April 24, 2026 Show with Farshid Razaee on “How God’s Sovereign Providence in a Newspaper Printing of the Sermon on the Mount Lead a Muslim to Salvation in Jesus Christ”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 24th day of April 2026.

Two years ago, when I was having some serious technical difficulties with my iMac,

I made a public announcement in social media requesting an urgent need for assistance, and out of the blue, a brother responded.

But although he was unable to bring the difficulty to a full fix, there was a connection that was made.

And two years later, when I also made an announcement on social media that I was looking for Iranian -born former

Muslims who had converted to Christ to interview on my program, that same individual responded to that announcement, and he is my guest today.

And I didn't even realize until yesterday, I think it was, that these individuals are the same person that he had tried to help me two years ago with an iMac problem.

But my guest today is Farshid Rezaei, and he is

Iranian by birth, raised in the religion of Islam, and saved by the sovereign grace of a holy

God. Today, a Reformed Baptist and campus minister with the organization called

PRISM, which stands for Pittsburgh Region International Student Ministries.

And today, he's going to be addressing how God's sovereign providence led a newspaper in Iran to print the sermon on the mount leading a

Muslim to Jesus Christ and saving his soul. Hallelujah. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Farshid—now I'm screwing up your name—Farshid

Rezaei. Welcome, brother. Hi, Chris, and let me also say hi to everyone who's listening live.

I consider it an honor to be interviewed today, and I hope that the story of how

God changed my life would encourage those who are listening. Amen.

And I am just also praising God for his providence in coordinating and orchestrating and decreeing that you and I would meet, although we have not yet met face to face other than through the computer screen here.

And it's also a double pleasure knowing that a brother who

I've already interviewed twice, who's going to be my guest on Monday, Pouyan Mershahi, has nothing but the highest regards for you, and he was very thrilled that I'm interviewing you today.

So that confirmed even more strongly that this was a providential gift from God to have you on the program.

Well, first of all, before we get into your testimony, tell us more about PRISM and all that you do and all that it stands for.

I'm sure. So PRISM, as you mentioned, stands for Pittsburgh Region International Student Ministries.

Here in Pittsburgh, there are at least 13 ,000 international students studying at universities.

Most of them are at Carnegie Mellon and also at Pitt University. So they come here for their studies, master's,

PhD, postdoc. And so they have spent three to five or even more years here in Pittsburgh.

So our organization ministers to them. We do a lot of things for them.

The biggest thing that we do is when the new international students are coming to Pittsburgh, our organization is connected to like 40 different churches.

And people from these churches, they bring furniture to us and they donate it.

And then we collect them, we sort them out. And then through the universities, we tell the international students that are coming for the first time on this particular day, come and we will give you free furniture.

We realize that many of them that come here and if they have found a place to live, the apartments may be empty.

So having a table and a chair is something that they appreciate. We take our students on a trip like state parks.

We take them to Niagara Falls. We have a class that international students can practice

English. And we have multiple Bible studies for beginners, for those who are familiar with the

Bible. We have women's Bible study also happening. And we are very clearly

Christian organization. But of course, we are welcoming everyone with whatever belief.

And we do have Christian content in much of what we do. So if I can give you just two other examples.

Every other Friday, we have an event called Open House. And those 40 churches that I mentioned, one of them volunteers and they bring dealers.

So students come, they eat dinner together, we have group discussion, we have games.

And then we have a talk about one of the themes of the Bible. But because many of those people attending that event might not have read the

Bible at all, we try to keep it simple, maybe not use Christian jargon.

But we tell them that you can come next Friday if you want to know more about what the

Bible teaches. So the other two Fridays, we have a house fellowship, which is a

Bible study. And the other one, which is one of the,

I would say, very important ones, is that international students, they come and sign up for our connection program.

Basically, in this program, we have American volunteers and we have international students.

And they can connect to each other through four different ways. One is friendship.

They just want to spend time with someone as they are away from family and friends. We have for English, if they want to improve their

English, talking to a native speaker. We have one for mentorship, if they are looking for a mentor.

And we also have one -to -one Bible study. Right now, we have 300 of those connections.

So I'm really, really thankful that God led me to Pre -Med.

Because I just love it and it doesn't feel like a job. And I know it's a privilege that many people do not have.

Because they need the money, they have to do something that they don't like. But for me, out of God's grace,

I leave home every day in the morning to go and do something I love. And so I'm really thankful.

All right. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about PRISM, you can go to their website, which is prismpgh .org.

And God willing, we will repeat that later on in the program.

Well, I am dying to hear more about your testimony, starting in the earliest days of your youth.

Having been born and raised for a period of your life, a significant period of your life, in Iran.

Or Iran, as I believe may be a more appropriate way of pronouncing it.

But if you could start at the beginning in Iran. Absolutely.

So I was born into a Muslim family. And in Iran, right from the first grade of elementary school, they start teaching you about Islam.

And I didn't know a single thing about Christianity, except what my Muslim teachers were telling me.

And Jesus is only a man. He's only a prophet. He wasn't God. He did not die on the cross.

And the Bible has been corrupted. I remember that in first grade of elementary school,

I was actually doing so well in the Islamic courses that my parents signed me up for an extra class.

And it was about knowing more about Quran and Islam. And I even went for a competition to recite

Quran. As I was growing up, as I mentioned, much of the education right from the elementary school is about the teaching about Islam.

There is one thing I don't go into too much detail about that. But Iran is, if I'm not mistaken, one or maybe one of the two only

Shiite Muslim majority countries in the world. So the other Muslim world are mostly

Sunni. And according to the Shiite version of Islam, they believe that after Muhammad, there were 12

Imams that were put in charge of the government, the society, and of course for Islam as well.

And the first Imam is Muhammad's cousin called Ali. Second and the third

Imams are Ali's sons, Hassan and Hussein. And after that, it would be father, son, father, son, until the

Imam number 12. And for Shiite Muslims, the third Imam called

Hussein is revered a lot. He was a grandson of Muhammad. And Shiite Muslims believe that he was in a battle happening in the country,

Iraq, which lasted 10 days. And so the Imam and his followers were 72 people.

The enemy had thousands. After those 10 days, everyone on the side of the Imam was killed.

And so Imam himself being the last one. And so they said he's been martyred like that.

And so every year for those 10 days, Shiite Muslims, they were black men and boys.

It's nice. They go out on the street and they join a procession that starts at a particular place and goes around that neighborhood.

And what they do is that they are given these chains that they can hold in their hand.

And then they use that to beat themselves on both sides behind their shoulders.

And this is to show sorrow and mourning because that Imam had been martyred.

And I was six, seven years old, like any other boy, I would go for that procession. And I remember that I intentionally hit my heart.

So when I got home, it was bruised on my back and I was so happy.

I said, what is happening to me? Because I suffered for the sake of that Imam. And that's something that happened every year.

And I would join that. According to Iranian constitution, Christianity is considered as a legal religion.

But it is only for two groups of people. And there is this group who are

Armenians. They migrated from Armenia many years ago. And then there is a small group of Assyrians.

But they are allowed to exercise, practice their faith, go to church. But of course, they shouldn't talk about Christianity to the rest of the population.

And in Iranian television, the only thing I ever saw which was connected somehow to Christianity was on Christmas Eve.

They would show this cartoon based on Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol.

They would play that and they wouldn't even play the whole thing. They would cut parts of it that they didn't like.

And then at the end, they would say, Merry Christmas to Christians living in Iran. And I am in high school.

And up to this day, I don't know why. And something happened that completely changed my life.

And since childhood, I always loved reading books. My mother from a very young age, she would buy me books, novels, and I would read through that.

At that time, there were two major newspapers in Iran. So my mother would buy one of them every day and she and I would be reading it.

So I am in high school and it is near Christmas. And in that newspaper, half a page, a sermon on the mount was published.

And up to this day, I don't know why, I have never heard of that happening before or after.

But I remember that right at the very beginning of that half a page, it said something like,

Since we are approaching the birthday of the prophet Esau, that's how we call

Jesus, we decided to publish what is known as one of the greatest sermons ever preached, which is taken from Matthew and Luke.

And that passage had such a huge impact on me. But if at that point someone had asked me like,

Farshid, what do you think was unique or special about what you read? I wouldn't be able to tell you.

But now in hindsight, I can tell you there were three things. The first one is when

Jesus talks about, You know it was written, you shall not commit adultery. I tell you, you look at a woman with lust, you committed adultery in her heart.

And he said the same thing about murder and anger. So Jesus is saying, it is not just a physical act, but it was also going in our minds and hearts, which are also important.

And Islam was something that only dealt with the external. Second issue was the issue of hypocrisy.

When Muslims pray every day, as part of that prayer, they kneel on the ground.

And they put their foreheads on the ground. But they don't do it directly.

There is something round made up of different materials. They put it there and they put their forehead on that.

And I remember there were people in Iran that would take that round thing and push it against their forehead.

So the next day at work, people would say, Look at this man, he's prayed for such a long time, it left a mark on his forehead.

And then I read, yeah, I read Sherman on the Mount, and it's like Jesus is saying the exact opposite.

You want to pray, don't do it in front of people for them to notice. If you fast, put oil on your head.

Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. And so it was something completely new to me.

And the third one, which I would say the most important one, as a

Muslim, I was told that if you, there's a list of things to do and a list of things you shouldn't do.

If you check all the boxes, and this second part I know many Christians haven't heard of, if you check all the boxes and God shows you mercy, then you can go to heaven.

I don't think any human being can read Sherman on the Mount and say, yes, I can do that. So I didn't immediately become a

Christian, but that was my first encounter with Christian faith. And at that time, internet wasn't accessible in Iran, and Bible wasn't permitted to be sold.

So I caught that half a page of newspaper, and that was my only Bible for so many years.

I did my bachelor's and master's both in English literature. When I first started that, and again,

I chose that field because I love reading books. So one of my professors told us, if you want to study

English literature, you should know two things really well. One is Greek mythology, and the other one is the

Bible, because of all the allusions to the Bible and Greek mythology. So I didn't have a physical

Bible, but I read a lot of novels and poems that had allusions to the Bible. One of my lecturers, she had a

U .S. green card. So she lived six months in Iran and then six months in the U .S. So one time when she was leaving for the

U .S., I said, when you're coming back, can you buy me a Bible? And she did, and so that's how

I got hold of my first reading of Bible. And when I was doing my master's, our lecturer gave us this article on John Milton's Kairos Lost.

And I remember there was this one Kairos that said, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve rejected

God. If God is to be just, humanity should be punished. If God is to be merciful, humanity should not be punished.

The only way for God to be just and merciful at the same time is that he pays the price in his son.

And that for me was, it was like the last thing that I needed. It just fit.

And I was like, it makes sense. Christian, it's true. And the first thing I did,

I went to my mother and I said, Mom, I want to buy a cross and put it around my neck.

My mom was like, no way.

If your dad finds out, he's going to be very angry. Eventually I convinced her and I bought it.

So when my dad was leaving home to go to work, I would bring it out of my shirt.

When he was coming back home, I would not be like it. And that was the beginning of living a double life, having to hide it from family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and that wasn't easy.

And the only Christian I knew in my life in Iran was one of the university lecturers.

She was Armenian. And so she was an Orthodox Christian. So one day

I went to her and I said, I want to become a Christian. What should I do? She said,

Farshid, you have the Bible. Go and read it in the privacy of your home.

And don't talk about becoming Christian because you put yourself and your family at risk. So as I mentioned, she was the only

Christian I knew. And sadly, she was that discouraging. One day

I decided to go to a church. So this church is in Tehran. It's the biggest church in Tehran.

And it's an Orthodox church for the Armenians. As I wanted to go in, the security guard stopped me and said, you cannot go in.

I guess because it's a small group of them, since my face wasn't familiar, he said he may not be an

Armenian, so I can't let him in. And I asked him, is there any chance you can let me in?

He said, only after the service is over. So I walked around the church for a couple of hours, eventually went back and he let me in.

And I went in and I sat in one of the church pews. And immediately I saw this lady walking toward me.

And she said, what is this bush in your hands? And I said, it's an English Bible. She said,

I'm very sorry, but only Bibles in the Armenian language are allowed. And you're obviously talking about Armenia, the ethnic group, not theological

Armenians. Yeah, yeah. Okay, just wanted to clarify that. Yes, yes, yes.

So she came and said, only Bibles in the

Armenian language is allowed. And I honestly did not understand why she would say such a thing.

But after I left Iran, I heard that there were a couple of churches in Tehran that they were offering their services in Persian, which is my language.

The police had gone to them and they said, if you don't stop these two services, we will close down the whole church.

And that's why she was anxious about it. And life as a

Christian, having to live a double life, it was difficult on many occasions.

And in Iran, it doesn't really matter what you study in university. If you're studying biology, literature, it doesn't matter.

You have to pass several credit hours of Islamic teaching.

Now, I would have to sit in a classroom where a Muslim clergyman come in and misrepresent

Christianity, talk bad about Christianity. And not only I had to listen to them, I had to write them on the exam paper to pass.

And when I started work, it became even more difficult. I worked as a university lecturer for about five years in two universities.

And what I remember was that at lunchtime, all my colleagues and I who had offices along a corridor, they locked the door, they would go downstairs.

There was a big room so that they could pray. I didn't want to do that, so I locked myself inside the room.

So they would change, I'm praying inside my office. And I had to do that five days a week for months.

And every day it became more stressful. And one time I remember that my colleagues and I were taken to a smaller town for a conference.

And as you know, when Muslims want to pray, they first go and do this washing, call it ablution.

And everyone went to the washroom to do that, and I went there, but I didn't want to do it. So I went inside the toilet and I locked myself in.

And then I told myself prayer would be 15, 20 minutes. And just before the prayer was about to finish,

I opened the door, ran outside, and I stood outside that hall. So when they were coming out, they would think that I was actually in that room.

And that was like having to hide in the toilet was very humiliating.

And also, again, it's stressful. It's so difficult for someone to have an inside team facing

Christ but having to pretend to be a Muslim because your life can be easily at risk.

And I remember one of my favorite times during the year was Christmas time.

There is a street in Tehran where there are six or seven shops run by people from Armenia.

And near Christmas, they would put in Christmas trees, decorations, and things like that.

And I remember for Christmas, I would go there and I would just watch up and down, looking at those shop windows.

I would buy a donut, make myself a cup of coffee, and I celebrate Christmas on my own.

It was a time of joy, but it was also very lonely. So all of that brought me to a point that I realized

I cannot live in Iran anymore. I couldn't continue living like that. So I left

Iran, and I went to Malaysia. And when I say I left Iran, that means

I left my family, friends, jobs, all the things that I had in Iran. Malaysia is still a

Muslim -majority country, but compared to Iran, there's way more freedom. And one of the reasons

I chose Malaysia was that with Iranian passports, there are very few countries that we can visit without applying for a visa beforehand.

So when I went to Malaysia in 2010, at the airport, they would give you a three -month social visit pass.

And when I got there, when

I got to the... I was either in the capital or areas around the capital,

Kuala Lumpur. I decided to go to church on a Sunday. So what

I did was, I went on Google. Let me tell you this first.

One of the courses I had to study in Iran as English literature, it was called

The History of English Literature. So there was this very thick book, and the beginning of every chapter was the political, social condition of the country.

And then they would put extracts from, excerpts from the different works of art that were written during that time.

So because of that, I knew about reformation and the protestant movement and all that.

So when I got to Malaysia, I only knew two churches. I knew

Roman Catholic and I knew Anglican. So I just Googled Anglican Church in Kuala Lumpur.

That was the church I went to. And as I approached, I noticed these men wearing white robes, standing outside.

So I went to one of them and I said, can I talk to your senior pastor?

And he said, sure. Our service is about to begin, so why don't you come and sit inside.

At the end of the service, the pastor will come and talk to you. So I went in and that was my first ever experience of being in a church service.

I cannot describe to you how it felt. It was surreal. At the end of the service, this pastor came, sat next to me and said, how can

I help you? I said, I want to become a Christian. And he said, where are you from?

I said, I'm from Iran. And then he suddenly looked at me with his wide open eyes and said, are you sure?

That's not easy. I said, yes, I'm sure. I left everything, so yes,

I'm sure. So he passed my contact info to one of the other pastors and this pastor,

Pastor Donna Roach, he started discipling me. He started teaching me about the

Bible. I went through some training that other people in the church were going through, but for me, he was doing it one -to -one, so we had more time for that.

And how old were you? 28. Approximately what year was this?

2010. Continue. So yes, he started teaching me and then he became my closest friend in Malaysia.

I'll actually tell you something about him later on. So what happened was, I think it was either the first or the second

Christmas I was in Malaysia, I attended four different services.

One of them was like an evangelistic guest night. One was evening, then midnight, and then another one the next day.

And people looked at me and said, Hashid, how come everywhere we go we see you? I said, do you know how many

Christmases I missed back in Iran? So that was there for me to make up for that.

And in Malaysia, the government has not signed the

Refugee Convention. Because of that, refugees in Malaysia are not legally allowed to work.

The government doesn't care how you can survive. They don't let you do that.

And when I was leaving Iran, I knew that I would never be able to go back. So what happened was, in Malaysia, I applied for a refugee status.

The only thing Malaysian government allows is for this organization called UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

So they will process your case, but they don't provide any help either.

So you have to find a place to live. You have to find a way to earn money, but every day being anxious in case the immigration officers come to your workplace, arrest you because you don't have a work permit, and put you in jail.

That was the daily life of refugees. So when I first got there, there were 150 ,000 registered refugees in Malaysia, and there were so many others who were not registered.

Most were from Myanmar. So it wasn't an easy life.

When I was thinking of how to earn money, I decided to teach English privately.

So for about four years, I would go to the students' homes so the government wouldn't know about it, and I would be teaching

English. The problem was finding students was very difficult. I would print flyers and I would put it on the walls, but I only found students one or two through that because most people, most families, they prefer to get someone, a teacher who is official, who is connected to a language center.

So to trust me on my own, having no connection and then being illegal, it wasn't something that people would do.

But I found students through word of mouth when one family recommended me to another one.

When I was living in Iran, my dad had a very long history of depression.

I remember he used to take maybe 16, 17 tablets per day. And I could see, as a result of that, he was very addicted to those medications.

And I still remember one day the doctor told him, out of all these pills, just this particular one, don't take one, take half.

My dad called the doctor the next day, crying, saying, I can't go back,

I don't feel well. I can't go back to that one. Then my dad got a stroke.

And the doctor called us. I have only one sister. So the doctor called my mom, and I and my sister, don't tell him about that because it will aggravate his depression.

Then my dad got shingles, which would affect one half of the body.

So he lost hearing in one of his ears. And one day he was in the bedroom, he just fell backwards because it had affected the middle section of the ear, so he lost his balance.

He held on to something so he didn't fall down. But after that, my mom, my sister and I had to follow him everywhere he went to make sure if he falls back, he wouldn't injure himself.

And that was how my dad was when I was in Iran. So when I left

Iran, in Malaysia, my mother told me that my dad was diagnosed with both

Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. One of them is horrible enough, but he had two of them.

And then he had to be hospitalized in an ICU. I remember my mother told me they have connected a tube to help him breathe and a tube to feed him.

So he was in ICU for four months. So my mom would go to the hospital every day and then in the evening she would come back home and call me using internet.

And she said, Farshid, your dad was like this today. And after those four months, my father passed away.

And it's one thing to lose your dad, it's another thing not being able even to attend his funeral.

And I remember I was having a video chat on the day that my dad has passed.

And my mom and sister were there. Some other family members were sitting farther than them.

And the only thing that I could tell my mom and sister was, I'm sorry, I cannot be there with you.

Four months after that, my grandmother passed away. And after that,

I have lost one aunt and two uncles. Being far from them, not being able to be around my family.

And many friends asked me this question. They said, Farshid, do you regret leaving

Iran and coming to Malaysia given all these things? And I said, look,

I miss my family very much. I love my family very much. No doubt about that.

But I don't have any regrets because ultimately, although I really love my family members and friends,

Christ should be at the core and center of my life. And that doesn't mean

I stop loving my family. It's just that my allegiance should be to Christ rather than being, again, in that kind of situation leading a double life.

And after those four years that I taught English privately, I saw this same pastor

I mentioned to you. He gave me the book, Chase for Christ by V .S.

Strouvel. And that was the first time I got to know about apologetics. So I started reading books and watching debates and lectures.

And I remember that because of the talks on YouTube about different religions and things like that.

So I told Pastor Donner, as I said, train me to become an apologist. And so I started studying that for like three years.

And one of the things I was doing was when I watched a debate between a Christian Muslim or a

Christian Atheist. After the Atheist or the Muslim said something, I would pause the video.

And then I would tell myself, Tarshid, if you were in that situation and a Muslim wise said this, are you prepared to give an answer to it?

And then I would listen to the Christian response. But I wouldn't take that just as a service.

I would check the Bible and see, oh yes, this is a biblical way to respond to that. So in 2014, near the end of 2013 maybe, my pastor called me and said,

Tarshid, we want to do an engaging with Islam training. I want you to co -lead that with another pastor.

This was my first ever experience with ministry work. So we went for this class.

It was eight weeks, two hours each session. And the other pastor had the first hour where he would show a video of an

Australian pastor who would explain what Muslims believe. Second time of the class, which was my turn,

I would play the devil's advocate. So I told the participants, look, I'm going to play a role of a

Muslim and I'm going to bring up the same questions and objections that Muslims raise to see how prepared you are.

But before we began, I took them to 1 Peter 3 .15 and I said, look, and then he said we should always be prepared to give an answer to everyone for the reason, for the hope that we have.

But he said you need to do it in gentleness and respect. That is your framework.

When I'm playing the role of a Muslim, that is not my framework. So regardless of what I tell you or how

I talk to you, you should always answer me with gentleness and respect. That was a lot of fun for me.

I'm not sure about that. By the way, we have to go to our first commercial break.

When we come back, please don't forget where you left off. We just basically arrived at the point where you are having your first experience in ministry, teaching people how to evangelize

Muslims with the Christian faith and to answer objections and so on.

When we come back, we will continue that story. If you would like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Don't go away.

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Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new, beautiful facilities in Corham, Long Island, New York.

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At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession, we embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's Word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune

God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of Scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.

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Welcome back, if you just tuned us in. Our guest today, for the very first time, is

Farshid Rezaei. He is an Iranian -born former

Muslim who, by the grace of God, was converted to Christianity and saved by the precious blood and grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.

If you have a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, and we were just hearing before the break about how, after his conversion to Christianity, Farshid, by the grace of God, was able to leave

Iran and eventually made his way to Malaysia, found the very first church when he did a

Google search for a Christian church, which was Anglican, and he began attending services there, and the pastor asked

Farshid to begin apologetics courses on reaching

Muslims with the Christian faith. And just one question before you continue with the story, because of the fact that Anglicanism is such a huge tent, as they say, with a huge umbrella, would this

Anglican church have been more of a Protestant and Calvinistic 39 articles church, or more of a

Romish Oxford movement Anglican church, or liberal? Oh, I'm sorry,

I have you on mute, brother. Sorry about that. Yes, they were the first.

They were Reformed, and they were Calvinistic. By God's providence, the first church that you look for in Malaysia happens to be a solid

Reformed Anglican church. Hallelujah. Absolutely amazing. So yes,

I did that course, and then we heard that there were people in the church who wanted to come, but they were not able to do that.

And they said, can we do this again? But because they couldn't come in for eight weeks, we just did like an intensive over two weekends.

And after that, it just started by word of mouth that I was invited to different local churches to not just about engaging with Islam, but in general apologetics type of ministry to do those places.

And although Malaysia is a master majority country, I was blessed by a lot of very good and solid training that I experienced in Malaysia.

And there is a seminary in Australia called Moore Theological College.

So this Anglican church, they would get some material from that seminary under their

Department of External Studies. And they would use that material, but the local

Malaysian pastors were teaching them. And it had 18 modules, which

I completed. And it was extremely helpful. And especially you could do it in any order you want.

But the first course was compulsory to begin with, and it was called Bible overview, which basically helped me understand how the whole

Bible fits together. So that was like kind of a theological training.

But I also went through some apologetic training as well. I had multiple mentors from different ministries.

And as I mentioned, I tried to read books and watch debates and things like that. And so for the last eight years of my life in Malaysia, I taught apologetics at churches.

But again, thanks to God, I went through some training for preaching.

And I went through training on expository preaching. It was a big course, four modules.

And I learned so much about that. And so I also began preaching at churches, church camps, and also university

Christian fellowship. And during those eight years, I considered doing ministry work such a huge privilege.

I never asked for money. But many churches, they gave me what in Malaysia they would call love gifts.

And through those love gifts and some generous friends, that's how I managed to survive the last eight years of my life in Malaysia, which because of not having a legal job, that was difficult.

There was one aspect of life that ran alongside this, and that wasn't easy.

I kind of remember that going and applying for a refugee status in Malaysia through the organization

I mentioned, UNHCR. It was a very difficult and long process.

I went there in 2010. And I went for three interviews.

The interviews were like this. They said, come back in three months, come back in seven months, come back in one year.

So in two years, I only had three interviews. And the period of time between them, there was nothing

I could do. I just had to wait. After the third interview, which was the main one, they asked me questions about Christianity.

They said something like, tell me about Trinity. What part of the Bible appealed to you?

I was thinking, why are they asking me these questions? But I found out that sadly, there are a lot of people who come to pretend to be a

Christian. And because they have seen those people, they have to ask those questions to make sure if someone is a genuine

Christian or not. And sadly, I actually met one of them. There was this young girl who came to me and said,

I want to become a Christian. How can I do that? And I was like, what makes you interested in becoming a Christian?

She said, oh, I'm not interested. I just wanted to apply for asylum, for political asylum.

But that's very difficult to prove. Becoming a Christian is so easy. You just go and tell them

I've become a Christian. So after those two years, I was given this refugee

ID card, which was supposed to be accepted by the authorities. And then they told me there are three options for refugees.

If you come from a country where there's a war, we send you back when the war is over, which wasn't my case.

The second one they said is, we will help you stay where you are, which again, because of the job situation, wasn't an option.

And then they said the third option is the resettlement. So we send you to a third country. They asked me, do you have father, mother, brother, sister in these countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand?

And I said, no. They said, OK, so we will choose the US for you because America accepts the greatest number of refugees.

And then they told me you are very lucky because the process for being resettled in the

US is much faster than other countries. And that statement turned out to be very ironic.

We will come to that. So I went to Malaysia in 2010. In 2012,

I got the card. It took them three years to come to the decision that they wanted to send me to the

US. And when I say three years, between those three years, there is no way for you to do absolutely anything.

If you email them, they don't respond. If you call them, it's either busy, no one picks up, and if someone picks up, they have a default response.

You need to wait. We will call you. 2015, they called me and they said, you come from a pre -streaming interview.

I went for that one and then I was told, look, after this, Department of Homeland Security from the

US, they will send officers here. They will interview you. If you are approved, you do medical check -up.

After that, you'll be on your way to the US. So it took them one more year for that Homeland Security interview to take place.

And I remember when I went for that one, there was this officer. They would come to Malaysia for two weeks, maybe interview 20 people, and then go back.

So you have to be lucky to be among those 20 people. And I went and sat in the interview.

It was quite an interesting experience. The officer said, I'm going to ask you a list of questions.

Answer yes or no. I said, alright. One of the questions was, if you get to the

US, do you plan to engage in terrorist activity? And in my head, I was like, who says yes to that?

Yeah, that's pretty ridiculous. So I did medical check -up.

I was first asked to do the medical check -up. And I told them, you mentioned Homeland Security interview should come before the medical check -up.

They said, yes, I know we are in a hurry. So I did the second round of medical check -up.

And I thought, before Christmas 2016, I'm going to be in the US. Donald Trump became president, and he issued a ban on seven countries, which included

Iran. The initial order was in my favor, because it had a paragraph in it that said, religious minorities are considered an exception to this rule.

And I thought, OK, that's good. That's in my favor. But a court in America blocked it.

And they said, if you have this one paragraph in your order, it means you are an

Islamophobe. Now I want you to think about the insanity of this.

They are saying religious minorities who are from Muslim -majority countries where they do not feel safe, they cannot come to the

US because they are from those Muslim countries. The second order came.

They removed that paragraph. It became all -inclusive. And my case was put on hold for five more years.

And again, when I say five more years, five more years of uncertainty, not being able to work legally and just not knowing what's going to happen the next day or will

I be called to go to the US one week from that point, two years from that point. But that process took five years.

And I have to say something about that. Before Donald Trump became the president, some of my friends were telling me,

Farshid, if Donald Trump becomes president, he will make it difficult for refugees like you.

Aren't you concerned about that? And my response always was, if Donald Trump becomes president, and it leads to just one fewer baby getting aborted,

I'm fine with that. And yes, and although my case was put on hold for five more years,

I was happy that Assyrio versus Wade was overturned. And that made it worthwhile because as I have mentioned this in other talks, the life of the most vulnerable human being is far more important than my ability to legally work.

And after those five years, I was called again in 2021. They told me you need to come and do the medical checkup again because the first one expired.

I did it for the second time. The process took a long time. That expired too. Then in 2022, again, they called me and they said, come for medical checkup for the third time.

And in August 2022, I was finally resettled in America.

When I tell people that I lived as a refugee for 12 years in Malaysia, people say, 12 years, that's a very long time.

But when I tell them what I'm about to tell them and tell you, it actually makes them realize how long it was.

I went to Malaysia when I was 28. I left when I was 40 years old. Wow. Yes.

So I was on the way to the US. I was so excited and happy. I said, after 12 years, you can finally have a legal job.

I remember in Malaysia, when I would get on a train, I would see all these people in the morning going to work and in the evening coming back home from work.

And I thought to myself, will I ever have that? And God, out of his grace and mercy, brought me here to the

US, to Pittsburgh. And I started looking for a job.

And when people asked me, what would you like to do for a job? And I said, I just hope

I can continue to, I can be able to continue doing what I was doing in Malaysia regarding military work.

And God threw a very amazing sign of his grace and love and led me along a group of people, each one pointing me to the next one, until I got to know about prison.

And so I got my job on 15th of April 2023.

That's when I officially started working full -time as a campus minister. My boss,

Pastor Scott Boyd, tells me it is very easy to remember because it happens on a tax day.

So each year on tax day, I realize one year has passed since I have this full -time position.

And as I mentioned, it's my dream job and it doesn't even feel like a job. And I just love what

I'm able to do. And sometime later, I also started working part -time as the minister of outreach for the same church

I'm attending, Three Rivers Grace Church, which is a reformed Baptist church. And I'm again thankful that now

I have two legal jobs and both dream jobs and neither feels like a job. And my pastor,

Pastor Ben Reak, is both my pastor and my boss. And honestly, I could not have asked for a better, more humble bosses and also colleagues.

So it has been just a huge blessing. Hallelujah. What a great story. We are going to be continuing to hear more from Farshid Razaee when we return from our midway break and we will be also reading some of your questions and having

Farshid answer them for you. We already have some waiting to be asked and answered.

And if you'd like to join those that have already submitted their questions, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. You may remain anonymous if for some reason you feel endangered by identifying yourself, especially if you are

Muslim, reconsidering the Islamic religion and considering converting to Christianity, things like that.

We will obviously welcome anonymous listeners. But if it's a general question, give us your first name at least, your city and state and your country of residence.

Don't go away. We are going to be right back right after these messages from our sponsors.

I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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Ironsharpensironradio. Before I return to my utterly fascinating conversation with Muslim convert to Christianity, Rashid Razai, I just have some important reminders, folks.

We are in urgent need of your financial help, folks. As I keep repeating, many of you know that we lost one of our largest advertisers and one of our largest financial supporters, a wonderful Reformed Christian bookstore here in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, that had been serving the body of Christ with the finest in Reformed literature at the most reasonable prices worldwide for 50 years, and they sadly had to close their doors permanently just a few months ago, and therefore we lost a valuable source of income.

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And I want to thank from the very bottom of my heart, being so wonderfully surprised today by opening up my mailbox and seeing a check, a very generous check from Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York.

Thank you, dear brethren of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island.

I can never thank you enough for that urgently needed gift. Also, folks, if you want to advertise with us, if you want to advertise your church, your parachurch ministry, your business, your private practice, like a law firm, a medical firm, maybe it's just a special event, whatever it is, if it's compatible with my beliefs,

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Last but not least, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful,

Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Three Rivers Grace Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where my guest

Farshid Rezaei is a member. Well, I have helped people all over the world find churches that are biblically faithful.

In fact, over the last couple of days, I just helped a listener who was looking for a church for his family living in Torreon, and I hope

I'm pronouncing that correctly, Torreon, Mexico. And I, by God's grace, was able to find, through a guest on my show who ministers in Mexico, I was able to find the

Iglesia Bautista Reformada Montesillón, and I know that my pronunciations may be horrible, a

Reformed Baptist church in that city in Mexico. And so that may be you, too, no matter where you live in the world.

If you are without a biblically faithful church home, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put

Ani to church at the subject line. That's also the email address to send in a question for Farshid Rezaei on his conversion from Islam to Christianity.

Our email address chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

We have Joey in New Rochelle, New York. Dear Farshid, I have two dear friends who are

Muslims. One of them raised an objection to the concept of the vicarious atonement of Christ.

In one sense, I was impressed that he understood that is the core issue.

I am wondering, knowing how you used to think as a

Muslim, how you would answer that specific objection if speaking to a

Muslim? He has one more question that we'll ask after you answer that one. Here we go again.

I have you on mute. Go ahead, brother. I'm sorry. Actually, a very good question.

The way I bring that up when I'm talking to a Muslim, I would use two illustrations first.

The first one I say to a Muslim, imagine I'm a judge and there is a person standing in court that has murdered someone.

But they are crying, they are weeping, their body is shaking and I as the judge look at him and I say look, you have killed another human being which is a horrible crime and so you need to face death penalty as the punishment.

But when I look at you and I realize that you are genuinely sorry that you have killed another human being, it's okay, just go but don't do it again.

And I ask the Muslim do you think I am a just judge? And all Muslims have told me no.

And said you're right. It is good that he is regretting his decision but regardless of how sorry he is, justice means the person needs to be punished for what he has done.

The second illustration is one of driving a car. So I ask a Muslim, imagine you're driving a car, another car hits your car and it causes a huge damage and it is the other driver's fault.

You have two options. You either call the police and the police should come and make this other driver who was at fault to pay for the damage or you tell the other driver you know what,

I forgive you, just go. The person that you forgave did not receive justice, he received mercy, forgiveness.

But the damage to your car, does that automatically get restored? And the Muslim will say no and I said who should pay for it?

And the Muslim says I need to pay for it. So I said look and justice means you get what you deserve and mercy and forgiveness means you don't get what you deserve.

But the question is how can you have both of them at the same time? So all of us are sinners.

We all have fallen short of God's standard. We all have done things which are wrong. So if God is to be just, we need to face punishment.

We need to face being separated from his love and grace for eternity. But we know that God is also a

God of forgiveness. So how can our God be just and merciful at the same time?

And I tell them in the same way you forgave the other driver, but you paid the price yourself.

In the same way God forgives us human beings because his son pays that price.

And his son, I need to explain that a little bit. I said look, Jesus is not just one random passerby that God wanted to punish someone instead of other human beings that he picked him up.

Jesus is God. When we say we have sinned against God, we have sinned against Jesus. So he is not a third person, just normal passerby.

He is the person who has been wronged by us, who has been dishonored by us.

But out of his mercy and forgiveness he pays the price himself. So in that sense, whenever the idea of vicarious atonement comes, is that they think how can someone be punished for the sin of someone else?

And the assumption behind that is that the other person is just a normal, ordinary person.

So it's like God doesn't want to punish Parashit, he just punishes Jesus. That's not true.

It all has to do with the identity of Jesus. He is God, we have sinned against him and so he voluntarily takes our place, pays the penalty for our sins, bears the wrath of God that you and I deserve, and so God can now extend forgiveness.

So if I want to say that in just two sentences, in every religion of the world, where you have the concept of God showing mercy and forgiveness, it comes at the expense of God's justice.

It is like God has a remote control, so he puts a pause on his justice to show mercy and forgiveness.

But in Christianity, it's the only worldview that forgiveness doesn't come at the expense of justice, it comes through justice, and that is justice of the cross.

Hallelujah. The second question from Joey is, do you recommend an apologetic approach that up front emphasizes the authority of Scripture, or would you instead focus on answering their specific objections, such as to the

Trinity or the Crucifixion? This is how

I have dealt with the apologetic issue. I know that there are multiple apologetic methods.

There's presuppositionism, evidential, classical, many different kinds of apologetic. And I know that I have some mentors and friends that would favor one and they would reject all the other ones.

Personally, for me, I am eclectic. Depending on the context, depending on the person

I'm talking to, there are different ways of dealing with that. Because talking to Muslims for a lot of people, it has this tension, this difficulty.

They are not at ease. They may think they are going to receive a very negative response on the side of the other person.

So because of those things, they don't look forward to having such a conversation.

But when I am training people in terms of evangelizing to Muslims, I actually tell them there are three areas that I would recommend using with a

Muslim that doesn't need you to know the Bible exhaustively so well that you would be thinking, okay,

I'm just going to do that. So I have already talked about the justice and mercy, as I mentioned.

The other two topics that I bring up when I'm talking to a Muslim are exactly the two that you have referred to, crucifixion and trinity.

Let me show you how I do that. This is an illustration I first used when

I was in Malaysia and I was talking to a couple from Yemen. They were Muslims. Their mother tongue was

Arabic, and I will explain later why that is so important. We discussed so many different things, and then at one point

I said, look, what did you have for lunch? And the guy said chicken.

I said, if you were outside the restaurant, and by the time you got in, I tell you that I've already ordered chicken for you.

So they bring the food, you eat it, and then 10 minutes later I tell you, you know

I told you it's called chicken? It wasn't. What would you call my action? There was no hesitation.

Immediately came out the word deception. I said, if I order another meal for you, will you accept that?

And the guy said, no. I said, why? He said, because I cannot trust you. So just let me make sure

I understand your point correctly. If I order something for you, which is still food,

I didn't order poison, but I told you it is something which it isn't.

You call that deception and you say you don't trust me anymore, although I told you only after 10 minutes.

And the guy said, yes. I said, so help me understand this. According to your

Koran, it says that the Jewish people thought they believed they had killed

Jesus, but neither they killed him, nor they crucified him. It appeared to them that way.

That's the verse about crucifixion from the Koran. And I said, so help me understand this.

According to your Koran, God put someone else on the cross and made him look like Jesus.

So the Jewish people thought it was Jesus. Roman soldiers, they thought it was Jesus. And Christians around the world, millions of them, they thought it was

Jesus. Not for 10 minutes. For seven centuries. And after seven centuries,

God sent your prophet to tell everyone, you know, the person you thought was a Christ that was crucified?

He wasn't. And it appeared to you that way. I looked at this Muslim couple, and I said, can you help me understand how

I can trust your God? I have asked the same question from many

Muslims, and I haven't heard any response. And at this point, actually,

I can. This is, I wouldn't say it is compulsory right there, but this is a possibility to now bring your

Christian faith to that. And this is one of the biggest differences between the view of God, according to the

Christianity and Islam. If you look at the entire Koran, the word which means holy is used only twice for God.

There are two verses in the Bible that each has three holies. Holy, holy, holy, the

Lord God almighty. We even sing a song, we sing a hymn with those words. Why is that so important?

When you look at Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, when he repeats it twice, it shows he is important, he wants to emphasize it.

If twice is important, then three times is far, far more important. Why is that?

If God is not holy, if his holiness is not emphasized, then sin doesn't seem to be a big deal.

So it could be a mistake, which is how so many Muslims they look at Adam and Eve and they reject the idea of original sin, and they would say, well,

Adam and Eve made a mistake. So they did something wrong, but it wasn't just the idea that sin was such a huge thing.

If the holiness of God is not emphasized, of course sin doesn't seem that horrible. And it brings us to this point, when we think about God's omnipotence, when we say

God is all -powerful, from a Christian viewpoint, it doesn't mean that God can do anything.

The Bible itself makes it very clear that there are things that God cannot do, because it would go against his nature.

So for example, Hebrews 6 ,19 it says, the writer says, it is impossible for God to lie.

Not that it is possible, but he doesn't, as sadly some people would put it that way, but that it is impossible for God to lie.

Which means, because God is absolutely holy, he cannot do anything that goes against his holy nature.

So now you see a difference. The God of Islam can besiege millions of people for seven centuries, but our

God is not a God that can lie. So if you and I, we think about the promises in the

Bible, when we think about Jesus saying he will come back, what is our ground of our trust?

Maybe Jesus was joking. Maybe he said that but when he went back to the father, he said father

I told them I'm going to go back, but having seen them I don't want to, I changed my mind. How do you and I as Christians have this trust, have this certainty that God's promises are going to pass is because our

God is absolutely holy. He does not and cannot change his mind and he cannot lie.

That's the foundation of us being able to trust what Jesus says and all the other promises of God.

With Trinity, I actually have presented these things about how

I talked to a Muslim about this and multiple times and if you are interested, if you look at my name and you look at for the sermon title, how does

Trinity shape our identity, I explain that in detail. But for now, the easiest way that I talk to a

Muslim about Trinity is that I ask them five questions. Question number one is, is

God perfect in all his attributes? Every Muslim has answered yes.

So when we say God is just, his justice is perfect. No flaws. Second question, are

God's attributes consistent? So is God moody? If he is just today, unjust tomorrow, and then back to just the next day.

Every Muslim will say God's attributes are consistent. If he is just, he's always just.

The 10th question I asked them, I asked them, do you think that God is loving? And interestingly, most of the

Muslims I have interacted with, although the Quran says nothing close to what the

Bible says about God's love. Majority of Muslims have told me yes, God is a loving

God. Then my fourth question is, do you agree that genuine love requires at least two persons?

And I tell them this as like a humorous thing. I tell them, imagine every morning I wake up, go in front of the mirror, look at myself and I say,

I love you. It's very sad. And they laughed with me. Then I tell them the last question.

I said, so notice what you have affirmed so far. God's attributes are perfect. God's attributes are consistent.

God is loving. And genuine love requires at least two persons. There was a point when

God had not created the universe. It was only God. You have said that God is loving, and you have said his love is perfect, and you have said that he has always been loving.

Before creation, when it was only God, who did God love? Now, if you look at the

Islamic view of this monadic concept, it's the only conclusion is that God wanted to love, but there was nothing he could love.

So he had to create, let's say he had to create Adam and Eve, now he can love them.

Which means the creator needs his creation to experience love.

And Muslims will deny that. Like Christians, they will say God is self -sufficient. He doesn't have any need out of that.

But that's now a problem. Now at this point, some Muslims may change their view and say,

I told you that God is loving. I changed my mind. That's fine. Just replace it with the word communication.

Is God a kind of God that communicates? They have to say yes. They believe Muslims believe in 124 ,000 prophets.

They said the first one was Adam, and the last was Muhammad. And they believe that prophets were the mouthpiece for God.

So they cannot deny that one. They have to say yes, God is a communicating God. Same problem exists before God created the universe.

Who was he talking to? Again, he must have been lonely. He wanted to communicate.

There was no one to talk to, and so he had to create. But for us as Christians, Trinity is the only way to solve that problem.

Because the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit from eternity past before creation, they always have been in relationship, love, and communication with one another.

Especially if I talk to a Muslim, I will take them to John chapter 17.

And I would show one verse near the end and one verse at the beginning. So in verse 24, when

Jesus is talking to the Father, he says with the love that you have shown me because you have loved me before the foundation of the world.

So it says God did not need to create in order to experience relationship and communication.

He could experience it within himself because he is triune. The other thing

I will bring up is the concept of selflessness. I say, look, we believe that as Christians, we believe that God, as I mentioned, his attributes are consistent.

He has always been what he is, whether it is justice, mercy, and love. And then

I tell them, look, we Christians believe that the life that we should live should be the reflection of that trinity.

And it brings, one of those is being selfless. So even I've asked Christians, I said, where do you see

God being selfless? And majority of them will say the cross because look, he paid the penalty for our sins.

That is a selfless thing to do. Then I asked them, before God created the universe, how was he selfless?

This is a very important question because it brings the same problem that Muslims have with the same idea.

The question is, did God have to send the sun to die on the cross to experience selflessness?

Now, if the answer is a yes, then we have the same problem as the Muslims. But the answer is no.

Why? You look at John chapter 17, the beginning part of that, when Jesus is talking to the father about him, he says father,

I will glorify you. Glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world existed.

Which means, within trinity, father glorifies the son. Son glorifies the father.

The Holy Spirit glorifies the father and the son. Which means, even within trinity, they could experience selflessness because each person of the trinity glorifies the other person.

So when people say, oh, God is so selfish, he said, you should only worship me. We should only glorify him.

Isn't that when we glorify, a human being glorifies himself? We say, oh, that's too proud. How can it be okay about God?

Well, our God is selfless because because he is triune, each person selflessly glorifies the other person.

And that, as I mentioned, it only comes at the end. Trinity, and this is what

I've learned from one of my mentors. He said, trinity is one of the first topics

I raise when I'm talking to a Muslim. Because if you notice, trinity is a problem for a

Muslim, not for a Christian. Islam's view of God presents that God as lonely, unable to experience love and communication.

Our God, before creation, from eternity past, he has always experienced love, relationship, and communication because he's triune.

Well, we are going to our final break. Thank you, Joey and New Rochelle. And we have a couple of more questions that we will try to squeeze in.

But if you have a question, send it in immediately, and we may be able to include yours, too. ChrisOrenson at gmail .com

gives your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Don't go away. We are going to be right back.

It is a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in his

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to That's We believe the scriptures of the

Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern for all who bear

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Why America Hates Biblical Christianity. This is a free event, as it always is.

Free food, free opportunity for fellowship, and everyone leaves that place with a heavy sack of free brand -new books, personally selected by me and donated by very generous

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And if anybody in Pittsburgh is planning to come, I know that Farshid is looking for a ride, and there have been a couple of folks that say they might be coming who will be able to give

Farshid a ride, but they haven't given me a 100 % guarantee that they're coming. Of course, no one has a 100 % guarantee.

God does what he wants to do. But please let me know if you are intending to come and you're from Pittsburgh.

And we are now back. We have, let's see,

Alan in Proctor, Vermont, who wants to know, are you still in contact with your loved ones in Iran?

Were they upset that you left Iran? And what are your feelings about the current situation between the

United States and Iran where our president had been bombing the nation of Iran?

And we are currently in a ceasefire, but he is threatening even worse bombing activity if things do not get squared away according to his liking in regard to this peace treaty.

Can you please tell us your true thoughts? Sure. Very, very good, important questions.

So I try to answer them in the same order as I remember. Yes, I am in touch with my family, but right now

I think today is maybe 58th day that Iran has no Internet, so I cannot call any of my family members.

They can call me, but they have to pay a huge sum of money for a few minutes. So my mom sometimes calls me like for one minute every day.

We are okay. Don't worry. There is still no Internet. With regards to leaving

Iran, my immediate family members are mostly nominal

Muslims, so for them it wasn't a big issue, but of course we miss each other. And about the current situation,

I know that what you will hear from me say may not fit the narrative of what you hear on TV.

Iranian people are celebrating the airstrikes. They are actually thankful to Donald Trump for keeping his promise to come to the rescue.

Iranian people have been taken hostage by this Islamic government for 47 years, and Iranian people do not have the

Second Amendment. They don't have any weapon to defend themselves when they want to protest against this brutal regime.

So when they heard that Donald Trump said help is on the way, and if you continue we will come to your rescue, they are actually grateful that he kept that promise.

So I know what you hear on the news, it won't fit that, but I can tell you, not just my family members or friends, but also through a lot of other people, that Iranian people are actually appreciative of what is going on, because for the first time in 47 years, they actually think there is a possibility of this regime being eliminated, which not only will help the entire world, but it will help also the

Iranian people, because they want to experience freedom after these 47 years. Now, I know that there are millions of people over there, so they are not all going to have the same answer necessarily, but what about if America and Israel start obliterating the infrastructure of Iran, and the bridges and everything that the

Iranian civilians need to get to their own places of work, and the places that they want to or need to buy groceries, and on and on we could go, are they going to still be happy that they are being bombed?

So again, a very important question. I can tell you in general, of course

Iranian people do not want things like power plants to be destroyed, because even if the regime is eliminated, then the

Iranian people have to work so many years to restore those things that have been lost.

But at the same time, I can actually tell you that when people ask me what kind of people would celebrate their country being bombed, my answer has always been, if you had lived in Iran for three months, you wouldn't be confused about that one.

Iranian people don't like war, Iranian people do not like bombardment, but they are more afraid of the regime than they are more afraid of the war.

And I know it's a difficult thing to, as I mentioned, take into consideration and accept that, but having been exposed to the type of thing that Iranian people are, and you don't need me to tell you the details, what they are doing to its own people.

Iranian people may, as I said, they don't like the war, but they would definitely support any option that can help them get free of this regime.

Okay, we have Vivian in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, and I hope

I'm pronouncing that right. Vivian says, when was it and how did it come to be that you left behind Anglican ecclesiology and their view of infant baptism in favor of the

Baptist understanding of those things? And I mean no disrespect for those biblically sound

Anglicans. That's a very interesting question. When I mentioned that I'm a

Reformed Baptist, I mentioned that the church I was attending was Reformed. So part of my view as a

Reformed, of course, came through so many people like that, like by Dr. R .C.

Stroll. That kind of gave me that framework that I understand the biblical narrative, and especially when it comes to salvation.

About the Baptist part of that, I remember that in the Anglican church where I was, the senior pastor was going to baptize a baby.

And so he had a presentation, like PowerPoint slides, and he said, we go through this so that you know why we are baptizing babies.

And I remember after hearing that presentation, in my head, I went like, this didn't make sense to me at all.

At first, my biggest objection about that was the experiential aspect.

I always thought, just imagine a teenage boy or girl who becomes a Christian, and he and she goes to the parents and say,

Mom, Dad, I've accepted Christ. I want to be baptized. And for the parents to tell them, you know what?

Actually, you were baptized when you were a baby. In a false church. That is taking people, taking an amazing once -in -a -lifetime experience from your children, if you take that away.

And that is one of the reasons I have issues with the idea of confirmation. I would say confirmation is a non -biblical thing created to make up for an un -biblical thing, which

I would say is the infant baptism. So that was the experiential aspect. But later on,

I started doing more research about that one. There were two things that brought me to the point of accepting the

Reformed Baptist position. One was watching, actually, a debate between Dr.

James White and Dr. Estrowbridge. I was there. I was actually there in the audience.

I remember hearing your voice there. Yeah, so that one was the idea for me, because then

I realized the issue of infant baptism is just at the surface.

There is a much bigger theological question at the bottom. And it is the way how the

Old Testament and the New Testament, or better to say Old Covenant and the New Covenant, relate to each other.

I noticed that, for example, the Presbyterian believers, there is a unity between Old and the

New Covenant, and also a continuity. And because of that, they would see a parallel between circumcision and baptism.

But as the Reformed Baptist view would say that Old Covenant and New Covenant, they do have unity, but there is discontinuity.

The New Covenant is far more amazing and mind -boggling than the

Old Covenant. In fact, I find it very difficult when people say they believe in infant baptism, and I tell them, then how can you understand the

Book of Hebrews? It talks about this New Covenant is far, far more important and precious and amazing than the

Old Covenant. Yes, there is unity, but there is discontinuity. So when

I was in Malaysia, I attended an Anglican church, and I also attended a Presbyterian church during those 12 years.

I have to say this, I am very grateful to each and every one of them. They are my dear, precious brothers and sisters in Christ, and I was blessed by getting to know them, but they knew what my position was, although I was attending that church.

But when I got to the U .S., I knew I want to attend a Reformed Baptist church, and so I Googled Reformed Baptist church in Pittsburgh.

Three Rivers Grace was the first result, and I am so thankful that I didn't have to visit many churches to find a good one.

Three Rivers Grace Church, the pastoral team, the elders, deacons, and my church family, they have been a great source of love and encouragement for me, and I want to thank them.

Hallelujah, God's been good with you with first -time Google searches. And don't forget, folks, the website for PRISM Ministry is prismpgh .org,

and the website for Three Rivers Grace is the numeral threeriversgrace .org.

That's the number threeriversgrace .org. Thank you so much, Farshid.

I look forward to your return to my show. I hope you all have a very safe and healthy and happy and Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.