A jihadist trainer for the barbaric Islamic group ISIS, which identifies itself as the Islamic State of Iraq in Syria, recently requested a Bible from a taxi driver, explaining that he is “sick of the killing.”
An Operation Mobilization missionary to the Middle East who simply identified himself as Julian relayed the story on a recent Voice of the Martyrs radio broadcast. He said that the trainer, a sheikh, was traveling from Lebanon when he asked a taxi driver for a Bible.
“The taxi driver knew a Christian in Beirut who was very happy to give the guy with the beard a Bible,” Julian said.
But then the driver asked why the man wanted one.
“[H]is response was, ‘I’m from Saudi. I’m a sheikh,’ which means a teacher of Islam. ‘I’ve been in Syria teaching the ISIS fighters jihad 101. I’m sick of the killing. There must be something better than this.’”
The missionary said that a number of Muslims, including some members of ISIS, are having encounters with the gospel. He stated that one ISIS fighter came to Christ after meeting a Christian in Turkey. Prior to the meeting, the man had a vision of the cross, which began to trouble him.
“So he goes online,” Julian explained. “He’s looking for a good Muslim site to bolster his faith, and inadvertently he stumbles into a Christian site and gets kind of interested and more interested, and reads, and the doubts grow.”
“He leaves Syria, goes into Turkey and meets a believer who’s able to share the gospel, and he comes to faith,” he continued. “And he was at a church conference in Lebanon in October and shared that personal story.”
Radio host Todd Nettleton said that the violent acts that characterize ISIS are causing Muslims to question Islam.
“And it’s not the effect necessarily that they want. What it is forcing Muslims to do is it is forcing them to examine their own faith,” he stated. “Many Muslims look at ISIS and they look into the Koran and they say, ‘Wait a minute. If that’s Islam, I don’t want that. I don’t want to do that; I don’t want to be that.’”
Some missionaries have come into contact with Muslims who state that they have had visions of Jesus.
“God in his sovereignty is able to turn what is evil, and what the enemy intends for evil, into something that’s good,” Julian declared.
He said that Christians need to pray for the salvation of those involved with ISIS rather than wishing their demise.
“These are people who have been deceived. They’re lost. They’re headed for a Christless eternity,” Julian stated. “At this prayer conference that I was at in Egypt, we were told about a prophetic word … which said that ‘I have another Saul on the road to Damascus (the capital of Syria), and I have an Ananias and a Barnabas ready, and I intend to raise up apostolic figures out of these fighters.’ … We need to pray for God to call forth those apostolic figures out of ISIS.”
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