In a previous post, I explained that the Bible says Iran will become a Christian nation. Even as Islamic terrorists bomb airports and subways in Brussels, even as a disgruntled Muslim Taliban member in Lahore, Pakistan, bombed women and children celebrating Easter at an amusement park, God is right now drawing the people of Iran to Himself in the greatest defeat of Islam in its 14 centuries of existence.

How can I say this?

Reason 2: The Research Confirms That Iran Is Becoming a Christian Nation

Establishing an exact number of people following a forbidden faith in a closed country is difficult, but there are processes that help us.

Operation World is a well-known and respected missions research organization that publishes a manual reviewing the condition of every nation in the world. Its latest edition lists Iran as the fastest growing evangelical population in the world, with yearly growth at 19.6 percent. That means the number of Christians in Iran is doubling almost every four years.

In 1979, at the time of the Islamic Revolution, there were less than 500 Muslim Background Believers (MBB’s) in Iran.

 By early 2012, Open Doors, a nondenominational organization tracking Christian persecution, estimated that at least 370,000 new Christians from a Muslim background had been added to the rolls, with further growth continuing explosively. Today a conservative estimate of total Christians in Iran puts the number around two million. Iran as a nation has rejected Islam. After 35 years of Islamic rule, the people of Iran have concluded, “Islam is not the answer, but the problem.” As a result, in Iran right now, Islam is experiencing its greatest defeat in history.

The work is far from done, however. The government of Iran and the Revolutionary Guard continue to put obstacles in the way of sharing the Gospel. They are afraid of the growth of Christianity in Iran because they have been powerless to stop it despite arrests, persecution, and torture. They have closed all church buildings, yet they know that the number of MBB’s and underground house churches are growing.

So we can expect the persecution to increase as more and more Muslim-born Iranians turn to Christ.

Will the government be able to stop the nation from becoming a Christian country? God willing, I don’t believe so. By God’s grace, we are seeing the underground church spread throughout the nation, and an “army” of transformed, discipled Christians are loving their family members and neighbors into the arms of Christ.

This transformation that is changing a nation will be the subject of my next post.