{"id":6024,"date":"2017-06-30T15:59:58","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T19:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/?p=6024"},"modified":"2017-08-17T17:58:43","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T21:58:43","slug":"from-now-on-call-me-moses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/from-now-on-call-me-moses.html","title":{"rendered":"From now on, call me Moses."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"“You shall be called by a new\u00a0name, which the mouth of the Lord<\/span> will name.” – Isaiah 62:2 NKJV<\/em><\/p>\n

We just returned from a ten-day tour of Israel yesterday. I’m still pretty jet-lagged, but I had to tell you one of the wonderful God-stories that we experienced while there.<\/p>\n

The week before we left on the tour, I received a phone call from the tour company to go over last minute details with me. They also gave me an updated listing of everyone that was going on the tour. I knew the names of the 20 people that I had booked from our church and from other friends. But I didn’t know the names of those the tour company had booked. One of the people they had booked was named “Mohammed.”<\/p>\n

“Mohammed?” I asked. “Where is he from and how old is he?”<\/p>\n

“He’s from Maryland. He is sixty-six years old.” They answered.<\/p>\n

“Is he Muslim?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“We don’t know. He was a last minute booking.” They replied.<\/p>\n

“OK. That’s cool. I look forward to hearing his story.” I answered.<\/p>\n

So, when we arrived in Israel, I was looking for Mohammed. At our first lunch stop I asked him to sit beside me.<\/p>\n

“What’s your story, Mohammed?” I asked between bites of falafel. “Why would a Muslim want to go on a Christian tour of Israel?”<\/p>\n

“I’m not Muslim anymore.” He answered, while dipping his bread in hummus. “I was a Muslim for sixty-five years, but last year I had several visions of Jesus. He appeared to me. I know it was Him because I saw the scars in His hands as He beckoned to me. So, I decided to become His follower before I die.”<\/p>\n

“That’s amazing!” I replied. “So, you’ve been a Christian for one year?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, one year. And since then I’ve become obsessed with Jesus. That’s why I decided to come to Israel to see the land where He walked for myself.”<\/p>\n

“That’s wonderful! I’ve read well documented reports that Muslims around the world are coming to Jesus because of such visions. It’s become quite a well known phenomenon. Jesus must really love you to appear to you in such a way.” I told him while shaking his hand.<\/p>\n

“Hey everyone!” I shouted to those sitting at our table. “You have got to ask Mohammed to tell you his story. It’s amazing!”<\/p>\n

“Should I change my name?” Mohammed suddenly asked me. “It seems you assumed I was Muslim because of my name. So, I think I must change it. I want a Christian name.” He passionately explained.<\/p>\n

“Well, I’ll be offering to baptize people in the Jordan river in a couple of days. People have been taking a Christian name at baptism for centuries. So that might be a perfect time to consider changing your name.” I answered. “Would you like for me to baptize you?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, absolutely. I was hoping for such a possibility. I was baptized by the Catholic church that my wife attends, but I was hoping to be baptized by immersion. So, you would be willing to do that for me?” He asked.<\/p>\n

“Have you believed that Jesus died for your sins, was buried and rose again? Have you confessed Him as your Lord and Savior?” I answered.<\/p>\n

“I have.” He responded simply.<\/p>\n

“Then, on that basis, I will baptize you.” I agreed.<\/p>\n

“Great. I’m so happy. Now, I have to think of a new name.” He said with a huge smile on his face.<\/p>\n

Following that conversation, I heard Mohammed telling his story to everyone on the tour. He always finished by asking their opinion on what new name they thought he should take. He wanted to have a name from the Bible, but one that still started with an “M” as the first letter. The name that nearly everyone mentioned to him was “Moses.”<\/p>\n

But he still wasn’t sure on the morning of baptism. So, I baptized him in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as commanded by Jesus, and told him that he could take a new Christian name whenever he wanted.<\/p>\n

A couple of days later, when I gave out baptism certificates to all that were baptized, he came back to me with a troubled look on his face.<\/p>\n

“Can you make me a new baptism certificate with the name ‘Moses” on it? I’m going to change my name legally too. So, I want to start with my baptism certificate. ” He asked confidently.<\/p>\n

“Yes, as it turns out, I have one blank certificate left. Are you sure you want to change your name to Moses?”<\/p>\n

“I’m positively sure. Moses saw the burning bush when he was old and I saw a vision of Jesus when I was old. I am like Moses.” He said.<\/p>\n

“Yes, you do look like a Moses to me.” I replied smiling.<\/p>\n

\"\"On the last day of the tour, we had a worship service at the Garden Tomb. We concluded the service by remembering the Lord’s Supper. At that service, I asked Moses to come forward and there I presented him with his new baptism certificate. On it was his new name, “Moses.”<\/p>\n

As he stood next to me smiling, he said to everyone gathered there, “Don’t call me Mohammed anymore. From now on, call me Moses!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You shall be called by a new\u00a0name, which the mouth of the Lord will name.” – Isaiah 62:2 NKJV We just returned from a ten-day tour of Israel yesterday. I’m still pretty jet-lagged, but I had to tell you one of the wonderful God-stories that we experienced while there. The week before we left on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061,1,2062],"tags":[2475,2145,2296,2372,2474,2476],"location":[],"class_list":["post-6024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","category-uncategorized","category-weblogs","tag-baptism","tag-israel","tag-moses","tag-muslim","tag-new-name","tag-visions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/garycombsorg.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_4265.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6024"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6125,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6024\/revisions\/6125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6024"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=6024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}