Barry Meguiar 00:00
Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast. How would you like to have the time of your life for the rest of your life? How would you like to defeat fear effortlessly, knowing for sure God is hearing and answering your prayers and directing your steps and making everything work for good? This is exciting. Here’s the question, How would you like to ignite your life? Stay tuned.
Hi everybody. Welcome back to Ignite, special guest. Every guest is special. We only have people on our podcast are special, but this one is special in a different way. You’re going to hear a message that all of us need to hear. How often do we talk with Muslims and try to reach Muslims but don’t exactly have the training to do that the right way? And we’re going to fix that a little bit today. Hedieh Falco, welcome Hedieh.
Speaker 1 00:55
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me, Barry, it’s an honor.
Barry Meguiar 00:58
Hedieh Falco is a, she, I’ve been hearing about her. I’ve been watching her. She’s a firestorm, man. She is everywhere for good reason, because she has great background and insighted into what’s going on today, particularly with the Iranian crisis as all. Your ministry name, that’s, I should jump to the end and say that then, but let’s go ahead and start with it. Your ministry name is…
Speaker 1 01:23
Resurrect Ministry, and that’s with a y.com
Barry Meguiar 01:27
Okay, you have such an interesting background. You weren’t raised as a Christian. Let’s take, we could spend two hours, hours on this. Can you give us a 62nd version of your background, then let’s go into your, your national security status at FBI. And I mean, where our government has used you has been amazing and rightfully so, but, but it’s, it’s interesting how this all started for you, because it wasn’t as a person of faith that was looking at the problems and trying to figure them all out.
Speaker 1 02:06
Yes, so I grew up in. I was born in the United States. My parents came over from Iran. We were raised a secular, no religion in our, in our household. I actually came to faith in Islam in college and the first Islamic community I came across was pretty radical, and I was disturbed by that, and I went around looking for other communities, and I ended up in a kind of a mystical version of Islam, which is known as Sufism. And I realized that that community was in this knockout drag out fight with the more extreme interpretations of Islam in those communities, not only in the United States, but around the world. It piqued my interest to understand what was at the root of this conflict. And it was a struggle for the soul of Islam. And I came across a couple of FBI agents early in my career who were interested in the terrorism back then.
Barry Meguiar 03:00
Oh, they came across you?
Speaker 1 03:02
They came across me. Like, it was like an accident.
Barry Meguiar 03:08
Who is this lady, and what is she up to? So, all of a sudden you find yourself in a dark room and question, what’s going on here?
Speaker 1 03:16
Yeah, eventually, but it started off much more casual.
Barry Meguiar 03:20
Yeah, I’m joking, of course.
Speaker 1 03:23
Yeah, and it was, it led to a career I have to say, I was so happy to help. My father raised me very patriotic. He was really proud to become an American citizen, and so I moved to DC and began basically talking about extremism and radicalization and what was happening in the Muslim community as a Muslim.
Barry Meguiar 03:43
Oh, go back for a minute, because you went to USC.
Speaker 1 03:46
I went to UCLA undergrad, USC law school.
Barry Meguiar 03:49
Yeah, USC law school. So those two schools, you saw a lot of this stuff going on. You got, you got, of course in person.
Speaker 1 03:55
Not just in law school, but it was beginning to happen, and not to the extent we see now, it is way more controversial and radical now than it was when I was in school the.
Barry Meguiar 04:08
In that short period of time.
Speaker 1 04:09
Yeah, it was especially this is, you know, early 90s, 1990s. So the problem really has not, and actually the problem has gotten much worse in the past 10 years, and that’s part of the radical left and Islamist Alliance I think. That’s really catapulted their visibility and their outspokenness. So anyway, so I ended up moving to DC, and I just began and spent 25, 22 years as a federal contractor working for various branches of the US government, basically trying to identify moderate Muslim networks and defeat terrorism, fight radicalization, and that’s, yeah, and then I, when I left DC, I ended up getting really disillusioned. I had a, experience when I tried to take my head cover off in Islam, and I got a tremendous amount of criticism, telling me I was going to burn an eternity in hellfire, and I just got really tired of it, and I got tired of not being able to solve the problem of terrorism and radicalization, and I moved back to California, and in that I was lost once again, finding no relationship with what I thought was God, and I followed a tweet of a girl I don’t even know, saw a pastor on YouTube, preach the simple gospel and that’s it. Here I am.
Barry Meguiar 05:29
You know, it’s amazing. I hear so many stories like this, and you could go through all those same experiences and not have a heart for God, and God is not moving supernaturally. Right. We affect God. But he knew your heart through all of that. Yes. He knew you had a heart for him. You didn’t know him right, but you had a heart for right. What’s, what is right and ethical and loving, if I can put words your mouth for a moment, and he saw that in you, and he knew you were hungering for him, and he needed to get to you and, and then he does it in the most simple way, profound way. It speaks to your heart. Isn’t that something?
Speaker 1 06:12
Yeah, and I tell people this all the time, when it comes to, even devout Muslims, people are afraid of approaching and I said that, you know, if they’re devout worshipers, they are chasing after what they think is God, and one of the most powerful things you could say to them is to pray and open their hearts for the real God to reveal himself, because our God is on the move. There are millions of Muslims coming to faith in Christ across the Middle East. Through dreams and visions and audibly hearing the voice of Christ, which is an experience that I had. It’s, it’s happening everywhere, even when there’s no access to churches or Bibles.
Barry Meguiar 06:49
Yeah, let’s talk about revival in Iran right quick, because I keep getting videos. I shared one with you the other day, but I’ve gotten a lot of others. It’s fervent. It’s on fire. Give us some insight of what’s happening in the Christian community in Iran.
Speaker 1 07:03
Well, the really interesting thing is, unfortunately, there is a massive decline in the Christian populations in other parts of the Middle East, and that’s the result of the rise of Islamic extremism. So as those communities multiply and expand, the Christian community gets persecuted and pushed out. Well, in Iran, the population is so fed up with the Islamic regime that they, a lot of them left faith altogether. They became atheists, and then, on the other hand, a lot of them ended up turning to Christ, and that’s the result of either access to the internet, through underground churches, through missionaries, and some people put the number at somewhere between one and 2 million Christians in Iran that are born again. It’s just, it’s extraordinary, and it’s really, and there’s really a deep, a deep sense of commitment, because it’s very dangerous. It’s apostasy. First of all, when you leave Islam, and the penalty is death in Iran, and they are particularly aggressive against pastors and followers of Christ. I mean, one girl I knew moved 12 times in two weeks just to continue to preach the gospel and baptize people in her bathtubs, and her and her husband were just running from house to house because they were just on fire for the Lord, and wanted to say family members and friends and people that they would just meet in a restaurant.
Barry Meguiar 08:30
Incredible. So I’ve seen these videos the last couple of weeks of massive crowds worshiping God and thinking, How did, how do they find a place they can do that? I mean, they’re, they can’t do it with complete freedom, because they know at any moment, but, but there are these gatherings of, of Christians coming together. How’s that? How’s that happening?
Speaker 1 08:50
Oh, most of those videos are not in Iran. Those are expat communities. Both are Persians in Canada.
Barry Meguiar 08:58
I want Iranians, and they’re praising God in Iranian art, but they’re not.
Speaker 1 09:04
They’re not in Iran.
Barry Meguiar 09:05
They’re not in Iran. That was the question I had. I said, it looks real. I think they are. But how can that possibly do it right under in the midst of all the murdering and killing and pillaging?
Speaker 1 09:18
No, absolutely not. Their home churches as far as you know, the missionaries there that I’ve spoken to, say, never exceed more than three or four people.
Barry Meguiar 09:26
Yeah, that answers that question. And it is amazing though, that where we’re seeing revival is mostly where there’s persecution. Right. Where we have plenty, or there’s, there’s no penalty, we’re seeing deadness. I think if I was God like it, I might say I have the persecution model and I have the prosperity model. The persecution model works better.
Speaker 1 09:57
So sad, so sad. I actually, one of my prayers with the Lord is I’m constantly in praise and worship and think gratitude, because I was like, Please Lord, don’t use difficulty to draw me near to you.
Barry Meguiar 10:11
But he does. Because my life about every joyful Christian I know when I talk to them, I find out they’ve been through great pain. Right. And you learn, you learn through the pain, you can shake your fist at God, or you can depend on God, and he, he refreshes you in the midst of the pain and uses you to touch other lives, you know, isn’t that amazing?
Speaker 1 10:34
Absolutely. And I think that’s actually what can explain a lot of the revival we’re seeing in the United States. There’s, you know, reports about Gen Z coming to faith in Christ, whether it’s through, you know, the Protestant denomination, or turning to the Catholic Church. You know, both of us are huge fans of the research that George Barna does at Arizona Christian and the just the reports of how much of their learning and coming towards faith in Christ in this generation and college students is extraordinary. It’s such a great accomplishment. And I think that is the result of the trans movement, the, you know, the LGBT movement, and the just this feeling of emptiness that’s being pushed by the radical left, that the kids are just rejecting and wanting a relationship with God, which has meaning and gives their life’s meaning.
Barry Meguiar 11:23
I think Satan’s overplayed his hand. Yes. With the Gen z’s. Yes. They see so much of it and are fed up with it, and are really searching for truth down the people, the Gen Z audiences that we come to, they want to know, they want, they don’t know what, they want truth they don’t know what it is, necessarily, but they want truth. And when you explain to them that God is the author of truth, He is truth, He exudes truth, you can know Him personally. Guess what? You can represent Him personally and change everybody around you by introducing them to the Holy God, they, they respond. I think the hope for America is the Gen Zers.
Speaker 1 12:03
I’ve seen it in my, in my own daughter’s life. It was, it was a really long struggle, and she went, she passed through every stage. I wrote it in my I have a book out called Living Fearless in Christ, and I talk about that journey. And it was so hard to get her to see that the solution, the answer to the depression, the trauma, the, you know, all the pulls of the youth today is Jesus and having a personal relationship with him, and so I’m super grateful for the transformation I’ve seen in her life.
Barry Meguiar 12:35
Fighting for the souls of our kids and our grandkids. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s full on Spiritual Warfare. Absolutely. Even when our kids are going to church. Yes. It’s, it’s just, I see it all over the place. It’s just. And of course, you know this terrible statistic that reports from several sources that like 80% of our young people who grow up in church reject God, even if they go to a Christian college, reject God by the time they graduate college. And I go back, of course, to wait a minute train your way your child in the ways of the Lord when they’re young and they’ll not depart from it. So there’s, what’s going on, God? I know your word is true, but these two don’t get together. And it came to be, we’re not teaching on the ways of the Lord in most of our churches, preaching salvation, where we got smoke and mirrors, and we’re jumping around like maniacs and praise and praising praise, and we’re going on mission trips, and we’re having doing everything but leading people to Jesus. I mean, it’s a form of godliness, but not denying it’s powerful. So they’re not really saved. So it’s a surface experiential type Christianity. And then they get into the real world where they’re being challenged for their thoughts, and particularly with, with left leaning pastors, even in Christian universities. And they get, they get easily bumped off the truck, and they’re on the wrong side of the tracks, and that’s one of the great tragedies in America today.
Speaker 1 14:04
It really is. It really is. And I do a Sunday school class at my local church, teaching them about Islam, and I asked them all the time, I was like, Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus? Have you given your life to the Lord? I know you all. You know mostly you come from Christian homes that this is just you think this is your identity from birth. It’s not. God has no grandchildren. He only has children. So make sure you have a personal relationship with the Lord. And it’s, it’s really, and I asked them often. I was like, raise your hands if you know where you go when you die. And the entire room does not raise their hand. And I tell them, I said, Wait, why? Why do you not know?
Barry Meguiar 14:42
The kids in a Sunday school class, right?
Barry Meguiar 14:44
Exactly. How’s that even fix that?
Barry Meguiar 14:48
Sad. It is, it is, it is true. And folks know that when you’re talking to a quote, unquote Christian, that doesn’t mean they’re a Christian. You know 75 something like 75, 30% of Americans say they’re Christian. It’s a cultural believe in Jesus. They would swear to say, goodbye, was Jesus son of God? They know that, and we can take that as salvation. It’s not salvation. Satan. Satan knows who Jesus is. He believes in Jesus.
Speaker 1 15:18
They trust in the Lord. Yeah.
Barry Meguiar 15:20
It’s being in my past here in Arizona, here Luke Barnett on suddenly said, Are you a believer, or are you a follower? There’s lots of believers, but most of them are not followers. Yes. Take up the cross and follow me, you know, and, and be my, be my apostle to the nations, my voice to the nations. And we’re not, we’re not doing that. So it’s, it’s crazy that said, Give me before we go to the break here, I got to tell you I love Muslims on a secular basis and a Christian basis. I work with a lot of Muslims. We’re a huge brand throughout the Arab world, with our car wax. Fantastic. And we have partners there, and they would die for me and I would die for them. I mean, we talk about God, and I talk to regular Muslims, I think, oh, that I would have enough faith that I would lay down and put myself prone in front of whoever to worship, who I thought was God, their obedience, their worship, their it’s good hearts. They may be blinded, but they have the right they want God. Yes, when I get into the homes, and I interact in business with Muslims. I, I just fall in love with them, their hospitality, their food. Yeah, I love the whole experience. So, I find myself apologizing for Muslims, often saying, don’t, don’t confuse the lunatics, the jihadists, whatever, with the common people, they’re just trying to follow God. And in Jerusalem, I met the most amazing people. They call them. Tell you they’re Palestinians. I almost recalled the first time I went there. You know, you were so kind and loving, and also, I gotta buy American view of this whole thing is mixed up. So I find myself drawn to Muslims, in spite of all the chaos and the hate and wanting to, you know, to kill us and all that, but most of them are just there. That’s not their heart. They’re just trying to do the right. And they’re caught between this, these two forces, and we can’t sit quiet. We got to appeal to them on their level. They can understand. That’s what I want to do. We can do another half an hour, right? Yeah, is I want to get into that, folks, and talk about, how can we reach the heart of a Muslim whose heart really it’s not pure, but it’s but it’s worthy. God loves them as every one of them to the worst one of them. He loves them as much He loves us. He does. He loves them. And we have no choice. We have to love them back no matter what they do. They’re doing evil things because they’re lost, we have to get them unlost. And so that’s the great privilege we have. I want to talk about that in our next break before we close off this half hour any give me any kind of thoughts you might have about on this subject of how do we reach to the Muslim world without getting into 2DBS?
Speaker 1 18:39
The hard part is that we have to separate Islam as a religion, as an ideology, as a global expansionist movement from Muslims who are created in the image of God. So, there is no one past the reach of a living God. It’s just being able to separate our feelings and even our approach to dealing with Sharia and Islamization and this war, militant or political factions of the Islamic community, but really being able to separate Muslims as people, because even the son of a Hamas leader became a Christian, you know what I mean? I know people who are jihadis too. So we just have to be able to maintain that heart for the individual while we deal separately with it as a movement.
Barry Meguiar 19:25
Yeah, okay, we’re gonna break off now and we’ll skip over the next we’ll get into that in depth. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. I know you are. Your schedule is amazing.
Speaker 1 19:41
I’m not more busy than you.
Barry Meguiar 19:42
We’ll you talk about that anyway, we’ll close it off for now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And for all of you watches, thank you for joining us, and we’ll see you on the next episode. Okay, take care.
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