What is repentance? Feeling sorrow for our sins. Godly sorrow that leads to life. Turning from all sin. There can be no repentance without totally turning from sin to God. Repentance must come before faith.
As usual, Ray Comfort does a great job in this video of focusing our attention on what it means to become a child of God. A good starting point is Proverbs 9:10.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” Proverbs 9:10
“Jesus answered them. Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him, God the Father has set his seal.”John 6:26-27
When Jesus talked to the crowd about desiring “food which endures to eternal life,” the people only thought about sustenance to fill their famished bodies. The men and women listening that day could not believe that Jesus was who He said He was — the Bread of Life, the One doing the Father’s will, from Heaven. They sought after Jesus to fulfill their temporal problems.
The crowd wrongly believed that they had to do “the works of God” for this bread that Jesus was promising them. Even though the people still could not grasp His spiritual meaning, Jesus reversed their flawed theology by telling the multitudes that they, being mere sinful humans, could not do God’s work to obtain the bread that He was offering them. These people thought they could earn God’s favor and provision based on their legalistic obedience to the Mosaic Law, and Jesus used this interaction to expose their pride and self-righteousness.
The crowd in this narrative displayed the very position of many unbelievers who claim that they would believe if Jesus would just do “this” or “that.” These unbelievers fail to realize they do not have the power to change their own hearts. Unbelievers cannot believe based on external signs. They need an internal transformation; they require the work of God in their hearts. Men and women, boys and girls, must realize that until they put down their own dreams of self-righteousness, autonomy, and authority — and until they are willing to come to Jesus solely on His terms (not theirs), they will never believe. That willingness comes from God alone.
Jesus emphasized that their unbelief, which they conditioned on the appearance of a sign, was irrelevant to the plan of salvation. No matter how the crowd responded to Him, Jesus would not lose a single person given to Him by the Father that day. Jesus was on a divine mission — not to do His own will, but the will of the Father.
While the unbelieving crowd could not comprehend the meaning of Jesus’ words to them, these statements from our Lord should bring tremendous joy and peace in the hearts of all believers. The logic of this passage first demonstrates that every one the Father gives Jesus will come to Him. Not a single person will resist, reject, or refuse to come — at least not determinatively. All those given to the Son by the Father will come.
The passage also shows that all who come to Jesus will be received by Him. Jesus never rejects anyone who comes to Him because believers are a gift from the Father to the Son. As such, Jesus will raise every believer to eternal life on the last day. No one given by the Father will be lost. Jesus will remember all believers forever. This understanding should comfort every believer, that on their deathbeds, they can fade from this world in perfect peace, knowing with full assurance that Jesus will not abandon them in eternity.
When Jesus finished His discourse with these multitudes, He was left with 12 around Him — and one was a devil (Judas). Peter’s response to Jesus signified the heart of a true disciple: one who leaves everything behind, placing all hope and trust in their Savior and Lord. The response from Peter and 10 others highlights how true disciples respond to the Gospel.
Believers have been given an understanding of Jesus’ words — something that Peter proved with his response to Jesus. The crowd never accepted that Jesus was pointing to Himself as the true bread that came from Heaven; they kept thinking about physical bread to feed their growling stomachs, and that they needed to bring something to the table to manipulate Him into giving them what they wanted.
For believers, John 6 is such a beautiful and sobering picture of how we could never have obtained salvation of our own volition. When we were unbelievers, we were more concerned with our earthly needs, and we focused on what our works could do to gain us our temporal desires. We thought it was our plan that might move God to do what we wanted, when and how we wanted Him to act.
Only through Jesus, the Bread of life, can anyone come to a right understanding of who He is and receive the full and free forgiveness He alone offers through the eternal plan of salvation, what He accomplished on The Cross, salvation by His grace through faith in His name.
Adapted from the article “Earthly Concerns Will Blind You to Heavenly Realities” By Robb Brunansky, Op-ed contributor to Christian Post, Saturday, January 27, 2024
Great message from Rev Calvin Robinson at the Oxford Union in the UK. He shocked this group with God’s truth. Make sure you share this message widely.
Calvin Robinson: I feel LIBERATED after being CANCELLED by the Church of England for having the wrong opinion on the Bible. Believing it is all God’s Word, the truth by which we should live.
I have just added another video of Calvin being interviewed and it is good to learn that Calvin will be preaching in another church. Both of these videos need to be viewed and shared.
Salvation in the midst of judgment is a common theme in the early chapters of Genesis. Just as God provided hope in the midst of punishment for Cain after murdering Abel by giving him a mark to protect him (Genesis 4:15).
When God judged the world (Genesis 6:18) the Lord spared Noah and his family. Additionally, the judgment of the city of Babel (Genesis11:1–10) when God established the nations was followed by the call of Abram (Genesis 12:1–9) to establish His own nation, Israel, once again offering hope despite judgment.
It can therefore be expected that in the Bible’s first pronouncement of judgment at “The Fall“, God would offer the hope of salvation in the midst of judgment. I think the scriptural evidence shows that the following Scripture is messianic.
“The Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly, you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’”Genesis 3:14-15
The essential messianic view is that Genesis 3:15 ultimately predicts the coming of a future individual (a “seed”) who will have victory over the serpent (Satan) through His own death.
A foundational element of that view is that the serpent must be identified as something other than just a mere snake. It appears to be, in the words of C. John Collins, “the mouthpiece of a Dark Power, whom later texts would call Satan.” A number of factors lead to this observation. For example, snakes cannot talk, even in Genesis. Moreover, a mere serpent from the good creation, apart from an evil force animating it, would have no reason to challenge God’s words or tempt humanity. Additionally, it is not the serpent’s seed that will be crushed by the woman’s seed after a long conflict but the serpent itself, indicating longevity, not normal for mere snakes.
Significantly, later biblical writers identified Satan with the serpent of Genesis
“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Romans 16:20
“And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” Revelation 12:9
Although in Gen. 3:14 the Lord addresses the actual serpent, in the following verse (Genesis 3:15), He appears to address the dark power. As well, some have proposed that in Gen. 3:15 there is an alleged prediction of the virgin birth because of the use of the phrase “her seed” not a man’s seed.
The messianic view as espoused here posits that Gen. 3:15 teaches that the seed of the woman, although being struck, will also strike the serpent and his seed and thereby win victory for humanity. This text is just the beginning of the story. As John Sailhamer says, “More is at stake in this brief passage than the reader is at first aware. A program is set forth. A plot is established that will take the author far beyond this or that snake and his ‘seed.’
The verse shifts the meaning of seed from a collective group to a particular individual descendant of the woman. The evidence for this is that a singular pronoun and a singular verb are used to refer to the seed. In Gen. 3:15, the biblical author uses singular pronouns and verb forms in reference to the seed, so he plainly has a specific offspring in view.
When the original readers considered Genesis 3, they would have recognized that its author wrote of more than a mere serpent. As such, they would have expected not a long conflict between snakes and humanity, but a battle between a terrible dark force and a divinely powered deliverer. The problem of identifying the serpent was resolved in Jewish theology “by the doctrine that the serpent of Eden was the mouthpiece of the devil.” As a result, ancient Jewish interpreters also viewed the woman’s seed as the messianic victor over the serpent. This messianic reading of Gen. 3:15 is evident in the Septuagint and the rabbinic literature of the Targumim Pseudo-Jonathan, Neofiti, Onqelos, and the midrash Genesis Rabbah 23:5.27
God’s pronouncement of judgment (Gen. 3:14) is directed to the serpent proper—meaning the actual animal and not the dark force behind it. Since a serpent from the animal kingdom is an amoral being, it is surprising that the animal itself would be cursed. The purpose of cursing the animal is for it to become a perpetual reminder of the devastating destruction caused by the role of the serpent in the sin of Adam and Eve.
In the Millennium we read in Isaiah 65:25, “In Israel, the wolf, and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but the serpent’s food will be dust!” During Jesus Millennial reign the curse has not been totally lifted but in Israel, the curse on animals has been partially lifted but the curse on the serpent will remain. In this way, the serpent will remain an eternal outward symbol of the spiritual defeat of the dark force behind the fall.
In an apparent midrash on Gen. 3:15, the author of Hebrews writes:
“so that through his [Jesus’] death He might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the Devil—and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death”Hebrews 2:14–15
Abraham is also promised that his seed will bless the nations (Gen. 22:17–18). In Baalam’s second oracle, he describes Jacob’s seed as “His king” who “will be higher than Gog(Antichrist)” and whose “kingdom will be exalted.” Just as Genesis develops that the woman’s seed would spring from a royal dynasty, this oracle identifies the seed as the end-time messianic king who will defeat the enemies of Israel and rule over an exalted kingdom. In the very next oracle in Num. 24:17–19, the promise of the future messianic king (“A star will come from Jacob, and a scepter will arise from Israel”) makes a thematic allusion to Gen. 3:15. Although Num. 24:17 uses different words than Gen. 3:15 for both the blow struck and the head that is crushed, the thematic literary allusion is plain. The expectation is that when the messianic king arrives, he will crush the heads of Israel’s enemies, reminding the readers of the promise that Eve’s offspring would crush the head of the enemy.
The rest of the Hebrew canon makes extensive direct and thematic allusions to Gen. 3:15, firmly identifying the woman’s seed as a royal and messianic figure. Perhaps the most significant way that later biblical writers develop the “seed” theme is in the Davidic covenant. David is promised a “seed” who will have an eternal house, kingdom, and throne (2 Sam 7:12–16), reminding readers of the promise of the royal seed described in (Genesis 3:15; 17:16; 35:11; 49:9–10). There are many more “seed” theme references and Micah 7:17 predicts that in the eschatological future, the enemy nations will submit to the Lord and “lick the dust like asnake.” Speaking of that same future time in an intertextual reference to Gen. 3:15, Ps 8:6 proclaims that the messianic king will have “everything under his feet.” The same image of the ultimate defeat of the nations is found in Psalms 110:1, where the messianic king is promised that God will make His enemies a footstool for His feet.
It is appropriate therefore to conclude that the evidence supports Genesis 3:14-15 as the first messianic prophecy of the Bible. The fact that the “seed” theme is carried through the Bible by different authors over an extensive period of time is proof positive the Bible is the inspired word of God. Fulfilled prophecies are also proof positive that the many prophecies about Jesus’ second coming that are not already fulfilled (Israel established as a nation again) will be fulfilled.
“They (Saints) came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:5-6
“The Holy Spirit is how God quickens us to new life and births us from above.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” John 3:5-7
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” Romans 8:11
The third person of the Trinity. All three have a role in your Salvation.
The Holy Spirit has a special role as He seals us for eternity. The Apostle Paul says,
“In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:13-14
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” John 14:16-17
“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” John 14:25-26
“But When He, the Spirit of truth, comes He will guide you into all truth” John 16:13
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me.” John 15:26
“I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” John 16:7
It is the Holy Spirit’s role to convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgement. We cannot convert anyone unless the Holy Spirit has first convicted the person of their sin.
And when he comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”John 16:7-11
The Holy Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit in your life.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23
He provides the gifts of the Spirit for ministry
“For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another, the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another, various kinds of tongues, to another, the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills” 1 Corinthians 12:7-11
SUMMARY
He lives within you forever (John 14:16).
He directs your paths (Prov. 3:4-5, Romans 8:14, Acts 8:29, Acts 8:39)
He guides you into all truth (John 14:17, 16:13a).
He teaches you all things (John 14:26a).
He reveals to you things to come (John 16:13).
He reveals to you the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:10).
He produces the fruit of the Spirit in your life.(Galatians 5:22-23)
He equips and empowers you for ministry. (1 Corinth. 12:7-11)
He freely gives you all things (1 Cor. 2:12).
He offers you the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).
You cannot live a Christian life without the Holy Spirit. It is impossible. Make sure you do not grieve the Holy Spirit nor quench His work in your life but follow Paul’s advice that he gave to Timothy, “fan into flame the gift of God“.
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Ephesians 4:30
“Do not quench the Spirit.” 1 Thessalonians 5:19
“For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, forGod gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:6
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day”John 6:44
To make it even clearer, He says
“And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”John 6:65
So it is not we who found God, but God found us; He called us. Salvation is not a decision we make. It is an act of God upon those whom He brings to repentance and faith.
“God has granted repentance that leads to life.”Acts 11:18
“God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” 2 Timothy 2:25
Jesus assures believers that
“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”John 6:37
It is the Father’s promise to deliver you into the kingdom as Jesus again says,
“This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”John 6:39
Twice in three sentences, Jesus says that “All” will come to Him and of all given to Him (Jesus), so not one will be lost, as a result of the Father drawing us to Christ. I am not sure where I read this but I thought it was good enough to write in my Holy Spirit Journal.
God thought us; God sought us; God caught us; God bought us, and God taught us. It’s all about God and not about us.
“Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases.” Psalms 115:1-2
Moreover, Jesus will soon do all that He pleases on earth during His Millennial reign with the Saints.
“They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4-6
During Jesus’ earthly ministry, the disciples were always concerned with where they’d be ruling in the coming Kingdom, but Jesus told them that they had it all wrong. Here is the Living God, Jesus Christ; the omnipotent God, telling them that:
“even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”Mark 10:45
They thought like most of the world thinks; the greatest person is the one with the most servants, but Jesus flips that on its head, saying that:
“whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.”Mark 10:44
The Apostle Peter could not be clearer about how Jesus Christ brings salvation to the sinner. Peter says,
“that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold.”1 Peter 1:18
All the wealth in the universe would not be sufficient to redeem even one sinner. It took the shed blood of Jesus to redeem us. There was absolutely no other way.
“the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”1 Peter 1:19
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”John 14:6-7
“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” Hebrews 9:27-28.
Salvation was achieved by Jesus shedding His blood at His first coming to earth but at His second coming Jesus completes the task by resurrecting the dead Saints and the rapture of those that are alive with glorious new bodies.
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it, we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” Philippians 3:20-21
Who will live with God on the new earth and heaven that He creates for His children? This is a valid question and we know it is not only Christians. Some will be taken back, as I was when I first read this statement. However, I quickly realised that Abraham, Moses, Job, David would not strictly come into the category Christian.
“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” Job 1:1
Think about the one thief upon the cross that simply asked Jesus to remember him when He came into His Kingdom, What was Jesus’ response?
“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43
I think therefore that the thief put his heartfelt trust in Jesus as the Messiah of God and that was enough to get him saved.
Roger Olson in his excellent article “Answer to the Question: What must a person know/believe to be saved or to be a Christian” raises the story of Paul and Silas and the time God opened up the prison doors for them. Paul stopped the jailor from killing himself as he thought the prisoners had escaped. The jailor knew there was something different about these men who had been praising God in their chains and were now free of those chains. He asked them this question.
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe on (trust) the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”Acts 16:30-31
Roger makes the point that from this statement, for the jailer and his family to be saved they had to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and they must put their trust/faith in Him. This is the simple rule of faith for salvation.
To be a Christian there is more and Roger points out that Paul and Silas then went on to say:
“And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.” Acts 16:32
Roger’s interpretation and I have to agree with him, is that the jailer, like the thief on the cross, was saved the moment he believed on (trust) the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord. However, to be a Christian there is more, Jesus gave His disciples the Great Commission; repent, be baptised, and receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables believers to comprehend the Word of the Lord. He sanctifies us over time and produces the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. He will guide our every step if we allow Him. Therefore, He enables us to live the Christian life.
SAVED
God knows the condition of our heart and it is a heart issue that gets us saved. This Scripture from Exodus reinforces the issue of having a heart/spirit for God.
“And they came,every one whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him, and brought the Lord’s contribution to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments. So they came, both men and women. All who were of a willing heart brought brooches and earrings and signet rings and armlets, all sorts of gold objects, every man dedicating an offering of gold to the Lord.” Exodus 35:21-22
CHRISTIAN
To live the Christian life you must have the Holy Spirit which is given once you repent of your sins (prepared to die to your old life) be baptised (signifying death to the old life and arising as alive in Christ) at which time God the Father sends the Holy Spirit, the enabler, to be your counsellor, your teacher, and comforter. He enables you to live a Christian life.
ETERNITY
For me, this understanding gives me comfort in knowing that there will be many people who have never heard the Good News of Jesus Christ who will be saved because they had a heart after God. Moreover, I am sure you like me have heard of many stories of Jesus appearing to Muslims and they have come to saving faith in Him. Jesus answered their heart cries. We can trust God to ensure that all those that should be in His Kingdom will be there.
“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereasworldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you …” 2 Corinthians 7:10-11
To get into Christ’s Kingdom, you have to truly repent, truly dying to self so that you cannot go back to your old life. Paul talks about godly grief, being convicted by the Holy Spirit about your sin. Knowing how abhorrent sin is to God you will have “godly grief that leads to repentance“. You will also realise how good, how gracious and merciful God was to send His Son, Jesus, to pay the price for your sin of rebellion against Him and His values.
Once we have truly repented and accepted Jesus as our Saviour and Lord, God the Father sends the Holy Spirit to indwell our spirit. God’s Word tells us thatour spirit is the lamp of the Lord and a lamp requires oil (Holy Spirit) to function as God intended. When Adam and Eve sinned the Holy Spirit departed their spirit, so they died spiritually immediately and their bodies died some 900 years later.
“The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts.” Proverbs 20:27
Without the Holy Spirit we cannot live the Christian life. He is the one that brings about the sanctification process, making you Christ like. He is the one that produces the fruit of the Spirit in your life; love, joy, peace patience, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, kindness and self control. He is also one that provides the gifts of the Spirit for ministry; words of knowledge, words of wisdom, prophecy, faith, healings, miracles, discerning of spirits, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues. You are not saved unless the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit are evident in your life.
Sadly, there are many people sitting in the pews of churches that have not experienced “godly grief that produces a repentance that leads to salvation“. The “end times” parable of the Ten Virgins tells us that half of them that are waiting for the bridegroom (Jesus) to return do not have oil for their lamps and Jesus tells them to depart from me I do not know you. This parable reveals that half the people in the “end times” church that think they are Christians and are waiting for Him to return are not saved and will be on earth when the wrath of God is poured out with the Trumpet and Bowl judgements.
For Christians this should be a wake up call, we have a mission field in our churches people who need to experience “godly grief that produces a repentance that leads to salvation.”
Iran is facing a wave of internal turmoil and covert attacks that are undermining the radical regime’s nefarious plans. Even as the violence escalates, hope is rising among Iranian citizens who are finding salvation in Jesus Christ.
Whether it’s the exploding coronavirus, mysterious fires at nuclear and military facilities or protests, Iran’s ruling Islamic clerics are facing unprecedented challenges as the regime tries to maintain an iron grip on the nation.
All this comes against the backdrop of ongoing government protests and a remarkable revival that’s witnessing thousands of Muslims turning to Christianity in the midst of COVID-19.
“That’s why we are calling this a pandemic of hope,” said Mike Ansari, who runs Mohabat TV, one of the most popular Christian satellite channels in Iran.
Ansari told CBN News that Mohabat TV is recording 10 times more online salvation’s than this time last year.
“We are registering around 3,000 personal decisions by Iranian Muslims to leave Islam for Christianity during this revival,” Ansari said.
That’s 3,000 people each month who’ve decided to follow Jesus Christ since the pandemic began in March.
“People in Iran are just not happy the way their economy is going, the way the government is robbing them of their national resources and exporting Shia Islam to the neighboring countries, so they just don’t trust their government,” said Ansari.
The large number of people leaving Islam is causing a backlash against the church. Dozens of Christians have been arrested and imprisoned for responding to the gospel message since March.
“During these critical times for the regime, there’s a tendency, historically, for the regime to really crack down on religious communities like Christian converts, and we see that today,” Nader told CBN News.
Iran is one of the world’s most dangerous places for Christians. Yet, Christianity is growing faster in Iran than in any other country in the world.
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14