More Than Conquerors Health Evangelism Outreach Revival

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC Southwest

Taariq Patel

Conquering Addictions: A Personal Testimony

Sabbath Church, I counted the highest privilege, the highest honor to be here.

Iqdali, if you don't mind raising your hand up, honey.

We come all the way from PUC, and before I begin, I would like to thank the GYC Southwest for the invitation.

I wanna thank the church members here for your hospitality here and your warm welcome.

You know, I was on the plane flying over here, and I remembered a couple of years ago where I was.

And it's places that, and things that I'm doing that is unimaginable.

Wouldn't have thought about it in a million years or a million different lifetimes.

But when you put your hand in the hand of Jesus, You know this morning I was praying and outside the window, you guys got beautiful mountains out here.

This huge mountain was outside the window And I was praying and I'm like, Lord, I need your help.

And I looked at the mountain and I just paused.

And I said, wow, the creator of that mountain, of the sky, I'm supposed to speak for him.

But looking at that mountain, the scripture came to my mind.

They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed.

Not that mountain, Mount Zion, which cannot be removed.

Before I begin, If you all would bow your heads with me in prayer, ask the Holy Spirit to come into your own hearts as I pray and we all pray together in our heads, amen?

Power to save, power to create, Unlimited.

Equip us, Lord, for the journey, for it is 2 great cross down here.

Most importantly, Lord, I want to say thank you.

Thank you for your mercies that endure it forever.

I thank you for what you are doing and what you are about to do to your people whom you love.

In the name of Jesus, we bless your name.

Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy.

1981, the 6th of April, I was born in Gloucester, England.

And unfortunately, he's unable to be here, and we usually give our testimony together, but the Lord is gracious.

My brother, my twin brother, and I have a brother that's 1 year older than my twin and I.

And so I came here when I was about 1 years old.

Now, growing up in my father's house, my father was a devout Muslim, a strict Muslim.

And I remember we would all, me and my 2 brothers, we would sit there with our legs crossed, and our father would sit right in front of us, and we would have our little topis on, our little hats on, and we would be rocking back and forth with the Quran open on our laps and our father would sit right in front of us but right there, I'll never forget where it was, it's that big sandal, he had some big feet too, he had a big sandal right there.

If we messed up on our pronunciation of the Quran, 1 time that sandal was flashing out.

And so we learned to read Arabic when we reached around the age of 3 and 4 years old.

And we were taught to read it correctly, proper.

We would go to the mosque 5 times a day, especially they just finished having their, or at the end of their Ramadan right now.

And during that time of the month where they would be fasting for about 30 days, we would go a lot to the mosque, or the masjid, and we would pray all the time, me and my brothers, and we would line up shoulder, arm to arm with the brothers in the mosque, no separation, and we would pray in Arabic.

I remember telling my father, my mother told me and my wife just before we came here, she said, Tarek, you used to tell your father, I'm gonna be the best Muslim.

I always was a serious person and I still have this serious kind of demeanor.

Even when I was 7, 8 years old, I was able to memorize chapters and chapters equivalent.

But I was able to memorize so many chapters of the Quran at such a young age.

Growing up in this house, this is all we knew.

My mother, who was raised a Seventh-day Adventist, but when she married my father, she had strayed.

And by the time us 3 boys came around, My father, who before we were born, wasn't really a practicing Muslim, if you will, but when we came around, then he wanted to teach his kids Islam.

However, my mother was digging in her boxes 1 day and She came across a peculiar book and she pulled it out and it said, The Desire of Ages on it.

1 of the old books she had in her garage and she remembers that she would look at her 3 boys being taught Islam and how we would always get spanked and beat if we got everything wrong or anything.

My father used to tell us that if we don't make it to heaven that he's gonna burn.

He used to tell us that if we tell a lie the angel Gabriel is gonna pull out your tongue and put it back in, however many lies you told.

My mom said she used to watch us doing our prayers all day, and She would get flashbacks of her cradle roll class with the little felt boards and singing songs to Jesus.

And she was going through her conversion experience.

Reading The Desire of Ages just pricked something within her heart and she fell in love with Jesus again.

She was married to a Muslim man who was raising Muslim children for years now.

When my father would go to work, she began to teach us Christianity at the house or Bible stories, read the Bible to us.

When I'm growing up as a Muslim boy, but then I start reading stories about Daniel and Joseph, and there's a lot of similarities with Islam and Christianity, but the love aspect in Christianity was very appealing.

The freedom to pray to God with your own heart.

And when we learned about Jesus, it was most peculiar as a young child.

My father soon found out what was going on and My mother would take us to church on Sabbath, and he wasn't having it.

They were having serious issues at the house, arguing, domestic violence, you name it.

My mother had chosen to get baptized, decided to get baptized, and my father said, don't even come back.

She wanted to bring us there, and he had a knife, and he said, I'm going to kill you if you get baptized.

She got her clothes ready as if she was going to die, but she decided that she was gonna get baptized.

My father calmly, like a little lamb, just walked out the house.

My older brother, who was 8 years old at the time, saw my mother get baptized and his heart was touched and he got baptized soon after that.

Back to Menu

Conquering Addictions: A Personal Testimony

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine