Sid: My guest Reza Safa born in the Middle East, raised in Shiite Islamic studies. He literally was what I’ve been calling not a radical Muslim; he was a normal Muslim it happens to be synonymous. You have people in the religion of Islam and then you have normal Muslims. Now on Mondays broadcast we started something and we never got to it on Tuesday’s Reza you just recently got back from India. Now these Hindu’s how many Hindus accepted the Lord would you say from this trip?
Reza: I estimated three nights about 180,000 people.
Sid: And you see a Hindu will not accept, I always remembered the story of T.L. Osborn when he went to India he was a burned out missionary and then he learned about the supernatural; he learned about miracles and his whole life was transformed. Tell me you know I know a lot of people were healed at this meeting, but pick one person and tell me about one healing you saw with your eyes.
Reza: Well, one girl she must have been, and we have all of this actually on tape, we had a camera person that filmed the whole thing and we’re showing it on our shows. One girl twelve years old that she was deaf mute, born deaf mute and hear ears opened and she was very scared on the stage as you see the camera shooting her face she’s in tremendous fear because she hears all these sounds and with her mouth she can say words. It’s really amazing experience to see people that are born blind, we’ve see that many time in India, people that are born blind just a fear get hold of them and starts seeing everything. People that are crippled and lame and what God is doing is tremendous, but that girl really touched my heart seeing her face how scared she was when her ears opened up.
Sid: Now, just out of curiosity when did you realize that the Bible was true that when someone believes in Jesus they’ll do the same works that Jesus did and even greater. When did you start seeing the blind see, the deaf ears open, the lame walking?
Reza: You know Sid when I got the Bible from these two Swedish missionary in Persian language for the first time what fascinated me more than anything was Jesus healing because there are no miracles in Koran and Mohammad performed no miracles whatsoever. And the healings and the four gospels fascinated me greatly and when I got saved there was a Pakistani brother who had just accepted the Lord he was also Muslim. And he told me about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So it was a Lutheran church where I got saved in so I didn’t know anything about various denominations various beliefs I just read the Bible and practiced it. And of course in that Lutheran church they kept telling me, “No, you just calm down you don’t lay hands on people, you don’t pray for the sick people.” But this brother gave me a book by Kenneth Hagen and by T.L. Osborn, and reading that book on T.L. Osborn just touched me and you know I start from early timing in my Christian walk started practicing laying hands on the sick. And as a matter of fact this was my philosophy I used to knock on door of Muslims and ask them, “Is there anyone here who’s sick?” Because I knew if I argue with them about Jesus that’s going to go forever I say about the Bible, they say about the Koran. But I thought if I can get them healed then they will listen to me because that power manifestation doesn’t exist in Islam. One great example of this is my mother she came to see me in Spain after four years that they had disowned me for the first time after my conversion. And the first day she arrived because they thought I’m mentally crazy they actually tried to put me in a mental hospital through the embassy in Sweden. And I noticed that she had pain in her arms so I said to her, “Momma, what’s wrong with you?” She said, “I’ve got rheumatism in this arm.” Well, instantly I knew in my spirit this is my chance. So I lay hands on her Sid, and I said, I didn’t ask her anything I just said, see the Bible doesn’t say pray for the sick, in the Bible Jesus said “Go heal the sick.” I lay hands on her and I say “Momma, Jesus Christ of Nazareth heals you” and instantly the pain left her. From that day on she; every time she had a prayer request she would call me and of course two years ago she accepted the Lord so…
Sid: You know I had the identical thing happen with my mother, my mother would not become a believer in Jesus but when I pray for her miracles would happen and whenever my mother got sick she started calling me and then she started calling me for some of her friends to pray. She still wasn’t a believer in Jesus and before she died she became a believer in the Messiah so there’s a lot of parallel in our life Reza and for those Mishpochah that don’t know it Reza has the most wonderful television network in the Farsi language in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan wherever they speak in the Farsi language. And It’s Supernatural is on his network, tell me about that network, how did you even start it?
Reza: Well, about ten years ago Sid the Lord spoke to me that I will broadcast the pro-Christian program and TV programming around the world and at that time I didn’t know that there was such a possibility and that there was satellites. And about five years ago the Lord spoke to me supernaturally I was in a little church in Philadelphia and the Lord said to me “The man is coming tonight and giving you $90,000; $50,000 for your crusades in India two crusades in India” through which over 300,000 Hindu’s came to Christ. And He said, “The rest of it $40,000 buy TV equipment, you’re going to soon start broadcasting.” I said, “Lord, $90,000, this church if they give me $1,500 after the service I’ll be tap dancing.” And of course the Lord did what He said; the man came and gave me $90,000, he pledged it that night sent to checks to me the following week and I did what the Lord said in India. And then the rest of it I bought equipment and I started taping Christian programming in Farsi language without knowing where I’m going to air it.
Sid: I was going to say I don’t think they allowed Christian programming at that time.
Reza: Exactly, wouldn’t allow it at all. So I started taping this programming. So here’s the interesting thing, when I was in California I preach in a little church, Iranian church. They told me about these satellite networks that are popping up in California broadcasting into Iran. And so I called one of the and I realized that I could buy air time and these are you know through satellites so the Iranian government couldn’t control them and I started an hour weekly through this secular satellite station, and then I turned into three hours weekly and then last year Paul Crouch heard about us and we went into a partnership and began the whole network 24-7.
Sid: What affect is this having, I mean are Islamic people in Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan and the other nations are they really watching Christian television?
Reza: Oh Sid, you would be amazed in Iran for the past 27 years of this rain of this Islamic regime and oppressive Sharia law the majority of people are either suicidal. Over 2 million kids are hooked on drugs. There is, they have you know when Khomeini came to power he said “Joy is on Islamic we will kill joy in Iran.” And he did it, and so their hearts have been so receptive. You know a few years ago, ten years ago it would have taken me a whole year to give the Bible to a Iranian to get him to read it. They would argue forever with me on it, but today they see our program, half-hour and they weep during the whole time, they call us long distance wait in line for twenty thirty minutes. Call us within six month or within a year time after time after time again in order to have a time to pray with us.
Sid: Tell me one specific person, I like specifics.
Reza: Well, I just had a call yesterday that I talked to a man who was in Sweden, this man his wife went to the church and apparently she became a Christian. Now he would refuse to go to the church, she started establishing a relationship with a man who lead her to the Lord and committed adultery and this led to confusion upon this man. And he started cussing Christianity, cussing church, went through divorce with his wife just incredible heartbreak. One night he was so angry he gets a gun he decides to kill the man who committed adultery with his wife. At night he prays this prayer to Jesus. He says Jesus are you the Son of God? Are you hearing what I’m going to do? Because I’m going to kill this man tomorrow, if you are, stop me. So he goes to sleep the following morning his plan was to go to the church and shoot the man. He goes to sleep, 3:00 at night somebody taps him on the shoulders and says “Get up and watch TV.” He thinks it’s his brother he tells him, “No, no I’m not going to get up and watch TV it’s the middle of the night, go to bed, he calls his brother go to bed. The guy taps him on the shoulder again and say “Get up and watch the TV.” He gets up, he goes and he see all the rooms lights are on which he turned everything off when he went to bed; he looks around, he thought it was his brother sitting in the room, it wasn’t his brother. There was nobody there and the TV was on and it was a movie on Jesus. It was a Jesus movie on channel 4. Jesus was talking about revenge, “Eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” And he just sits there and fear comes upon him that this is God is speaking to him and he starts sweating profusely, and after a while he comes down and turns the light off, goes to bed. Gets up in the morning and he just gets away from the idea of killing the man. And one day he was watching the TV and he came across my program, and he heard me preaching and he said, “I was making fun of you in the beginning but once I started listening to you he said for 24 hour I waited in front of the TV just to hear you to teach. And he said that day he laid his hands on TV and accepted Jesus and now this was last month he came to Christ. He said, “His forgiven his wife and now he wants to serve the Lord, he called me and said, “What do I do?”
Sid: Listen, revival is happening there; revival happening among Muslims…
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth