How God is moving among Muslims and how YWAMers are joining Him…
By Lynn Combs
It was 2005 on a hot dusty day in a big Middle Eastern city. Several hundred YWAMers were gathered for the purpose of leadership training. One of our international leaders was speaking to us that day. He had waited on the Lord for weeks for a clear word to those of us working in the region. It was a message that would change the course of our hearts in this region almost entirely populated by Muslims.
He spoke from Isaiah 42:14-16, “I have kept silent for a long time, I have kept still and restrained Myself. Now like a woman in labour I will groan, I will both gasp and pant… I will lead the blind by a way they do not know, in paths they do not know I will guide them. I will make darkness into light before them and rugged places into plains. These are the things I will do, and I will not leave them undone.”
God was igniting our hearts with a deep passion to take His message to the people in our region – He was going to lead us in new ways. Our hearts were stirred, and we spent time asking God desperately to show us HOW to follow Him.
As our team returned to our own city, we began asking God that question – how do we join you in your heart for our Muslim friends? We had built many good works in the city: we were teaching English, running summer camps, doing sports ministries… but we were not seeing anyone respond to the Message of Jesus. We were sharing with people, but it was like our message was hitting a brick wall. God had to do a work in our own hearts before He would do the work in theirs.
Many of us grew up in Christian countries and for us, Christianity is the right way. It is the right religion. Our membership to a church had become equal to salvation. As we began to follow God into His heart for the Muslim World, we saw that Jesus never preached a religion, he preached the Kingdom of God. As we studied the Scriptures and interacted more deeply with our Muslim friends, we began to see them through God’s eyes. God began to remove our veil.
Many Muslims are devout followers of God who pray regularly, give to the poor, fast for God to reveal Himself and confess that there is only One God. As God showed us the gold in their hearts, and the need to share Christ and not Christianity, we began to really see. Our Muslim friends had the same enemies we had: Satan, shame and sin. They needed salvation, not from their culture or their socio-ethnic background, but from their shame – just like we do. It is not a matter of who’s right and who’s wrong – but a matter of God’s broken heart for the human race to be reconciled to Himself through the Messiah.
As God was busy with our own hearts, we met some precious brothers and sisters who were living in our region. They loved Muslim people, had many Muslim friends and were having fellowship with Muslims who had accepted the Message of the Kingdom of God and had found peace and salvation with God through Jesus. Wow – this was certainly a new thing! We invited them to teach us how to love our neighbours and to share our life-changing story with them. This began a six-month journey of wrestling with God, the Scriptures and our own hearts. 5 years later, we have welcomed many friends into the Kingdom of God, and seen more travel further on their journey of faith, leading to transformation in our community!
What happened? What changed?
Well, almost everything. As we explored the scripture and learned more of the beliefs of our neighbours, we understood more clearly how the message of God is revealed in the lives of the Prophets. Sharing this with our Muslim friends, we were able to show them the truth about Jesus (Isa – the Muslim word for Jesus), which is written in the Holy Books.
For example, our friend Rena is a Muslim who loves God with all of her heart. She had met Christians and had even prayed with them, but it was impossible for her to become a Christian. She is a Muslim, born and raised – if she changed her religion, she would be killed by her family. Besides, she loves her family, her way of life and God.
As we met with Rena to talk about our faith, she was moved by the stories of the prophets and wanted to know more. Together we studied the Quran and the Bible. Within a few months, she had grasped the saving message of Jesus revealed through her books, her understanding, her world-view and she decided to trust her salvation to God through the Messiah.
Rena keeps a copy of the Bible with her. She shares stories from it with her family. She has grown in her ability to understand God’s heart and she has ministered to us as foreigners and prays for us! She is a respected woman in her community. Through prayer in the Name of Jesus, her mother was recently healed of clogged arteries and saved from a major heart operation! God is moving through Rena to reach her mother and sisters and we believe that one day soon, the whole household will find peace with God through Jesus.
Rena is just one of a growing number that have come into the Kingdom in the last few years. All of the new believers are Muslims who now have a living relationship with God through the sacrifice of Isa ilmasiih (Christ the Messiah). They have copies of the Bible and many are sharing with their friends and families.
As we have continually studied the Scriptures and particularly the Book of Acts in these times, we have realised that Paul allowed Greek pagans to become Greek followers of Jesus. In Acts 10 Peter was astonished when the Holy Spirit fell on Gentiles! In Acts 15, the Jewish Church recognised that God was moving among Gentiles and was bringing people to Himself! Jesus Himself is appearing in dreams to Muslims all over the world revealing Himself as Isa and drawing people to Truth. This is a fulfilment of His own words in John 10:16 “I have other sheep which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.”
We are living in a Book of Acts historical moment! God is breaking out once again from the constraint of a religion and we are seeing a new move of His Spirit from Asia to the Middle East and to all the corners of the earth! Millions of Muslims are becoming followers of the Messiah! God is not holding back, nor should we. We are called to preach Christ and His Kingdom, not Christianity.
Let’s join Jesus and see more of the “other sheep” brought into His fold!
John 10:16 “I have other sheep which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.”
The way I read this is that they come into ONE fold, not one foot in this fold and one in another. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but are you condoning the religion of Islam, so long as they have “accepted Christ.” ? What about mixing darkness and light. Isa is not the messiah, Jesus is. A false religion cannot be partially right. Lightness and darkness do not mix. Believe it or not, every religion in the world has some section that is somewhat in line with the Holy Scriptures, but this does not mean that we accept them all. If we do, this makes the road we are on wide and easy because the truths and exacts are so varied. Having said that, wide is the road to destriction and narrow is the road to eternal life and few find it. I beg you to be careful, any “messianic muslim” is neither a muslim nor a Christian, and therefore they are not (and this is not judging, but reading the fruits) not obeying the Lords command to serve Him and only Him.
Thank you for considering the danger of this type of missionary work, as it is mearly leading one from one false truth to another false truth. God be with you all.
This might say it better than me.
http://www.letusreason.org/Current57.htm
Thanks
Concerned! says that you seem to be “condoning the religion of Islam, so long as they have “accepted Christ.” I don’t see this at all. Why condone any religion when religion does not save and is by its very nature a man-made construct that is the enemy of true relationship with God.
This includes the religion called Christianity. Why ask Muslims to drop their man-made construct and adopt/convert to ours? We know that Christianity does not save either. Jesus did not come preaching Christianity – He came preaching the Kingdom of God and relationship with the Father. Christianity is part of that wide road that you are (rightly) concerned about Concerned! We need to lead Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, Secularists, etc. into the Kingdom of God – not convert them to our religion.
For simplicity, I refer to all, even Christianity, as a religion. It is common sence to all believers that there is more to being a christian than “religion”
All religions claim they are the one true faith and certainly Christianity is no different in that it also claims to be the one true faith, so how can we know who is right? First, we have to understand and accept the fact that they can not ALL be right because they contradict each other. Some Eastern religions teach that you can become fully “enlightened” through a reincarnation process if you do enough good deeds. Islam teaches you must follow the teachings of the Qu’ran and the Hadiths and accept Mohammad as God’s true prophet for the hope that Allah may grant you entrance into paradise. Jesus taught that he was God in the flesh, who came to Earth in human form to die for the sins of mankind, so that “whosoever would believe on Him would not perish, but have everlasting life”. So who’s right?
The bottom line is there is one right “religion” or way to get eternal savation for those who don’t care for the word “religion.” It is all or nothing, and I for one want it all.
I would have agreed with “Concerned” (c’mon, use your real name if you want to dialogue!), until I met people who were squarely in their Muslim family and cultural environment, but who had come to faith in Jesus. Some of them demonstrated a depth of discipleship and suffering for the name of Jesus that is very rare amongst professing “Christians”. These were people from Muslim majority nations who could not see a compelling reason to be identified with the mostly nominal “Christian” minority in their nation. To do so would have sent wrong messages at several levels. Many of these believers have gone on to be strong witnesses in their Muslim nations and some have died for their faith. We cannot stand in judgment upon such heroes.
Concerned! Thanks for having the guts to stand up and say “Wait a minute!” Definitely needed in our mission. May I encourage you, though, to keep thinking things through – and keep questioning your own presuppositions?
For example, you say “Isa is not the messiah, Jesus is.” But why the problem? Could it perhaps be you’re simply familiar with “Jesus” while “Isa” just sounds strange? It could be argued that “Isa” is actually closer to the Greek of the NT (‘Iesou) than “Jesus”–and all three are rather corrupted variants of “Yeshua”. If we reject the Isa version of his name surely we should reject the Jesus version too?
I reckon Yeshua has a lot of acceptance of our uncouth tongues!
Wow! (c’mon, use your real name if you want to dialogue!), you seem to think that Jesus came to inaugurate an new religion to replace false ones (including Judaism?). I don’t believe Jesus wanted to start another religion at all. Many facets of organized religion completely deny and oppose the way Jesus said he wanted us to follow him. The hierarchy, rules, formalism, rites and rituals, etc have no place in the true worship of God. Jesus was put to death by religion professionals precisely because they understood correctly that He was declaring a way of living and an eternity that had no place for them and their man-made systems of control and guilt management.
Did you notice how you switched gears in the middle of your argument?
“Some Eastern religions teach . . . ”
“Islam teaches . . . ”
“Jesus taught . . . ” Why switch to a person? Why not “Christianity teaches . . . ”
Because you know as well as I do that Jesus and Christianity are two very different things and not in agreement with each other (ask the Pope).
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation if His being…” (Hebrews 1:3)
Sadly–both presently and historically–the Christian religion is NOT the radiance of God’s glory NOR the exact representation of His being. But Jesus was, is and will forever be.
My choice, no matter where in the world I find myself, is to introduce people to Jesus and downplay religion: “Meet Jesus and follow Him back to your family and community (Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, atheistic, Nominal Christian, whatever.). Love God and love them as you love yourself.”
I am sorry that you (Brian) do not see. There are things that are “christian” – talk, words and traditions, but also truth. This is the way we grow, organized religion saved my life, and it is needed to be used as a beacon to draw others to Christ (it is not necessary, but a vessel (I see you reject the word “tool”)
I love you, and I pray for you also. Please read the comment in the next article to see where I came from.
Stefen – Perhaps not the best with words, but I’m great with numbers!
I’m reminded of something that Ralph Winter, founder of the US Centre for World Mission (Pasadena) and a globally respected missionary statesman said a few years ago. He predicted that in the coming decades there would be moves of God in Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist nations that would result in large numbers of conversions, (ie genuine salvations). These movements would appear to the western church to be syncretistic, because these large numbers of new Christians would see no need to abandon existing cultural forms that are not inherently contradictory to the Gospel. Indeed they would do church in culturally relevant ways that are very different from the way Westerners do church. The challenge and struggle for Churches in the West (and dare I say for American Evangelicals in particular) would be to not write these movements off as heretical and thus completely overlook (and possibly nullify/oppose) huge moves of people into the Kingdom of God. It is the same struggle that the Judaisers of the NT faced when seeing large numbers of Gentiles convert and yet not adopt the accepted forms of (Jewish) Christianity. It is the same struggle that many missionaries throughout history have encountered as God has moved among their target peoples and has not required them to abandon their cultural forms (Patrick among the Celts, Gregory among the English and Germans, Bruce Olsen with natives in Venezuela… need I go on).
Let’s not make the mistake that some missionaries have in the past, and require something of these new followers of Jesus, that Jesus has not required of them.
As for whether you can use the term “Allah” to pray to the God of the Bible… every morning 100 million Arabic speaking Christians across the Middle East get up and have their quiet times, read the Bible (in Arabic) and pray to Allah the God and Father of Isa al Massih (Jesus the Christ) – as they have done for well over 1000 years. Are you gonna try and tell them they are wrong? If so, on what basis? Korean Christians pray to Hananim the God and Father of Yesu… Chinese Christians pray to Shang Ti… and when I pray I use “God”, “Lord” and a few other non-Hebrew, non-Greek terms that my father in heaven seems quite comfortable with… because my heart language happens to be English.
Perhaps more importantly, God is able and willing to use latent revelation of the truth in ANY culture in order to lay a platform for the establishment of a relationship with Him through Jesus. If you can’t use the Koran for that, then Paul should not have quoted ancient Greek poetry (which had religious value in that culture) on Mars Hill in Acts 17 – but he did.
We need to heed the conclusions of Acts 15 – not to lay upon converts from other cultures a burden that the Gospel does not lay upon them – including the burden of transitioning to different (and culturally irrelevant) forms.
After reading Marks reply. I thought about a better way to voice my concern. What you mentioned are true, and stuff we learned in our 1st week of DTS.
I don’t really care what you wear when you worship, what you call the one you worship, what you eat and drink when you worship, or if you do it in a church, a boat or a box. My concern is who you worship. George Bush and George Clooney are 2 completely different people, with the same name.
Allah of the Koran, and Allah of the Bible are not one in the same. (Allah just a word for God) If you want to call God Fluffy, thats fine just worship the right God.
Isa of the Koran is not the same Isa of the bible. Allah of the Bible has Isa (his son), and the Holy Spirit all 100% God in their own right – But one!, Allah of the Koran does not. Be careful of words and names. Anyone can call anything God, the attributes of the God of the Bible do not match the attributes of the God of the Koran.
There you go, now I’m done.
Stefen
Hi Stefen,
Thanks for your reply, it’s much clearer now where you are coming from and the concerns you have expressed are entirely reasonable. I agree that there is a clear question here, which is, is the God of the Koran the same God as the God of the Bible. The strange answer is, yes and no. In some ways yes, in some ways no. If you take all the attributes of God (to make it simple we can use “names”) that are described in the Koran, and compare these to the names or attributes of God in the Bible, there is a very high correspondence. Plenty of research has been done on this. At the same time, there are plenty of attributes of God in the Koran that are totally unbiblical, and plenty of “noise” and distortion as well.
Now, let’s lay the right starting point by saying that none of us has a perfect knowledge of God, or of Jesus, nor a perfect understanding of salvation (and let’s not forget that the early church did not end up agreeing on the divinity of Christ for many decades, and on the trinity for nearly 400 years). So all of us, true Christians, are worshiping our concept of who God is, which is distorted to one degree or another. However, our loving Father accepts this worship if it is in Spirit and in truth – not in perfect truth, but enough truth to hit the “target” so to speak. I don’t know how else to put it. God accepts our worship, and we are saved, even though our understanding of who he is is less than perfect.
So the question becomes, how accurate does your theology need to be in order to get saved. Here is where the contention usually begins. On the one hand, you’ve got your typical American Evangelicals and cult watchers who, with the best of motives, define things very narrowly in seeking to defend sound doctrine. But sound doctrine is important for growth, but not necessary for salvation. All that’s necessary for salvation is faith in the finished work of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. And indeed, our understanding of who Jesus is can also be less than perfect – Abraham was saved by faith by just knowing that somehow God could attribute righteousness to him not on the basis of works. In other words, God’s requirements for the BASIC KNOWLEDGE of truth that you need to be saved, appears to be very broad. There are many examples from Scripture to illustrate this, both OT and NT.
So the question then becomes, can people from a Muslim background discover enough truth about God from the Koran and from natural revelation and reason (and often dreams as well) to lead them to a salvation experience and an ongoing walk with the Father though Jesus. I think the answer is yes they can (and many experiences and testimonies bear this out), but if they don’t then move on from just the Koran, they will never grow as Christians.
Interestingly, when Muslim converts testify that they saw Jesus in a dream, it usually includes the fact that He calls Himself Isa, and doesn’t feel the need to say “I’m not the Isa of the Koran, I’m the Isa of the Bible” – both Jesus and the Muslims seem comfortable that it’s one and the same person – albeit that any such convert usually ends up seeking a new testament and reading it to learn more about the Isa that appeared to them, and thus does their journey of discipleship start.
I’m often reminded of Muslims when I read of the Jews (and Pharisees in particular) in the New Testament as they face a similar dilemma. They are in a religion that has an understanding of God, but it’s a religion of works and there is no salvation in it. Unless they repent of dead works and trust in Jesus/Isa/Yeshua, they can’t be saved. The problem is the ones who are more committed to the religion than they are to the truth – just like the Jews of Jesus’ day, they end up opposing the work of God while thinking they are doing him a service.
I have rambled a bit here but I trust that what I’m saying makes sense. A good book on the subject of extra-Biblical cultural revelation being a foundation for the Gospel is Don Richardson’s “Eternity in their Hearts”. There are probably some good books that talk specifically about Islam, but I don’t have any and I’m not an expert on Islam, I’m just approaching the issue applying the same principles that apply generally in missiology.
Sorry if I have bored anyone!!
Blessings,
Mark
Brian I agree with you, as obviously Stefen (“Concerned”) and “WOW” do also, that, as you said, “We need to lead Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons, Secularists, etc. into the Kingdom of God…” and not encourage them to stay in their false religions as some C5/Insiders do. I am glad that no one encouraged me to stay in the bar rooms when I was born again. In stead my wife and I took the drunks and addicts into our home to teach them.
And Lynn, you said: “These were people from Muslim majority nations who could not see a compelling reason to be identified with the mostly nominal ‘Christian’ minority in their nation.” That is very understandable. But don’t you agree that the “ex-Muslim” who does not see a compelling reason to “come out from” (2Cor6:17) Islam is not really an ex-Muslim??? They have not yet entered the Kingdom of Yahweh, have they?
“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:32-39).
Of course, we should not “stand in judgment” on anyone but we do need to inspect the fruit and apply more prayer where appropriate, don’t we?
Jim (& Ann) Meredith
CDTS Kona Summer of 1985; SoFM Torremolinos, Spain 2004