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With Evangelists Glen & Renette Vermeulen |
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my life 4 jesus
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Muslims for Christ In obedience to the commission of or Lord Jesus Christ Renette Vermeulen © Courtesy of Now Unbanned Publications c.c.
The purpose of this discussion is to exhort Jesus’ believers to become more effective witnesses for our Lord in this ever-darkening world by “examining and testing ourselves to see whether we [ourselves are truly] in the faith;” thus equipping ourselves to obey the commission of Jesus, “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing [the truly believing disciples] in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; [the teachings of the Lord Jesus, not manmade doctrines,] and lo, I Am with you always, even to the end of this world,” (2 Cor. 13:5; Mt. 28:18-20.) The second aim of this discussion is to address Muslims’ criticism of Christianity, the Bible, and of course, the God of the Bible.
TRUE BELIEVERS WILL REPENT FROM NEGLECTING THE COMMISSION OF JESUS: The Holy Spirit came to convince the whole world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. God also speaks to unbelievers in visions and dreams. But amazingly, God prefers to speak to the unbelieving world through the believing body of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is vital, therefore, to remember that the Lord Jesus Christ has “bought with His own blood believers from every tribe, and tongue, and nation,” but saving faith in Him “comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” As a result, real salvation can only come by hearing, accepting, and living the truth of Biblical Scripture, (Rom. 10:17; Jn. 16:8; 1:12-13.) We can accept that unbelievers might never know Jesus as the Savior of the world, if His children do not bring them His Good News! It would be foolish, therefore, to think that God will light a lamp and put it under a basket. God will always place a lamp on a lamp stand to shine forth its light in the darkness. It is of great comfort then to realize that God has sent the Holy Spirit to lead us into, and through the dark unknown. While walking in The Way of our Lord, the only reliable ‘lamp for our feet’ will be the truthful context of Biblical Scripture as taught by the Holy Spirit Himself; nothing more, nothing less, (Mt. 2:6.) Our prayer is that God may give us the grace to let His light shine so boldly and fearlessly “before men, that they may see our good works [of sincere love for Christ] and glorify our Father in heaven,” because for far too long, the believers of the Lord Jesus Christ have shirked their responsibility and turned a blind eye to the spiritual need of the millions of Muslims (and other religionists) all around us, while overlooking the Lord’s commission in Mt. 28:19-20. We are disobedient to the commission of Christ when we sit back and, without moving a finger to intervene, watch millions of lost souls stumble towards the everlasting fires of hell. May God help us to realize that, to place ourselves and our human pleasures above the commission of Jesus, is self-indulgence and idolatry. Once equipped with the truth of the Bible, every born again believer has to make a difference in his or her personal world by preaching the Gospel to every person who would choose to open their ears, hearts, and lives to the Lord, (Mt. 5:14-15; Rev. 3:20.) We simply have to make ourselves available to God; surrender ourselves and our entire lives to Him; earnestly intercede for the souls in our world, and He will teach us, lead us, and bring us to the lost, to declare to them “the whole counsel of God,” (Acts 20:27.) Of course we cannot address every ill of this broken world; nor can we, as mere human beings, convince people of the truth in any way, as this is the work of the Holy Spirit. None of us can share the truth of the Bible with every person on this planet either, because Jesus has also commanded not to “give what is holy to the dogs or throw our pearls before swine.” The Lord Jesus is the most precious Pearl in the universe; we should commit His Gospel of grace to people of character, “faithful people, who will be able to teach others also,” (2 Tim. 2:2.) And so, only the Holy Spirit, Who searches the hearts of all humanity, can lead us to the right people, where, compelled by our love for our Savior and humanity, we may have the incomprehensible privilege to preach His Gospel of grace, (Rom. 8:14.) Jesus became flesh “to destroy the works of the evil one!” He has “called us into His marvelous light” to shine His exposing, saving, liberating light of truth into every dark corner of this world, and none of us dare refuse His high calling. Yet, only God can turn the rotting potter’s field into productive soil. Only God can instruct us how and when to sow the right kind of seed in His fertile meadow. Only God can make it grow. We simply have to trust Him and be sensitive to the leading of our Helper, the Holy Spirit, and, as and how God Himself decrees, we will reap the bounty of truly born again souls at exactly the right time.
BIBLICAL MUSLIM-EVANGELIZATION VS ‘THE CAMEL METHOD:’ All the teachings of the Bible focus on the Sovereign God of the Bible and the salvation of humankind through personal and attested faith in the crucified, but risen Son of the Living God, the Lord Jesus Christ. In contrast, Muslims are very devout worshippers and followers of Allah and they strictly adhere to the teachings of their prophet Mohammed. Muslims understand the fact that the Qur’an only recognizes Jesus as another human; a Muslim prophet, (subjected to Mohammed,) who was also sent by Allah to proclaim the Islamic message. As a result, most Qur’anic teachings are set against “The people of the Book,” or believers of the Bible, as Mohammed’s writings teach Muslims to answer every truth of the Bible with, “Say to the people of the Book…” Yet, in his book, ‘The Camel – How Muslims are Coming to Faith in Christ,’ Kevin Greeson tries to draw parallels between the Bible and the Qur’an, and alleges that Christians can use Qur’anic references to Jesus’ Divinity to turn Muslims to Christ. However, this discussion will prove that it would be impossible to use Greeson’s non-contextual verses from the Qur’an to impact learned Muslims with the Real Biblical Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, as nearly all Muslims can recite the Qur’an from an early age. As we will see, Muslims are intelligent and well-schooled in the teachings and practices of their religion, and by true Biblical definition, human methods of evangelization are completely incapable of piercing the lost soul of any religionist with authentic Scriptural truth. As a result, this discussion will focus on genuine Biblical evangelization by exploring the incredibly significant way in which Jesus and His early disciples affected the pagan world.
THE VITAL GIFT AND TRUE BIBLICAL MINISTRY: Muslims, as other religionists, do not know the God of Love. The god of all religion, as known also in Islam, is always unknowable and distant. He demands complete dedication to the rules of his religion, but he never declares any form of unmerited salvation for humanity. The god of religion is always the dual god of calamity as well as blessing; sickness as well as healing; poverty as well as wealth; light as well as darkness. This is not a god of love or mercy, and so, one needs to obey him slavishly in order to try to earn some kind of justification. To speak of having a relationship with this distant, unapproachable god, can only be pure sacrilege, (Jam. 1:13-18.) It is important to realize that religionists know nothing about the God Who loves them. Religionists might confess that their god loves them, but he is the impersonal god, and so, they can never really believe in His love. As Jesus’ born again believers really do belong to the God Who Is Love and Truth, we have the privilege to shine the true Gospel-light of Jesus Christ into the lost and dying world all around us. Religious Christianity taught the believers of Christ to desire the gifts of tongues and prophecy, while pressuring them into believing that everyone has to have his or her ‘own’ personal ministry. In itself, there is nothing wrong with the wonderful gifts of tongues and prophecy or God’s true calling to Biblical ministry. Yet, most of us have lost our true calling in the process - Jesus’ call to every sincerely born again believer to evangelize his or her personal world. And although Jesus’ believers have received diverse gifts from the Holy Spirit, the goal of each of His gifts is to equip the believers of Christ in order to evangelize the world, so that God may be glorified through every blood-cleansed life, (Eph. 4:12-16.) Also, in our pursuit of ‘adorning’ gifts, we neglected the greatest gift of all – the gift of real, Godly love in Godly truth. Most of Jesus’ believers were never taught that everything done without the motive of Godly love in godly truth is sin. Truth is Love, and Love is Truth. Yet, we were brainwashed to believe that the gift of love pivots on our share of ‘good’ religious works. We were taught that ‘good’ Christians are loved and accepted by all, because they always ‘do good;’ yet, ‘good Christians’ are never seen as confronting sin, calling sinners to repentance, or preaching the Biblical, New Testament Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ – not ear-soothing church doctrines. In the Bible, God describes His All-powerful Love as “The Truth, The Way, and The Life.” The incomprehensible, holy love of God was revealed through His Son. Therefore God declared that He loved the whole world so much, He gave His Truth – “His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” We dare not try to separate love and truth; they are the integral characteristics of the most precious Pearl. Truth without the motive of Godly love is a harsh, devastating power; love without Godly truth is a deceptive, humanized weapon of destruction. For the love of God we worship Him in truth, (Jn. 4:23-24.) For the love of His truth we obey the God of Truth, (2 Ths. 2:10.) For the love of the lost, our prayers to God engage the enemy in a full-blown war, (2 Cor. 10:4-6.) For the love of the damned we risk life and limb to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, (Jn. 15:13.) For the love of the brethren we rebuke, warn, admonish, and nurture, (Eph. 5:8-13.) For the love of Christ’s body we seek God’s truth to bring them the ‘whole counsel’ of God, (Act 20:27.) For “though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge… but have not [the God of] love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods and feed the poor, [as being the perfect humanist,] and though I give my body to be burned, [as a fanatic martyr,] but have not [real Christlike] love, [in Gospel-Truth,] it profits me nothing.” It is therefore a dire misconception to say that a ‘good’ humanist like the Roman Catholic ‘mother’ Theresa had godly love just because she “laid down” her life for the poor on the streets of Calcutta. Without preaching the Truth of Scripture, her humanist love meant absolutely nothing, as Paul stated in 1 Cor. 15. Constance Cumbey made a valid stand against New Age teachings and New Age interchurch-ecumenism when she quoted Theresa, describing her Catholic gospel of works, as saying, “What we are all trying to do by our work, by serving the people, is to come closer to God… We become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Catholic, a better whatever we are, and then by being better we come closer and closer to Him… We live that they may… go home according to what is written in the book, be it written according to Hindu, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or Catholic, or Protestant, or any other belief… We try and give them whatever they want.” Theresa’s humanist, New Age, (Roman Catholic) religion, according to the Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible, was hatred for the lost of this world! (Jn. 8:44; Prov. 8:36; 1 Jn. 4:20.) It was the deceptive, Social Gospel – that deadly, suffocating snake, disguised as the lamb with two horns, (Rev. 13:11.) Such humanist gospels always teach some form of self-rescue or salvation by works, which exclude or partially exclude the completed atonement of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. May the God of the Bible continually and increasingly manifest His greatest gift of all, His all-powerful Godly love in Scriptural truth, through the lives of all His sincerely born again believers.
THE DREADFUL DANGER OF CLINGING TO SAFE ZONES: Quite humanly, the believers of Christ have become accustomed to their comfort zones. Reassuring sermons. Safe church benches. Warm fireplaces. Dinner tables laden with food… Of course there is nothing wrong with the abundant blessing of God on their lives, but, safely seated in Christ’s abundance, believers are also in danger of becoming selfish. By clinging to our safe zones, we can grow weary and fainthearted in our attempts to bring the Truth of Jesus’ Word to a dying world. While we proclaim the speedily return of the Lord, we are also in danger to forget the Word which Jesus has spoken concerning the perilous, yet exiting times in which we live. “Because lawlessness will abound, the love [for God] of many will grow cold,” Jesus said. “But he who endures to the end [in his love for God] shall be saved. And [because of their love for God,] this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and [only] then the end will come,” (Mt. 24:12-14.) We so readily deceive ourselves to think that the world is populated with Christian churches; therefore the whole world had already been evangelized. In reality, however, the whole religious world was poisoned with false Christian doctrine and pretentious church systems, hence those many church towers on the horizons of the world - emblems of idolatrous freemasonry worship, enshrined in Christian dogma. The Lord Jesus yearns to return for His own, but He is waiting for the day when the whole world will be evangelized by the preaching of His True Gospel! Sadly, the salt of the earth that has to disinfect the spiritual diseases of this world and preserve the truth of the Word “has lost its flavor. It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out,” (Lu. 14:34.) May the God of love and truth set our hearts ablaze with the fire of His Spirit; with His Godly, punitive love for the perishing world; with His desire to add the millions of suffering souls on earth to the multitudes who are already kneeling before His glorious throne in heaven, (Rev. 7:9.) May the God of Love truly reveal to us “what spirit we are of,” and banish the evil, self-righteous spirit of legalism from our hearts and souls, that we do not call fire down from heaven as Elijah did under the Old Dispensation of the Law, but rather the grace of God upon all those who are lost and enslaved in spiritual darkness, (Lu. 9:51-56.)
THE CALL OF OUR HOLY GOD - SEEK THE LORD YOUR GOD DILIGENTLY AND LIVE IN HOLINESS: Sadly, most Christians have lost sight of the fact that many Muslims and other religionists are people who truly seek after their gods. As a result, one of the gravest criticisms against Christianity is the sinful lives that many Christians lead. Very candidly, Muslims describe a Christian as someone “who lives in debauchery and sin.” Oblivious to the grace of God in Christ, these religionists apparently fail to understand how people, who claim to have a special relationship with the Living God, can continue in sinful lifestyles of fornication and adultery, dishonesty, greed, deceit, alcohol and substance abuse, homosexuality, loveless abuse of the innocent – as if Muslims are not infected with the these horrendous spiritual diseases as well! Although we can never condone the sinful lifestyles of Christians, it is a fact that Mohammed himself had many wives, including a six year old little girl, named A’isha. [Ibn-i-Majah vol.3 no.1876 p.133.] He also had an unlimited number of concubines and the “captives [or sexual slaves] whom his right hand possessed,” (Surah 23.6.) Mohammed also “made lawful to himself the wives to whom he had paid their dowers… and the daughters of his paternal and maternal uncles and aunts, and any believing woman who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her… [Mohammed] may turn off any of them that he pleases and may receive any he pleases, and there is no blame on him…” (Surah 33:50.) Muslims try to condone Mohammed’s immoral behavior by saying that the Bible-patriarchs also had many wives and concubines; and Mohammed waited until the 6-year old little A’isha was the 9-year old little A’isha before he took her as his ‘wife.’ Christ Jesus Himself rebuked the immoral descendants of the Old Testament patriarchs - the fornicating, adulterating Jewish Pharisees, saying, “Have you not read that He Who made them at the beginning made them [one] male and [one] female, and said, ‘For this reason a man [and of course, a woman as well,] shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife [singular] and the two shall become one flesh…’ Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate [with false doctrines and the sins of adultery and fornication.]” - Mt. 19. The sins of polygamy and pedophilia were never the intention of God, because it violates both His creation principles and His holy marriage covenant, as described in Gen. 2:21-25. Jesus said that such evil came into existence and proliferated throughout the ages because of the “hardness of the hearts of men,” not because God gave the patriarchs a license to abuse His will and Word, and to violate, distort and abuse His marriage covenant and His family-institution, in order to rape and mistreat women and little children at will, (Mt. 19:-7-10.) The Old Testament prophet Malachi also rebuked the infidelity of the Old Testament, temple-priesthood as follows, “The Lord does not regard the offering anymore nor receive it with goodwill from your hands… because He has been witness between you and the wife [singular] of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by [marriage] covenant. But did He not make them one… [one husband and one wife, as] He seeks godly offspring? [The Godly family, resulting from monogamous marriage.] Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife [singular] of his youth…” (Mal. 2:13-16.) Throughout New Testament Scripture, Paul and the other disciples also command this clear creation principle and strict marriage covenant of the Sovereign God, (1 Cor. 7; 6:16-20.) So, in accusing Christians of fornication and sexual filth, Muslims forget their own sin, as their men are allowed continual adultery and fornication according to Muslim custom. In general, however, it remains a sad fact that one cannot compare the diligent religious service of most Muslims to the lukewarm lip-service which most Christians pay to the God of the Bible. It is therefore important to understand that Jesus’ believers cannot be effective witnesses for Christ and expect to permeate pagan society with the truth of God’s Word, if they are not wholly committed to God. If we do not hunger for an ever deepening understanding of His Word; if we do not seek after the “whole truth” of the Word for ourselves first; if we remain willfully disobedient to the Word of God which commands, “Your sanctification is the will of God. Abstain from sexual [and all other forms of sin and] immorality… [Do not live in vile] passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God… for God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this [commandment] does not reject man, but God, Who has also given us His Holy Spirit,” (1 Ths. 4:1-8.) We have to seek God’s face in this matter so that we will not shame Him through our ungodly conduct. Paul asked in Rom. 2:23-24, “You who make your boast in [keeping certain OT laws like tithing,] do you dishonor God through breaking the [MORAL] law [of love]? For the Name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” Peter added his voice to this admonition in 2 Pet. 2:2-3, “False prophets and false teachers will secretly bring in destructive heresies, and many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.” Let us ask God to have mercy on us so that our lives may testify to the fact that through the blood of Jesus Christ “we were washed and sanctified, and we were justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” Oh Lord, let our lives be “an epistle of Christ, written not with ink on tablets of stone but on tables of flesh, that is, of the heart… known and read by all men…” (1 Cor. 6:11; 2 Cor. 3:4-6.)
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