As you probably know, Jonah disobeyed.
Now, it is easy for us to be pious and say to ourselves or our children, “Oh, that silly little Jonah! He should have known better. He should have obeyed God and not jumped on that ship heading far away from Ninevah! Then he never would have been swallowed up and spit out by the whale.”
But imagine for a moment that tonight, as you lay your head down on your pillow, the Lord speaks to you. Imagine that He tells you to go to Mosul—modern-day Ninevah, one of the most dangerous cities on the face of the planet—and stand on the street corner and preach a message of repentance at the risk of your life. Would you obey? Or would you jump on a Disney cruise and head in the opposite direction?
On February 9, 2006, I had the privilege of interviewing a young woman named Carrie McDonnall, who served as a Christian worker for the Southern Baptists in Iraq. After the fall of Saddam, God told Carrie, her husband, David, and three colleagues to go to Mosul to do relief work, share the gospel with Muslims, and encourage local believers in a house church there.
They obeyed.
But on March 15, 2004, they were ambushed by terrorists. Carrie’s three colleagues died instantly. She sustained more than twenty gunshot wounds. Every bone in her arms and legs was shattered. She couldn’t move. She was hemorrhaging massive amounts of blood. She could see only blood and bone where three of her fingers had just been ripped off.
David was shot in the chest but refused to go down. By the grace of God, he was able to drag her out of the bullet-riddled SUV and, with the help of Iraqi bystanders, get her to a hospital, where she immediately blacked out.
When she woke up eight days later, she was in Dallas, only to find that David had not made it. Yet two years later, she told me she still loved the Iraqi people. She had forgiven her attackers. And she was traveling the U.S. trying to mobilize young people to invest their lives as missionaries to “reach the nations,” even in Iraq, no matter what the cost.
Carrie’s story of faith and courage is amazing to me. It is evidence of what a great God we have, a God who is sending His servants to penetrate the darkness of Islam with the light of Jesus. And it brings me back to the central question provoked by the book of Jonah: If God clearly told you to go to Mosul, would you do it? For many today, the answer is no, and the reason is fear. But look more closely at the biblical text. Was it fear that prevented Jonah from obeying the Lord’s call? No. It was racism. It was prejudice. Jonah did not want the people of Ninevah to repent. He did not want the enemies of Israel to experience God’s love and forgiveness.
Today, there is no question that fear is preventing many followers of Jesus Christ from obeying His call to love the Muslim people. But others share Jonah’s animosity toward the people of the epicenter. We need to repent of such views. We need to ask God to change our hearts and give us His supernatural love. If we are ever going to join the Revolution—much less win it—the Church is going to need both courage and compassion.
The exciting news is that many around the world are responding to God’s call to love and bless the people of the Islamic world. In China, for example, the “Back to Jerusalem” movement is on the rise. Chinese house-church leaders are praying that God will raise up at least one hundred thousand believers to reach every person in every country between China and Israel—including Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims—with the gospel of Jesus Christ, regardless of the cost.
Remarkably, thousands of Chinese believers are responding to that call. So are Mexican believers. And African believers. And South Korean believers. And believers from the Philippines and India and Pakistan and the United States and Canada.
What about you? Are you willing to join the Revolution?
Jesus Is with Us
Jesus tells us not to be afraid to serve Him. He promises to always be with us. He promises never to forsake us. Perhaps we should take Him at His word.
On my second trip to Iraq, I met a wonderful MBB named Daniel. He is a businessman who came to faith in Jesus Christ in 1986 after seeing six visions in one night telling him to follow Jesus. In March of 2008, however, Daniel was kidnapped in Baghdad by five members of the Mahdi Army. They took him to a warehouse, stripped him, beat him mercilessly, and demanded he pay them $200,000.
He told them he did not have such money. They didn’t believe him, so they beat him some more. Eventually they forced him to call a friend who was able to come up with $20,000 as a ransom. When the Radicals got their money, they took Daniel to the edge of town and promised to set him free. Instead, they put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.625
Daniel told me that everything went black. He never heard the gunshot. Nor did he feel it. Suddenly he saw his sister—agitated and distressed—trying to get to him. But she could not; she went away. Then Daniel saw his daughter trying desperately to get to him. But she, too, was unable. Then it dawned on him that he was dead, that there was a barrier between life and death, and his sister and daughter were unable to cross it. He told me that he fell on his face weeping. But at that moment, he said the two most beautiful and gentle hands that he had ever seen took him and picked him up. When he was standing, he suddenly realized that he was looking directly into the eyes of Jesus. A tremendous sense of peace and calm came over him. Jesus embraced him, put Daniel’s head on His shoulder, and told him, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
At that moment, Daniel said, he was alive again. He was lying on the side of the road, covered in his own blood. A passerby stopped, put him in the back of his car, and raced him to the hospital. It took months of medical treatment—in Iraq and in Jordan—but today, Daniel is not only alive but well. Though he is blind in one eye, he is convinced he can see more clearly than ever, and he is testifying with conviction and humility to the greatness of our great God.
“The Lord, He cares for us, Joel,” Daniel told me as he showed me the wounds where the 9 mm bullet entered his left temple and exited his right cheek. “He never leaves us or forsakes us.”
I do not tell this story to suggest that God will immediately resurrect every believer who is killed for his faith in a Muslim land. Obviously that’s not the case. But once God adopts us into His family, He will stay with us forever, in this life and in the life to come.
My friends, I am in awe of this God who makes promises and keeps them, who hears our prayers and answers them. Jesus wants to embrace us. Should we not embrace Him? Should we not follow Him, no matter what the cost? Should we not join the Revolution that He is leading in the epicenter?
I have. My wife has. Our boys have. Not because we are brave but because we are in love with the Jesus who loved us so much that He gave Himself for us. At the end of time, we want to hear Him say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness” (Matthew 25:21, NIV).
Will you join us?
Appendix
20 Terror Plots against America FOILED since 9/11
Why has the United States not been hit by terrorists inside our country since September 11, 2001? It is not because the Radicals are not trying. Al Qaeda and other extremist individuals and organizations have tried repeatedly to launch murderous attacks against innocent American civilians and military personnel. But they have failed by God’s grace and the hard work of U.S. and foreign law enforcement, intelligence, and military officials. The following is a list of twenty known terror plots thwarted by the U.S. government since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001:626
1. December 2001—Richard Reid: British citizen attempted to ignite shoe bomb on flight from Paris to Miami.
2. May 2002—Jose Padilla: American citizen accused of seeking radioactive-laced “dirty bomb” to use in an attack against America. Padilla was convicted of conspiracy in August 2007.
3. September 2002—Lackawanna Six: American citizens of Yemeni origin convicted of supporting al Qaeda after attending ji
hadist camp in Pakistan. Five of six were from Lackawanna, New York.
4. May 2003—Iyman Faris: American citizen charged with plotting to use blowtorches to collapse the Brooklyn Bridge.
5. June 2003—Virginia Jihad Network: Eleven men from Alexandria, Virginia, trained for jihad against American soldiers, convicted of violating the Neutrality Act.
6. August 2004—Dhiren Barot: Indian-born leader of terror cell plotted bombings on financial centers.
7. August 2004—James Elshafay and Shahawar Matin Siraj: Sought to plant bomb at New York’s Penn Station during the Republican National Convention.
8. August 2004—Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain: Plotted to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat on American soil.
9. June 2005—Father and son Umer Hayat and Hamid Hayat: Son convicted of attending terrorist training camp in Pakistan; father convicted of customs violation.
10. August 2005—Kevin James, Levar Haley Washington, Gregory Vernon Patterson, and Hammad Riaz Samana: Los Angeles homegrown terrorists who plotted to attack National Guard, LAX, two synagogues, and the Israeli consulate.
11. December 2005—Michael Reynolds: Plotted to blow up natural gas refinery in Wyoming, the Transcontinental Pipeline, and a refinery in New Jersey. Reynolds was sentenced to thirty years in prison.
12. February 2006—Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman El-Hindi, and Zand Wassim Mazloum: Accused of providing material support to terrorists making bombs for use in Iraq.
13. April 2006—Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee: Cased and videotaped the Capitol and World Bank for a terrorist organization.
14. June 2006—Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin, and Rotschild Augustine: Accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower.
15. July 2006—Assem Hammoud: Accused of plotting to bomb New York City train tunnels.
16. August 2006—Liquid Explosives Plot: Thwarted plot to explode ten airliners over the United States.
17. March 2007—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Mastermind of 9/11 and author of numerous plots confessed in court to planning to destroy skyscrapers in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Also plotted to assassinate Pope John Paul II and former president Bill Clinton.
18. May 2007—Fort Dix Plot: Six men accused of plotting to attack Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey. The plan included attacking and killing soldiers using assault rifles and grenades.
19. June 2007—JFK Plot: Four men accused of plotting to blow up fuel arteries that run through residential neighborhoods at JFK Airport in New York.
20. September 2007—German authorities disrupt terrorist cell planning attacks on military installations and facilities used by Americans in Germany. The Germans arrested three suspected members of the Islamic Jihad Union, a group that has links to al Qaeda and supports al Qaeda’s global jihadist agenda.
Acknowledgments
Looking back, it now seems clear this book was set into motion in 1986, when the Lord first began to stir in my heart a curiosity about the Muslim world and gave me the opportunity to travel for a month to several Islamic cities in what was known then as Soviet Central Asia.
The following year, He gave me the wonderful privilege of traveling for the first time to Israel and the West Bank. While studying at Tel Aviv University for a semester, I witnessed firsthand the beginning of the Palestinian Muslim uprising known as the first intifada and its effect on Israel, on the U.S., and on world opinion.
By the next year, back at Syracuse University—my alma mater—Lynn and I began dating and volunteering in an international student ministry on campus run by our dear friend and pastor, Dr. T. E. Koshy. It was there that we developed so many special friendships with students from Iran, Gaza, and Algeria; and it was there that we began to learn how to love Muslims in real and practical ways.
What a journey it has been since. Lynn and I have been blessed by so many men and women who went out of their way to teach us, encourage us, challenge and inspire us. Though we wish we could, it would be impossible to acknowledge and thank them all by name. Still, we are compelled to honor a handful who deserve special recognition and appreciation.
Our families: Len and Mary Rosenberg; June “Bubbe” Meyers, the hero of November Communications; Dan and Susan Rebeiz; Michael and Patricia Meyers; the extended Meyers team; Steve and Kate Scoma; Jim and Emily Urbanski. We love you all so much. Thank you for loving us and helping us in countless and deeply appreciated ways.
Our sources: thanks so much to each and every person cited in this book, as well as to hundreds more who provided useful facts, insightful analysis and candid observations that we found enormously helpful and without which this book would have been impossible to write. Special thanks to Tom and JoAnn Doyle for an amazing trip to Afghanistan.
Our amazingly wonderful, courageous, and deeply loved Joshua Fund team: Tim and Carolyn Lugbill, Edward and Kailea Hunt, Steve and Barb Klemke, Amy Knapp, John and Cheryl Moser, Jeremy and Angie Grafman, Nancy Pierce, Dr. Chung Woo and Dr. Farah Woo, and Dr. T. E. Koshy. Though words are our living, Lynn and I confess that we simply cannot find words adequate enough to express to each of you how grateful we are that you have joined the Revolution at great personal cost and chosen to help us when we have needed it most.
Our supporters and prayer warriors: all the individuals, families, pastors, congregations, ministries, and business leaders in the U.S., Canada, the epicenter, and around the world who are praying with and for us and who are faithfully and generously investing in the work of the Joshua Fund. We are humbled by your confidence and deeply committed to being wise stewards of the trust you have bestowed upon us. May the Lord richly bless you for blessing Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus, according to Genesis 12:1-3.
Our publishing team: Mark Taylor, Ron Beers, Becky Nesbitt, Jan Stob, Jeremy Taylor, Cheryl Kerwin, Beverly Rykerd, Dean Renninger, and the entire Tyndale family. You each are such a joy to work with. Thank you so much for helping us share this message.
Our literary agent: Scott Miller of Trident Media Group, the best in the business. Thanks for being such a dear friend and providing consistently wise counsel.
Our continuing heroes: all those whom we thanked in our previous books and who continue to bless our family and our team in countless and unexpected ways.
Our children: Caleb, Jacob, Jonah, and Noah, for whom we are so grateful. May you walk faithfully with Jesus, come what may.
Most of all, I want to thank my precious wife, Lynn, with all of my heart. You are my hero and my best friend, Lynn, and I love you more than I can possibly explain. Promise me you’ll let me kneel beside you when we worship together at the feet of Jesus.
About the Author
Joel C. Rosenberg is the founder of the Joshua Fund and the New York Times best-selling author of The Last Jihad, The Last Days, The Ezekiel Option, The Copper Scroll, Dead Heat, and Epicenter, with more than 1.5 million copies in print. As a communications strategist, he has worked with some of the world’s most influential leaders in business, politics, and media, including Steve Forbes, Rush Limbaugh, and former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As a novelist, he has been interviewed on hundreds of radio and TV programs, including ABC’s Nightline, CNN Headline News, FOX News Channel, The History Channel, MSNBC, The Rush Limbaugh Show, and The Sean Hannity Show. He has been profiled by the New York Times, the Washington Times, World magazine, and the Jerusalem Post. He has addressed audiences all over the world, including Russia, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and Belgium, and has spoken at the White House, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol.
The first page of his first novel—The Last Jihad—puts readers inside the cockpit of a hijacked jet, coming in on a kamikaze attack into an American city, which leads to a war with Saddam Hussein over weapons of mass destruction. Yet it was written before 9/11 and published before the actual war with Iraq. The Last Jihad spent eleven weeks on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-sell
er list, reaching as high as #7. It raced up the USA Today and Publishers Weekly best-seller lists, hit #4 on the Wall Street Journal list, and hit #1 on Amazon.com.
His second thriller—The Last Days—opens with the death of Yasser Arafat and a U.S. diplomatic convoy ambushed in Gaza. Two weeks before The Last Days was published in hardcover, a U.S. diplomatic convoy was ambushed in Gaza. Thirteen months later, Yasser Arafat was dead. The Last Days spent four weeks on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list, hit #5 on the Denver Post list, and hit #8 on the Dallas Morning News list. Both books have been optioned by a Hollywood producer.
The Ezekiel Option centers on a dictator rising in Russia who forms a military alliance with the leaders of Iran as they feverishly pursue nuclear weapons and threaten to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. On the very day it was published in June 2005, Iran elected a new leader who vowed to accelerate the country’s nuclear program and later threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.” Six months after it was published, Moscow signed a $1 billion arms deal with Tehran. The Ezekiel Option spent four weeks on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list and five months on the Christian Bookseller Association (CBA) best-seller list, reaching as high as #4. It won the 2006 Christian Book Award for fiction.
In The Copper Scroll, an ancient scroll describes unimaginable treasures worth untold billions buried in the hills east of Jerusalem and under the Holy City itself—treasures that could come from the Second Temple and whose discovery could lead to the building of the Third Temple and a war of biblical proportions. One month after it was released, Biblical Archaeology Review published a story describing the real-life, intensified hunt for the treasures of the actual Copper Scroll. The Copper Scroll spent four weeks on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list, two weeks on the Wall Street Journal best-seller list, two weeks on the Publishers Weekly hardcover fiction list, and several months on the CBA best-seller list. It won the 2007 Logos Bookstores Best Fiction Award.
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