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This is my fourteenth in the series, highlighting key aspects from each chapter of my new book, While We Were Sleeping: A Wake-up Call For All Christians (2025). (Check out my YouTube channel, where I am posting a reflection on each chapter, to complement these posts.)

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Gordon Hickson comes from a British military and business background, working across the Middle East.

Here are a few salient quotes from Gordon:

One of the reasons why I became passionate about reaching Muslims, was because of my experience as the International Campaign Director with German-born evangelist Reinhard Bonnke (1940–2019).

We began regular prayer meetings, every Tuesday morning at 7.00 am in St Aldates, Oxford, England. There was an extraordinary momentum in these prayer meetings. We had many students and people from so many Oxford churches. We developed what we called the Mahabba Community and began to pray and train people – but absolutely nothing happened for two years!

Then suddenly we got the breakthrough and Muslims, one by one, were getting saved. We had a wonderful young African man, who had been a senior Imam, and he was the son of a Mufti. He had an encounter with God in his mosque and became a true believer: following some intense persecution, he came and joined us in our church in Oxford: he was wonderfully gifted and often sat and debated on the streets with Saudi Arabians and other Muslim people.

Later, Hatun Tash, a Muslim background believer, became a real master of polemics and apologetics. We filmed her answering all the major questions of Muslims. She led about 100 people to the Lord in her first year. She was stabbed at Speakers Corner in London, seeking to preach to Muslims, but is still reaching out to them.

In 2014 I was in Cwmbran, Wales, I had another extraordinary experience. I ran down the front of the church and asked for prayer. Just like my previous encounter, it seemed as if I was being electrocuted, maybe for an hour this time. I had the fire of God burning through me and shaking me.

All through that time, I just heard God say to me, ‘Why won’t you believe Me for 30 million Muslims?’ I kept on shaking my head because I thought this was stupid, I was trying to shake it off. Eventually, I shouted out, ‘OK, 30 million Muslims!’ As I shouted this out, the presence of God lifted off me, and I stood up knowing that God had deposited faith inside of me. This was to be the beginning of a momentum of God sweeping through the Islamic world.

Gordon and I have been friends for nearly fifty years! I have watched his ministry develop through the decades. I can attest to his integrity, a genuine pastor seeking to follow his Jesus.

For many years, he and his wife were rusted-on Pentecostal pastors. Then God led Gordon, to his huge surprise, into the Anglican ministry! It was there that God arrested him with His 30 Million Muslims mission.

Gordon’s testimony has shaken my foundations. He shattered my perception that Islam must be feared, and that Muslims are so passionate about their faith that they can’t be reached with the Gospel. He has shown me how ignorant I was.

Islam Examined

Muhammad was a man from Mecca, Arabia, born about AD 600. He claimed to be a messenger sent from God, firstly to the Arabs and then to the rest of the world. He used Arab armies to spread his message called Islam, which means submission to Allah. His campaign was extraordinarily successful, conquering all the way up to the Iberian Peninsula. He was a military leader, a judge, a president — the Arabs’ supreme leader.

A Caliphate is the Muslim’s idea, or aim, that the world becomes Muslim, under Islamic law. This is the goal of traditional Sunni Muslims. They don’t accept a democracy, but rather a theocracy. The DNA of their faith is an autocracy, with the imposition of their faith on others, by force if necessary.

Muslims who want more Sharia law, because they have been taught that it is good, are shocked when they see what Sharia really looks like. A good example of this is what happened in Iran. The majority Shia Muslims overthrew their Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled from 1941 until 1979.

He was succeeded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989), who became the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was succeeded by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated on 28 February 2026. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s brutal repression of its own 90 million people continues.

What does God say?

We might see God’s hand of blessing on Isaac and his judgment against Ishmael, and choose to follow the blessed and ignore the victim. But look at God’s response to Ishmael and his mother, He did not dismiss the Arabs:

And God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her, ‘What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.’ (Genesis 21:17-18)

Islam is a relatively modern faith, founded about AD 610 in Mecca by Muhammad, much later than the beginnings of the Arabic people, approximately 2050 BC. So how does God want us to respond to Muslims?

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

What does this verse mean for us today? Have we believed the lie that Muslims can’t be reached, so there is no point trying?

Picking up Gordon’s road map for his 30 Million Muslims mission, let’s recognise that we are in spiritual warfare. ‘Face the facts, don’t fuel the fear, find a friend.’ Explore the Mahabba Network in your community, and pair up with the ones and twos who share your awakening heart for Muslims.

Commit to prayer, which will be a long-term strategy requiring spiritual stamina, until suddenly we find the breakthrough. I have a sneaking suspicion our prayer partners will not necessarily be from our own denomination and tradition; expect to be surprised by unity!

Finally, seek God for your local and personal strategy.

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Image courtesy of Adobe.