Sid Roth - I Wanted to Be a Suicide Bomber. Now I Love Jesus
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. My guest was born in a Muslim country, raised Muslim. She used to dream of having the ability to be a suicide bomber. Well this woman had such a radical encounter with Jesus. You should hear what she says about Israel. She has fallen in love with Israel and the Jewish people. She has six million followers on Facebook, mostly Muslims that she's leading to the Lord. Why? She moves in extraordinary miracles. Anyone want to see some?
Sid Roth: You know, Isik, you appear to be such a joyful person. You're always bubbly. You're always excited, but if people only knew the background you came from. It's almost like that was a different person. I mean, I already told them your dream would be worthy enough to be a suicide bomber. You just got back from Israel. Tell me what happened when you went to Israel. What was it like?
Isik Alba: Well I had another encounter with Jesus there and I was weeping every step when I was walking to Jerusalem, and I just fell in love with Israel, and I felt like I belong there for all my life. And even when I was an enemy of Israel, when I wanted to wipe Israel from the face of the earth, as a radical Muslim, and I saw Lord Jesus towards me when I was in Israel, it was such a life-changing experience.
Sid Roth: I want you to see the contrast. I'll take you back as a young girl in a Muslim family in Turkey, radical. What was your life like as a young girl? Well I grew up in civil war years, so I was very accustomed to bombed, hearing gunshots, people killing each other. We had a terrorist training center next store. So I was four or five years old. I was seeing machine guns, dynamite going in and out of the body, and I developed PTSD at an early. I was being beaten up, abused and molested later on by a family relative. I've been through a lot of physical, sexual and emotional abuse when I was a kid and later on when I was a young adult.
Sid Roth: But even in Turkey is the same America, the women think I'll get married and that's going to be my solution, and I'll be just like they show in Hollywood. How old were you when you were married?
Isik Alba: Nineteen years old.
Sid Roth: Okay. So you get married.
Isik Alba: Yes.
Sid Roth: And it was actually worse than the beatings you were taking at home.
Isik Alba: Absolutely. The only difference, at that time, I was bleeding. My first husband was doing writing as a Muslim man. He was disciplining me to become a better Muslim woman.
Sid Roth: Is he allowed to do this, according to their holy book?
Isik Alba: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Sid Roth: Just out of curiosity, there's been a phrase in America used often about Islam.
Isik Alba: Yes.
Sid Roth: This is the phrase that we have been sold as Americans: Islam is a peace-loving religion. What would you say to that?
Isik Alba: Well whoever says that has Antichrist spirit because this is a fake piece of Antichrist. And if there's any peace in Islam, who says that needs to show me one Muslim country in the world that has peace. And it is a very fake and very deceptive statement that Islam is a peaceful religion.
Sid Roth: Okay. So you have a horribly abusive marriage and you decide you're going to get education. You study. You're good. You get a good job and then you figure a way to get out Turkey to America. You get a transfer. You divorce your husband. I understand it took a miracle. You come to America. You live a very wild lifestyle and there's another man who is involved in drugs, you get involved with, and he was acting crazy towards you. It was like you were a magnet to attract problems for yourself.
Isik Alba: Absolutely. And I believe to a problem, God can speak to many people. Maybe there's a pattern in their lives and there's an abuse pattern. They feel stuck and I was one of those people. I was a victim before Jesus Christ. I had this thing on my forehead, come and abuse me, come and rape me. And people, abusers are attracted to victims. So I had another horrible marriage, but the good part of it, I have a 20-year-old daughter today who is a missionary, and two months ago I led my second husband to the Lord, gloriously.
Sid Roth: Okay. I want to take you, you get a good job in America. However, because of the abuse, there's a point you can only take so much, and because of this abuse, even with her daughter, life isn't worth living. She's going to commit suicide. She goes into work and her employer says, "Isik, I want you to come to my office. I'm going to do something I've never done before". When we come back let's find out what he did.
Sid Roth: Weren't you concerned about committing suicide that you'd have problems with Allah?
Isik Alba: Yes, but I thought Allah wasn't pleased with me and he hated me, so there was no way for me to win his approval. I was a failure in my eyes.
Sid Roth: So the morning before you went to work where you had planned to commit suicide, what was going on inside of your head?
Isik Alba: Well I woke up and I saw my daughter, she was two and half years old, and I heard a voice in my head, anybody can be a better mother. And that same voice was telling me life is not worth living, and I usually do this when enemy is speaking, because we need to recognize the enemy's voice as separate. And that morning, I was just hearing from the enemy and believing in that lie, and I started, I took her to day care and started planning my suicide.
Sid Roth: Okay. So you get to work. What happened?
Isik Alba: Well I went to the restroom to cry because my sorrow was so great, and I started having closure with God. And I didn't know at that time which God I was talking to because I was going to Bible study at that time, at workplace.
Sid Roth: Where they were Christians and had a Bible study.
Isik Alba: Yes. So I was just going to there to please my boss thinking that I will secure my job.
Sid Roth: Except, you told me you heard about a woman that you related to and that the approach Jesus took was so different than the approach Allah took. Tell me about that.
Isik Alba: So that was my first Bible study from John, Chapter 8, the adulteress woman, when they threw her at the feet of Jesus, "What are we going to do with her? According to Moses' law we need to stone her". He didn't condemn her, but he gave her another chance. But according to Sharia Law, she had to be stoned to death, and that pierced my heart with Lord Christ there. It was my first Bible study. But coming back to the day of planning my suicide, I was told I could never become a Christian. They were infidels and they were destined for hell. And I wasn't a good Muslim at that time. I was thinking Allah disowned me, so it would be better for me to just kill myself, and without even thinking the consequences, I just wanted to end my pain. And then I went to work, and I went to the restroom having this closure with God. And I started asking, why do you hate me so much, why have you abandoned me or forsaken me? What have I done so bad? I cleaned my face, went to my seat. My boss called me to his office and he says, "I am going to tell you something I have never done before in my life". And he said, "I feel in my spirit Jesus knows what you're about to do and I have to tell you, he's telling me to tell you, you are not forsaken or abandoned. He has been with you since you were born. When you were molested he was by your side. When you were kicked like a dog on the floor he was by your side. When your knife put on your throat he was by your side. He was interceding for you that one day you will turn to him. And now I want to ask you, would you like to receive him as your Lord and Savior"?
Sid Roth: Well now, you have the conflict of you're in trouble with Allah, but this is really going to get you in trouble with Allah. What did you do?
Isik Alba: At that point I was not thinking anything because God was in that room. At first time in my life I experienced the presence of God and he was real. I didn't understand the Trinity. I had no doctrine, nothing, but I knew Jesus Christ was real and he was hugging me.
Sid Roth: Do you know something, her situation was impossible.
Isik Alba: That's right.
Sid Roth: And guess what happens? Out of the blue a man calls you on the phone and what does he say?
Isik Alba: Well that was after my salvation. I was broke and going through all these trials, and this man calls, and he says, "My name is so and so". And I could feel authority in his voice, first time in my life, feeling authority. He said, "Sister Isik, we have been praying for you. We have been praying for your salvation. Praise the Lord. And I want you for the weekend to my house, my wife and I". He said, "If you come we are going to bless you, but we are going to give you a Bible study about the Holy Spirit".
Sid Roth: So you said sure.
Isik Alba: I needed hope. I needed something in my life and I was not going to a spirit-filled church that would believe in so many miracles or anything. But there was this hunger in me and I wanted to believe in what he was saying. I said, "I have no gas in my car. I cannot make five-hour drive to your place". And then he says, "I know you don't have that kind of faith, but I'm going to pray over your car right now and you are going to make it to my home".
Sid Roth: And?
Isik Alba: And then he continued. He said, "If you get stuck in the middle of the road I promise you I will come pick you up, but I serve a God, I know that you are not going to get stuck". And I said, "I'm going in my car right now". I put my daughter, she was almost four years old at that time, I went inside my car and I said, in my heart, "I will drive until this car stops". And I started driving and I made it five hours to his house.
Sid Roth: On empty?
Isik Alba: Empty, completely utterly empty.
Sid Roth: You get into his house. What does he say to you?
Isik Alba: Well at that time, one of my foot was in the church, the other one was in the world, so I didn't have good Bible training, and I had sin in my life. So as soon as he saw me he fell to the ground and he started praying in tongues, and I never heard tongues in my life before. And those, everything he said came to me without an accent, perfect Turkish, in my mother tongue. And he was confessing my sins to God. He was naming my sins one by one. I was in shock. I was here looking at this. I told a miracle man speaking perfect Turkish. And then he got up, and he says, he looked at me in the eye, very sharp, very strong, and he says, "Sister, I don't know what I said, but you know what I said. You take God seriously".
Sid Roth: All right. Now, let me tell you. She takes God so serious that the fire of God hits her. When we come back it not only hit her, she wants to pray for that same fire to come on you. Are you ready?
Sid Roth: Okay. I can't wait to hear this. She has no gas, she travels, what, four or five hours in a car on empty, gets to this total stranger's house. He only knew about her because his church was praying for her and he felt prompted to call her. So he speaks in tongues. It turns out to be perfect Turkish and he states all of the sins in her life, and then what happened?
Isik Alba: Well I was so committed. I was weeping and he did this like, "Sister," and he started speaking to me. I just passed out. But when I came back I was a completely different person. I was transformed completely and all these lies and deception of Islam left me. I felt like tons of demons left me at that very moment.
Sid Roth: And she had a supernatural hunger for more and more, and more of God, and God met it. One day you go to church and they talk about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and being able to speak in a language such as you just heard in your own tongue. He didn't speak one word of Turkish.
Isik Alba: Then I was so hungry after that. I was like, wow, I am serving a God that nothing is impossible, so I cannot put him in a box anymore. So I started going to a spiritual church and believing everything the Bible said about God, and he did. And then pastor, one night, made an altar call: "If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, just come to the altar". Before he even made the altar call, I threw myself to the altar. I want to be filled with the Lord's spirit! Before I even finished, boom, a fire of God, just like a liquid poured down on me. My knees were shaking. It was like electrical power of God. And I opened my mouth in obedience and it just started flying. Butterflies were coming from my mouth and I started speaking in tongues. And it changed my life, ministry, everything.
Sid Roth: You know, with the background you came from tell me how you have such joy, such peace. Tell me how.
Isik Alba: That joy is supernatural because we should have the joy of the Lord as believers, and it's one of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And I started seeking God's joy in my life because I hadn't known joy. I was a believer, I had some joy, but it was not real always. And then I pursued God to release his joy in my life and he did it. But it wasn't only receiving it, I learned to keep it and exercise that joy every single day, and it happened with freedom in Christ, accepting and receiving my identity in Christ, because I was feeling ugly and stupid. I was called and I started every morning declaring I am fearfully and wonderfully made in God's own image. And the Word of God started bubbling up within me. So that joy comes from making an agreement with the Word of God. I hold hands with God and I say yea and amen to his Word for me.
Sid Roth: You have some six million followers on Facebook, mostly Muslim. I imagine a lot of these women that are being abused in Muslim countries relate to you. You also do television.
Isik Alba: Yes.
Sid Roth: Tell me the type of women that correspond with you from when they hear you talk?
Isik Alba: Well they start seeing glimpse of hope and end of the darkness, and they say, I want to have the joy you have. I want to laugh. I never laughed in my life. And I want to tell you, until I came to America I never laughed in my life. Then after Jesus, I started laughing out loud, because in my culture, only prostitutes or bad woman laughs out loud. And now I don't even care. I just laugh. God gives me that joy.
Sid Roth: Well I'll tell you what, there are so many women watching right now in other countries, but also in the United States of America that are maybe not as abused as you, but they are abused and they think there is no way out. Talk to them.
Isik Alba: Well I just want to speak to you right now. If you are lacking joy in your life, you've been through trials, tragedies, maybe even rape, maybe even a raping family, and you are looking at your circumstance, and you are saying no good will come out of my life and I can never laugh. You have such anguish and sorrow in you. And I am here to tell you, not coming from a perfect background, but coming from a mess, coming from tragedies myself, that God can restore your joy right now in this very moment because the God that I serve is God of hope. And I am speaking to someone right now that whose one breast is removed because you have cancer and you lost your joy after cancer. You overcame that cancer, but you have no joy. You were not abused, but life really treated you very badly and the enemy was there. And I just want to speak, maybe you've been through divorce right now and you feel so much this label and weight on you. And God wants to remove that weight from your shoulders and say to you right now, you're not labeled as cancer patient. You are not labeled as a divorcee. You are not labeled as a raped person. You are an overcomer. If you receive my Son and his joy right now at this very moment, I release this joy to you. In the name of the Son, Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach, be filled with Holy Spirit's joy.
Sid Roth: And for those that have said I'm sorry of my sins, Jesus, wash them away, make me clean, come inside of me. Anyone that has said that prayer or saying it as I'm speaking right now, you pray the fire of God on them right now.
Isik Alba: Amen. I speak fire right now from top of your head to the bottom of your feet that you will be filled with Holy Ghost in the name of Jesus Christ right now. Your letter will be greater. The best is yet to come. You are not defeated or put down. You are more than a conqueror right now. Be filled with that fire in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
Sid Roth: I'll tell you something, when you read her book, "I Dreamed of Freedom," you won't dream of freedom. Whatever prison you're in, you're going to be set free.
Isik Alba: Amen.