What Draws Muslims To Christ

Dr. John Hoole – July 19, 2015

Muslims are growing in number not only in their traditional power base, the Middle East, But also around the world.

         •  India alone has 100 million Muslims

         •  China has 100 million Muslims.

         •  Indonesia, the largest Muslim population, has 180 million.

         •  Muslims constitute a majority in 45 African and Asian countries.

         •  England – Muslim Mosques number over 1,000 today compared to one in 1945.

         •  France – Islam is now the second largest religion with thousands of Mosques now in existence.

         •  Spain, Germany, Italy, and Denmark have growing Muslim communities.

         •  In 1990, there were only 30 mosques in the United States – now there are over 3,000.

Here is a fact:  Throughout the world, wherever political Islam enters the stage, Muslims are drawn to Christ.  When Islam as a religion also become the center of a country’s politics, it results in a religious dictatorship and people are deprived of democracy, and freedom of choice.  The rulers end up making all the decisions.  We see it in countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Nigeria and Somalia.  But, at the same time, this has laid the groundwork for people to take refuge in Christ.  Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, 80% of the population have become disillusioned.  They are searching for a God who is love and just and wih equality, which is found only in Jesus Christ.

Georges Houssney was raised in a Christian family in a predominantly Muslim city, Tripoli.  That isn’t Tripoli, Libya, but Tripoli, Lebanon.  The Muslims in the area often attacked his family because they were Christian.  Although his family was Christian, he was not really a follower of Christ.  As he grew up, he began training in a militia to fight the Muslim opposition.  Then someone put into his hand the gospel of Matthew.  It changed his life and his attitudes and he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior.  Soon after, he developed a great love for Muslims, and felt God call him into ministry to win Muslims.  He has traveled many Muslim countries and has been instrumental in seeing thousands of Muslims come to faith in Jesus Christ from all over the world.

After a number of years traveling among Muslims in many countries, he decided to take a survey of what it was that drew Muslims to Christ.  The survey had 10 questions on it, each with multiple choice answers.  In some cases, the person taking the questionnaire selected more than one answer.

The first question was:  Before I became a Christian, I was….?

         40% were moderate Muslims.

         40% were nominal Muslims.

         20% were self-described as fanatic Muslims.

The second question: As a Muslim, did you feel that your relationship with God was based on fear, love, or duty?

         75% said it was based on fear.

         40% look at it as a duty.

         Only 5% said they felt they were actually worshiping Allah.

At this point, I am stepping aside from this survey.  I will include parts of it among other data that I believe, are the top three factors that draw Muslims to Christ.  What is it that will cause a Muslim to follow Christ, knowing it may cost them their family and maybe even their life.

It appears to me there are three divine factors that are found in all Muslims that turn to Christ.  What is it that causes, literally, tens of thousands of Muslims every week to convert to Christ?  They are: a) Divine Truth,  b) Divine Love, and c) Divine Power.

Divine Truth

The first factor is the “divine truth” – i.e. the Bible.

Rahim was a Muslim man in his early forties.  His father was a respected religious Muslim elder in their locality.  One day Rahim was given the New Testament written in his own language.

That was the first time in his life for Rahim to meet this book called the “Injil” (New Testament).  When he started reading it he couldn’t stop reading it for hours.  All of a sudden Rahim realized that it was already midnight and his cheeks were wet with tears flowing down.  In Rahim’s own words, that was the first time he ever felt that God speaks even to a person like him.

Rahim had memorized parts of the Quran, but had never felt while reading the Quran the way he felt when reading the Injil on that day.  That encounter with the Injil lead Rahim to put his trust in the death and resurrection of Isa al-Masih (Jesus Christ).  There are so many Muslims who came to Christ (Masih) like Rahim, just by reading the Word of God.

Young Muslims are taught not to read the Bible.  To put fear into young people, the Imams would say “Don’t even touch the Bible or Christian books, because they had some deceptive powers on a person’s mind.

Tass Saada was a killer.  He and his friends murdered Jews in Israel – they murdered civilians and soldiers alike.  They would also attack Christians in Jordan – sometimes by tossing hand grenades at their homes.  They once almost succeeded in assassinating the crown prince of an Arab country.  They did it eagerly – at least Saada did.  He was a personal friend of Yasser Arafat.  His family was close to the Saudi royal family.

In 1993, he came to America.  Saada was not expecting to become a follower of Jesus Christ.  When an evangelical man became his friend, the gospel was shared with him.  His new friend tried to encouraged him to read the New Testament for himself, but every fiber in his body resisted and became enraged.

He said to his Christian friend, “I must not touch that book!”  “Why not?” his friend said, “It’s just paper.”  “No!” Saada replied.  “It’s God’s Word!  The two men just stood there for a moment.  “Do you really believe what you just said?” his friend asked in shock.  “Yes, I do,” Saada replied, hardly understanding the words that came out of his mouth.  He certainly had not been raised to believe the Bible was God’s Word.

But he soon heard his friend saying, “Well, if you believe that, then let me read you what the Bible says about Jesus Christ.  Fair enough?”  Saada nodded.  His friend began reading from the book of John, and shortly Saada began to shake.  He said, “Before I knew it, I was on my knees.  I lost all awareness that my friend was in the room.”

Suddenly Saada knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the triune God – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – existed.  He knew with certainty that this triune God loved him.  And sobbing with shame at his sin, and with thankfulness for God’s mercy, he cried out, “Oh, Jesus, come into my life!  Forgive me and be my Lord and Savior.”

Let me take you to southern Asia and tell you a story of a young Muslim man named Abdul.  His parent send him to an Islamic school, called Madrasa, where he will read the Quran and memorize much of it.  As he learned more and more of the Quran, Abdul had more and more questions.  The first time he questioned about the Quran, the imam beat him and warned him never to question the meaning of the Quran again.  Abdul had difficulty not asking questions, and the imam banished Abdul from the Madrasa.  Abdul’s father was humiliated and angry.  He expelled the boy from his family home.  For the next three years he lived in a shack beside their home.  In addition, he was forbidden to eat or socialize with his family.

One afternoon as Abdul walked alone down a dusty village road, a white foreigner riding in the back of a rickshaw stopped asking if he wanted a ride.  He was a missionary, and Abdul had never seen a white man.  He got on board the rickshaw, and he recalled, “I quietly touched the white man to see if he was a man or an angel.”

When they arrived at the missionary’s home, Abdul found out the white man was a missionary.  He also had a number of Bible and gave one to Abdul.  When he returned to his shack, he began reading the Bible.  Working his way through the Gospel of John, Abdul stopped when he read John 3:17.  “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

Abdul was astounded.  God did not condemn him.  Abdul had been condemned by everyone for a long time, so he assumed God must also condemn him.  But the Bible said God loved him!  And that same night, Abdul accepted God’s love in the form of Jesus Christ and took Him to be his Savior.  When his father found out he was attending a church, his uncles and brothers beat him severely.  They tried to get him to recant, but could not.  Abdul soon went to the capital city to live.

Divine Love

The second factor that draws Muslims to Christ is Divine Love.  Romans 5:5 says that “the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

In Matthew 5:43-44, in the Sermon on the Mount, we read:

43     "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'

44     But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,

You quickly see that Jesus’ strategy of “love your neighbors” and “love your enemies” is the key to winning the hearts and minds of the Muslim people.  And, in this regards, Christians have this strategy all to themselves.  No one else in the Islamic world is teaching people to show love, mercy and compassion to those who hate them and want to destroy them.

No one in the Islamic world is offering forgiveness to those who have committed acts of evil against Islam.  Only the true followers of Jesus are doing these things.  And that is because only those who have been born again and truly transformed have the capacity to love their enemies this way.

One follower of Christ in Iraq was nearly killed for his faith.  Death threats forced him to flee the city where he was engaged in an effective ministry.  He resettled in a city he had never lived in before. He began to pray, Lord, how would You have me serve You in this new city?  How can I love my neighbors and my enemies?  Please give me the wisdom and the courage to serve You faithfully.

Can’t you imagine the Lord loves to answer prayers like that.  Soon the Lord impressed the man to go meet with the mayor of the city and offer to bring several trucks filled with humanitarian relief supplies to the needy Muslims in that community.  The man obeyed.  Yet when he arrived in the mayor’s office and asked if he and his Christian colleagues could distribute such relief supplies, the mayor looked puzzled and for a moment just sat there saying nothing.  Rather than give the man an answer, the mayor pressed the intercom on his desk and ordered his secretary to summon the local mullah.

The Christian leader grew scared.  He really didn’t have any desire to meet with the mullah. He was, after all, on the run from Radical mullahs.  Nevertheless, a few minutes later, the Islamic cleric arrived.

The mayor said, “This man is a Christian.  He has trucks filled with food, clothing, Bibles, and DVDs about the life of Christ.  Go back to the mosque and tell all the people to gather because the Christians have come to bless us.”

The Christian was actually stunned.  In all his years of ministry in Iraq, he had never experienced such a moment.  Yet to his shock, the mullah agreed.  The mullah leaves the mayor’s office, and a few minutes later the Christian heard an announcement booming from the loudspeakers on the minarets.  “Come to the mosque,” the mullah declared.  “The Christians are here to bless us!”  The Christian made a quick phone call and told his colleagues to bring the trucks filled with relief supplies to the mosque.  Before long, hundreds of local Iraqi Muslims were happy and excited.  And when the trucks arrived, most wanted the copies of the New Testament and the DVDs about Jesus first.  Only afterwards did the seek out the rest of the relief supplies.

God’s love can melt even the hardest stone-heart.  Countless Muslims who once hated Christians and Christianity eventually bent their knees before the Lord and Savior after being washed and broken by the love they experienced and witnessed in the lives of those Christians whom they had hated so passionately.

This love is also experienced by those to whom God reveals Himself in dreams and visions.  After a visit from Jesus, Muslims often say things like this:

•  “I felt loved on a level like I have never experienced.”

•  “I felt safe and protected.”

•  “I have never felt such a surge of joy and peace.”

•  “I knew that He loved me, and I loved Him with my whole heart.”

When Muslims discover that God really loves them, no power in the world will stop them from sharing it with other Muslims.

Divine Power

The third thing that draws Muslims to Christ is “Divine Power.”  Nothing is unreachable or impossible to the omnipresent and omnipotent God.  Even the remotest parts of the world are already being prepared by God so that when His obedient followers finally arrive they don’t have to start from scratch.

Reports indicate that, depending on the region, a minimum of 50 percent of all new church plants among Muslims happened in part because of signs and wonders – visions, dreams, healings, deliverance.

Let me return to the story given earlier in this lesson about Abdul, who was beaten by his family, but had been befriended by a missionary who gave him a Bible.  I ended the story earlier by saying that Abdul moved to the capital city.  The missionary he had met gave Abdul enough money to go to the capital city.  There, he was introduced to another missionary.  As he grew, Abdul went to college and received his undergraduate degree and then a Master’s Degree in business

Abdul was now a young man and felt he must return to his home town.  Before leaving the capital, he makes friends with another young man, named Bilal.  He leads this new friend to salvation in Jesus.  Bilal later asked Abdul to baptize him.  They go to the nearby river and Abdul baptizes Bilal.  Abdul says, “Yesterday I was one; today, we are two, tomorrow we could be two hundred.”

Later that year, Abdul learned that his father had become seriously ill and near death.  It had been nearly eight years since Abdul had seen his father.  He also found out that his father had gone to the court and had Abdul declared legally dead.  He asks his brothers if he could see his father.

Abdul goes into the room where his father lay, and prayed for him to be healed in Jesus Name.  The next day Abdul’s brother came and found him.  “Father wants to see you,” they said.  His father sent for him because, to his amazement, he was feeling much better.  The old man had been praying to Allah for weeks, but nothing happened.  Yet when Abdul prayed for him in the name of Jesus, his condition significantly improved.  He asked Abdul to pray for him again each day until he was totally healed.

Now, fully recovered, Abdul’s father listened as he told him about Jesus and the new life that Jesus had to offer.  The old man bowed his head and prayed to receive Jesus as his Savior and Lord.  Thousands would come to know Christ through the testimony of Abdul.

Now, let me share a story of a man named Desta and his friend Samuel.  They were both Christians and Desta felt led by God to plant some churches at some distance from where he currently lived.

As Desta planned to plant a church in a Muslim area, he was determining the route he and Samuel would take to get there.  But on the route there, he knew was a very radical Muslim village and planned to go without stopping there. 

The two Christians set out on Desta’s motorcycle to their distant destination.  They had ridden all day in the hot temperature, but were looking forward to getting there.  When they came to the town that was very hostile to Christians they just continued.  But that is when the motorcycle broke down – in this hostile area.  They did not know why the engine just stopped.  They tried starting it by pushing it.  They came to the end of any ideas, and it was too far to walk to their destination.

It was starting to get late, and that’s when they heard the loud crying.  It was more like wailing, actually.  Many were mourning in the village.  Desta said it made goosebumps on his arm.

But Desta felt something telling him to go find out what was the matter.  Samuel asked someone nearby and found out that the chief’s wife had just died.  It was too late to bury her, and now they were wailing for he.

A voice kept telling me, “Go up and see what is happening here.”  He told Samuel to “wait here, while I go find out what it is all about.”  “Or, Samuel, you can come with me.”  They went together, but feeling nervous and confused.  Desta did not even speak their dialect.

The men of the village crowded themselves in the path Desta and Samuel were taking.  But Desta kept walking pushing his way through – and Samuel was behind him.  Then he saw the corpse, and something told me to start praying.  He though, “I have prayed for the sick, but never a person who was dead.”  Samuel pulled on his shirt sleeve, whispering, “They are calling all the village together.”  By then Desta was struggling: “What if I pray and nothing happens?’  But the urgency was so strong, he had to obey.

Desta tells the people that he wanted to pray for the chief’s dead wife.  They made comments, but he could not really understand what they were saying.  So he went to the body and began praying – a loud and violent prayer.  He felt the Lord filling him with extraordinary strength to pray, and continue praying.  He prayed, and prayed, and prayed – for one hour.  He prayed for God to send her back to her people in the name of Jesus.

It was then that he started to feel warmth in her hand.  Then he began to feel a heartbeat – so he continued to pray.  The crowd started to get angry, someone saying, “Let’s remove this man – he is wasting time.”  And then, the woman opened her eyes.  Everyone started shouting.  The mourners stopped their mourning, and people were pushing in to see.  Then she sat up and asked for water.

The villagers began wondering what power these men had.  The Holy Spirit told Desta to tell then who Jesus is.  He said “We are just ordinary people, but there is a man named Jesus…”

The next morning, the chief of the city made a statement, giving his approval to anyone wanting to convert to Christ.  The chief said that anytime they came through their village, there is a school building where the people can gather for you to pray for them.  But on this day, 76 people gave their heart to Christ.  And a church was planted there.

When they got back to check on their motorcycle, it started right away.  And today, there are many churches in this area.

Closing

The Church of Jesus Christ is, I believe, one of the greatest revelations of God to mankind.  The church is today what Jesus was when He walked in His physical body on the earth.  God manifested His will and plan through what Jesus said and did while He was on earth.  When Jesus ascended on high, the Holy Spirit descended, and on the Day of Pentecost, the church of Jesus Christ was born.  Through the church God can manifest Himself to the world.  Aside from the church, there are no institutions or organization on this planet that have the ability and the knowledge to manifest the will and plan of God for mankind.  The church is it.

The Bible states very clearly and very strongly the mission of the church.

1 Timothy 3:15 NIV

15     But if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

The church is “the pillar and foundation of the truth.”  To say it another way, the church is the foundation, keeper, and supporter of the truth.  Without the church, the knowledge of men is hollow ground – it is sinking sand.