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Why People Are Turning to Christ in Iran with Blake Bozarth · The Becket Cook Show

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  Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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  Speaker 2: You are listening to The Becket Cook Show with your host,
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  Speaker 2: Beckett Cook. For more information about Beckett and his ministry,
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  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to the show. Today.
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  Speaker 3: I have a special guest, Blake Bozarth, and we're going
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  Speaker 3: to be talking about Iran. Obviously, there's a lot going
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  Speaker 3: on in Iran right now, but we're going to be
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  Speaker 3: specifically focused on Christianity in Iran and what it was
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  Speaker 3: like to be a Christian before the Islamic Revolution in
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  Speaker 3: nineteen seventy nine, what happened right after the revolution in
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  Speaker 3: terms of Christians.
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  Speaker 1: And what's going on right now.
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  Speaker 3: With the explosion of Christianity in Iran today. But first
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  Speaker 3: awards from our sponsor, Please welcome my guest to Blake Bozarth.
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  Speaker 4: Great to be here, Becket, thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 1: I'm glad to have you on.
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  Speaker 3: I know, you know, it's really crazy what's going on
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  Speaker 3: in Iran right now, and it's happening in real time.
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  Speaker 3: But before we get into that subject. I want to
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  Speaker 3: just ask you because you mentioned that in twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 3: September tenth, twenty twenty five, the obvious date that you
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  Speaker 3: crossed the rubicon and went all in for the Kingdom,
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  Speaker 3: So tell us about that.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, my story there is I would have told you
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  Speaker 5: that I was on fire for Christ before.
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  Speaker 4: That time, and I was in a lot of ways,
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  Speaker 4: like in my personal life as.
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  Speaker 5: A dad, as a husband, I was discipling and leading
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  Speaker 5: men's groups and those sort of things. But there was
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  Speaker 5: a peace of me that I was holding back, and
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  Speaker 5: it was a big piece of me.
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  Speaker 4: So the September tenth, by the way, is.
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  Speaker 5: When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, when he was murdered, and
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  Speaker 5: I remember I was just because there was a time
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  Speaker 5: like thirty minutes somebody had texted me like shortly thereafter.
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  Speaker 5: I'm keeping track of what's going on, and there was
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  Speaker 5: these rumors that, oh, well, he hasn't been pronounced dead yet,
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  Speaker 5: so maybe he's still alive. I remember being on my
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  Speaker 5: knees and just like praying to God and like say,
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  Speaker 5: please save this man, you know, please save this man.
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  Speaker 4: And of course that's not the way it turned out.
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  Speaker 5: But in that moment, I just knew that my life
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  Speaker 5: was forever change at that point. And the thing that
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  Speaker 5: was I had been holding back was I was I
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  Speaker 5: was safe with my public voice.
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  Speaker 4: So I had like leadership development business.
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  Speaker 5: I'd worked with corporates as my main clients, running leadership
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  Speaker 5: programs for them. I had a leadership podcast, and I
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  Speaker 5: was very forthcoming about my faith and how much I
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  Speaker 5: love Jesus and you know, the things that were culture
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  Speaker 5: really acceptable around Christianity. I was very And the way
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  Speaker 5: I described it is that I was never I never
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  Speaker 5: pretended like the Emperor had closed. But here's here's what
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  Speaker 5: I wasn't doing. I wasn't pointing out that he was neked.
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  Speaker 5: And so after Charlie Kirk's martyr him, it was it
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  Speaker 5: was just I crossed that rubicon. So it was like, Hey,
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  Speaker 5: from this point on, I am all in. I am
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  Speaker 5: going to be fighting against evil. I'm going to be
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  Speaker 5: even if it's controversial. I'm going to be fighting for
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  Speaker 5: the Kingdom of God with my public voice, not just
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  Speaker 5: behind the scenes.
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  Speaker 3: Give us the example of give us an example of one,
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  Speaker 3: you know, being bold for Christ, Like what like, what
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  Speaker 3: are some of the things things you were saying, or
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  Speaker 3: one thing you were saying that.
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  Speaker 4: Changing now since crossing the rubicon. Yeah, so this, this
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  Speaker 4: one's a very controversial one.
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  Speaker 5: But I was saying that Christians should not be supporting
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  Speaker 5: the Democrat Party. Does that mean that you should vote
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  Speaker 5: do you have to vote for a particular candidate or
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  Speaker 5: a particular party on the other side, But at this point,
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  Speaker 5: given where the Democrat Party is and the things that
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  Speaker 5: are codified into their party platform, which include abortion and
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  Speaker 5: their agendas when it comes to all the LGBT and
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  Speaker 5: the sexual kind of revolution gender, I think that Christians
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  Speaker 5: should say no.
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  Speaker 4: And so that's a red line.
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  Speaker 5: And so that's the sort of thing where it's like
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  Speaker 5: before it's like I had trying to touch anything that
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  Speaker 5: was too like hot mud and political, and now I'm
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  Speaker 5: out there being like, hey, pastors, this shouldn't be controversial.
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  Speaker 5: We should be pastoring our flocks better. It doesn't mean
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  Speaker 5: again that we should be partisan by any means, but
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  Speaker 5: we should be saying, hey, there are certain red line
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  Speaker 5: issues that should prevent a Christian from supporting a certain platform,
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  Speaker 5: and one of those one of the most obvious ones
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  Speaker 5: is the life of babies.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel the same way.
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  Speaker 3: I've talked about this before, but when I got saved
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  Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine, I immediately understood the Imago Day,
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  Speaker 3: which I didn't believe before I was an atheist. And
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  Speaker 3: I immediately because I was pro pro abortion before, I immediately
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  Speaker 3: became pro life because I understood the Amagua Day, and
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  Speaker 3: and so on this show, there's nothing controversial because I
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  Speaker 3: talk about everything and how God saved me out of.
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  Speaker 1: Homosexuality, et cetera, et cetera. So I yeah, so I'm glad.
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  Speaker 3: I'm glad that you've become very bold, and that's awesome.
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  Speaker 1: Praise God. Okay, so let's get to Iran.
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  Speaker 3: Now, what was Christianity like under the Shaw and before
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  Speaker 3: the Islamic Revolution in nineteen seventy nine. What how are
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  Speaker 3: Christians treated by the by the regime of the Shaw,
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  Speaker 3: or by just in general, by other Iranians?
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  Speaker 1: Like, what was it like before the revolution?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah?
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  Speaker 5: So I have been taken by this topic given where
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  Speaker 5: we are with Iran right now. So I've been hearing
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  Speaker 5: for a while like there's something incredible going on with
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  Speaker 5: the church in Iran, and it made me want to
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  Speaker 5: dig deeper. So I had lived abroad for a little bit,
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  Speaker 5: studied abroad and lived abroad in the Middle East, had
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  Speaker 5: had some connections some friends.
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  Speaker 4: In Iran, and.
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  Speaker 5: I was if you know that history is like prior
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  Speaker 5: Nae and seventy nine, they were known for being pretty
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  Speaker 5: western leaning and fairly secular, right, And when I started
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  Speaker 5: to do the research, you want, okay, what's going on
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  Speaker 5: with the church in Iran? You see some of the history,
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  Speaker 5: and yeah, they were.
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  Speaker 4: They were fairly.
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  Speaker 5: Westernized as a as a as a nation state prior
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  Speaker 5: nae and seventy nine.
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  Speaker 4: Part of the a is long as revolution, but the church.
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  Speaker 5: Was relatively tiny and most of the Christians there are
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  Speaker 5: almost all the Christians that would have been in Iran
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  Speaker 5: were mostly ethnic Armenian Christians that were like from from
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  Speaker 5: hundreds of years thousands of years back. It's just a
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  Speaker 5: part of their culture, right, And they were a small percentage,
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  Speaker 5: but they were only if you look at the research
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  Speaker 5: behind it, there was only about five hundred, five hundred
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  Speaker 5: people from Muslim backgrounds that were Christians in Iran at
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  Speaker 5: that time, so they were secular, and so it would
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  Speaker 5: they were like there was still there were churches operating
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  Speaker 5: freely in Iran, but in that secular world. Uh, the
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  Speaker 5: church was tiny and the people from Muslims background believers
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  Speaker 5: that came from Muslim backround. They call them mbb's Muslim
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  Speaker 5: background believers. There were only about five hundred of them
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  Speaker 5: at the time.
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  Speaker 1: That's like the five hundred who witnessed the Resurrection of Christ.
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  Speaker 3: That's kind of that's kind of a crazy actually, Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: and so and do you know what the shaw like
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  Speaker 3: thought about Christianity?
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean from I understanding, and I don't have
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  Speaker 5: a deep, deep, deep research on the shaw but from
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  Speaker 5: my understanding is that they were there Muslim but they
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  Speaker 5: were just more friendly towards it. So yeah, may consider
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  Speaker 5: it sort of like Dubai is today, right, which is
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  Speaker 5: where I lived for a while. They they they are,
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  Speaker 5: they're cool with Christianity. They still don't love conversions from
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  Speaker 5: Muslims coming into the faith of that. They're not like
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  Speaker 5: raw raw, like, yeah we want to see Muslim people
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  Speaker 5: become Christian or they're not good with that. But the
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  Speaker 5: Church wasn't facing significant persecution at that time in a
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  Speaker 5: similar way as you would see kind of an other
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  Speaker 5: secularized states.
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  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after this short break. So what happened, right,
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  Speaker 3: after the revolution when the Ayatola come in. He came
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  Speaker 3: in and took over and the clerics took over. What
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  Speaker 3: what happened to the Christians in Iran then? Were they
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  Speaker 3: all like murdered or persecuted?
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  Speaker 1: What happened?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so they were all murdered, but persecution.
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  Speaker 5: I think there was like a pretty much a switch
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  Speaker 5: overnight where it's like, hey, there's a there's a new
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  Speaker 5: sheriff in town. When it comes to Sharia law and
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  Speaker 5: the way that the way that we're going to run
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  Speaker 5: this country and religious liberty took a immediate hit. There
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  Speaker 5: was a lot of boshed So there was purges throughout
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  Speaker 5: Iran when when the revolution was happening. But it wasn't
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  Speaker 5: like they were just going out say he anybody who's Christian,
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  Speaker 5: we're gonna we're gonna take you out, We're going to
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  Speaker 5: kill you. But the persecution certainly happened in a particular
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  Speaker 5: for people that were Muslim background. So they have formal
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  Speaker 5: apostasy laws, it's my understanding, are still on the books
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  Speaker 5: today in this way that if you're converting from a
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  Speaker 5: if you're from a Muslim family, from a Muslim background,
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  Speaker 5: and you are converting to Christianity or any other religion
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  Speaker 5: not approved Islam. If you're converting, then you are officially apostate.
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  Speaker 5: And the penalty for that, the maximum penalty, I guess,
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  Speaker 5: can be death.
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  Speaker 4: And we did see that.
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  Speaker 5: So there's a very famous case Reverend Sudmand Hossein Sudman,
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  Speaker 5: father of four, and he was a I think Assemblies
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  Speaker 5: of God pastor, actually it's evangelical pastor.
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  Speaker 4: And it was it was. It wasn't like it happened overnight.
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  Speaker 5: It was kind of a little I think of a
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  Speaker 5: slow burn where they basically UH came down on him
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  Speaker 5: and said, hey, you cannot you cannot be proselytizing, you
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  Speaker 5: can't be doing this. He was warned and so like
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  Speaker 5: like the church in Iran was aware of what was
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  Speaker 5: going on, the missionaries across the across the world in
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  Speaker 5: America warning people like, hey, it's maybe a good time
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  Speaker 5: to leave. And he refused to leave, and he refused
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  Speaker 5: to back down, and so he's he's a he's a
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  Speaker 5: very famous case of he was somebody that they they captured.
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  Speaker 5: They took him in front of his UH, in front
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  Speaker 5: of his family, imprisoned and let him back out with
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  Speaker 5: the saying, hey, if you do this again, then it
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  Speaker 5: can be much worse. And sure enough they hung him
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  Speaker 5: on apostasy charges. And there's been other martyrs in Iran
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  Speaker 5: uh in a in like kind of a similar way.
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  Speaker 5: But there's been lots of other reports of people who
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  Speaker 5: have been at prison, imprisoned, beaten, their families, abused, even
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  Speaker 5: sexually abused, and it kind of it wrenches your heart
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  Speaker 5: as a as a believer the more you kind of
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  Speaker 5: dig into that stuff.
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  Speaker 4: It's just it's just the reality there.
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  Speaker 5: But as we know, when that happens, just like the
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  Speaker 5: church and acts. So it started out with like around
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  Speaker 5: those five hundred people who witness resurrection, right few hundred people,
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  Speaker 5: the church did go underground, and so there are still
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  Speaker 5: churches in Iran, but from my understanding they're okay, they're okay.
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  Speaker 5: I think they still persecuted something I don't know enough
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  Speaker 5: about it. With like the the ethnic Christians that don't
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  Speaker 5: come from Muslim backgrounds, but Muslim background believers are very
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  Speaker 5: much underground house church kind of style. And so it's
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  Speaker 5: starting from that like five hundred from the Muslim background
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  Speaker 5: that went underground, that has exploded in Iran. And so
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  Speaker 5: over the years and this is why they they it's
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  Speaker 5: reportedly the fastest growing evangelical movement in the world because
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  Speaker 5: now they the best reports out there suggests that there
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  Speaker 5: are over one million believers from a Muslim background in Iran.
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  Speaker 5: And that's that's just it blew my mind. It's just
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  Speaker 5: a beautiful thing.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. And so.
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  Speaker 3: How how what I mean? Obviously I forgot who said
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  Speaker 3: this was a Tertolian. The blood of the blood of
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  Speaker 3: the martyrs is the seed of the church. So do
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  Speaker 3: you think that that the martyring of of Christians was
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  Speaker 3: kind of the spark that started this explosion of conversions
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  Speaker 3: to Christianity.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's very very similar to what we've
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  Speaker 4: seen in the church and acts.
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  Speaker 5: And uh, I even it hit it hits still close
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  Speaker 5: to home for me as a as an American Christian.
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  Speaker 5: Now who just told you my story in the beginning
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  Speaker 5: you asked about crossing the Rubicon. I've experienced that now
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  Speaker 5: for the first time in my life where I've seen
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  Speaker 5: a fellow believer gruesomely martyred, and what it did for
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  Speaker 5: my my own faith in my own walk with God.
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  Speaker 4: It gives me gives me gooseums.
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  Speaker 5: Even even talking about it right now, so I have
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  Speaker 5: no doubt like that. That's a big part of what
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  Speaker 5: has driven the church, the growth in the church in
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  Speaker 5: Iran is the persecution that it's that it's faced, the
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  Speaker 5: blood of the martyrs, the imprisonment, the beatings. So I
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  Speaker 5: have no doubt about that. But what's really cool too.
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  Speaker 5: I know we talked about this some back it before,
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  Speaker 5: but there are so many reports, hundreds of reports, not
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  Speaker 5: thousands of reports across the Middle East, but especially in
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  Speaker 5: Iran of people encountering Jesus Christ in dreams.
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  Speaker 1: And I know what's going on with this? What? What's? What's?
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  Speaker 1: What is?
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  Speaker 5: We we both share the Reformed background, And so for me,
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  Speaker 5: I when when I first heard this years ago, I'm like,
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  Speaker 5: that's really cool. But then there's this part of like
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  Speaker 5: me that's always like skeptic, like like, does God really
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  Speaker 5: show up? Is Jesus showing up to people in visions?
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  Speaker 5: And are they are they coming to God without are
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  Speaker 5: they coming to know Jesus without like someone like, you know,
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  Speaker 5: evangelizing them directly. And the more that I've researched this
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  Speaker 5: over the last few years and looked into this and
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  Speaker 5: Iran is it's absolutely happening.
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  Speaker 4: You can't. It's undeniable.
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  Speaker 5: It's undeniable to see the way God is moving, the
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  Speaker 5: Holy Spirit's moving, Jesus is moving, and the way he's
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  Speaker 5: showing up to people envisions and dreams even and they're
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  Speaker 5: just if you just kind of google this, you can
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  Speaker 5: look at Uh there's lots of YouTube interviews where some
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  Speaker 5: of these stories are shared. But missionaries from all sorts
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  Speaker 5: of different agencies are reporting these same things. And and
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  Speaker 5: of course they're getting fed, they're getting nurtured by believers.
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  Speaker 4: Like once they have that kind of encounter.
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  Speaker 5: And that's one of the cool things if you start
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  Speaker 5: to research like how the underground church works and the
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  Speaker 5: same thing, the same story, by the way, has happened
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  Speaker 5: in China like that there.
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  Speaker 4: People ask me, there's more.
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  Speaker 5: There's more Christians in China than there are in America
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  Speaker 5: these days, which is mind boggling, right, And when you
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  Speaker 5: think about what it means to be Christian in China,
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  Speaker 5: if you were talking about born again believers who were
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  Speaker 5: seriously following the Lord, it's probably a lot more Christians
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  Speaker 5: in China. Well, there's something there's something special about this
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  Speaker 5: dynamic where you're underground and Uh, the way I've heard
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  Speaker 5: of people describe it is you really rely on the
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  Speaker 5: discernment from the Holy Spirit of who to talk to,
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  Speaker 5: how to approach someone sometimes you know, like like people
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  Speaker 5: like especially if they're encountering if God is speaking to
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  Speaker 5: them in some way where there's a vision or some
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  Speaker 5: other way. The the the believer has to be very
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  Speaker 5: discerning about how they engage.
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  Speaker 4: People and the spirit leads.
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  Speaker 5: And so I found it. I found it fascinating as
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  Speaker 5: a as an American Christian to think about these things
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  Speaker 5: and to just kind of understand how it happens that
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  Speaker 5: you can go from five hundred to over a million.
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  Speaker 5: That's a two thousand times growth during during this time
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  Speaker 5: that the persecution has been so extreme these past few decades.
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  Speaker 3: And is it in China? Is are they having the
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  Speaker 3: same kind of phenomena where they're having visions of Jesus?
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  Speaker 4: Is that I haven't heard that. I haven't heard that
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  Speaker 4: in China. There could be reports of that, but I've.
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  Speaker 5: Specifically you can specifically find a lot of these reports
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  Speaker 5: in the Middle East, which to the Old Thing, which
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  Speaker 5: which is so cool too, but back then we talk
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  Speaker 5: about in the beginning too, is it kind of dispels
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  Speaker 5: this myth you're hearing a lot from from secularist or
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  Speaker 5: atheist that that, oh, you're only your religion because of
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  Speaker 5: where you're born, and so if you're born here, then
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  Speaker 5: you would be you'd be Muslim, if you're born in Iran,
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  Speaker 5: you'd be Muslim. And generally, yes, it's it's a very
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  Speaker 5: it's very predictive of course that that helps shape somebody's
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  Speaker 5: religious background. But this kind of dispels that myth that
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  Speaker 5: that this that this is the way it works. God,
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  Speaker 5: God moves through his people, but God also can move
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  Speaker 5: absolutely directly, and it's it's just really cool to see
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  Speaker 5: to see this happening.
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  Speaker 3: And talk about what I mean, what's what happens you
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  Speaker 3: know when a Muslim background believer and what what do
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  Speaker 3: you call them?
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  Speaker 1: MBB?
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  Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, mbb's when when they do convert to Christianity.
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  Speaker 3: Obviously the cost is high, but it's I mean including
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  Speaker 3: with family members, I'm assuming, right.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely absolutely.
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  Speaker 5: This is where it Jesus tells us the division that
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  Speaker 5: the Gospel cause causes.
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  Speaker 1: It did not come to bring peace but a sword and.
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  Speaker 5: The sword yeah, and so like we hear Jesus say this,
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  Speaker 5: I did not come to bring peace, but a sword
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  Speaker 5: to set father against against against son, and mother against son,
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  Speaker 5: to set family against each other. And you're like, he's
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  Speaker 5: saying he didn't come to bring peace, yet he is
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: the prince of peace. So we kind of have this dichotomy.
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: But the more that I think you reflect on that
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: and you kind of apply uh, you know, biblical framework
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: to what that's what Jesus is talking about. There's something
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: special about the Gospel that it causes conflict, and it
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: shouldn't cause conflict within the believing families, right, Like we're like,
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: if you have a heritage of belief, God works through generations,
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: he works, His Covenant applies to the thousands.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: That love him.
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: But when you're coming from non belief and you're coming
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: from other religious backgrounds or non religious backgrounds, it causes division.
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: But also like it also confirms who is a true follower.
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: And so anyways, yeah, that verse, actually, that passage really
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: stands out for me, and it reminds us in America.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: I think we're so I think we're so comfortable and
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: we've gotten to a point where our gospel does not
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: offend anymore in a lot of ways. Right, So we're
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: we're not used to, Uh, there's a version of the
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: American or westernized Gospel that is not offensive, it's safe, right,
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: And I would say it's because that version is not
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: the true Gospel if it's not actually offending. But you
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: see it, You see the dichotomy so much more clearly
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: when you're in a when you're in a culture that's
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: not that doesn't have the historical Christian roots, the division
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: is it's so noticeable.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean when Paul was preaching in Acts or
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Peter when especially Paul, I mean everywhere he went he
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: would preach and there would be.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Riots, and how you know, half the people would believe
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and half wouldn't believe.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: But there, I mean, he was causing all kinds of
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: trouble just because the Gospel is so offensive.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: And so we've kind of lost that.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: A bit in in in the United States. But what
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I think about this too in Iran and in terms
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: of Islam, like Islam is so such a heavy burden
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: of works religion and you know, graceless religion, and it
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: must be so alluring to to consider Christianity and and
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: just see how it's just this, it's all grace, and
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: it's all God and it's it's and there's so much
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: freedom in Christianity. I mean that must be like a
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: that must be just such a when people in Iran
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: are converting to Christianity, they must just feel this. It's
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: like the Pilgrim's progress. They must feel that just burden
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: fall off of them.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: That's great, that's such a good imagery. I'm smiling because
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: I've recently saw this young woman who came from Muslim
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: background in Iran who was talking about how.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: She read the Bible for the first time.
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: And I believe I think she was from Iron as well,
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: but she was Muslim background, and she was I think
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: she may have been one who had encountered us in
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: a vision and she you talk to someone else and
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: get introduced to the Word of God in the Bible,
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: and comparing that to her background with God as the
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: Koran kind of outlines who God is, she was just
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: like blown away.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: Like you mean, God has grace. God, God, He's a loving.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: God as well, not just a person God, God personal
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: loving graces, grace Field. It's it is a powerful concept,
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: and I think we forget, we forget, honestly as believers
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: sometimes how radical God's graces, how radical it is right.
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: And so when when when you have somebody who's coming
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: from such an oppressive background, and and it's not just
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: it's not just they've experienced hard things in their life
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: or they're coming from like a non belief background. They're
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: coming from a belief background of a version of God
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: that is so severe and so lacking, so lacking in mercy,
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: and when they discover who God really is, I can't imagine.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: I just can't imagine.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I know it's a it's incredible.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: And so what do you, I mean, what are your
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: thoughts on the just Us, on the on the invasion
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: of Iran?
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: What do you what do you thought from that?
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So, to be honest, honest, I am. I am
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: conflicted in the sense of, like I think all Christians,
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: here's one thing I think we should agree on. I
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: think all Christians should be praising the Lord to see
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: this oppressive regime weakened and if he gets amazing about
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: how how it transpires from here on out. But to me,
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: that's that's a no brainer. Like, no matter where somebody
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: lands politically, matter how much they like or dislike a
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: certain president, that's something that we should all be praising
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: the Lord that this oppressive, wicked regime that has been
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: persecuting God's Church, Christ, the Church.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Of Christ rather in Christ.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, that that regime is being weakened.
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: That to me is the no brainer in terms of
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: the rest of like the geopolitical implications of it, I
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: am conflicted.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: I I I.
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: Hope and pray that it works out beautifully as as
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: as as this administration has planned it, Like, I get
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: the logic behind it from Hey, they've never been weaker,
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: Like this is an opportunity to there's there there is
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: justification that can be made, even though I think that
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: case has been uh kind of poorly prosecuted in some ways,
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: but there's a lot justification where this this this UH
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: country has perpetrated so much terrorism across the globe, including
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: against Americans and American assets, including this is one.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: This is the part, uh, not to.
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: Get too far offrom the political stuff, but it's the
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: part that I've actually been surprised that the administration hasn't
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: messaged more. But supposedly we've been told of at least
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: I think too maybe more incidents where the Iranian Iranian
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: regime actually tried to assassinate our president, right and that
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: is kind of an active war in and of itself.
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: And yeah, it took a while to respond to that,
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: but there's I think there is justification for it. But
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: I'm also not one of these it's like, oh, this
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: is the best thing in the world.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: Like.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: I think the proofs of the I think. I think
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: it remains to be seen how it's going to transpire.
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: And I could make an argument to you that our
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: hand could have been forced by others and it wasn't
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: necessarily America making the decision based on just America's interest.
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: But I also I've become more personally, I've become more
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: open minded and sympathetic towards America using our strength are
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: God blessed given strength for good and and and having
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: the lens of hey, how does this benefit our own people?
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: Like it needs to be our first lens. So if
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: you call that America first, our first lens, our leaders
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: jobs is first towards America and not and not jeopardizing
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: our our own interest. But I also think that part
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: of what we get to do is have a positive
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: influence in the world.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: And I don't think that looks like nation buildings. So
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: as long as that's the big thing.
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: So we don't want to we don't want to try
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: to get bogged down in a quagmire like we've experienced
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: in the past. None of that, I think so far
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: as administration has made it very clear they have no
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: interest to do that, and they've shown that they can
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: take military action that is strategic, decisive and doesn't involve
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: us fighting endless force.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: I mean when I first heard that comedy comen a
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: was taken out and a lot of his his guys
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: were taken out, my first reaction was, I mean, I
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: was just overjoyed. I was like, yes, like because for me,
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: it was just like this good versus evil feeling, and
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: I just I was so excited and I still am.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: I'm excited because I mean the very least, I mean,
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Christians now have the freedom they may potentially have the
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: freedom to worship freely in that country, and also just
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: in general, the population of the country will have freedom
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: now as opposed to I don't know if you saw
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: that story about I think it was a six year
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: year sixteen year old girl who didn't wear her hit
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: job or something, and she they some guards like arrested
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: her and then they ended up all of them I
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: think I don't know how many. I think it was
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: like twelve of them or maybe twenty, but they all ended,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: they all her and then she got hanged from a
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: crane in the middle of Iran. I mean, so it's
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: like for me, it was just like like good versus evil.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: But as you said, I am, you know, I'm a
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: little worried about the quagmire. I'm a little worried about
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: how this is going to play out out. And I
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: you know, my prayer is that the Iranian people will
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: rise up and you know, take over and and it'll
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: be a kind of a peaceful sort of transfer of power.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Uh. But that remains to be seen.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: But to your point, but I think that that has
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: to be our prayer.
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: There's always risk, and that's where you have to appreciate
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: at least the courage from this administration, from the president
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: is there.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: There's always risks.
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: We get to play arm chair quarterback and say, oh this,
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: I don't know how this is gonna work out.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: It makes me kind of queasy.
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: But we should be praying, and I guess is where
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: like I think back to like the Christian perspective, we
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: should be praying that God raises up leaders that in
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: Iran that that are are honoring to him and that
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: are good for his church. We should be praying for
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: that at the very least. And I think that's always
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: the big risk in these kinds of situations, is like
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: the power vacuum, because I think the same thing happened
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: in Syria, a terrible leader get taken out, something happened
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: in Right terrible is taken out with Yeah, we should rejoice,
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: but then the power vacuum comes and and it actually
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: makes things even more oppressive for the people. We definitely
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: don't want to see that scenario. And I think what's
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: what's unique about Iran is they do have a history
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: with the Shaw of having a more stable, western friendly,
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: more liberty friendly, I should say government. And so that's
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: what we should be praying for, is that that version,
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: some sort of version like that can come back.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think the Shaw's idea, it's I mean,
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: this is what's been thrown out there. But the Shaw's
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: sun might take over temporarily and then they'll be an election,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: But we'll see if that happens. Yeah, just keep praying
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: for Iran. So what I mean you and you talk
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: about kind of the cut flower problem in America in
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: terms of kind of relating it to Iran. And how
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: obviously you know, as we mentioned, person acution has really
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: just made this church and iron explode talk about the
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: cut flower problem in America.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: So so here's the way I like to think of America.
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: We are so blessed, We're so blessed like as a
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: nation that how how profoundly Christian our roots are. That
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: root produced that Christian those Christian roots produced a beautiful
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: flower like one of the and this is really a
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: Western civilization in general. You could you could you could
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: describe the story for Western civilization. So Western civilization was
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: so shaped by Christ. So the ethic, the value system,
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: the imago day, by the way that emerge, where where
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: we get the basis for human rights?
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: Right? We take human rights for granted, human rights came.
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: From it rooted in a Christian understanding of the value
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: of the individual. Without I think it's where people get.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: It kills me because I see so many Christians who
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: don't appreciate how important it is that we have a
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: basis for where our rights come from. So for instance,
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: when our when our declaration says uh and now by
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: our creator, by certain available right. Those rights didn't come
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: from just anywhere. It wasn't like men of the Enlightenment
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: who were just like, oh, we can reason too, we
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: should treat people this way and that way. And that's
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: not where it came from. Our rights come from our creators.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the French Revolution was a disaster, in the American
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: Revolution wasn't because it was based on biblical principles and
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: and God basically.
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: Yes and so so again. This is where after crossing
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: the Rubicon, I spend a lot. Like my heart, I
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: have a heart for our country, have heart for America,
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: and I have a heart for God's Church across the world.
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: I want to see I want to see every country
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: be a Christian country. Imagine that that freaks people out
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: when you say that, But I want to see the world.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: I want to see that the glory of God cover
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: the earth.
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: Like the waters of the sea. I que back, except
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: I wanted. I want to see that, and I think
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: God is doing that. He's redeeming, He is redeeming the world.
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: I take a more post millennial.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: Uh uh, where it was going to say, for where,
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: for where?
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: For where God is going?
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: And it doesn't mean that it's all advancing at the
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: same time, but overall, and that's what this guy actually
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: tied their discussion together pretty well too, is when the
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: more I think Americans study and learn about the church
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: abroad in the world, the more you can see the
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: way God is advancing his kingdom on earth. So it's
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: it's not like it's the hearing not yet as well, right,
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: So you're you're seeing God's kingdom grow even though we're
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: seeing retreat in America. So back to your point the
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: cut flower. So America has these profoundly Christian roots that
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: produce this beautiful flower. And what's happened is over time
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: we have intentionally tried to disconnect from those roots. We
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: tried to we tried to disconnect from God.
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: And when that happens, you.
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: See, like the flowers beauty is still there, like like
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: the you cut the flower away, that it's still a
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: beautiful flower for a while, right, and then it starts
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: to starts to with it starts to fade because no longer.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: Has has that foundation. And we see that in America.
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: We've seen the way we've drifted so far from God
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: and the impact that's had on the moral rot in
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: our country, and I look at the application for America
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: as to say, hey, the church was actually not it
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: was not growing in this comfortable, secular world in Iran.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: Isn't that crazy? It wasn't really growing.
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: Then it started growing when they face severe persecution. And
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: so I don't want that to happen in America by
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: any means. I don't want us to face severe persecution.
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: But when we see things like Charlie Kirk coming back
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: to that in my personal story, and I've seen so
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: many other thousands of us, right, thousands of us in
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: this nation.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: Who have been embolden, and.
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: Christians who have been embolden in their faith, but also
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: people who weren't saved yet who have started to seek God.
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: They want to buy a Bible for the first time
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: in their lives, they want to go to church. When
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: you experience that type of event, there's it does something
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: for us to wake us up again, to say, Wow,
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: we've been comfortable for so long, we've been in this
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: we've kind of bought the lie of secular neutrality, and
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: we're gone through the motions and we needed we need
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: to be woken up again. We need we need revival.
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: And in order for that flower to not completely wither.
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: We have to return to our Christian roots, and so
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: I get fired up about that. I want to see
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: us appreciate what's going on in Iran, what's going on
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: in the Middle East and the persecuted church, and ask
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: on for mercy that we don't see that happen here
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: one day, but that the church can wake up and
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: and return to God in our own country too.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Did you go to Charlie Kirk's memorial.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: I didn't go to it. I wish I went to it.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: I was plugged into it the whole day on the
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: on the TV.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I was absolutely stunned. How much you go?
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: No, I didn't know, but I watched the whole thing,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: all five hours of it or whatever, and I was done.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: To the core.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: How much Jesus was proclaimed at that memorial. I mean,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it. I was like, billions of people
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: are I.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Don't know how many. I don't know. I don't know
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the numbers on who ended up.
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it was. I think it was. It was.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: It was a lot of people. It was over it
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: was over one hundred million people.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, yeah, million, hundreds of millions of people
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: are watching this and they're hearing the Gospel over and
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: over and over and over again, like this is incredible. Well, yeah,
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: it was amazing. I was I was, Yeah, I was shocked.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: What's also crazy on that too? That kind just made
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: a video on this.
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: Today, you will still have Christians, progressive prisian. You'll still
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: have Christians who looked at that, looked at that, uh.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: That ceremony, memorial service. Sorry, you looked at the momorial
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: service and they hated it, I know.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: And they didn't want to see. They didn't want to
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: see our leaders are our elected officials. They didn't want
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: to see them proclaiming the Gospel. And like Marco Rubio said, uh,
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: it was beautiful.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: And how could you not as a Christian like be
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: glad and thank.
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: The Lord that we have elected officials that honor him
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: in this way and that want to honor him in
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: this way.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: It blows the mind.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I can't I can't think of I mean,
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: I think I can't think of anything in modern history
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: that where elected officials proclaimed Christ in this way.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: I mean I don't think that they never had.
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: They used to back in the day. Like we have
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: profoundly Christian roots where like we used to have this
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: is what this video I just made on.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: We used to have calls to national calls to repentance.
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: That would make the modern pasture blush, like they were
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: so like crazy about our manifold.
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  Speaker 4: Sins and through the through the merits and mediation of
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: Jesus Christ, we confess our sins. We used to do
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  Speaker 4: that from Congress and the President.
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  Speaker 5: So anyways, I say that to say back to how's
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: this tie in with iron? The people, the Christians in Iran, like,
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  Speaker 5: what would they give to have leaders like that? What
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: would they give for that? So as Christians America's like,
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  Speaker 5: let's let's get it. Let's get let's get on fire again.
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  Speaker 5: Let's repent from our own sins in the church. But
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  Speaker 5: let's be praying that we as a nation return to
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  Speaker 5: God and the fear.
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  Speaker 4: Of the Lord.
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  Speaker 1: Amen to that. Well, let's leave it there.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Blake Bozarreth, I appreciate you coming on the show and
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: talking about this.
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: Great to be here man, Thanks for having me.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Beckett
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Cook Show. Your support makes this content possible. All episodes
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: of The Becky Cook Show are also available on YouTube.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: For more information about Beckett and his ministry, visit his
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: website at becket dot com.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: Thank you to the team at Life Audio for their
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: partnership with us.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: If you go to lifeaudio dot
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: Com, you will find more faith centered podcasts about prayer,
• 37:09
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