Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Elijah Abraham: Former Muslim Now Preaching Gospel Of Christ

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Elijah Abraham: Former Muslim Now Preaching Gospel Of Christ · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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defending biblical Christianity.
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No topic off limits.
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And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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Hey, friends and family in Christ, thank you so much for tuning in and as always, thank
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you for sharing the podcast.
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That's what has gotten us out there and praise God.
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We're still a relatively new show, but we can see the growth and it's because of you.
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And of course, God's sovereignty.
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So thank you so much.
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I love this brother of mine that I'm going to bring in that I haven't talked to in a while,
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but it's his first time on World View Matters.
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He's a pastor, a teacher of pastors and evangelists and we're going to get a lot of information
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on his background, how you can share the gospel with Muslims.
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And basically, the differences between American Christianity and biblical Christianity, I know
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that could be a six hour show, but I want to bring in my friend Elijah Abraham.
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Welcome to World View Matters, brother.
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Thank you, David.
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It's always a pleasure to be in your show, a previous show, but I'm really happy for you
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with what you are doing now and I know God is going to use it for his glory.
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Yeah, so far, so good.
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And I want to believe that he is using it and I'm so thankful.
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And that's because of the guests that I've been able to talk to like yourself.
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It's good to get you over here now and we will continue this conversation.
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Lord willing, if Jesus doesn't return in the near future many, many times.
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But I want to first of all, our audience cannot see you.
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They can hear you, but they cannot see you.
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I want you to explain your background, you grew up in Iraq and secure for security reasons.
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You are not sharing audio or video and pictures when you go to the events, you tell people
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don't take pictures.
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And so once you'd explain your history and why that is right.
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Like he said, I grew up in Iraq as a Muslim and the Lord brought me to America and I could
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tell you a little bit about my testimony and little bit, but the reason for not showing
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my pictures, because I am a missionary, global missionary, I've been in 47 countries.
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And sometimes the Lord leads me to go to Muslim countries or Hindu countries or communist
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countries that they are not very friendly to the gospel, they're not friendly to missionaries
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or pastors or teachers like myself.
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So and also here in America, we had a number of death threats on my life and my family.
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I have to evacuate my family twice in different locations.
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So the Lord, when he called us, he did not call us to be stupid.
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So God wants us to be wise, wise as servants and homeless it does.
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So this is one of my way of trying to be wise, not to accelerate anything that is not
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in God's timing.
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So that's why the reason I ask that when I travel overseas or even in American churches
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I do speak at, I do request, please do not take my photos, do not audit tape or videotape.
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Because once somebody take my photo, I don't know that person, it's out of anybody's control
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because once it's pulled up and uploaded in social media, it's a done deal.
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Makes our ministry more difficult as well as threatening threats to my family.
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Boy, when you say you've had death threats, that's a modern understanding of they hated Jesus
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and they will hate us as well.
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I mean, you're living at brother, you do a lot of international traveling and you go to Muslim
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countries and I'm just so thankful for the work that you do.
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Can we go a little bit back before you came to Texas?
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I think you went to seminary there, if I remember right, to share a little bit about your history
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and when you came to the Lord and whatever you'd like to share.
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Yeah, I'll give you the short version of my testimony.
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I mean, if we sit down, we could talk for two or three hours.
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No, like I said, growing up in a Muslim family, when you're born in a Muslim family,
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have no trustworthy Muslim and due to the war in the Iranian Iraq, my dad had to smuggle
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me out of the country at the risk of his life and the risk of the family life,
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cause some almost $100,000 back then, which is equivalent to $400,000 of today's money.
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I lived in Europe for about seven years and while I'm in Europe, it was the end of my tenure there.
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I also received death threats, got beaten up a number of times, not for faith,
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but Saddam wanted more men to come and fight the his war with Iran in the 80s.
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So I had to escape and come to the United States and the first few months was really difficult
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time of my life and that's when God really got my attention and I had to seek him,
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but the only one I knew I had to seek him is Islamic way.
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Didn't I find God in the true God in Islam or the Quran?
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So I saw them in other world religions and praise God, the Lord led me to the Christian faith.
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And unfortunately, I fell into that, you know, trap of easy believeism,
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even though I did not know what the gospel was, but I was told, well, if you surround the alive,
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you walk down the island, pray the prayer in your Christian, you're in and get dumped and
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sit in the back and to drip dry.
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So and that's really what happened to me, I rejected Christianity, Islam accepted Christianity,
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but for six years, I thought I was saved, although it's just nominal Christian, so from Islam
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into nominal Christianity, it's no faith. I mean, he's still lost from both ends, not until 1995,
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when I met my wife and the Lord used her really to, for me to question my faith because of her life,
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and that's when I got in the word of God and asked the Lord to show me, if I'm safe,
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assure me, but if I'm lost, convict me, well, guess what, he convicted me. It took me a few months
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later for a lot of study and contemplating and a lot of fear, of course, and Satan used that against me,
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but ultimately through another event that I surrender my life to the Lord and was an amazing
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transformation because I never thought God loved me. There is also a thing in Islam that Allah loves
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humanity or humans, especially Muslims, because the relationship between Allah and Muslims
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is slave to slave master and relationship in Christ's father to a son, adopted son in Christ Jesus.
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So that was a really big huge, it took me a long time to finally dare to call God Father.
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It just was unheard of for a month to call God Father, but it's such an intimate, wonderful,
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sweet fellowship that we as Christians should not take that granted. We just need to thank the
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Lord for his sacrifice to give us that opportunity and the privilege to be his children.
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So after that, we moved to Texas, went to seminary and I trained missionaries for three years,
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while I was in seminary and after seminary. I was a mission pastor for about four years and then
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the Lord called us to start our own ministry, be independent missionaries because we wanted to be
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led by the Holy Spirit wherever the Lord leads will go instead of doing somebody else's agenda or
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mission agency or other ministries, not even a local church. I just want to go and do what God
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called me to do and equipped me to do. So, praise God, our ministry has been, I mean, God can take a
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guy like me from Baghdad to use them in 47 countries if nobody asks, so I don't believe miracles,
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that's a miracle by itself. So the Lord has blessed me to minister to the persecuted church pastors
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that really kind of opened my eyes and a lot of things and I thought I was persecuted, but nothing
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like these brothers and sisters. Also, teach the biblical theology, sound biblical doctrines,
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that unfortunately American Christianity has corrupted the gospel internationally and so I
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just opened up scripture, let's go through scripture, let the word of God speak to us and people,
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especially our teach pastors and the life has been transformed. So, praise God for that. Also,
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we start doing humanitarian work in Ukraine where just last year we sent over tons of flour,
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15 tons of food, thousands of bibles and tracks, we sustained over 3000 refugees in Moldova,
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all for, you know, 11 supporters and 100% of the donation goes to that ministry. I don't
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keep any of it, any money of it, any penny of it, and that is because I don't have an overhead
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or administration to take like some of these big agencies 10, 15, 20%, so praise the Lord for that.
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Yes, it's interesting when you say yes to God, I just watch out how he's going to use you.
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Amen, brother, if we're open, we'll talk about some of your recent trips in a minute, but I want
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to go back. There must have been a transition, Elijah, in your growth as a mature Christian,
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doctrinally and theologically, when you were learning, because at one point you must have
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started seeing the American church, and as you mentioned, seeing what they were, what we were
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exporting, whether it was, would be the prosperity gospel or Christian liberalism or whatever,
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or social justice or a christlam, there must have been some point where you were growing in your own
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faith, and then you're teaching or your ministry took a little turn in the fact that you've got to
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go to the pastors now and kind of reeducate them, and that's part of your ministry and what you do
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now. So can you talk to us a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely not. I think that's what's
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plaguing the American church is the view of the scripture. Just last Saturday night, I
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talked for three hours to young adults, ages 19 to 25, and my first session is about the Bible,
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and I asked them, what do you think of the Bible? Do you trust it? Is it trustworthy? Does
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I have authority? Is it God's word? Because our view of the Bible, if it's shaky, of course,
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you're going to be entertaining all these ideas and other views and other beliefs. But if you tell
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of me, if this heaven and earth passes away, but my belief in the Bible will not be shaken,
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which is just like what Paul said in Romans 8, 38, and 39, I like that. There's one word that I
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really love what he said. Some translation have a little bit different twist to it or different words
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they use. He said, for I end convinced, other translations says, I end persuaded. I like that
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word convinced. It's telling me that Paul, what he is about to tell us, which is the finale of
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eight chapters of Romans, that he is so convinced in his core that need a lot for death or angels or
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demons or principalities will change his mind about the love of Christ for us. And that's how I see
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the Bible. And that's what I try to help pastors and anybody I talk to who is struggling whatever
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world ideology or their own belief system and even within the church with the nomination of all
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that kind of theological issues. I said, okay, what do you know about the Bible? Well, it's God's
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work, okay? It's from him, not from men, right? Yeah. It's God perfect yet. So his word of God is
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perfect. So what he gave us in the Bible is what he wanted to teach us and told us about how life
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started, how creation started, why do we came to being and what happened in the garden,
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what are the consequences, all of that, right? So we have to trust what he said in the Bible, right?
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Yeah. So if you have any doubts, get in the work. And that's really for me, it's a simple answer.
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But unfortunately, you got way too many guys and churches with PhDs that they have corrupted
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what the Bible says. And now some of them, they even doubt and they said, oh, the Bible is not the
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only word of God. There are other sources. Of course, you're going to be open to Islam. Of course,
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you're going to give credibility and authority to the Quran where you got some missionaries
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trying to witness from the Quran. Man, the Quran is not aspired by the Holy Spirit. So if it's
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not aspired by the Holy Spirit, inspired by some spirit, which is not Godly spirit. That's right.
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So, so that's where I know it's a long answer to your question, but it's an excellent question
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because unless we settle what the Bible is in our life and our mind and our spirit, we will struggle.
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I don't care who you are, what education you have, where you live around the world, you will struggle
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of any issue in life. It's the same thing what somebody says, I suffer from depression or
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worrying or fear or I have trouble forgiving or I hold on to anxiety or the all of that. Okay.
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Which God do you believe in? What do you know about him? Who is he to you? Is he powerful enough?
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Is he loving enough? Is he personal enough? He's so personal that he said, look, I'm going to
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even going to adopt you. Call you a son and you call me a father and I'm going to live
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among you someday. I'm going to see you're going to see me face to face. Is that the God you
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believe in? Also, if you ask the God you believe in and he gives us his word to be the anchor
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and foundation of our life, worry and depression and all of that would just disappear because God can
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take all of that and heal you from it. So these other things again, go back to what is the
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Bible to you? If you don't settle that in your life as a Christian, you can have some problems
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later on in life. Yes. And we've talked, we'll do this on another program, Lord willing, Elijah.
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We've talked about the importance of the authority of the word of God, the inerrancy of the scriptures
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and on and on and on. But we've got to take a quick break. We're with Elijah Abraham.
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When we come back, we'll talk a little bit about his travels and that's coming up next.
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Today's show is brought to you by Harbinger's Daily. World news,
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biblically understood. Stay informed at harbingersdaily.com.
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All right, guys, just a reminder. I've just learned this. If you're listening to our
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That's worldviewmatters.tv and just click on an email. So I something I was thinking about when
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we were talking Elijah in the first part of the show. It always comes back to, I think you've shared
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this verse plenty. First John chapter four. Do not believe every spirit, but test the
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spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
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And then it says, by this, you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus
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Christ has come in the flesh is from God. Understandable now. Right. Pretty simple. And then
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verse three and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit
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of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is already in the world. So, and then of course
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we love to quote greater as he who is in me than he who is in the world, but we need to read in
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context leading up to that. So wherever you want to take us, we'll talk about that and then we'll
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talk about some of the recent trips. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I, I memorized that passage,
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those four verses because I have fellow missionaries and agencies or some professors. And these
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are Christians, okay. Where they say as far as Muslim evangelism, they say we worship the same God,
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we could witness from the Quran. When a missionary goes to Muslim countries, he can identify
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himself as a Muslim. He could go to the mosque and pray up and down, but he's praying to Jesus in
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his heart. So he's not denying Jesus. And that's the Christian movement. And to me, it's like, okay,
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if again, back to, do I believe the Bible is the only true word of God? If that's the case,
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then anything outside the Bible is not inspired by God. And the scripture locked that to what he said
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and the test is any spirit that the confess Jesus came in the flesh is from God. Pretty good
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test, but any spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And he identifies it. I love
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what John did, the Holy Spirit, of course, wrote that for us. He does not leave me in the darkness.
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He said, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you've heard that is coming out already in the
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world. So that tells me any ideology, any spirit, any religion, any music, any movie, anything that
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does not confess Jesus and blasphemes against Jesus is not from God. It's an Antichrist spirit.
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Well, look, if we look at Islam, for example, then what is the spirit of Islam? Does Islam believe
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Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God? Yes, there is no. Does Islam believe in the Trinity?
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Absolutely no. Does Islam believe that God is the person of God that we would know him here and
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we will see him and walk with him and after life? The answer is no. So how in the world that we
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could say, we worship the same God, and how could we say that? Oh, yeah, the Quran is inspired.
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There is truth in the Quran, so we could witness from the Quran. So that's the problem that we
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are having here. And the last verse where it talks about a great issue that is in you that
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in this world, that's in the context. I'm glad you mentioned that that's in the context of
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discernment, not to be deceived. And if we are not deceived, because why? Because we put on our
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discernment glasses at the certain hand, the Holy Spirit in us, and he gives us that warning signs
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because great is he that is in me, that he then is a world which is an Antichrist spirit.
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So we've got to be careful and not pray that every believer continue, look at those four verses.
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And there are other passages kind of say the same thing, but this one is straightforward,
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memorized it, and apply it in your life as a Christian. And that's my encouragement to every believer.
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Oh my goodness. I'm just thinking we probably need to share the next couple verses. It says,
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they are from the world. Therefore they speak as of the world. And the world listens to them.
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And then verse six, as we are from God, the one who knows God listens to us. The one who is not
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from God does not listen to us. And by this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
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Elijah Abraham, John couldn't have been more clear, I don't think.
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It's straightforward. I mean, that's one of the things about the Bible. I think sometimes we
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complicate the scripture. Sometimes we try to put things in the text that is not there.
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You know, whether it be creation account or the gospels or these instructions that we are dealing
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with now, we complicate it. Just read it for what it is that the Holy Spirit teaches you,
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is God's word. He's not God of confusion. He is one of us to follow his instructions. Do we
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stray from it? Absolutely. Every now and then why? Because we still have this flesh that it's
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still needs to be redeemed, but God gave us guidelines to follow.
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So we're running out of time quickly. Now I want to get to some of your recent travels.
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So the last trip you were on just share some highlights for those that don't know what you do
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and where you go. I know. Yeah. Yeah. My last trip I went to Indonesia. That was my ninth time
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to Indonesia since 2012. And I taught in three seminaries. I conducted four passes conferences
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in four cities. I preached in five churches and I did the three seminars to church leaders.
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All in less than 20 days. Wow. But but that's the thing when I go to countries like this,
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you would and Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. So two days after I arrived there,
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I preached at a mega church. Well, I mean mega church. It's a size of American mega churches.
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Who would have thought that you'll see mega churches in largest Muslim country in the world?
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But it's basically prosperity, God's will health and what God's wills and that kind of thing.
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So they had three services. The first service was like seven o'clock in the morning. It's like
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who's going to show for seven? Well, we had about 1500 people show up. Second service was about 1030,
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another 1500. The third service, five o'clock in the afternoon, we had about 2000 in those three
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services. I said, okay, thank you for inviting me. I appreciate the opening of Bibles and I could see
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the shock in the face like, oh, we're going to we're going to open our Bible today. So I could
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I open the yeah, open the Bible, go through the text and I take them from Genesis to Revelation
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about looking up for the blessed hope and what God has in store for the believers and they never
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heard anything like this. I did an invitation in those three services. We had 40 people got saved.
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So as a result of all these conferences, I kept getting invitations because people are hungry,
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passes are hungry. They never been taught this scripture. So this year, I'm going twice and
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June and September. So this is the first time I'm going to Indonesia twice in one year, usually I do
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only one one time. But next month, I will be traveling to Eastern Europe. They're going to Poland,
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Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine. In Ukraine, we will take two two vans, cargo vans, full of food,
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supplies, medical supplies, clothing, as well as scripture. And I will be there in the right
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there in the war zone where towns are being bombed at and so on and some of these beloved are
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with no water, no food, no electricity. And we're going to meet an almost semi bondage church,
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just preach the word and love on them. And we've seen a lot of fruit out of this ministry that I
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have the privilege to join my partners in Moldova to do that.
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So weren't you, didn't you share a little bit about Ukraine a year ago? Were you there?
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Yes. Last March, I went to five countries in 21 days in Eastern Europe, one of which is
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Ukraine. And that's when I went to Ukraine for the first time. But was a different region, was not
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affected by the war, but was affected by displaced refugees. But this time, they want me to go where
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it's close to Odessa and that area, it's being affected by the bombs and the fighting.
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Briefly, I know we don't have time to talk about it, but when you were sharing the story about when
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you said, open up your Bibles, I mean, let's just look back at America. I remember I was at a
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seeker sensitive church in Southern California about 20 years ago. And people didn't bring their
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Bibles. I'm going, what the heck is the pastor literally said, all right, open up your bullet,
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the bulletin, there's a verse in the bulletin. And I'm thinking, and it was just just fluff, it wasn't,
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so they don't teach the whole council of God, they don't mention Bible prophecy, they don't go
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verse by verse, so problematic. And that's right here in America. So Elijah, I know your heart is
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just to, to encourage believers in the biblical worldview to train and equip pastors,
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sometimes reeducate. But for the last couple of minutes, just speak to our need here in America,
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we need to be evangelized in our own churches, but speak to the need we have here and what we can do
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as believers here. Well, as you know, this, this year's going to be a volatile year with the
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election, we see wars, possible wars, possible third world wars and rumors of wars,
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pestilence and earthquakes and all of that. I mean, we live in it. And that makes people anxious.
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Yeah. Even God's people are somehow anxious. And that kind of, to me, surprised me, it's like, okay,
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which God do we serve? So it's, is he in charge of the whole universe? Isn't he sovereign? Am I his
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child, if I'm his child? Don't you think he'll take care of me? That doesn't mean I'm not going to
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have trouble finding food or my house would be bombed or being taken away. But all that temporary,
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you know, eternal life is forever. And that's something we have to put that in, keep in focus.
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So my encouragement to people, get in the word, trust God, trust the word of God, let the Holy
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Spirit minister to you, band with like-minded fellow believers, brothers and sisters who have
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the same worldview. So because you don't want to argue with others who have a different worldview.
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And just pray and be an instrument, be the light of the world, people are anxious, go tell them that
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they don't have to be. And God is already conquered that. And he's seated at the right hand of the
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Father and we wait in for his return or come and take us Lord, either way. Yeah, we've got to live
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it and be confident in, in the assurance of our salvation. And people look at us in these crazy
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times and go, how can you be so calm? We Christians of all people should not be fearful. But friends,
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the website again for Elijah is living oasis.org that's living oasis.org. We will pick up this
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conversation. Again, my friend, just thankful for the work that you do. I'm glad we reconnected
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here and thankful for your time today. God bless your brother. God bless you. Thank you. All right,
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friends, Elijah Abraham, you can learn more about his ministry on the website. And
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we're just so thankful for you for sharing the podcast and we'll keep it going. Lord willing.
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And we thank you for sharing and for listening, for watching. God bless you. And as always,
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keep speaking the truth about things that matter.