Faith that Works: Pray, Give, Speak Out
The video you just saw did at least two things demonstrably well. It very vividly depicted the stark
contrast that exists between the evil, oppressive, and destructive forces of Islamic terrorism and the
love, hope, and provision found in Christ and his church. Also, as a video produced by OpenDoors South
Africa, it showed the global nature of the Christian concern about the persecution of the church.
Do not think that the stark contrast between the evil, oppressive and destructive forces of Islamic
terrorism and the love, hope, and provision found in the Christian church is not being noticed even by
other Muslims. Muslims are coming to Christ in historic numbers. Some have said more Muslims have
come to Christ in the last 10 years than in the 15 previous centuries of Islam’s existence. (Islam began
around 611, when Muhammad at age of 40 began to receive his “revelations.”) Christian Aid Mission
reports that atrocities by the Islamic State (ISIS) are softening the hearts of Muslims to Christianity, and
evangelistic techniques and technologies are proving effective, but locally-based missionaries say the
main reason for the spike in conversions in the Middle East is simply that former Muslims are finding
God is real. In war-torn areas of Syria and Iraq, places Christianity has existed for 2000 years through
the ministries of the first apostles, but where, as of June 2014, ISIS declared a caliphate after seizing
control of Mosul, Muslim refugees to neighboring countries, internally displaced people and people
remaining at home are learning about Christ from native aid workers, podcasts and broadcasts. Tent
churches among refugees are sprouting like mushrooms. “For people who have suffered such deep loss,
seeing that they can pray to a personal God whom they can call Father has been the critical factor. ‘You
can see the tears in their eyes when we pray – that God would care,’ said the director of one ministry
working in the region. ‘It’s the connection that makes a huge difference.’ Muslims who were previously
taught to pray by rote to Allah, who by Koranic definition was unknowable, can feel the difference of
having a relationship with God through Christ. ‘They see that God can give you strength, can heal you,’
said the director. ‘They say that things have changed, that they have a peaceful attitude towards those
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“who have done this to my kids, wife, or husband - I can pray about it and give it to God.”’ Former
Muslims, who once prayed five times a day as a duty, say they don’t quite know how to describe the
difference. ‘They say, “Now with our relationship with God, we see a huge difference; something has
changed in our life,”’ he said. ‘You can see it on their faces. They say, “Every time we pray, there’s a
difference.”’ The soul-crushing loss of loved ones, home and country that people have suffered at the
hands of ISIS has helped open Muslims to the gospel. Another ministry director said Syrian and Iraqi
refugees are more open to the gospel than at any time in history because of atrocities by ISIS.
‘Absolutely,’ he said, ‘because ISIS is saying that the things they are doing come from the Koran.’”
An article in the Special Field Report put out by Voice of the Martyrs on Iraq and Syria entitled “The
Islamic State Drove Me to Christ,” corroborates this further. Last Christmas a man visited Pastor Joseph
in his office in Baghdad. He asked if he could share eight words with the pastor: “I was blind and I am
seeing now” were the words. “How?,” asked Pastor Joseph. “I was Muslim and now I’m seeing,” the
man said. From the date ISIS came to Mosul, I started reading the Quran. I wanted to tell the people,
‘This is not true Islam.’ I read the Quran daily for four hours, five hours. I wanted to defend my religion.
I discovered this is the true Islam.”
Pastor Joseph sees many Muslim youths leave Islam after learning how the Qur’an inspired ISIS and its
slaughter of Christians. “They start seeking,” Joseph said. “When they have a Bible, they start reading
about the real God and how God is love. He doesn’t kill people. He doesn’t hate Christians. He doesn’t
hate the Yazidis. Many people come now to Christianity because they are seeking God.”
The man who visited Pastor Joseph’s office had been so appalled by how the Qur’an had inspired ISIS
savagery that he had become an atheist. Days later, however, he had walked by a group of men sitting
at a table with Bibles and Christian literature. “You have a Bible?,” he asked the men. “Can I have one?”
He read in John 8 about the woman taken in adultery; there in Iraq, of course, the practice is to stone
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such a woman, she being the guilty one, not the man. Jesus’ response, “He who is without sin among
you, let him throw a stone at her first,” moved the man to exclaim, “This is God! This is the real God we
should worship!” I hope you feel the joy of discovery, the thrill of love, the reality of forgiveness he has
experienced in Jesus Christ! It may be something we take for granted sometimes, but we should not.
While there is good news about spiritual awakening amongst Muslims coming to Christ, many more
Muslims, particularly ISIS, are persecuting Christians. Stories abound of beheadings, even of children, of
crucifixions, of rape and theft and the destruction of church buildings, homes, and historical
monuments. ISIS fighters paint the Arabic “N” for Nassarah, Nazarene, on Christian homes to stigmatize
them for the standard Islamic ultimatum to either convert to Islam, pay the jizya poll tax (an offer of
protection for money and an inferior status), or die. Some who pay the tax are still killed.
Pastor Joseph regularly hears of church members fleeing ISIS only to encounter the terror group at their
checkpoints, where fighters confiscate passports, ID cards, and all valuables. Joseph heard once of a
checkpoint guard who asked a pregnant woman for her wedding ring. Because her fingers were swollen
from pregnancy, she was unable to remove the ring, so the guard cut off her finger, took the ring, and
sent her on her way. Pastor Joseph said, not surprisingly, that Iraqi Christians are afraid and many wish
to leave. They leave everything behind as they try to immigrate to Jordan, Lebanon, or Turkey. Others,
as we’ve learned and seen recently on TV coverage, are seeking asylum in Europe. In camps along the
way, if they are housed with Muslims, these Christians are still attacked by Muslims. The Gatestone
Institute reported on Oct. 1, “Muslim asylum seekers are enforcing Islamic Sharia law in German refugee
shelters, according to police, who warn that Christians, Kurds and Yazidis in the shelters are being
attacked by Muslims with increasing frequency and ferocity. Muslim migrants from different sects, clans,
ethnicities and nationalities are also attacking each other. Violent brawls — sometimes involving
hundreds of migrants — are now a daily occurrence. Police say the shelters, where thousands of
migrants are housed together in cramped spaces for months at a time, are seething cauldrons ready to
explode. The police are urgently calling for migrants of different faiths to be housed in separate
facilities. Die Welt also interviewed an Iraqi Christian family from Mosul who were living at a refugee
shelter in the Bavarian town of Freising. The father said that threats by Islamists were a daily fact of life.
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‘They shouted at my wife and hit my child,’ he said. "They say: 'We will kill you and drink your blood.'"
Life in the shelter, he said, was as if in a prison.’”
This crisis is of monumental proportions. Our text in James emphasizes the need for a faith that works.
“If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food,” we cannot just send them on their way with pious
platitudes. We must supply their bodily needs. The brother or sister here envisioned is, of course, a
fellow Christian, a spiritual brother or sister. Jesus said, “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven
is my brother and sister and mother” (Matt. 12:50). As I recently said on the matter of these refugees, I
agree with former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey that we in the West, the predominantly
Christian nations, should take in the Christian refugees, because they are much more likely to assimilate
than Muslims, who should go to other Muslim countries. What we need to do, most certainly, is pray
for God’s people all across the Middle East, as well as those seeking asylum from the horrors of war
there in Europe. Persecuted Christians ask us always, first and foremost, to pray for them and I try to
keep this before our hearts and minds each Sunday with a bit more info on the problem so you will pray.
We also need to give. Ministries like Voice of the Martyrs, Open Doors, and many others are actively
engaged in providing aid to Christians in Iraq and Syria who have lost everything. Voice of the Martyrs
(VOM) cites the very words of James 2:17 on its Action Pack web page. Action Packs are vacuum packed
bags containing a blanket, jacket or windbreaker for an adult or child, light sweater, socks, T-Shirt, bed
sheet, towel, bar of soap and sponge that people who have lost everything need. Since the beginning of
the ISIS campaign in June 2014, VOM has assisted 19,000 families by distributing over 16,000 action
packs and over 70,000 Bibles. That is just this one ministry. Nancy and I give monthly to VOM and this
next year plan to add Open Doors to our monthly giving. How about you? Would you give regularly?
Finally, we need to speak out on behalf of the persecuted. So few in this country seem to really know
what’s going on or be engaged. We can sign online petitions on behalf of these who suffer and even
write to them. Let’s make ours a faith that works on behalf of the needs of our suffering brothers and
sisters in Christ.
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