By Charles Gardner —
Amid the darkness and gloom of escalating warfare as the anniversary of the October 7th massacre approaches, God is still shining his light.
For my key task this coming Monday, I have arranged to meet up for an interview with a former Muslim who turned to Jesus through a dream in which the Lord told him, “I am the way”.
This has been the experience of an increasing number of Muslims in recent days, offering the hope that the best chance of peace lies with hearts turned to Yeshua, the ‘Prince of Peace’ of Isaiah’s prophecy (Isaiah 9:6).
Witness also the Iranian man who testified of his love for the Jews on the streets of Tel Aviv earlier this year – that too following an encounter with Yeshua.
There are now an estimated one million Iranian Christians praying and standing for Israel and longing for an end of their unpopular tyrannical regime who do not speak for most of their people.
Yet these wicked tyrants are now unleashing their fury on Israel as never before. But is this the last gasp squirming of a snake whose head has been trampled on?
Their support lies with a demonically inspired religion that has been spitting its venom at Jewry since its founding in the seventh century. But mosques in Iran are reportedly closing as fast as Iranian hearts are opening to Yeshua. According to Voice of the Martyrs, 50,000 of the country’s 75,000 mosques have closed.¹
After coming to power through a fanatical revolution 45 years ago, their stranglehold has been severely weakened by a revolution of another kind. So much so that these ‘de-stabilizing’ Christians are being tortured, imprisoned and killed. But when the Ayatollahs finally recognize that their evil game is up, their spiritual fortress will come crashing down faster than the Berlin Wall.
And their terrorist proxies who have been harassing and provoking Israel for so long – Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and others – will suddenly find themselves without a significant backer.
In such a scenario, Iran and Israel would resume their previous friendship, and peace in the Middle East – at least for a time – would be a real possibility. I say that as someone who has oft repeated my belief that lasting peace won’t come until Messiah returns. And we know he will come at a time of great trouble.
But I wouldn’t rule out an interlude of peace around the corner as Jew and Gentile together (as ‘one new man’) team up in prayer and reconciliation.
I recall how, in the early 1990s, the wall of apartheid in South Africa suddenly came crashing down, opening the gates for new freedom amid multi-racial elections. It wasn’t violence that tore it down, though much aggression had admittedly paved the way.
No, it was the unity and prayer of Christians that largely affected the transformation, virtually without a shot being fired. Both Nelson Mandela and F W de Klerk had personal encounters with Christ and led the way to peace and reconciliation as Christians gathered in sports stadia to pray.
It seems far-fetched to have this scenario repeated in the Middle East. But surely, with God, all things are possible.
My wife and I watched a movie at our London hotel the other night featuring a ‘time-traveling’ St Paul turning up in modern-day Oregon, USA, not surprisingly bewildered and confused. It seemed very wacky at first, but we stuck with it and watched it morph into a powerful message.
The Apostle could only speak Greek and Hebrew, but once he had been taught to speak English, he couldn’t understand why Christians were so divided. Jesus prayed for the unity of believers “so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).
When Christians unite in prayer and action, mighty things happen. The former Muslims of Iran and elsewhere, including here in the UK, are praying for their Jewish brethren.
In his overall plan for the ages, God envisages a day when Jews and Gentiles will become “one new man” in Christ, with the dividing wall of hostility broken down, thus making peace (Ephesians 2:14-16).
God would not allow Moses to enter the Promised Land because of his disobedience in striking the rock instead of speaking to it, but he did finally make it there some 1,500 years later when he appeared with Jesus and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, where the Law and the Prophets were seen to have found their fulfillment in the Jewish Messiah.
The Old and New Covenant had come together. The New Covenant faith – what the world knows as Christianity – was originally Jewish. And now things have almost come full circle. So what began as Jewish, radical and counter-cultural, tragically morphed over the years into a non-Jewish faith of the status quo.
However, we are now witnessing a reverse of the phenomenon with a disestablishing of the faith from Western civilization as the counter-cultural and radical elements pull away from the compromisers. And in doing so, we are also moving back towards our original Jewish identity with increasing representation from Jewish disciples. ²
Could the prayers of radical believers in Iran bring down the dividing wall of hostility with Israel?
¹ Heart newspaper October/November 2024
² See The Book of Mysteries, Jonathan Cahn, published by FrontLine
