Testimony of David YUNUSANSAR
I was born and brought up in the Islamic tradition. My parents sent me to the Qur’anic School when I was fours year old. By age five I had read the entire Qur’an in Arabic and had already memorized many chapters. From that point on, my life became a role model for all the children in the local Islamic communities. Every morning as soon as I woke up, I recited the prayer that was to be read upon waking, thanking Allah for saving me from the death of sleep and for giving me another day to live. I had a deep understanding of Islam, mainly due to my upbringing during my childhood by studying the Qur’an. My teacher taught me to fear God (Allah) who created the Heaven and the earth in six days. There was not a single reason to doubt a religion, which emphasized fearing God, doing good works and living a moral life.
Being a Muslim, I loved Islam with all my heart. Not only was the fact that Islam was the religion of my parents a factor, but I had been taught that Islam was a very peaceful religion and it encouraged me to worship God Almighty (Allah). We were a very happy and tight-knit family because of our shared faith, more so than I or my friends had seen elsewhere. Secondly, I had learned to defend Islam by using reasoning and evidence. My parents taught me never to believe anything blindly, and as such they provided me with an apologetic stance on Islam (i.e. one that focuses on reason and evidence as a defense of the faith). Being naturally inquisitive, I greatly appreciated this approach to religion.
When I was 18, I remember asking myself, “Where will I go after I die?” This question baffled me continually. As a result, I began to try to earn my salvation, by being more faithful in my religious obligations of praying five times a day, attending the mosque for Friday prayers, fasting during Ramadan, giving alms, etc. Each time I finished my ritual prayers, I would ask God to put me on the right path, because I continued to be troubled by the possibility of facing hell after death. I questioned people who knew Islam better than I. However, I never received a satisfying answer to my questions about the afterlife.
The Qur’an presents a god who is intent on finding ways of tormenting his slaves. A Muslim may do as many good works as possible in this world, and on the Day of Judgment Allah will weigh the deeds of every individual on a scale. The good deeds are placed on one side of the scale, and the evil deeds on the other side. If the good deeds out weigh the evil ones, then the believer will go to paradise. My Muslim friends say, according to Islam, if your evil deeds out weigh your good deeds, you will be cast into the fires of hell. It looks like you would need to be only fifty-one percent good to get into paradise. Yet you remain absolutely unsure whether or not you are going to heaven. As my Muslim friend says, "Only God Knows!" You hope for the mercy of Allah and hope that the angels or the Prophet will intercede for you in the last day, so you will be saved from Hell.
One day God opened my eyes and I noticed a small guesthouse where I was privileged to meet an evangelist for the first time in my life. He shared the good news of the Gospel to me and gave me a Bible. I was 21 years old when I began to read the Scriptures of the Bible for myself. When I read the Bible, I discovered that all the prophets had announced the coming of a Messiah. They were preparing mankind to receive the Savior of the world who would come at a time appointed by God. Moreover, I discovered that from the very beginning, it was God’s plan that the Messiah should pay the penalty of sins for the world-so that all those who believe in Him would not have to pay that penalty themselves. This was a direct contradiction to what the Qur’an taught.
As a Muslim, there was one thing I had always believed made Christianity completely invalid, regardless of anything else. According to the Qur’an, Christ did not die on the cross but was whisked up to heaven by God and a look-alike put on the cross instead. I believed that every person was personally responsible for all of his own sins. How could it be possible that someone else would be able to pay for my sins—and not just my sins, but the sins of the whole world? This was not justice! Causing an innocent man to suffer for the rest of the world was not only unjust, but sick and twisted.
I decided that, regardless of what anyone might say, if Christianity was real, God Himself would have to show me. One night, alone in my dorm room, I decided to pray to Jesus for the very first time. I awkwardly said: “Jesus, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know if you’re a prophet; I don’t know if you are the Lord. I don’t know if you’re dead or if you are alive. But if you are alive, and you are Lord, then please show me.” From the depth of my heart, in the midst of inner conflict, I cried out to God, even in the mosque, "Lord, show me the truth! Is it Jesus or Muhammad? Could it be that you are my Father? Show me the truth, and the truth you lead me to, I will serve all my life, whatever the cost may be!" I burst into tears, because I knew the cost could be outrageously high for a weak, frail person like me. How could I afford to be cast out of my family and sleep on the streets like a homeless person? And what if they, in their Islamic righteousness and zeal, rush on to defend Islam and kill me? According to the Islamic religion, an apostate should be given the opportunity over a three day period to recant, and after that the infidel's blood is legitimately shed in the name of Allah! The words of the Prophet Muhammad kept ringing in my ears, “Any person (i.e. Muslim) who has changed his religion, kill him.” This tradition has been narrated by Abu Bakr, Uthman, Ali, Muadhibn Jabal, and Khalid ibn Walid. Yet I persisted in asking God to guide me.
I continued reading both the Bible and the Qur’an side by side, turning from one to the other. Little by little I grew a few steps closer to God. I found myself hungering even more for His word through the Bible. Every day as soon as I awoke, I would begin reading. The Bible became alive to me, illuminating my day, shedding its light on every step I would take. After months of study, I came to two logical conclusions: The Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and Jesus is the Son of God. I began to see it was possible for Jesus to be fully man and fully God. Intellectually, I accepted all the claims of the Christian faith, but in my heart I still feared being struck dead for calling the Almighty God: “My Father.” I needed a miracle! The Bible teaches us that no one can, with conviction, say, “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). No wonder every Salvation experience is one of a miracle of birth out of death into eternal life!
One night I had a vision. I looked, and there before me was one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven and He said with a tender sweet voice, “I love you!” I saw how obstinately I had resisted Him all these years and said to Him in tears, “I love you, too! I know you! You are Eternal for ever and ever.” I opened my eyes, with tears all over my face, and was filled with abundant joy, believing that Christ Himself had touched both my mind and my heart. I yielded and I was filled with great passion for Christ, jumping up and down, singing praises to His name and talking to Him day and night. I would not even sleep without God's inerrant Word, the Bible, next to my chest. Filled with the joy of salvation, I could neither hide nor deny Christ anymore.
The next truth I discovered was that this Jesus had provided a clear and uncompromising answer to my question: “Where will I go after I die?” by His death and resurrection. Jesus had said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the father except through me” (John 14:6). These and other verses in the Bible helped me to understand the claims of Jesus as the source of eternal life. I accepted Him as my personal Savior: the only One promised by God, who died and rose again to provide a way for lost mankind. Interestingly, after I placed my confidence in the Lord Jesus and in what He did for me on the cross, I felt a peace that I had never before experienced. What a change! I no longer have any worries about my eternal destiny, because I know that Jesus has paid the full penalty for all my sins which condemned me. I am saved! I am now completely confident about where I will go after I die. I know that I will go to Heaven –Not because I am good, but because He is -- because of God’s grace, which has been provided through Jesus Christ.
After accepting Christ as my personal Savior I did not anticipate the major trials and troubles that were awaiting me because of my newfound faith. It was almost as if the Father was trying to prepare me for the difficult times to come. My father said to me that “if you are Muslim, stay at home, but if you are surely Christian, get out of my house.” Every day the family’s battle line was seen more clearly. I saw it in the angry faces of my relatives. Not only did my father, my uncle, my brothers and my friends do their best to make light of my newfound faith in Jesus, they also harassed me in a number of ways. I was ostracized from my own family. Finally, breathing a deep sigh, I came out from my home, and said aloud, “I am beginning to learn, Lord, help me.” The loss of my family was painfully difficult for me. It was not what I wanted. By the grace of my Lord, I have overcome these hostilities about which Jesus warned us. He said “All men will hate you because of me…in this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (Luke 21: 17; John 16:33)
During this process, the Lord took care of me and has taught me many important lessons which have been a necessary part of my own spiritual growth. I have now been walking with the Lord for seven years. I held out my hand to Him. He was my only security; my only joy was staying in His Presence. As long as I could stay there, I knew that I would be living in the Glory. As the great preacher Charles Spurgeon said, "The purest and most exhilarating joy is the delight of glorifying God, and so anticipating the time when we shall enjoy him for ever." - Spurgeon
May God bless you all…!
Yours in His Service,
David Yunus Ansar