VISIONS OF JESUS: A NOT-SO-RARE PHENOMENON
By: Sandy Feit

IN GENESIS, Revelation, and scores of times in between, the Lord communicated with man through dreams and visions. Using the mind's eye and ear, God revealed Himself, His plans, and His purposes to an assortment of individuals, including rich, poor, Jew, Gentile, apostle, apostate, and even a donkey. These personal "visits" were powerful--no one had to convince Abraham or Hagar or Pharoah or Saul of the encounter's authenticity or importance. And as a result, lives, nations, and human history were altered.
Perhaps you, like many Christians, consider such occurrences a biblical phenomenon. But the prophet Joel told us to expect that "in the last days...old men will dream dreams, and ...young men will see visions" (Acts 2:17). Then it shouldn't be surprising to discover God still speaks in this way--and the people He visits are often so compelled by the experience that they take bold steps in His direction, despite the likelihood of ridicule, persecution, excommunication, or even death.
What may come as a surprise, though, is how common dreams and visions are--especially in cultures closed to evanagelism. After surveying more than 600 Muslim-background believers, Mission Frontiers magazine (March, 2001) reported, "Though dreams may play an insignificant role in the conversion decisions of most Westerners, over one-fourth of those surveyed state quite emphatically that dreams and visions were key in drawing them to Christ and sustaining them through difficult times."
Pastor Ali Arhab is one who knows. He estimates that during his childhood in Algeria, there were no more than 30 Christians in the entire country. The culture was exclusively Islamic, with essentially no avenues for examining claims of other religions. But certain questions plagued him, especially about earning one's way to heaven: "If you're assesed by a balance of good works versus bad, where do you go if you're 50/50? And who decides?" Though he was not an ill-behaved child, he considered his own past and concluded, "Disaster! I don't have good works!"
Ali first heard the gospel in 1983 at age 18, while vacationing in West Berlin. A group of street preachers explained the good news, but he found the message baffling: "A young lady named Ruth...told me about Jesus being the Son of God, and that He died for me. I thought , I can't believe this--Jesus died 2,000 years ago, and you're telling me He died for me today? It doesn't make sense because of time; it's an anachronism. I thought she was making up stories; I just didn't get it."
Culturally, Ali explains there was an additional hindrance: "From the Muslim perspective, for a woman to convince a man, it was like a weakness, which I would not allow back then." He tried to decline Ruth's invitation to church, but she was so relentless that he finally gave her his local address just to be done with their conversation.
Sunday morning, Ali had no clue who could be knocking at the door that early--to his mind, the discussion with Ruth had ended. He was startled to answer and hear, "So will you come to church?"
Out of embarrassment, he apologized and pretended his alarm hadn't gone off. "She caught me," he admits. "She took me for my word--so it was the first time I ever in my life entered church." He didn't know what to expect, but instead of the stereo-types he came in with ("I thought maybe there were idols"), he left with impressions of "singing--very joyful--beautiful!"
Returning to Algeria, Ali sensed that "somehow the first seed had been sown that never let me remain indifferent to what I heard." He still wrestled with theological questions and disparities, but always with "the thought deep in my heart that I was meant to believe in God."
Then, a few years after visiting Germany, he had an extraordinary experience: "One day, as I was seeking and asking God to reveal Himself to me, I had a vision of Christ. It was just like He appeared in my room. I was not sleeping; I was fully awake. He had a crown of thorns around His head, and there was a blazing fire around His head and around His body."
Up to that point, Ali had read no Scripture except the beginning of John's gospel, and yet the Lord's identity was unmistakable: "When He started to talk to me, I didn't have to ask--I just knew it was Jesus Christ. I saw His holiness, His purity."
The young man realized that the Lord knew him better than he knew himself: "He shed light on my life from the past to the present time. I could see all my sins, and I was struck by the glory of God. I knew I could just not get any closer to Him because of who He is. [It was] the first I knew that I was a sinner and needed to be saved. I knew God was calling."
Devastated, Ali watched as Christ unveiled all his "dirty stuff." He tried to come up with excuses but recalls, "Just at that moment, I could see a big screen next to Jesus. I saw my heart building lies--I saw my heart the way it is: corrupt, lying, sinful. And thn I realized there is no way I could justify myself. I thought I was going to die."
Yet at the same time, he recognized that Jesus was gentle--and that every condemnation he was feeling actually originated within himself. He then did something he never expected: he wept, "Please forgive me. If you give me one more chance, I will live for You."
He heard Jesus ask why he'd waited "until it is almost too late." Then, as a heaviness came over his body and his eyes began to shut down, Ali assumed death was imminent. He tried to hold his eyelids open with his fingers but was powerless.
"The followding day," he says, "I woke up and touched the chair next to me. That was real, and I realized I didn't die. Then I heard a voice that was so clean: 'From now on, you live for Me.' And I was never the same since that day. He forgave me,and I had a new life--Ali ceased to exist."

"WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?" (ISA. 53:1)

His reaction was euphoric: "The reality of what I experienced was just so wonderful--so beautiful--I thought I would tell all my friends, and the whole city will believe me. It didn't work out that way. My best freinds said, "You are crazy. Are you hallucinating?"
Ali asked God for "five people to pray with," but over the next three years, the Lord astonished him with even more. However, they had no place to meet--not even Ali's home, since he still lived with his Muslim parents. So the group would periodically go off to worship in the mountains for a couple of days. He says, "We'd bring in two or three new people, and they would accept Jesus. And we went on like that."
Ultimately, more than 50 confessed Christ.
Ali's father became suspicious and threatened to kill his son if he truly was following Jesus. "So I kept a low profile," Ali recalls. "[Over time], a number of people who came to faith gave a good report about me, and my father completely changed his perspective. He accepted the fact that I was a Christian."
Ali then served the Lord openly, starting a church and also developing a distribution center for Christian literature. Delivering materials to believers in "the four corners of Algeria" was risky, but he didn't really sense danger: "[When] I was stopped by the police, I would witness to them, pray for them, and give them the gospel." He remarks that no one gave him a hard time, not even in the late 80s, when he'd show the Jesus film in theaters and afterward engage in debates. "A lot of people came to know the Lord," he says, "and I started another church in Algiers."
Eventually, though, Ali learned of threats on his life and was advised to leave the country. So he attended seminary in Holland for three years and then went to England. There, he joined Worldwide Evangelization for Christ, and in 1998, WEC sent him to start a church in France. Ali questioned whether he had enough in common with the French to win them to Christ, but God once again surprised him; "Muslims started coming to Christ. And then the Muslins brought their French friends. So I thought, Fantastic! Let's focus on whoever we get."
Ali also started a TV ministry to North Africa (www.cna-sat.org). The broadcast, which currently airs several hours a day, highlights personal stories of faith. Ali explains, "Testimonies are so powerful. I had a vision, and a lot of Muslims [who come to Christ] had a vision or a dream. You see, [He] has the power to break into our lives when we are conscious or in our subconsciious, whether in our intellect or in our emotions. The Lord is using everything that could lead us eventually to love Him, to know Him, to worship Him. And we have every month about 1,000 positive responses. Of these,[many] are ready to commit their lives to Jesus."
"The Lord has really blessed me," says Ali. "I never thought I would be a Christian. I never thought I would leave my job to serve the Lord. I never thought I would say to Him, 'If you woud just give me one more chance to live, I will live for You.' It all started with just one lady--Ruth--in Germany." And a vision of Jesus. +
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By Sandy Feit
In Touch Magazine
Be the Bridge- 'Muslims, Christians, and Jesus' / (book)