They set an Israeli pastor on fire in Arabia… but the way God saved him defies all logic
I was never the type of person who looked for miracles. I grew up in Haifa, northern Israel, in a traditional Jewish home where faith was synonymous with discipline, not supernatural experiences.
When I met Jesus and decided to follow him, I thought the biggest break in my life had already happened.
Losing my family, being rejected by my parents, sleeping in borrowed basements. But nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for what I experienced that night in Najran.
Even today, when I close my eyes, I can still smell the fire. However, as absurd as it sounds, it didn’t touch me.
And what happened next, I still lack the words. I’m going to tell you how it was because even today, after everything, I still wonder, why me?
Why that way? That night seemed common, or at least what we learned to call common while living in secret.
It was a Sunday and we were gathered in Hassan’s small apartment, two cramped rooms hidden behind a decommissioned pharmacy.
The windows were covered with dark blankets. The light was low. Only a few candles and a portable lantern illuminated the room.
There were eight of us. My wife sitting with the children in the corner, Illa with a worn Bible on her lap, Omar with a fresh cut on his forehead from a bump he sustained the week before trying to escape a police stop.
We prayed softly in circles and began reading John chapter 15. Everything seemed peaceful until the first bang came at the door.
It was dry, direct, and instantly the silence turned into panic. The second knock came harder and a voice in Arabic yelled for us to open.
No one moved. Hassan just looked at me, pale, and whispered, “Don’t say anything.” The sound of the door being broken down was like an explosion in my chest.
Five men burst in at once, all in simple clothes, but with an expression that said everything.
It wasn’t a visit, it was a sentence. Two carried wooden sticks, one had a knife at his waist, and the other, the one who caught my attention the most, was holding a yellow canister.
I already knew what it was, gasoline. They didn’t ask names or give us time to react.
One of them grabbed my arm and pulled me to the center of the room.
Layla started screaming, but her mouth was quickly covered by another. My wife tried to hld the children who were crying without understanding, and Omar was already on the floor, his face bleeding.
It was all very fast, but every second seemed to drag. “This is the foreign preacher, isn’t it?”
The leader said, pointing at me. No one answered. He spat on the ground and said, “Let’s see if his God saves him now.”
The man with the canister approached and without hesitation began to soak me with that cold, suffocating liquid.
The smell filled the room. I stood there, completely covered, drenched, with the eyes of the people I loved fixed on me.
The feeling was of the end, but inside me, something strange was happening. It wasn’t panic.
It was peace? When the lighter was sparked, I saw the flame glow as if time had stopped.
There was a dry click, then another. On the third, it caught. The small tongue of fire flickered a few inches from my chest.
The man smiled like someone who knows he has won. And then, he threw [clears throat] it.
The sound of the fire catching was terrifying. A roar. The flames spread quickly, licking my body, rising up my clothes.
The room turned orange. The heat was intense, unbearable. I felt everything except what I expected most, pain.
There was no burning, no stinging, nothing. It was like being inside an oven, but protected by an invisible bubble.
I could hear Illa’s screams, my children’s crying, the panic in Hassan’s eyes. But there, in the center of the burning room, I felt something I still can’t explain today.
A presence, strong, silent, unbreakable. As if Jesus was there with me inside the fire.
I remember closing my eyes, not out of fear, but out of reverence. It was as if I had entered a sacred place in the middle of the chaos.
Inside, my prayer wasn’t desperate. I didn’t ask for help. I just said, “Jesus, may this glorify your name.”
And immediately after, something changed. The fire continued to surround me, but it didn’t come closer.
It was as if it had a limit, as if it had been forbidden to touch me.
I heard the crackling of the flames, saw the smoke rise, saw the wide open eyes of the men who had come to kill me.
One of them fell to the floor, unable to look away. Another began to back away, the stick still in his hand, but trembling as if he had seen a ghost.
I stood there, unable to understand how my body wasn’t burning, how my skin remained intact.
My heart was pounding, but without panic. I felt a peace that did not come from me.
It was as if an invisible hand wrapped around me and said, “Be firm. I am here.”