 people and things like this that we often do. We go to a home, we meet with a family, we have a meal, you know, we'll listen to them, we'll share our faith, we'll pray for whoever's willing to receive prayer. And so we go to this location and we noticed that it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a mosque.
It's where they gather for prayer regularly. And there was about 150 people there waiting for us in a mosque. And so, so we had brought a few Bibles. We didn't have close to as many Bibles to be able to give to everybody, but we show up and I meet the leader of the mosque there. And, and before I get up to say anything, one of the gentlemen that was with us, Chris, you know, we, we kind of get off to the side and we were praying, Lord, we didn't know where we, this, this is the door that you would open what we're asking you to show up in power and to testify concerning your son when the gospel is proclaimed. And so he feels that the Lord has given him a word concerning two ladies that God wants to heal. You remember what the conditions were? Just one of them was, one of them I remember was connected to some kind of an accident and very sharp pain while she was, while she was breathing, like a feeling like very sharp pain, something perhaps like a rib or something like that, that hadn't healed properly, touching the lung or the breathing.
And the other one had to do with some kind of like a partial paralysis at part of the body. And so, so I tell him, hey, why don't you get up first and, and share these words and pray. And if it, if this is the Lord and God moves upon these two people and they get healed, that's going to open up faith for the gospel to be preached. I prefer if you start. Yeah. You know, so, so then he, so he did. And I know Chris as well. I mean, so I've heard this, both of you firsthand. I just want our viewers to hear it. Yeah.
Yeah. So, so he did. And we had a couple of other guys there from our team as well. So he got up and he, he says, hey, you know, we're Christians, you know, we love you. And the reason we came today is because just in prayer, we felt the Lord wanting us to come here, to be able to pray with you and share with you the truth about God in the gospel and his son, Jesus. And so he shares what he feels the Holy Spirit showed him. And he says, I don't know if there's anybody here with these two conditions.
Nobody raised their hand. He said, I'm just going to pray. I'm going to pray.
And we're going to ask God in the name of Jesus to heal you if that's your condition. And so he prays. And when he prays two ladies at the back, sitting, you know, rooms, not a, it's not a huge room, but 150 people, it's fairly full, mostly full of the room. Two ladies in the back hit the ground. They just fell.
They just fall into the ground. And so when they do, upon the ending of his prayer, there's commotion and chaos, people all around what happened to these ladies. And of course there's this almost like this superstitious belief, like they prayed in Jesus' name.
These ladies fell. Is there something bad? So I wasn't sure. Like, are they devil-possessed? Did they get healed? I'm not sure what happened. But the leader of the mosque asks me and he says, what happened?
What's going on with these ladies? And so we respond, well, we don't know, but let's wait till they come too and we can ask them what happened to them. And so they come back to probably like within a minute or so. I don't remember. It felt like it was forever.
It could have, it may have been less than a minute, but it may have been a couple of minutes. But when they come back to, the people around them ask them what happened to you. And they said, when the gentleman prayed in Jesus' name, we knew that this was our condition. We knew that this was our condition. And we felt the power touch our bodies that we had never felt before. And then now, and now coming back to, we're looking for the issue, the lady with the breathing problem for the first time in however many years, no pain.
The lady with the partial paralysis, completely healed. And so after this, there was commotion. Everybody wants prayer. Can you pray for me?
Can you pray for me? And ultimately people want to be touched by God. People have needs. People have brokenness of all kinds, emotional, physical. They recognize that they're separated from God deep down inside of their hearts.
If any Muslim who's genuinely God-fearing would be honest with themselves as much as they have affinity for God or love for God and the way that they understand God, and in the way that they understand love, deep down inside they would have to agree that I know I'm separated from God. And when they can witness the power of God present, any heart that's hungry for God wants to be touched, wants to be delivered. And so many people started raising their hands, pray for me too. And so what we said was, okay, we'll pray for everybody here. But before we do, we want to just share for 15, 20 minutes why it is that when we prayed in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name, that God testified with healing power.
No other name but Jesus' name that God testified with healing power. So we shared the Gospel for about 15, 20 minutes, and everybody heard the story. We started in Genesis all the way to the cross, to the resurrection and the return of the Lord and the coming judgment. And we prayed with many different people at the end. God continued to heal some other people, and some people asked for Bibles.
And that's how God moved in ways that we didn't anticipate at the time. And then you subsequently got asked to go to three more mosques. And there was a gentleman that came up. A gentleman came up at the end, and he said, hey, listen, I'm a Muslim. I don't believe like you believe. And even after hearing the Gospel story, he said, but I've never seen the power of God like this before. And I can see that you guys have a heart to help people, that you love people, and that God is with you.
And if you'd be willing to do something like this again, I can help to arrange it again. And so he did on a couple of different occasions. There's Fabian spending the others first hand from him. Friends, Jesus is working around the world. These are not just stories that people have manufactured.
This is real life. And the fact is, some of these Muslims realized they could lose everything in following Jesus. They understand the cost, especially if they're from religious backgrounds. So it's not just because of some myth or some fairy tale.
They have to have a good reason to make a life change. And when they come under conviction of sin and recognize their need for a Savior, they come running and God is meeting them wonderfully and gloriously. I got a bunch more questions for David I can't wait to ask. We want to give you more insight into the Muslim world and pray it's time for the massive harvest that you've never seen.
It's happening, but it's going to happen even more in the Muslim world, around the world. We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.
Welcome back, friends, to the line of fire. Michael Brown here with my special guest, David, one of our fire missionaries in Iraq and in the Middle East. We've got workers in other parts of the world we can't disclose where there are some countries you can be more open than others. And some lives are at risk if we disclose locations.
But we've got folks around the world. I want to thank all of our monthly supporters, all of our torch bearers, all those who pray for our ministry. This is part of what you're supporting. This is part of what you're supporting in prayer.
This is part of what you're supporting financially. This is part of the worldwide movement that we get to participate in and serve in joyfully. One of our great joys and honors to stand side by side with our spiritual sons and daughters, this holy army serving around the world, bearing much fruit. Those that would like to be part of the sacred mission, join us.
Go to the line of fire, thelineoffire.org. Click donate, monthly support. Find out all the ways we pour back into you. But this is part of the sacred work that you partake in. So those that give to this ministry, those that pray for this ministry, rejoice because you've got more fruit in heaven than you realize. So the lineoffire.org.
Click donate, monthly support. So David, the Muslim world like any other part of the world with large numbers of people is diverse. There are differences from one country to another. There are differences from one belief system to another. But people are people. Humans are humans. You can dress a certain way, you can look a certain way, but people are people. I remember my first time in India getting ready to preach and go into a new city and I really felt to bring a message on holiness and repentance and I asked the Indian brother, I said, the Indian said the same way we said.
He goes, yes, brother. Because this woman that's singing, her husband committed adultery and then somebody killed him, just like this, they're human. So you see that in Iraq. So on the one hand, say sexual standards, very strong, morality standards, very strong, but behind the scenes, it's not like that. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And apart from the Holy Spirit, no one can live holy. Apart from a regenerate heart and a new creation reality as a result of faith in Jesus, no one can live holy. And so we know that as a fundamental fact. And so although within the religion, there is a desire to please God in accordance with laws that they have in the Koran, we know that it is impossible to live holy.
And because we're there in the culture and we've lived there as long as we have, we know that the same problems and the same types of sins that people are immersed in and engulfed in all around the world are no different at all in the Middle East. In fact, even exacerbated in some ways. Because it's suppressed.
Because it's suppressed and because it's hidden. Right. So you don't have gay activist movement, but you have a lot of homosexuality. Absolutely. And then what about loopholes within Islam, whether it's by universal acceptance or just what's done, but things like pleasure marriages, what's that amount to? Yeah, sure.
I mean, you have in essence, I mean, it would be practically like legalized prostitution. We have a guy who got born again, who used to teach at one of the Islamic schools in the southern part of Iraq. And last year, he came to faith. And he was a teacher at one time at this place that in essence ordains imams, young preachers. So it's like an Islamic seminary. Like an Islamic seminary. Absolutely. Absolutely. And he and he, as a first hand witness said, you know, like, he would sign off on pleasure marriages, where a gentleman who can be anywhere from in his 20s, 30s, 60s, 70s, would come and bring a seven, eight, nine year old girl that perhaps like a widow who has no way to support herself and is not prostituting her daughter to older men.
And so things like this happen, not just in Iraq. So he would get, he could marry her? He would marry her. He would marry her for 24 hours, for 48 hours, for a fee. And in the contract, it has an expiry date. So I will marry this lady for 48 hours.
And then upon that, it shall be annulled. So this girl? Yeah, yeah. Young girls. Wow.
And not only young girls, women as well. But it's, yeah, absolutely. And it would be in the Islamic court, it would be? Yes. Yeah.
Right. So people need Jesus. People need Jesus, yeah.
People need Jesus, yeah. How did this guy, this former seminary teacher, come to faith? So we connected with him online. But ultimately, he started researching more so. He was versed in some New Testament things to debate against Jesus.
Yeah. But in his own heart, it's just alongside these, it's along these very lines. In his own heart, he started to be frustrated and started to sense conviction, feeling the hypocrisy within his own belief system. And so he said, I needed to go back to the Bible to read part of his own studies, things in, you know, debating Christ and Christianity. And he stumbled across at some point a Sermon on the Mount. And when he read the Sermon on the Mount, the Holy Spirit gave him an understanding that he did not have before. And he saw in the Sermon on the Mount, something that was not, he had no reference point for in Islam, which is a regenerate heart. And that it's not just what we do before men that God is looking for, but it's who we are internally. And so when he started reading the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus's words concerning purity of heart in the way that a man relates to a woman and the way that a man relates to an enemy or to somebody who does him wrong, anger and things of this issue, he said that he started to call out upon the name of the Lord and ask him to reveal himself to him. Mm.
Amazing. The power of the word, the power of the gospel. And then sometimes you're sovereignly connected.
That's the miracle that you connect with the people and so on. So let's say you have a really devout Muslim. You know, they definitely fear Allah. They fear God. They want to please him. Some of them as boys have memorized the Quran, right?
So they're really, really serious. Could they did they understand the concept of relationship with God or or Allah as their father? Do they understand any of those concepts?
Or when you talk to them, is it is a whole different world? Yeah, they have different sects of Islam. But generally speaking, the average Muslim who grew up reading the Quran, part of the local mosque, they would they would not have a reference point for a relationship with God the way that the Bible teaches to relate to God as as a son does to a father. Right. That would lower Allah. That would that would lower Allah.
Yeah. And that would make something of us that would be considered blasphemous to be able to hear the voice of God, the voice of the Holy Spirit, that God would care enough to be to actually communicate to us or with us. And so many of the same words that we have that we use regularly when we share the gospel, with somebody in the West or not in the Middle East. When we share the gospel with somebody in the Middle East, we want to make sure to to really define what those terms mean, because if we say you have sinned, everyone has sinned, they'll immediately think about something that they've done that they got caught for. But they weren't necessarily connected to a wicked heart. A lustful heart, a prideful heart, a pretty heart, a bitter heart.
Absolutely. And if we talk about righteousness, they'll immediately think about doing good deeds. So in essence, you know, getting points and earning their way or at least hoping that they would earn their way into salvation.
They're not thinking about the blood of Jesus that was shed that makes it possible for us to be forgiven and and considered righteous. And what happens, maybe you've had a devout Muslim. I remember one time driving to an airport and it was a Muslim driver, you know, cab driver. And we're talking and and he says, Muslims. So I asked him, you know, about the pillars of Islam.
And yes, you do this. You made the Hajj. I said, so you're confident, you know, if you die, you go to paradise.
He goes 50, 50. I mean, he's saying and they believe in hell fire, you know, 50, 50. So what happens when the light goes on, when you actually see a serious Muslim get born again and they know or you heard their testimonies later that they they realize they were cleanse. Someone paid for their sins. They can have a new life. They could be an intimate relationship with God. They can have assurance.
What what's it like to them? Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's one of the outside of just the glory of God. It's it's the reason that we're there. Yeah, it's to be able to see people come to faith and.
You know, the depth of anybody's repentance really determines the depth of of their faith. And so we see some people who, just like any other part of the world, really deeply turn from their their past sins and place their trust and their hope in Jesus. And and there is joy that. That really redefines their life. Yeah, you know, faith filled, joy, tears, the looks on the faces I wish I could describe, but just yeah, just rapture is joy. And many of them grieve that for so long they've lived their lives not knowing the truth about Jesus, that Jesus is the son of God and the savior.
And many of them weep for their family members and their friends who don't know the Lord yet. Some of them have to face real hardship and persecution. And there's a real cost involved, least the best case scenario being, you know, relationships being severed. Right. Which in the Middle East, relationships and family is everything.
Yeah, yeah. So when you lose your family in the Middle East, you're not just losing your inheritance when you when your parents pass away. You're losing a big part of your life. You're losing it. That's who you are. It's who gets your identity.
It's everything for you. And so that's the best case scenario is you lose that. Worst case scenario is you're persecuted and you're physically beaten or even killed. And so when you baptize people, do they understand? Do you talk to them about the call? I mean, they obviously know it, but you talk to them about the cost?
Absolutely. We do catechism classes where we make sure that that's something that's very clear to them. We don't baptize quickly. We want to make sure that somebody is part of the church, has genuinely repented from sin, has come into a true knowledge of who Jesus is, the son of God and the Savior, understands the gospel, understands what it means to follow him. Because we don't just want to pray quick prayers with somebody just to feel good about ourselves. We want actual disciples and followers of Jesus.
And so we're very clear with them. Jesus says, if you would come after me, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow. And that means practically that when you're saying that you place your hope and your trust in Jesus and you believe the truth of this gospel, they will not treat you any differently than they treated your Lord.
They treated your Lord. And that means that you can be and you will be resisted. You will be persecuted. You will be falsely accused.
You may even be killed. And part of the baptismal confession that they'll give when they're baptized in water is that I'm willing to follow Jesus by life or by death. And that's something that we want to be very clear to them, just as it was in the first century church, because that, in essence, is true New Testament biblical Christianity. No matter where we're at in the world.
You know, and we try to bring that mentality into countries like America, into the West. If that is, it's gospel 101. I'll read Jesus by life or by death. I've got three more questions for David in the inside of the break. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.
Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Friends, I hope you are as blessed as I am sitting here listening to these amazing testimonies from Iraq, from the Middle East. We've got teams there. We lost one of our workers years ago, was martyred by Al-Qaeda.
We can't say where in details because we still have people working in that region. But people going forward, taking a stand for Jesus, and the Lord is moving. More Muslims have come to faith in the last 50, 75 years than probably 1,400 years before that. So David and his family have been in Iraq for 12 years.
Part of our great team there. Three last questions for you, David. First, the role of prayer and fasting. You have the Mesopotamia House of Prayer.
You'll sometimes gather for 50 hours of prayer and worship. And how important is that in your ministry work? It's critically important.
It's critically important and central to the ministry. We very much believe in prayer and fasting and as much as possible trying to foster an atmosphere of unity for the believers there on the ground. Because of course, just like any other region of the world, there are churches that are divided and we believe that God has something uniquely special for this part of the world, the Middle East, and so we try to gather arms and the Lord has given us favor to be able to gather arms with different churches and believers there on the ground and to pray and fasting, of course, and contending for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We don't believe that by prayer and fasting and intercession that we're convincing God or twisting His arm in a way to do something that He doesn't want to do. We believe that prayer and fasting is in essence us aligning our own hearts to God's desire to in fact pour out His Spirit. It's His desire that none should perish and it transforms us. But it also does something in unseen ways that are beyond our understanding. And we've seen that the more we commit ourselves to prayer and humility and really depending upon God and calling upon His name for mercy and for salvation and for holiness in this church and unity in this church and signs and wonders amongst Muslims and transformed hearts and conviction of sin, that the more that the Holy Spirit partners and participates with this church and seeing those things come to pass.
Yeah, and friends, if it could happen in Iraq and the Middle East, in the Muslim world, it can happen wherever you are, listening around America, watching around the world. Second question, David. We had the privilege with the faculty leadership team of pouring into you, Fabian and others that are serving around the world and around the country of America. And I still have the privilege of teaching at different schools. Before we came on the air, I was talking about the six different schools they get to teach and pour in. So that's so important to me to pour in always to the next generation, give the best we have and with the team, faculty leaders to help mentor, train. What deposit was made in your life? How did it benefit you being in that setting and taking the word in an environment like Browns Revival School of Ministry and Fire?
Yeah, so many different things. But fundamentally, some of the things that will always be a part of who I am and us as a team in general is a deep love for God's word and for prayer. And foundationally, that we cannot give what we ourselves do not have to give. And that primarily ministering to God and loving God with all of our hearts, minds, souls and strength comes before anything else. And as a result of that, a life of holiness, holiness of heart, holiness of conduct, living our lives in such a way that we recognize that one day we're going to give an account to God for it. And so a life of devotion to the Lord, a life of holiness and a life devoted to the gospel. And so those things were all deeply established inside of our hearts, realizing that we have one life to live, realizing that people that we're meeting as we're walking down the street, whether we live in the United States or in the Middle East or Europe or anywhere else, we're bumping shoulders with people every single day that are separated from God, enemies of God that the Lord desires to reconcile through the preaching of the cross. And so living for eternity.
And so these are the things then amongst so many other ones that were so deeply imprinted inside of our souls as a result of our time there at BRSM and FIRE that not only do we carry, but these are the things that we're teaching as well to the disciples that are getting born again in the Middle East. Amazing, amazing. All right, last question. We've got seven minutes left. So, David, I want you to look at the camera and when it gets down to a minute, you can wind things down. But whatever is on your heart, we've got folks listening by Radio America and then by podcasts and YouTube, Facebook, other outlets, listening, watching around the world, some live, many in the days after. Whatever is on your heart to share, whatever burden you have, whatever you like to communicate, a wake-up call, word of encouragement, whatever is on your heart, just look at the camera and share your heart, preach, and when you get to about a minute, you can wind things down, all right?
That clock is right behind the camera. Yeah, yeah, all right. I'll tell you. I'll tell you when we get to a minute.
I'll jump in. Yeah, so, you know, one of the things that I've been thinking about for a long time is that we all have in common around the world, as we're hearing about shakings and rumblings, we see the very words of Jesus in the Gospels that in the last days there will be wars, rumors of wars, everything that can be shaken will be shaken. The Lord's words of encouragement and His invitation to us is to not be alarmed. And we see in the scripture how it's the persistent widow in prayer that persists in prayer for the justice of God to be established in the earth that the Lord hears, in Luke chapter 18, and what it looks like for us practically is living our lives in such a way that makes that makes sense in the age to come. Jesus's own disciples, after He's crucified and raised from the dead and before He ascends to heaven, they ask Him in Acts chapter 1, they say, is it at this time that you're going to restore your kingdom to Israel?
Is it at this time that you're going to fulfill the promises for which our fathers and our forefathers have been eagerly anticipating in accordance with the scriptures, the prophecies foretold in the scriptures? And Jesus says something very interesting. He says to them, it is not for you to know the times and the seasons that the Father has set by His own authority. And I think that even in our days in the time in which we're living right now, there's so much happening, you know, economically and shakings, political shakings, wars, tensions, all kinds of things. And it's very easy to want to try to make sense of it and to feel like we know what's going to happen next and why it's happening at what point it's going to end. But this is what Jesus says to His disciples in the first century.
It's not for you to know the times and the seasons, but concern yourself with this. He doesn't say concern yourself with this, but this is, in essence, my translation that I like to imply. He says, but know this one thing. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you should be my witnesses. In Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. And so what I believe that we ought to concern our lives with is the same things that those first band of disciples, that first band of disciples were invited by Jesus to concern their lives with. And a witness by definition testifies to something that they have seen.
Of course, this is something that we communicate with our mouths, but it has to be more than just mental information. And so it's as we behold Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit in His word and by His Spirit that we ourselves are transformed and that we ourselves now are invited to participate with Him in the preaching of the gospel and the advancement of the Great Commission, making disciples that they themselves would love and obey Jesus, just as He instructed us to obey His commands. And this is what Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commandments. And so I believe that one of the things that the Lord is saying to His church today in the hour in which we're living right now is the importance of simplifying life in the midst of all the noise and all the chaos all around us and everything that's happening, returning back to the simplicity of obedience to Jesus. No matter what happens tomorrow, no matter what happens next year, blessings and hardships and hardships to give our lives to loving Jesus, to obeying Jesus, to knowing Him in a real deep way through His word in the place of prayer, to be transformed by His love and to be living witnesses of what we've seen.
The power of God come upon us so that others themselves can experience God saving grace and can be empowered to obey His commands that He Himself has laid out so beautifully for us in the scriptures. Yeah, amen to every word of that. And for those wondering, no, I didn't tell David I was going to ask that. That was just spontaneous from the heart. But I know you're full. I know the Word and Spirit live in you. And really, a lot of this comes down to recovering our first love. You know, for us individually as believers, a fresh love encounter with the Lord through His word, through prayer, through worship. And when He's our all in all, it's a joy to serve Him. It's a joy to make Him known. And here you are in Iraq, all these years, a difficult place to live, uprooting a whole family with your team. I saw Fabian a few months ago, and you're not burnt out, you're not on the verge of collapse, you're not losing your minds, your family's doing well. So the Lord, His reality transcends all the challenges, all the hardships.
You've been in the midst of a country in war and seen upheaval and seen great suffering. And the gospel comes as an answer in the midst of it. Let's do this. Let's pray together.
And we'll agree, David, let's agree. Father, for everyone right now, listening, watching, I pray for a fresh passion, a fresh fire, a fresh hunger, a fresh desire for you, a fresh desire to know you and experience you and make you known, a fresh desire to see Jesus exalted, a fresh desire to serve you and live lives that honor you, whatever the cost, whatever the consequence, whether by life or by death and for every Muslim here in these words now, may their hearts be open. May they have a life changing encounter with the risen Jesus. May they join the family of God and find forgiveness and eternal life. In Jesus name. Amen. So friends, once again, thank you for standing with us. Thank you for your support, for solidarity. This is why we do what we do through Jesus glorified around the world. This is part of our spiritual family. And David, we are so proud of you and this is Jesus.
