In his latest television appearance, Pastor Saeed Abedini described more details about his imprisonment in Iran, saying at one point that his jail guards had warned him that he would be executed "for sure" because of what he did—turning 1,000 Iranian Muslims into Christians.
In a recent interview with CBN News' Abigail Robertson, Abedini described in depth the torture and the persecution he underwent behind bars in Iran.
Abedini said he had felt, too, that the horrors of his captivity would eventually end with his execution not only because of the success of his evangelisation mission but also because he himself turned his back on Islam and embraced Christianity—a major offence in Islam punishable by death.
"I felt in my spirit that some threat was coming," Abedini said, following his tenth arrest in Iran in 2012.
"I thought maybe they're going to kill us because I turned from Islam to Christianity, but [the] Holy Spirit was with me, and He encouraged me, and He prepared me for all the suffering I should go through," he said.
But being confined in the four walls of his jail cell did not stop Abedini from his evangelisation efforts. He said he used the time to reach out to other inmates and minister to them.
"Ten of the prisoners turned to Christ the first year, so the prison found out, the intelligence police found out, and they moved me to another prison where the situation was worse," he said.
"Every time they changed my prison, it was a good time to evangelise."
But he said his preaching of God's Word resulted in the torture of those he converted to Christians.
Jail authorities later decided to put him in solitary confinement to prevent him from talking to the other prisoners. He said he spent two years in solitary confinement.
Asked if he had thought that he would never see America and his family again, he replied, "You know the first six months they always threaten me to death and they said, 'For sure you're going to be executed for what you did—you made 1,000 Muslim Christians.'"
"But every time that I prayed, [the] Holy Spirit put in my heart, 'No, still I have some work to do for you," he said.
Finally, after three-and-a-half years, Pastor Abedini is free once again and back in America.
He noted though that in his years of absence, America has changed a lot. "There is something wrong," he said. "I believe that God wants to bring revival back to America."
Abedini admitted that his marital life remains shaky and he requested continued prayers for his family.
"My marriage is not in a good position right now, and I need people who prayed for me to continue," he said.
"I knew that I was going to go through this suffering because of my faith, and I knew that God was using this opportunity to let the Gospel be preached so I always encouraged myself that the things I was going through were not useless, were not for nothing, and good things were coming out from it," he added.
