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The Iranian regime – and its seemingly relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons – continues to monopolise media coverage and the president’s time.

But what about the Iranian people?

Incredibly, in the sort of way only God could accomplish, a wildfire of house churches has spread through Iran.

A revival has broken out, led mostly by women, as captured in the documentary “Sheep Among Wolves”.

Marziyeh Amirizadeh: Incredible Testimony

Meanwhile, Muslims all around the world, not just Iran, report having dreams of Jesus or a “man in white” they later learn is the Jewish Messiah God-man. What a time to be alive.

You might be surprised to hear these reports, but you wouldn’t be if you knew the story of Marzi. Her full name is Marziyeh Amirizadeh, and her testimony is incredible.

Marzi shared her story on the “Outstanding” podcast, a tale of her miraculous conversion, daring evangelistic endeavours, and later heart-wrenching persecution at the hands of Iranian guards.

“I was born in Iran, which is a Muslim country, and it has a terrible reputation because of the evil Islamic Republic regime,” she began.

“There is no freedom of opinion,” she continued. “So as soon as you are born there, you are a Muslim. And in every document, when you go to school, to university, getting a job everywhere, you have to” say that you are Muslim.

Marzi said she lived in Iran for 33 years and experienced the “brainwashing” of the regime to love Islam, hate Jews, and more.

“For example, for anti-Semitism, there is a book of Prophet Muhammad, book of Hadith… that he says, you need to search the Earth and behind any trees or any stones, if you find a Jew, you need to find them and kill them. So there are many other teachings like that,” she explained.

“There are many other verses in Quran. I have lists of those verses directly from the book of Quran that teach Muslims how they should treat infidels in the eyes of Muslims.

“It’s not just about Jews. All other people of faith are infidels, and they believe that… their Messiah, which is the 12th Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi, will come by Muslims opening the path for him through annihilating the state of Israel through [the] extermination of Jews.

“And then he will start a global Islamic war and [he will] go to all people of the world and give a chance to every other [person] of faith to convert to Islam, because based on their belief, Islam is the perfect religion, and at the end time, everyone must convert to Islam.”

One day, everything changed for Marzi. She saw Jesus in an incredible encounter and began following him and doing widespread evangelism to her fellow Muslims.

Suffering and Persecution

Soon, though, she began to experience persecution.

“I decided to accept Jesus, and because of that, they put me in prison and they sentenced me to death by hanging.”

Marzi continued,

“And my life story is not just about prison. I witnessed the brutality of this regime and the impact of [the] harsh rules of Islam in my life.

“Even before going to prison, for example, they killed my husband. They charged him with the accusation of drinking wine and having a relationship with another girl. They tortured him brutally for months, and as a result of those tortures, he passed away.

“He got 80 lashes without having any evidence that he was drinking wine, but he got 80 lashes for that.”

Marzi saw horrors in prison firsthand that are hard to imagine.

“So after that, I went through lots of difficulties, pains, and sufferings because of living in an Islamic country, experiencing these misogynist laws against myself.

“[I]n prison when they arrested me and my friend just because of believing in Jesus, they sentenced us to death by hanging.”

She continued,

“And our biggest charge was apostasy, which is based on Sharia law, punishable by death.

“So in prison again, I witnessed many brutalities, human rights violations. I witnessed the torture of my cellmates, the sexual abuse of women in prison.

“I witnessed the execution of my cellmates, and also the execution of my best friend in prison that I built a friendship [with] for nine months. They tortured her for months. They would hit her head into the wall. Many times they would hang her from the ceiling and beat her for hours and then dedicated that to Allah. So even after torturing her in that savage way, that was not enough.

“And finally they hanged her.”

Advocacy for Persecuted Christians

Marziyeh Amirizadeh eventually was able to come to the U.S. and begin speaking out about her faith and her experiences in Iran. She has written two books and now advocates for persecuted Christians around the world.

Her story proves that God has been working in Iran long before documentaries were being made about it.

We should never give up hope for the people of Iran, and the blossoming Church in the Persian nation.

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Republished with thanks to The Washington Stand. Images via Outstanding and Adobe.

Editor’s Note: The documentary, “Wolves Among Sheep”, was co-hosted by the now-disgraced Dalton Thomas Lifsey, former president of Frontier Alliance International (FAI). The reference to this documentary is no endorsement of Dalton. It is simply a recognition of true stories from Iran. Full a full report on Dalton, see here.