Transcription
Muslims in the Middle East are having dreams and visions of Jesus. And many of them are hearing the gospel and coming to Christ. The headlines aren't covering this, but our guest today, Tom Doyle, has been sharing the gospel in Gaza, in other countries in the Middle East for years. And the stories of Muslims both here in America and abroad becoming Christians, they're amazing and so encouraging. He's also got some tools and lessons for us for how we can share the gospel with our Muslim neighbors. This is an incredible and edifying episode that I know you are going to love.
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Tom, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do?
Yeah, so I'm Tom Doyle and um with Uncharted Ministries and privileged to write books on what's really happening in the Middle East behind the news. And so I think we see the terrorism. We see the bloodshed. We see the Islamic takeovers of countries. But that doesn't nullify the gospel. And Jesus said, "Upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will bust through." you know, we'll bust through the gates of hell.
And that's what's happening in places like Thran and Gaza City and Syria. Muslims are coming to faith in Christ. And so that's the story that nobody gets to hear. So we get to talk about that today.
I want to hear it. So tell us what is really going on in the Middle East.
Well, I think you know I think October 7th was a day like uh well 1979 was a big year. If you look at 1979, the Ayatollah took over Iran. Saddam Hussein comes into power in Iraq. Russia invades Afghanistan. Egypt and Israel sign a a peace treaty and Anmar Saddat gets killed in the midst of it. But there's always a spiritual answer that happens, a spiritual solution. That was the year the Campus Crusade released the Jesus film and that flooded the Middle East. It flooded the rest of the world. But in our lifetime, much later, October 7th, 2023, the horrible attack from Hamas on Israel, and it felt like Israel got about 2 hours of sympathy and then all of a sudden it turned and anti-semitism just came popping up out of the soil was all over the place. People were not hiding it. I I remember the next week there was a march at UCLA and they're going down the street yelling, "JW, Jew, you can't hide. We'll get you with genocide." I I mean, I was shocked that nobody gets called in to the to the dean's office for that. And it was like the radicals became empowered, started seeing things in Europe, started seeing things in the United States, six countries going after Israel. And so the the game was on and Israel defended herself. But in the midst of it, there are Muslims in all those surrounding countries that are frustrated with endless wars, tribalism, a religion that constricts. I mean, for Sharia law, for women, I it's horrible what they have to go through.
And so there's the word that we hear in the Middle East among young people is hopelessness. But all of a sudden, Jesus comes in with this hope and changes everything. So, right now, we're seeing really in the last 10 years, more Muslims have come to faith in Christ than in 1,400 years of Islam.
Wow.
I mean, that's shocking. So, it's not going to be on the news. I don't even think they would know how to spin that really how they would, you know, tell that. But, it's happening. So, there's an exodus. less than 30% of the population in Iran practices Islam, but yet they're the big bully in the Middle East. So that's what we focus on. But it's the fastest growing church per capita in the world. So there's good signs and the body of Christ is moving forward and it's pretty exciting to see.
Yeah. And your ministry is on the ground in the Middle East sharing the gospel and equipping churches. What does that look like?
So we have national leaders in all the countries around Israel and then in Pakistan and people we work with in Iran and so many things happening. I mean people wouldn't know this but in the last year a million Bibles got into Iran. The Iranian church is fast growing. They couldn't get Bibles and so people that were were willing to risk were taking them in in trucks and things were happening inside the country where they were being run off. And so, um, it's discipling the new believers and really preparing them for persecution.
because if you live in Gaza and your name is Muhammad and you come to faith in Christ and you tell one person, you're going to be persecuted.
And so, that's what's exciting about this this young church is that they're willing to suffer and they're willing to count the cost. So there are so many stories that we get and now we're getting them almost daily from around the world of dramatic salvation stories in the midst of places where they could be killed for sharing it with one person. So it's building up the secret church, the underground church. We used to say the underground church that kind of took on a bad meeting with the underground in in Gaza with the tunnels and all that. So the secret church is emerging throughout the Middle East.
Can you tell us one of those stories of a dramatic conversion?
Yeah. Oh my gosh. Um there was a young man in Gaza. We got to know his um wife. Well, her her her name is Aram. And so 20 years ago, we were in the Gaza Strip and in a refugee camp. And we're just doing food, passing out food. And you have to go through Hamas to get in the refugee camp. And so we do that and we're just giving out food and meeting people. And there's a young lady named Ikram. So we asked her, uh, okay, Iram, what's what's your what's your goal in life? She's 20 years old. She went to Gaza University. And she said, well, I think my goal in life is to get a job, graduate from college, get a job, and then one day have enough money to buy a laptop computer. That was it. I mean, that was the ceiling. I thought, "Oh my gosh." I just happened to tell that story in a church in Atlanta and a guy came up afterwards and said, "I brought a brand new Toshiba last night. I'm giving it to a Crom." And I said, "No, I wasn't asking." He goes, "No, no, no, no. We're doing this." And so nine months later, my wife Joanne and I go back and we find the refugee camp and Ali Beth just there's no street signs. There's dead animals. It's it's just awful. But we find place and we said, "Remember that dream you had?" And she said, "Yeah." And then we said, "Well, Jesus made it happen." And Joanne takes out a brand new computer. And it was like giving someone the keys to a brand new car. She was just, "I can't believe it." So, and we didn't want to miss this opportunity. We'd loaded every Christian program in Arabic on that computer, Bible versions, worship, everything. Within months, she comes to faith in Christ gloriously. Well, we write her story in one of the books we've written. But she says, "When you write my story, would you tell the people to pray for my husband? His name is Muhammad, and he's just not a good man. He's never given me a present. He's never on our wedding, birthday, anniversary, nothing. He treats me terrible." So we did. People right in the middle of the book would say, "Hey, stop. Pray for Muhammad now." Which when you say that, "Pray for Muhammad in the Gaza Strip." That's like praying for half of the Gaza Strip right there. Everybody's named Muhammad. And so there people are praying and dramatically he calls one day on WhatsApp and he has is ready to meet Jesus. His life changed. Alib Beth you just can't believe where he was and what happened after that. He started reading the Bible. He started sharing his faith. He would send me Bible texts. I couldn't believe the depth of his Bible texts. I said to him one day, "Muhammad, where are you getting these texts on the internet?" He said, "Well, I write them, Tom. I write them." And I said, "Wow, you have a passion for Jesus. I'm just amazed." And he said, "Well, I hang out with my four best friends every day." And I said, "Who are they?" I thought it was some that he'd led to faith in Christ. He said, "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I'm in the word. I'm studying the Bible." And so, he started growing, sending these texts. October 7th happens. Israel gets invaded and then the Hamas comes back. They've got all the captives and he is texting saying, "I can't believe they're doing this to no human being should be forced to endure this. Hamas is making a stand in the front. They want us to jer, but I'm crying. I'm crying because this should never happen." And so he started texting, "Tell the Israeli soldiers they will have them in the city below the city." So we knew about a tunnel here and there being in Gaza several times. We didn't know it was bigger than the subway system in London.
And so he's sending out messages to believers in Israel and they're messaging back, we want to help the Palestinians. We don't want to hurt them. And and just going back and forth. That is true reconciliation. Only the UN can't pull that off. That's only Jesus can do that. So the life change that we see with Muslims is um we know that's what Jesus said would happen, but to see it, it's just it just warms your heart because we realize, okay, yeah, there is Christian persecution, but we're not out there just getting creamed. The body of Christ is advancing. Muslims are coming to faith in Christ, and they're willing to die for their faith.
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What do Muslims believe about Jesus? What does the Quran teach about Jesus?
So, they believe first of all that the Bible's corrupted, that it's been changed. They believe that Jesus is not the son of God. They believe that he did not die on the cross at the last minute. The body was switched. Some believe that it was Judas. And so they have all kinds of convoluted ideas. But yet on the other hand, there's some very good verses in the Quran about Jesus that talk about him with glowing terms more than Muhammad talks about anybody in in the Quran. So there's there's kind of a mixed bag. And as you talk with Muslims, if you quote from the Quran, they will be shocked at the good words about Jesus. And um, of course, a part of all of that, why they would be shocked is the estimate is like 60% of all Muslims globally never read the Quran. They don't know what's in it. They hear things from the imam, but they don't read it. It's just you know duty and rules and culture and you know everything Ramadan they got to you know be a part of that. So many of them don't know anything and it's a religion that swept that area with um death or conversion or to pay a tax for protection. And so I think these were flimsy conversions. It was just to save their neck.
Those who converted to Islam.
Yeah. And generations later, many are starting to think outside the box like, "Wait a minute, I'm not sure I even believe this."
So anyway, in in the worst, we always say the worst places to be a believer are really the best places because
the just complete faith in Christ, trust him alone for everything.
Yeah. I imagine that not everyone is receptive to the message of the gospel. Have you felt hostility from some Muslims? Obviously, this is
blasphemy and to leave is apostasy and you can be put to death under Sharia for for that for Muslims especially. But what has that been like for you?
Well, you know, we've uh we've gotten thrown off the Temple Mount up in Jerusalem a couple of times from imams up there as we were sharing things about the Dome of the Rock. Uh we were going through the West Bank with the cross. Arthur Blesset took a cross into every country in the world. He's now with the Lord. So we were going through Jericho. It's in the West Bank. Very radical Muslims. Some bad cell groups there, terrorists. Anyway, but we were going through with the cross. You could not believe it. The people that wanted to come up and touch the cross and ask questions. I mean I mean it was they were all Muslims. But there was one guy I could see looking out of shop at me and it looked like he had steam coming out of his ears and I thought he's going to be coming after me. So, so he does and he just makes a beline for me and he goes, "Mr. Christian, I'll convert to um Christianity if you tell me this." His name was Nimmer. Why did if Jesus was God, why didn't he come down off that cross? So, his thinking is this. He's thinking of Muhammad on the cross. If Muhammad's on the cross, his followers would have taken him off. They would have caused a war, captured everybody, killed him. That's all he can think through. And I said,
I said, "Oh, Nimmer, that you know what? That's a really good question. It's an easy one, too." And he said, "It's easy." And I said, "Yeah, the reason he didn't come off the cross is because he didn't want to come off the cross. I have sin in my life, and I'm sure you've done a few bad things yourself." and he well and uh so he stayed there on purpose. Jesus said, "No one takes my life. I lay it down voluntarily." So that's why he did it for you and for me. Well, he stormed off. He didn't he didn't like the truth, but you do see that. And and of course there's the threats and our team, our uncharted team in Syria. They actually um there were 10 leaders and it was in the midst of the war and uh the national leader told the young team, "It's getting worse and they were already hanging Christians on crosses. ISIS was doing that. Let's take a week and pray and fast. If you want to stay here with your family, okay, I'm staying. but if you need to get out to Lebanon or try to immigrate to the States, we understand that. But let's pray in a week later, see what happens. So he came back a week later and he said as he was putting his hand on the doororknob in that room that was under a house, he thought, "Is anyone going to be in there?" And he opened the door and it wasn't the 10 men, they'd recruited 15 more.
Wow.
And they said, "We're staying and we're prepared to die for Jesus." And so they went out because they are former Muslims, former Alawites like Bashar Assad was an Alawite, former Drews. They went out and bought a piece of land so they can bury each other when they die for Jesus.
Wow.
And through all this ISIS and now HDS taking over, which is ISIS rebranded. Nobody's been killed. Nobody's been killed. They should have been. They've been chased by Hamas. They've been interrogated. They've been thrown in jail. Everybody's alive. So, they will send correspondences to us. And this is happening. This many people got saved. And oh, and by the way, the graveyard's still empty. So, wow. They They're heroes of the faith.
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Tell me how you started Uncharted. Like how did God place this miss mission on your heart?
Yeah. So, we started doing trips to Israel in '95. I went to Dallas Seminary and we did a trip and I just was hooked and so interested in the Bible and history and Jewish roots and all. Really not tracking with the Muslims whatsoever. And I'm a pastor, my wife Joan and I, we have six kids and 17 grandkid kids now.
That's amazing. Praise God. I know what a blessing.
I know. It's a tribe. And so, um, anyway, not tracking at all with that. And one day I had to get my car fixed in Denver. We lived in the Colorado Springs area. So I'm up there. It's I don't know be it's before the year 2000 and the car wasn't ready. Joanne drops me off and then the mechanic says, "Oh, it's not ready. Can you go to this place across the street? We'll pay for your lunch." And it's a Middle East restaurant. So I go in and I should say this, my dad was an FBI agent, organized crime specialist.
Oh, interesting.
So I grew up in Las Vegas, born in Chicago, mafia. We're around mafia. Went to Catholic school,
third grade in Las Vegas. Why you're not intimidated by the part of it? Yeah. The only kid that didn't have an Italian last name, Paresi, Serino, Costello, all that. Anyway, um so I'm up in Denver and Okay, I go to this little place across the street. It's Middle East restaurant. Well, I like falafles. I get a falafel and a diet Pepsi. I'm sitting there. Two guys walk in and they're closer than you are. a little little table, black leather jackets, closely cropped beards, Arabs, and there's whispering in Arabic. And I thought, they're going to do a terrorist act. I mean, I should probably phone this in now. I mean, the these guys have the look. Whispering in Arabic and just going back and forth, kind of looking around and I thought, oh, so obvious these guys are terrorists. I'm an FBI kid. I know these things.
What year was this?
So, this would have been like 99.
Okay.
Okay. So anyway, one of them speaks in English and just looks over at his friend and says, "Makmood, the Lord is amazing, isn't he?" And I just went, "That kind of sounds like stuff we say as Christians." That's kind of weird. They go back to Arabic. They're whispering.
Then finally, the other guy just says, "You know what?" In English,
Muhammad, Jesus is Lord over Syria. And I just looked at them and I said, "Are you guys believers?" And they said, "Yeah, are you?" And I was like, "Yeah, I used to be. I mean, before I judged you and
and then that and thought you were a terrorist." And they come on over. And they sat me down and started telling me what was happening in Syria and how Muslims were coming to faith in Christ. I'd never heard this. I didn't I didn't even think about it. Sadly, I wasn't praying for it either. Sadly, um they started telling me, "Come to our house for dinner." And so I'm calling Joan. You're not going to believe this story. And I just heard story after story. They were so energized. Brother, it's so wonderful to meet you. And I thought, I've got to find out more about this. So then we end up going on on a mission trip into the Gaza Strip. And I will never forget it. It was right after 911, two months.
Yeah. So here we are in Gaza City and and immediately Ali bet this this covered Muslim woman comes up to me. You just see her face and she comes across this parking lot where we're just looking at some things and she grabs my arm and says, "You're from America, aren't you?" And I said, "Well, yeah, I am." She goes, "I could tell by the color of your eyes." I said, "Okay." She goes, "Did you see on September 11th when the buildings came down and the people in Gaza were cheering?" And I said, "Well, yeah, I did see that." She goes, "Well, not me. I was crying for those people cuz they didn't deserve to die. And I'm so sorry. Please forgive our people for cheering on your worst day." She turned on her heel and walked away. And I thought, there's human beings in the Gaza Strip. I mean, I wasn't expecting this. And so then we had a chance to go that night to meet with the believers in an apartment building filled with Muslims all over except this one little apartment. And they were singing. They were reading the scriptures. They were talking about Muslims that they'd shared the gospel with. And I thought, "This is the book of Acts. I mean, this is like chapter 29. You got to be kidding me. This is They would be killed for doing what they're just talking about." And so anyway, we launched into missions and then um Uncharted came along 2017 and I found the truth which is our video ministry that shows gives testimonies from Muslims that came to faith in Christ.
And so many of them Ali Beth were visions and dreams and things that happened just unreal some of the stories that you hear.
But the acid test is this. They walk away from Islam and they're willing to die for their faith.
right?
Because people say that all the time. Well, how do you know it's legit?
I'm not sure there were a lot of people in the church I pastored that were willing to die for their faith, but they are.
That's the acid test.
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Yeah. You mentioned that you had kind of been skeptical of the whole like dreams and vision thing. Me too. Yeah.
But you say that you've heard from ex-Muslims who were visited by Jesus in their dreams. Can you tell us about that?
Yeah. We ended up writing a book about it and here I'm the guy that didn't believe in it. But I'm sitting in Jerusalem in a Bible study and um there's Jews and Muslims. It's a reconciliation group. They don't hate each other. They love each other. Transformed in Christ. So we're going around each one is is just sharing their name. The guy next to me is his name's Muhammad. And I said, "Wow, crazy name to have as a follower of Jesus. Were you just dying to get out of Islam and um have a relationship with God?" And he said, "No, I I thought I was right and you guys were wrong." I said, "Well, what happened, man?" He said, "Well, it's simple. Jesus started coming to me every night in dreams for 30 nights in a row." He goes, "It's pretty hard to just push that away and say that didn't happen." He would tell me that he loved me. He said, "It got to the point I couldn't wait to go to bed at night
because I I was hoping Jesus would come in a dream and he would come and he would talk with me." And so since then, it's just unbelievable. We estimate that about one out of every three Muslims that comes to faith in Christ has had a dream or a vision of Jesus.
Wow.
We have maybe half now. There was a team that was in um Jordan getting trained in from Saudi Arabia on how to do secret church. 39 people. They didn't know each other. They were all from different areas. They found out through the internet. They came this conference and the leader asked at the end, "How many of you had a dream about Jesus or vision before you came to faith in Christ?" All 39.
Wow.
So, it's happening. It's it's a revolution. And I just had to lay down this. I I was talking with my old professor at Dallas Seminary on Moody Radio and telling him, he said, "Tell some dream stories." And so I said to Charlie D, "Here's a story in Iran. Here's another one." He said, "You need to write a book about Muslims having dreams about Jesus." And I said, and this is a foolish statement. I said, "Yeah, I'd like to do that. I don't know what evangelicals would think about it." And he said, "You know what? We evangelicals need to get over ourselves. God can do whatever he wants.
Over 200 times in the Bible, there were dreams.
Maybe he's using that today. And so,
why do you think that Jesus seems to be using dreams as a way to communicate with these people?
I'm not saying that it doesn't happen here in the States, but as a pastor of a church, I'm sure you didn't come across as, you know, very many of your congregants who were there because they saw Jesus in a dream. So, why do you think that seems to be happening more prevalent there?
Yeah. Here's one reason I believe it could have happened. Jesus always met people where they were. I mean, you look at the woman with the issue of blood and she was despised and and he he said, "Daughter, your faith is healed you." He just met her there.
How would he be meeting Muslims through dreams? That's how Islam started. Muhammad went into a cave and had a dream. Yeah. And he says Jabriel, who is supposed to be Gabriel, downloaded the Quran, which we we don't believe that's what happened. We believe it was demonic. But so if you're with Muslims anywhere in the Middle East and we say, "Hey, I said this crazy dream last night. Hey, let's get some coffee and talk about it." I think most people in America would say, "What did you eat last night?" Something disagree with you. So they see it as a viable way that God can communicate truth to them. And also the last week in um Ramadan, they have a night, it's called, it's the middle of the last week, it's called the night of power or the night of destiny. And Muslims will cry out, "God, if you're there, show me yourself. Come to me in a dream, in a vision." That's the number one day of the year that Muslims have dreams about Jesus.
Wow. They're crying out to God.
and Jesus accommodates that cry and comes to them.
Yeah. What about in Muslim communities in the rest of the world? We've seen Islam grow a lot via mass migration and places like Europe, especially the UK and some of those cities almost, it seems 100% Muslim. Um what is happening in those communities? Are those communities turning to Christ?
There there are many in the you look at the worst places like Iran, Afghanistan, amazing things happening with Muslims.
We don't see a large scale where all of a sudden Roderdam in the Netherlands is flipped over and all those Muslims are Christian. We're not seeing that. But there are many and it's happening all over. dreams, visions, people sharing the gospel. Christians praying for Muslims that are sick and all of a sudden they're well and they know that they've been praying their whole life. Nothing's happened. They wonder if God's even there and then and then they're healed. So, it's pretty good evidence there that something's happening. So, there's a big threat. It is systematic in Europe and in America. um in Dearbornne, Michigan. Our national leader was there and it's it's like like me growing up around the mafia in Chicago and Vegas. When you hear the the name Genevvisi, you you know what the family does for their business. And and so our national leader, Amir Salam, was in Dearborn. He started hearing names in restaurants. He's he said, "Tom, these are people that were thrown out of Syria. They were so radical they kicked them out of Syria." and he said in the next 10 years if we don't if they don't come to faith in Christ or we don't start deporting some of these radicals we'll have another
911.
So it's paramount that we share the gospel not only for eternity but for now too. And so we're grateful for people that are willing to to do that with Muslims and many times they're just waiting to hear what Christ has for them. And a lot of people, myself included, have fear in that. On the one hand, we would love for all of our Muslim neighbors to become Christians. But we are a little scared to be the ones to bridge the gap
because it's not the same as sharing the gospel with the Jewish person or even with most, you know, agnostics. This is a religion that in its texts say, you know, the infidel has to die. That doesn't mean that all of our Muslim neighbors are actively practicing that. But that is inherent in the ideology and it's scary.
So what do what do we do? What does it look like to build those relationships to conquer that fear and to share the gospel effectively?
I think the best thing is to make a friendship. It starts oneon-one. You know, we've never seen mass stadium conversions that work. Maybe they do somewhere we haven't seen it. It's oneon-one. It's we we say this at Uncharted, every soul matters. So my wife Joanne does a um seminar for women how to love Muslims to Christ.
And we were in Tyler one day. And so Joanne said, "Okay, ladies, I'm going to give you an assignment this week when you're out and there are Muslims in Tyler. If you see one, your job is to go up and meet them and just start a conversation." So like, "Where are you from?" Well, they might say, "Well, I'm from America." "Oh, okay. Well, where's your family originally from?" Oh, I'm from Egypt. Oh, I've always wanted to go to Egypt. Begin a conversation. Begin a conversation. So, it ends up that later on we found out about that group and there was one lady that was in the supermarket in Tyler, Texas. And a Muslim woman comes in and she goes, "I'm not ready for this. I'm I'm I'm not ready to go up and talk to her." So, she starts making these promises to the Lord. If I go down this aisle and she's on the next aisle, I'm going to talk to her. So, she goes down the aisle, comes up. There she is. Okay, if it's if she's on the next aisle, I'm going to talk. She does this three times and finally it ends up she goes, "Okay, Lord, here I go." She goes around that corner and starts pushing her basket really fast toward this Muslim lady. Well, there was another lady that had been on the other side of the store and she comes around the corner and she's walking real fast toward this Muslim lady and she's looking like, "What is this?" and they were just going to meet her and get her name and they found her to be very warm, very lonely and they were able to get coffee with her. That's where it starts. Tell me about your life. And then what we like to do is tell gospel stories. So if we meet someone, I meet Mohamad from Lebanon, I'll just say, "Hey, tell me your life. How did you get here?" They might be a refugee. And then we say, "Wow, okay, that's an amazing story. Can I tell you a story? Sure. Okay. This is a true story from the word of God. The the Jesus friends were in a boat one day and the wind started whipping, the waves started splashing. We go through that story and Jesus calms the sea and then we just end with this. And that's a true story from the word of God. So, hey Muhammad, what do you think of that story? Does that make sense? Do you think it's real? What do you think? And you're getting them to engage in the word without pulling this out, which would freak them out. and they're they're relating to the Bible. And then they may want to hear another story. And then after that, we say, "Okay, I heard you your story. We told God's story. Here's my story." Okay, what's your story? I used to be religious, but I gave it up. They'll say, "You're not religious." What do you mean? There's too many rules. And when I kept the rules, I didn't feel any closer to God. And my story is really their story. That's the same way they feel and oftentimes they want to hear more. So if you can get to that point where you share God's word, they will listen to it. And when we say this, this is a true story from the word of God. We have never had one Muslim say, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Is that from the Quran or the Bible?" Never happened. Somehow
there was some authority there that just stopped them in their tracks and they listened to it.
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What are some of the persistent questions that you get from Muslims that you are engaging about Christianity? Like what are some of the things maybe holding them back from believing that Jesus is God?
Yeah. I mean, they'll often say it's a white man's religion
and not knowing that it that that Christianity started, you know, in their own backyard. They don't understand that. Uh the whole thing about Jesus saying he's the son of God. No, he's just a prophet. They can't accept that. But what we do is go to passages where Jesus declares that. So if someone says, "Well, I don't believe that." We'll just open it up and say, "Well, you know, here in John 15, it says this, read this. What do you think Jesus is saying?" Well, I think he's saying he's the son of God. Yeah, I think that's what he's saying, too. And that just seems to bypass it. So, they have struggles with that. politics gets involved in it too. They always want to know how you voted. Man, that is a non-starter when they go down that political road.
And this is mostly for Muslims in America.
Yes. And and around the world, too. They'll want to know like what
really what messages are they hearing that is making them think that if you vote I'm guessing if you vote Republican then they think you don't like me.
Exactly.
Interesting. Yeah.
So, the same kind of messages that we hear in the mainstream media, they're hearing too.
Yeah. And I mean, when Obama was president,
we would be in Egypt. And I'm telling you, none of the Muslims there believed that he was a Christian because he said he went to Jeremiah Wright's church and maybe visited a few times. They said, "Well, you're Muslim president." I mean, they would just say it openly.
Interesting.
Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't said openly here, but it sure was out there.
Yeah. That's so interesting how American media narratives and American politics. I've heard that from other people including in Africa. We have friends that immigrated from Africa, from Kenya and Zimbabwe, and they had other immigrant friends who just told them when they got here, hey, you don't vote Republican if you're an immigrant, which of course they are very smart people and thought for themselves and all of that. But it's interesting and I remember the late Vodie Bacham. He, you know, he was a head of a seminary there in Zambia, I believe it was, and he would talk about how the narratives about systemic racism and things which I just think are so American actually would make their way over to places like that.
That's right.
And have an effect on their ideology and theology. That's fascinating and troubling.
Yeah, it really is. And you know what? when it when it comes to the threat of Islam that we're all feeling, we are. I mean, I I think this verse uh John 16:1, it says this. Jesus said on the night that he was betrayed, uh all this I have told you so that you will not fall away. And then he says, they will put you out of the synagogue. And then there's a colon there and it stops. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are doing a service for God. They will do this because they have not known me or the father.
I think the first half of that verse, Ali Beth, is about Judaism and the early church. Put them out of the synagogue. Get them out of the way. There weren't mass killings. There were some killings, but I think the second half of that verse is about Islam. In fact, the time is coming when they when they think killing you is doing a service to God. So that's why during the 10-year war in Syria, if a vial of blood was sent to Saudi Arabia to certain people and you could prove that it was from a Christian that lost their life, you'd get it. You'd get $2,000. So, I mean, this was just a part of it. This was well known on the streets. Mhm.
And so there is that side, that dark demonic side that's happening, but then there's the people that come to faith in Christ. And I think of this one girl, Dena, in the Gaza Strip that was a teacher. And the teachers in the summer have to do it's like a Hamas vacation Bible school or something. I mean, they Hamas comes in, all the school kids in a certain age group are indoctrinated. They dress him up with suicide bomber vests. They get fake guns. They're kill the Jews. All of that. And she comes to faith in Christ that month. And then later that month, they're going to have this school where every she has to do it. And Dena gets a hold of us and says, "I'm not doing that this year. I'm talking about Jesus, the good shepherd, and that he loves us. and we're going to do crafts and we're going to read the Bible and we're going to tell them about Jesus. This is in Gaza in a wild dark place.
And so we said to Redina, "They're going to kill you for doing that. Are are you afraid of them doing that?" And she said, "No, I already crossed that bridge
when I gave my life to Jesus."
And she did it.
Wow.
And we got the pictures and there's kids with signs saying, "I love Jesus."
Wow. These are heroes of our faith. This is like Hebrews 11 today where people are going to the worst places you can imagine and they're not afraid.
Yeah, it's really convicting for us. Not that there is no danger, but it's not as present and as imminent and as sure as it is for people there. But I mean, she's basically quoting scripture by saying, "Look, I counted the cost
when I came to Christ, and I already decided that
my life is, you know, it's something to be laid down for the gospel." So, she already died to herself.
That's right.
She'd already died to herself. And that's how we should all think.
So true.
That's a good lesson for us from Dena about sharing the gospel here
is that it might be dangerous. Yeah.
Like the the promise from Jesus is not that it won't be dangerous. It's not that they won't kill you, it's that they can't kill your body and soul and soul.
That's right.
That's so true.
And so that's a really good lesson for
you. So it is happening here where people are meeting Jesus and having experiences like in the Middle East. So we lived in Colorado for 20 years. Summers were nice like shorts and a sweatshirt. We lived at 7,500 ft. And then we moved here and it's like, oh my gosh, it's so hot. Yeah.
So, I was in a meeting all day, mission meetings, like all day. And then I it's time to go and it's 5:00 and I thought, shoot, I got to pick up Joan and she's all the way across town and we have a dinner. We're not going to make it in time. So, I get up on the Bush freeway and the Honda says four miles till empty. Oh gosh. So, I pull off and there's three stations and there's a feno. Okay, I'll go there. So, I stick in my credit card and it says must see cashier. And I just went, "Oh, come on, Lord. Can I get a break today?" you know, I have such a tough life. And so I go into the station to put my card down and a Muslim woman walks up to me and she's covered. And she's getting it set up for me to use the pump. And I said, "Wow, uh, you're Muslim. We work in the Middle East. We do humanitarian efforts and things like that. Spend a lot of time there. Where are you from?" She goes, "Will you go to the Middle East a lot?" And I said, "Yeah." And she goes, "Okay, then you have to guess." I said, "Oh, um, Egypt." She goes, "Nope, Saudi Arabia." And I said, 'You kidding.' And so I said, 'You know, I have a book in the car about how God is honoring your people. God is lifting the Muslim people up. And she said, "What do you mean by that?" And I said, "He's coming to them. He's coming to them all around the world. He's coming
In dreams. I wrote a book about Muslims having dreams about Jesus." She said, "You wrote a book about that?" I said, "Yeah." And she goes, "Hm, because I've been having dreams about Jesus."
Wow. I just went, "Okay, Lord, forgive me for whining about the humidity. You know, I'm going to be late, whatever." And so I give her this book and a couple days later, I'm going to get gas and I thought, "Oh, I need to stop there." And then, "Oh, I need to go to that pump." So, I go to the pump and I stick the card in. Works perfectly.
Wow. See, I think it was a card malfunction. I think it was an order from God. It didn't say, "Please see cashier." It said, "Must seek cashier." I go in and this woman Ria is reading Dreams and Visions.
Wow. And I said, "Do you like this?" And she goes, "This book is like my life." And I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "Jesus has been coming to me for 30 years now in dreams." I said, "30 years? Didn't you ever ask a Christian or go to a church and try to get answers?" And she goes, "Plenty of times." But I I don't know. I felt like people maybe were afraid of me because I was Muslim and and that and but I just knew this that Jesus told me that he loved me so much in these dreams. One day he was coming for me.
And I said, "Roia, I think it's today." I mean, I'm thinking this is the day. And I share the gospel through Romans and I said, "What do you think?" She said, "I'm ready." We held hands in the Fina gas station and she prayed and received Christ.
Wow. And it was glorious and nobody walked in, interrupted us here. How many Ruiz are out there, Alibab? How many people are neighbors that I don't know about them, you know?
Yeah. The gospel is risky and it's time for Christians to just do it.
Yeah. And so, you know, we're we're seeing it all. one one friend of ours who's now with the Lord, they got excited about meeting Muslims and sharing with them and they realized there was a Muslim family on their block that they'd never met for years as they just knocked on the door and said, "We're your neighbors. We haven't met you and sorry we haven't. Would you come over to our house for dinner?" And they said, "Yes, we would love to." So, they get all excited. They're trying to make hummus and things that they would like. the family was from Kuwait and they show up and the kids are just like wound up like they thought they drank Red Bull on the way over. They're knocking the water over and all that. And the mom finally says, "I'm I'm so sorry. I'm humiliated." The kids are excited and they're excited because we've lived here for 12 years and this is the first time we've ever been invited into someone's house.
Wow. And then they find out they're related to royalty in Kuwait. They're not exactly on the terrorist list, you know. And so, hey, I would just say this. Muslims are open more now than ever in 14 centuries to the gospel of Jesus. They are responding and they're waiting.
And so, it's up to us to go introduce them to Jesus.
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Now, a lot of these Muslims are leaving predominantly Muslim countries and the governments in places like Syria are extremely hostile. Yes. Um for a lot of reasons, political reasons, religious reasons as well. Y'all have been like blacklisted, right, from Syria. Is that right? Are there other countries that y'all aren't able to enter? We're not sure on a few of them. Yeah. You know, after smuggling Bibles into Iran a couple of times, maybe. We're not sure. But I will never forget being there with the the the secret church and how they just needed Bibles. And we we were in Esvahan, which is close to a nuclear reactor that Israel just hit, you know, months ago. And we're just on the corner meeting people and Muslims were just stopping by. You're Americans? Are you Christians? Uh yeah. And do you have Bibles? And we Yes, we do. And just handing them out and I mean there was a roundabout we were on and people were just going and sticking their arms out wanting a Bible.
And so probably were on the radar. I don't know. Doesn't matter. But God's word is always going to be triumphant. Never returns void.
Yeah. And so um it's just worth it.
Yeah. for those who are like, "Okay, I I know a Muslim in our community who, you know, lives on my street or whatever." I want you to finish the rest of that story that you were talking about sharing the gospel and you said, "I used to be religious, but I'm not. It was too hard to keep rules and you said that your story reflected their story." Yeah. But can you bring that over the finish line so other people might be able to use that same model?
Yes. Yeah. So then you've you've heard their story and then we've heard God's story, stories about Jesus and then and then our story that we used to be religious and they will resonate with that. They will resonate and we shared this exactly with a guy that was a former terrorist in Syria in Jordan. And we said that's what it's about. It's about Jesus. And this guy had been hardened. Our leaders didn't like to visit him. But we didn't know that someone had met them and given him a Bible. And he and his wife started reading it. And when we said, "It's so simple. You can give your lives to Christ. The Bible says if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You give your life to Christ, repent of your sins."
And we did that with this man and his wife. and he looked at his wife and he said, "That's exactly what we've been waiting for, isn't it?" And she said, "That's it." And they were ready to pray.
And so the hard job is after that to follow them up because that, you know, they will still be under the influence of Islam. How can they be discipled? How can you get them into the word and help them grow? And and that's that's really important. So it's getting them away from religion. Religion gives you rules. Jesus gives you life. And they're all looking for that. And so I think it's easy to just go into the gospel. And many Muslims may have to hear it several times before they respond. So if they don't respond, that's okay. They heard it. The next person can pick it up. Whoever God leads to them.
Yeah. That's so important to remember that we are just one touch point on someone's testimony. Whether you are the person that God uses to bring them over the finish line or you're the very first Christian that they meet, there may have been 10,000 different moments that God has used in that person's life to bring them to himself.
It's so true to bring them to himself. Um, tell us what churches and pastors can be doing. They're listening to this and they're like, I don't know if my church is doing enough to minister to the Muslims either abroad or here. What What's the first step? I think the best thing they could do, a pastor could have someone come in maybe from our team and share on a Sunday morning uh where they can really hear how the gospel is breaking through the difficult areas. Hear the stories. We always say this, if you want to tell someone truth, tell them. You know, if you want them to know the truth, tell them. If you want to change their hearts, tell them a story. when they start seeing these stories and seeing the before and after pictures of men and women that have come to faith in Christ that had hardened looks and all of a sudden they have the fruit of the spirit. I mean it's convincing.
Yeah. And so then after that it's very simple just have a training with people on how to engage Muslims in conversations and we can do that.
Yeah. And so um it works here works in Europe. We're doing that in Europe. Works in the Middle East. And so real simple but devote some time. Hey, we live in Texas. There's a huge Muslim population. It's the largest Muslim population in America. I believe it used to be Michigan. I think we're number one now. And um so we need to be able to God's brought them to the Bible belt. I mean, it couldn't be any better than this. We have an opportunity to share with them. Lots of believers that can share the love of Christ. So,
Yeah. And I think it's important what you said earlier about your friend who is in Dearbornne and realized, okay, we've got some radical Muslims that are coming over here. Yeah. And that presents a threat. So you can have concerns about immigration and the Islamification of the West and love these people at the same time. And really those two things kind of go hand inand like we want them to be released from enslavement to Islam. We want them to know Christ and bear the fruit of the spirit. And so um it's not one or the other. Sometimes people pit those things against each other. No, we love our neighbor. We share the gospel and we have concerns about immigration policy and all that.
It's so true. We have a friend that was a pastor in Syria and there was a couple that kept coming and visiting him. They're having dreams and visions. They're Muslim. I mean, they're covered. It's a big deal that they walk down a Christian street, but finally they are ready. Their children are ready. He lives them leads them to faith. So, this is an on the ground church. I mean, you have three churches now. You have the the underground church, the secret church on the ground. And then the cyber church, the above ground church, but this is on the ground. It's a church in Syria. Then they want to be baptized. And he said, "Okay, this is the line in the sand. If your family, if your relatives find out about this, it'll cause you problems. You could die. We're ready." So it ends up they do get baptized. Somehow a relative finds out and the pastor finds himself arrested in northern Syria. They take him all the way down to Damascus and put him in the third story below the the ground floor. It's called the Damascus dungeon.
Wow. They put him in there. His wife doesn't know what's going to happen. He's going to get beaten up. They put him in a cell with 39 other Muslims and it should hold about 20 people. I mean, they're just crouched together. And he just thought, I'm going to die here. I mean, there's no way I'm going to escape this. So when the guard comes and is just throwing pea on the floor and they're all running for it, he just he just grabs one and says, "Hey, in my faith, we pray before we eat. Can I pray?" And the guy that's kind of the head Isis dude looks at him. What? He goes, "Well, I like to pray before I eat. Can we pray?" Whatever. So he prays. Something shifted in that cell. After he prayed, the authority of God came. miracles started happening that night. He goes to sleep. He leans against the wall and sk sits all the way down so nobody can come up behind him and he's asleep. He feels a tap and there's a guy whispering in his ear and he said, "If we ever get out of here, can you memorize my number?" He goes, "Why?" He goes, "Cuz Jesus is coming to me in dreams."
Wow. The next night, another guy comes. The next night, two guys come. It ends up that it was six or seven come to him while he's in jail. the end of the week, shockingly, they just let him out of jail. Never touched, never beaten up, nothing. And his wife comes to pick him up. They call and say, "Your husband's out of jail." And so she gets there just thinking, "What's he like? We're going to have to go to the hospital." And she runs up, hugs him. How'd it go? And he goes, "It was the best week of my life. I've never seen God move with such dangerous people like that as I did in that cell. It was the best week of my life."
Wow. They've had those gospel conversations. Those those guys and their families have come to faith in Christ. Even the radicals don't stand against don't stand against Jesus power. They don't stand a chance.
Yeah. At all. Amen. So, that's what God is up to.
That's right. Okay. Tell us more about your books where people can get them.
Sure. Um we're on Amazon and so Tom and Joan Doyle. The last one we wrote is um women who risk secret agents for Jesus in the Muslim world and it's all about women but we wanted to write that Joanne and I were talking about wherever we go Iraq Syria all these places. It seems like Ellie Beth it starts with the women and one day we were talking about that in the house and Joanne said well you know I think women are just the spiritual gatekeepers of their family and I went bingo yes they are. And so if a Muslim woman comes to faith in Christ, she will tell her children, she will tell her husband, as dangerous as that may be. So we wrote a book about women going into their villages sharing and telling what Christ has done to them. So for them, so Amazon, you can go to uncharted ministries.com.
It was women who foresaw the empty grave, finance Jesus ministry.
Yeah. Amazing. And you know what we don't see in the New Testament? a woman rejecting Jesus. We see a lot of men that do. Isn't that something interesting? I mean, that's a whole other lesson that we can learn because in America, we see a lot of women leaving the church, men coming to the church and women going the secular route. But that's kind of reinvigorates me to share the gospel with those women that we see that example in Christ in the New Testament.
We do. I mean, it's it's just happening now. We say reach the Muslim woman. reach the Muslim world. They hold the key and they don't have a lot of rights.
They don't. So, you would think they might have most to lose and if you look at it from a particular perspective, certainly.
That's right. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. And your ministry, how can people learn more about that and support you?
That would be great. Thank you. Uncharted. You just go to uncharted ministries.com. Uh chedd uncharted ministries.com. And we're about reaching the unreached, standing with the persecuted.
Wow. So, thank you so much, Tom. I really appreciate it.
Privilege to be with you. Thank you.
Thank you.