Last Saturday I was unable to watch the live streaming of the talks in Houston because I attended a conference on the Persecuted Church put on by Voice of the Martyrs and one of Ottawa’s largest evangelical churches, the Metropolitan Bible Church or The Met.
One of the keynote speakers was a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan. Here’s a link to the story I wrote about his testimony.
Pastor Wagdi Iskander faced a death sentence not long after he became a Christian in his native Sudan. After escaping prison, he has since devoted his life to sharing the Gospel with Muslims.
Iskander was a keynote speaker at the Learn, Pray and Act Conference at the Metropolitan Bible Church co-sponsored by Voice of the Martyrs to raise awareness of the plight of persecuted Christians. He appealed to the more than 500 people who attended the event to pray for those who persecute Christians and to show great love and patience in sharing the Gospel with Muslims.
The son of a Bedouin camel trader, Iskander had memorized the entire Koran by the age of six. The tribe’s religious leader warned him to “beware of Christians.”
“Burn them before they burn you,” the leader said, leaving Iskander with a burning hatred for Christians.
When he went on to university in Khartoum, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and soon became one of its leaders and participated in their violent efforts to protect Islam from corrupting influences.
A Christian student at university used to tell him about the Jesus of the Bible, but Iskander said those conversations prompted him to beat him up, sometimes leaving him with a bloody nose.
When this student arranged to bring in a preacher, the Muslim Brotherhood sent threats and warnings to have the event cancelled. When this didn’t work, Brotherhood held an emergency meeting. There they decided they would have to kill someone and they chose the Christian who witnessed to Iskander. No one volunteered to do the job, so Iskander was singled out. When he refused, fellow members asked him if he had been converted.
What a lovely, humble spirit this man has!
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