Between rising political unrest in the U.S. and the riots and protests across France, along with every other tragic, enraging, or fear-inducing headline, stories about hope and resilience are often lost.
But on a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” the Blaze Media co-founder shared a story he says proves that our ultimate hope has never been politics but Jesus.
“God's working in ways that we might go, ‘Well, that doesn't help politically.’ I don't think God's in politics,” says Glenn.
“He's into changing people's hearts and that's what changes culture and that's what changes politics.”
He then shares the story of Ahmed Joktan — a Saudi-born medical doctor who converted from Islam to Christianity and is now an evangelist focused on reaching Muslims.
“He grew up in a house where God had rules. His father knew all of them because his father was a mufti, an Islamic legal scholar,” says Glenn. “So you know when somebody needed to be heard on Sharia law — Do we cut his hand off? Do we not cut his hand off? Do we stone her or not? — his father was the guy who made the decisions.”
By the age of 13, Glenn shares, Ahmed had “memorized the entire Quran — every word.”
After starting medical school in Saudi Arabia, Ahmed struggled because his earlier education hadn’t taught English, so he couldn’t read his textbooks. His father sent him to Auckland, New Zealand, for a short, intensive language course.
While there, a miracle happened.
“One night while he's there, he had a dream. And in the dream, the doors to his balcony in his room swung open. Light poured into the room — more light, he said, than the room could hold. ... In walks a figure of a man, and he hears a voice, ‘Come to me,”’ Glenn recounts.
He explains that in the dream, the light-surrounded man showed Ahmed “a building with white pillars in front of it.”
“And the voice said, ‘Go to the house of white pillars, and there you shall find the truth,”’ says Glenn.
Ahmed, he says, was so terrified he told his classroom about the dream. His teacher, who was a Christian, proposed that he might have encountered Jesus — a proposition the Muslim Ahmed was not open to.
“He leaves class. He's walking the streets of Auckland, and he finds it. ... He sees the building from his dream,” says Glenn.
The building was Auckland Baptist Tabernacle — a historic church founded through the missionary work of Thomas Spurgeon, son of world-renowned preacher Charles Spurgeon.
Inside, Ahmed met the pastor, Brian Johnson.
“They talked about sin. They talked about life. They talked about salvation. They talked about who Jesus is. The pastor even started with the places in the Quran that called Jesus the Word of God because he knew Ahmed was already grounded in that,” says Glenn.
“Well, Ahmed didn't want to read the Bible. He resisted it. But eventually he read one verse, and it was John 14:6: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ The truth — the same word the voice in the dream had used,” he continues.
Ahmed converted to Christianity, but his joy was immediately met with fear. He had to return to Saudi Arabia, where Islam is the official religion, and any public practice of any non-Muslim religion is illegal.
“He smuggles an Arabic New Testament into Saudi Arabia that's tucked in between all of his English textbooks,” says Glenn.
But it wasn’t long before his family caught him reading his Bible.
“The brothers come in, and they beat him within an inch of his life. Then dad comes home. ... He picks up an AK-47, points it at his own son, and says, ‘I will kill you unless you burn that book,”’ Glenn recounts.
Ahmed burned the book to stay alive, but the Word of God had already been burned into his heart.
Disowned by his family, Ahmed returned to New Zealand to begin a new life as a Christian.
To hear about his ministry, Mecca to Christ, watch the video above.
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