Straight to the Heart

A pastor in Florida has called off his plan to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11. I’m glad. God hasn’t called Christians to burn the writings of Muhammad. He has called us to do something far more dangerous with them.

1. He has called us to find out what the Koran says.

The plan to burn copies of the Koran was borne out of fear. Like the recent book published by a senior German banker, it was a response to the advance in the West of radical Islam. It treats Muslims as the enemy, when the Bible plainly tells us that they are not. It tells us not to fear them as enemies, but to love them as the people God has sent us to save.

Paul spent three years in the city of Ephesus, a city which was dominated by radical, intolerant, violent paganism. On one occasion the crowds there tried to lynch him, but they were forced to admit that they had never heard him bad-mouthing or dishonouring their religion (Acts 19:37). Paul wrote a letter to Ephesus in which he explained this approach, saying “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Muslims are not the enemy, he tells us. Our battle is with the unseen spiritual forces which are managing to deceive them. 

He explained it still further to Timothy, the man he sent to Ephesus to handle the situation when he himself was forced to flee from pagan death threats. “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone … Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

God hasn’t called Christians to burn copies of the Koran. He has called us to find out what the Koran actually says and to rescue the millions who have let the Devil twist it and distort it, and fallen into his trap.

2. He has called us to point out to Muslims what the Koran says about Jesus.

Here is a question which was asked three weeks ago on a gameshow on Arabic television: Which prophet is mentioned the most times in the Koran? All of the contestants guessed it must be Muhammad, except for a university lecturer who knew better. The answer, he replied, is Jesus the Messiah. Instead of burning the Koran, God wants us to point that out to Muslims.

The Koran refers to Jesus as the “Word of God”, the “Spirit of God”, and the “Messiah” who was born of a virgin. Whilst it tells us that Adam sinned (Surah 120:121), Noah sinned (71:25-28), Moses sinned (28:15-16), David sinned (38:30-35), and Muhammad sinned (48:2), it tells us that Jesus was holy and led a completely righteous life (3:46). Most Muslims don’t know that because Christians simply haven’t told them.

Muhammad would be aghast to see the Islamic religion which has emerged from his writings. He told his followers that “I am nothing new among the prophets; I do not know what will happen to me and to my followers; I am only a plain warner” (Surah 46:9). Instead, he instructed his followers in the Koran that “If you are in doubt as to what we have revealed unto you, then ask those who were reading the Book [ie the Bible] before you” (Surah 10:94). He expected that Christians would not be burning his writings but using them to help his followers to find freedom from deception whenever they misunderstood him. It’s time that we started doing what Muhammad hoped we would.

3. Show them that they have fallen for a false, Jesusless Islam, and that he is the Saviour that every Muslim is looking for.

A few days ago, I was at a Muslim friend’s house to share an Iftar meal with him as the sun went down and he broke his Ramadan fast. I watched him face his prayer mat east and pray his prescribed prayers, and then I asked him to explain to me what he hoped to achieve through his thirty days of fasting. “Forgiveness,” he told me simply, and proceeded to confess his sin and his need for God to have mercy upon him. Most non-Muslims resist God when he calls them a sinner, but Muslims are truly looking for the salvation which Jesus came to bring.

Here is the problem for my Muslim friend, and for the millions of Muslims who fasted this Ramadan: The Koran tells us that Adam lived for years in the Garden of Eden in perfect obedience to God. One day, however, he sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, and he was immediately banished from the Garden. The Koran tells us that “Adam disobeyed his Lord and so went astray” (20:121), and that this one sin was so serious that it outweighed all of his previous years of obedience. If Adam could not fast his way back into Eden due to one single sin, then it’s a warning that we cannot fast our way to Paradise either. The issue is not that Muslims follow the Koran. It’s that they are satisfied with less than the Koran really says, and fail to follow it through to its natural conclusion.

We need to tell Muslims that Jesus appeared to two people just like them at the end of the Injil, Luke’s gospel. They were people who followed the prophets devoutly, and who had just finished celebrating their greatest national Feast in the hope that God might forgive them. When they explained to Jesus how they understood their Scriptures, he turned to them and urged them to take note of what those Scriptures really said.

“‘How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. ‘Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Torah of Moses, the Prophets and in the Psalms … This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:13-49).

God has not called us to burn the Koran, but to encourage Muslims to read it. He has called us to point out what it says about Jesus, the only one who can forgive them their sins, and to urge them to do what Muhammad commanded. He told them to go to those who were reading the Bible before them to shed light on the words which he himself had written. When we stop treating Muslims as enemies and start freeing them from the deception which has turned Islam into something Muhammad never intended it to be, then THAT will be the kind of news story that God is truly looking for on 9/11.