Sid Roth

Sid: I want everyone everywhere to be red-hot for the Messiah. And what is red-hot?  Well just listen to this Jewish man and Sid Roth and this former Muslim man Akef Tayem. And Akef was born in Haifa, Israel. He’s a Palestinian Arab; he had an encounter that he could never deny with Jesus. He literally was taken up to the 3^rd heaven and when Jesus touched his right hand it burned with a fire to the point that when he started sharing his testimony literally the first time a man got out of a wheelchair and started walking. Akef you don’t know me to well, I hope that we get to know each other better but I love for God to perform miracles to demonstrate His power. Please tell me one more miracle you saw when you prayed for someone back then.

Akef:  Well the 3 churches, The Assembly of God, Church of God, and the Baptist Church I asked them if they would help me set up a little tent and they…

Sid: This is what you were making fun of with that Christian girl and you’re doing it now.

Akef:  I know and isn’t that amazing.  (Laughing)

Sid: (Laughing)

Akef:  So they did they got together and they got me a little tent and I was having a meeting in it. And of course a lot of things go on and I was more into my amazing, the healing was great. I mean it was fascinating but I was more amazed with what happened to your heart or somehow. And I was contemplating on that part. You know how God cleanses you because I felt new. I honestly… I see the expression “You must be born again.”  I honestly felt like a new person.  So during one of these services two ladies brought their mother, actually carrying her, helping her walk they dragged her in.  And they told me that she was given up for to die she said “The doctors let her out of the hospital, she had cancer in her lungs that spread too far, lymph nodes.” I think she said something like that.  And they told her to just go to her home and it will be just a few days and she’ll pass away.  I started to pray, I still didn’t get this concept thing of healing I guess when I look back. Because when I started praying for the 2 sisters and not for the mother. Saying “Lord, be with the them help them when their mother passes away.  I said, and I would stop. And a voice inside said “No, no pray for her.”  I didn’t understand that, so the third time I just pray for her. And I told the lady “I don’t know but the Lord is telling me to pray for you.”  So I prayed for her and a few days later she came by and I couldn’t even recognize her because she was… there was no color in her face for one thing.  And now she had color, she was red, she had blood flowing through her.  She came with a manila envelope and she showed me x-rays from her doctor. And that cancer shrunk and it became the size of a dime.  And it remained the size of a dime, she was healed but I don’t understand it was like a scar.  I kept in touch with her for maybe 5, 6, 7 years and she told me that the scar is there but…

Sid: Did the cancer every come back?

Akef:   No, no, no.

Sid: Akef we have to go on now.  Every time I go to New York City, just about every time I get a taxi driver and he’s a Muslim and I start witnessing to him. And the first thing and when I start quoting the scriptures the Jewish scriptures the Torah or I start quoting the New Testament he says “Oh, it’s all mistranslated.”  And I can’t even have a discussion with him. What would you say if you were able to sit down and talk to a Muslim taxi driver and he was to say to you “I don’t want to look at the Old Testament, I don’t want to look at the New Testament it’s all been changed by the Jews and the Christians. What would you say to them?

Akef:  Well for one thing I would understand where he’s coming from.

Sid: Where is he coming from?

Akef:  Well we are taught that Sid; we are taught that as children growing up. I don’t even know at what age; it looks like I was born with this thought I don’t know. But this is instilled in us.  We grow up believing that the Torah, Old Testament, has been changed by the Jews. The New Testament has been changed by the Christians and that it is not reliable and we are to just stay away from it.

Sid: Are you allowed to read it?

Akef:  No, no there is no such thing as we are discouraged. We are discouraged to read; I mean it would be foolish if a Muslim saw another Muslim reading the Torah. It just doesn’t even happen.

Sid: Okay, I want you to talk to this Muslim taxi driver.  You talk to him one on one right now.

Akef: Well what I found out, and it’s very interesting, is that they Koran never says Mohammed and the Koran never says “That the Torah was altered or changed or corrupted.” And I was very fascinated, and intrigued and puzzled when I came across that in the Koran.  That nowhere does it say that the Torah has been corrupted, and I couldn’t understand how and why would I grow up and every Muslim grows up believing that the Torah should not be looked at, read, believed because it has been altered.

Sid: Did Mohammed say that the New Testament was altered?

Akef:  Well, the thing with the New Testament is different.  What it’s interesting is that Mohammed and his follower’s red the Torah and the gospel on several occasions that are referred to. They consulted the Torah and a matter of fact Mohammed tells the Jews and the Christians he tells them “You don’t have anything unless you do what is between your hands,” which is an Arabic idiom for the book that you have between your hands. He tells them in other words, “Unless you read and you do what the Bible says and what the scripture says you have nothing in you.” And so my concern was then “Where did this come from?”  What Mohammed says in the Koran is that the Jews misinterpreted falsely interpreted because Mohammed could not read Hebrew so he would ask the Jews to interpret to him.  One of his main things he wanted to know any prophecies foretelling his coming. Because he knew that Jesus was foretold. So he really believed that he was foretold also.  And that’s one of the things that he didn’t like about the Jews and he said “You changed what was in it.”

Sid: In other words he thought that the Torah would predict that Mohammed was going to come. And when he was trying to find things from the Jews he was upset with the Jews and the Torah because it didn’t talk about him.

Akef:  Well, no he…you’re right but he thought that the Jews were lying to him.

Sid: Oh, I see.

Akef:  The Torah was actually it does mention…

Sid: That’s how we came up with it because he couldn’t even read Hebrew.

Akef:  That’s right.  And the Muslim Apologetics and the Hadith clearly state that, and the Imam that I talk to you later on, that it clearly makes it very clear that nowhere in the Koran that Mohammed say that anything was altered. But it was misinterpreted.

Sid: That’s a big difference; that’s when you saw that what did you think?

Akef:  Well, well I was amazed; I was puzzled you know. Then to add to this frustration  I wanted to find out when or how were we convinced; so many Muslim’s growing up why are we so convinced. And I found out when the lie was perpetrated.  And there’s no other way to call it.  It happened after the death of Mohammed.

Sid: So Mohammed had nothing to do with this lie.

Akef:  No, Mohammed had nothing to do with it.

Sid: Who did it?

Akef:  It was Abu Bakr was the first Caliph which would be like the Pope is to the Christians. He is the Imam the leader after Mohammed.

Sid: So he was the first leader after Mohammed.

Akef:  That’s right he was he was Aisha’s father it was Mohammed’s neighbor’s wife..

Sid: So what was his motivation?  Why did he do that?

Akef:  Well, that is a long. You know a long story it would take while. But what I found out is that it was a deliberate attempt on his part to convince the early converts to Islam.  Not to refer to the Torah because here is what happened…

Sid: Oh, no stop right here we’re out of time!