Tag: 9-11

REMEMBER 3 THINGS ON 9-11

REMEMBER 3 THINGS ON 9-11

On the 18th anniversary of 9-11 as our government breaks off peace negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan, I thought it would be good to remember a few fundamentals about dealing with Islamism.

In a 2013 column in USA Today, courageous Muslim physician and author, Qanta Ahmed wrote,

“”The Mosques are our barracks; the minarets our bayonets. The domes are our helms. The believers are our soldiers”

This was the Islamist poem quoted by the mayor of Istanbul, Turkey in December 1997. Charged with using inflammatory speech, he was ejected from office and sentenced to jail by the Ankara High Court.

That mayor, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been Prime Minister and President of Turkey since 2003. During that time, he has slowly but inexorably pushed secular Turkey, a member of NATO, toward an unabashedly Islamist future.[1]

Ahmed, along with other courageous Muslim voices, reminds us of our first fundamental.

BE REAL: ISLAMISM IS NOT GOING AWAY

The Islamic faith as it is understood by Islamists justifies aggression against anyone or any state that can be labeled a threat to Islam. Theirs is a long history.

In 732, barely a hundred years after the founding of Islam, a battle was fought just outside of Paris at a place called Poitiers. Muslim armies seeking to conquer Europe were stopped. For the next 951 years Crusades were called to throw them back. The Muslims countered until finally, in 1683, the armies of the Ottoman Empire were decisively defeated by Polish and German infantry near Vienna. The date? September 11. Bin Laden didn’t choose that date out of thin air;[2] nor did the Benghazi bandits who murdered Ambassador Stephens in 2012.

Westerners assume that the conflict we have with Islamism began in 2001. It began when Islam was founded and it has never stopped. The first thing we must understand is that Islamism and its mission to overcome the Judeo-Christian culture of the west is not going away. Bin Laden predicted that the jihadists would win because they would outlast the Americans. It’s beginning to look like he was right.

Romans 12:17-21 teaches that we aren’t to fear Islam or Muslims. We aren’t to seek revenge for 9-11 or other attacks. Biblically, it is the role of the state to pursue justice and punish evil. As believers we are to love our enemies and seek peace in all of our personal contacts. But we also need to be honest with ourselves and understand that Islamism is not going away. Our children and grandchildren will be dealing with it when we’re gone.

BE ON GUARD: NAЇVETE ISN’T AN OPTION

The second thing we should remember is that loving our enemies and seeking peace doesn’t mean being naïve. We need to be on guard.

In Matthew 10:16-18, just before sending out the Twelve on a mission to the Jews, Jesus warned them not to be naïve. He also told them to speak the truth no matter the cost. The Apostle Paul did the same thing with his protégé Timothy, urging him to “be on guard.”[3]

We need to be on our guard against the mission and the mandate of Islamism.

Most Muslims are like most other religious people in the world: they are concerned with making a living, educating their children, worshiping their god and keeping food on the table. Thankfully, moderate, pluralistic Muslims like Dr. Ahmed courageously speak out in favor of living in harmony with other faiths. But Islamist’s aren’t interested in assimilating into Western culture on an equal footing with other religions.

“Omar Ahmed, the founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil liberties group in the United States, believes that Islam must become dominant in the US.”

Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.[4]

Taqiyya is an Arabic word that means dissimulation, permitted deceit. It is allowed in Sharia law in order to promote Islam.[5] Not all Muslims hold to this practice, and Shiite Muslims support it more often than Sunnis, but it is in widespread use today.

Jesus commanded us to love our enemies, but he wasn’t naïve, and he didn’t encourage us to be gullible.

Once Islam gains a foothold through the gradual implementation of Sharia any opposition to it, any attempt to reverse it, becomes in Islamic thought not a defense of the Constitution, not a matter of freedom of speech, and not a defense of religious liberty but an attack on Islam. Any attack on Islam justifies jihad. So be on guard.

BE DILIGENT: MAKE DISCIPLES

The third thing to remember on 9-11 is what Jesus commanded us to do from the beginning: Go and make disciples. The best way to change the world is to change lives.

Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the world. It has a record of swallowing up whole nations and forcing them to submit. It is relentless in its dogma and determination. It is not going to be stopped at the ballot box, or in the courtroom, or on the pages of public opinion or even on the battlefield. It is a powerful spiritual force. The only thing that will keep it from overcoming the world is a more powerful spiritual force: The message of Jesus authentically lived and faithfully shared.

Sam Solomon (pseudonym) was an Islamic recruiter. His job was to train suicide bombers in Islamic ideology. He became a Christian and in a 2006 interview with Cal Thomas he explained:

“There’s not a single verse in the Koran talking about peace with a non-Muslim, with the Jews and the Christians. Islam means submission. Islam means surrender. It means you surrender and accept Islamic hegemony over yourselves…”

I asked him about the best strategy for fighting it: “It cannot be combated simply by force. It needs to be combated ideologically, spiritually (as well as) through arms.”

That is why it is so important for us to reignite our own commitment to the mission of Jesus. That is why I support ministries like: Answering-Islam.org, which serves Muslims wishing to escape from Islam every day through sound apologetics; the Church-Centric Bible Translation movement, which equips church-planting networks with the tools to translate the Bible for Unreached People Groups; Samaritan’s Purse, which serves places with Muslim populations with the life giving ministry of emergency relief in the name of Jesus, clearly communicating the gospel where ever they can.

Please pray for those ministries and give to them. It is the least we can do in remembrance of this fateful day.

[1] (CASTRATE ISLAMISM. USA Today, Sept. 4, 2013. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/09/04/turkey-arab-spring-islam-extremist/2735303/)

[2] Colson, Chuck; Presentation to the Wilberforce Forum Centurions Program Participants, Given March 4, 2006

[3] See Matthew 10:26-28; 2 Timothy 4:14-15.

[4] Sookhdeo, Patrick, The CHALLENGE OF ISLAM To the Church and Its Mission, pg. 15; Isaac Publishing. Quoting Lisa Gardiner in “American Muslim Leader Urges Faithful to Spread the Word,” San Ramon Valley (CA) Herald, July 4, 1998.

[5] Ibid, pg36-37.

WHY ME, LORD?

We passed and nodded to each other as I exited the Bo Jangles restaurant, the WWII veteran who stormed Normandy on that longest day long ago. He’s gone now, laid to rest with so many of that greatest generation. He raised two sons here, one of whom helped start the Church I serve, and the other I met in Georgia, who connected me with that Church. I’ve had the privilege to know and be mentored by others, WWII and Korean War vets, men who lived a hundred lives in combat before mine ever began. Also, the Vietnam veterans I’ve come to know over the years, some of whom became dear friends.

Why me, Lord? Why was I born between the wars, after Korea, just before Nam? Why did I come of age after it ended, before I could be drafted? I think often of those men and those wars, as well as the men and women of the generation behind me, who’ve been fighting since 9-11, and though I honor them I am also thankful that I did not have to endure combat.

A photo from 2005 rests on the shelf in my office. I’m surrounded by Papuans, reading a Ketengban Bible. A mere thirty years prior they were still stone-age cannibals, living naked in the mountains, killing and being killed, scared of the spirits inhabiting every shadow.

Why me Lord? Why was I not born six thousand feet up the side of an equatorial mountain, child of spear-wielding cannibals? I think about my Ketengban friends, about how far they must travel, generation’s worth, before they will ever have anything like the life I’ve known.

I also think of Jackie, Randy, Doug, and others born ten years or more before me, who limp through life with great difficulty and never without a crutch, each afflicted with polio.

Why me Lord? Why was I born after the discovery of the polio vaccine and other such life-saving treatments?

I could go on and on, but I think you get my drift. I was born in the best country on earth, at the best time on earth, to some of the best people on earth, in one of the best climates on earth, in the most prosperous economy on earth, under the best health care system on earth, equipped with the best Bible scholarship on earth in order to have what I have and do what I do on earth. And so were most of you.

What are we to make of all of that? Only this: Give thanks for the providence of God and let it cause you to seek him and help others do the same.

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.[1]

Happy Thanksgiving!

[1] The Holy Bible: New International Version. 1984 (Ac 17:26–27). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

FACING THE EVIL AMONG US The Las Vegas Massacre

My gut double-clutched as I heard the newsman’s report on Monday morning radio: “Over fifty killed, over five hundred wounded.” As John Stonestreet said on Breakpoint yesterday, we weep for the suffering and we call evil by name.[1]

That’s what I want to do today, help us face the evil.

Law enforcement will sift out a motive, and the debate will rage again about gun control, but in the end, these will not speak to our deepest fears. Remember that in 1995 Timothy McVeigh used a Ryder rental truck, fertilizer, racing fuel, and diesel fuel to kill 168 people, injure 680 others and destroy 25 buildings. On 9-11 Islamic terrorists killed almost 3000 with box cutters and airliners. No amount of investigation or new security will bring these people back.

Whatever the outcome of the investigation and the debates, the question will remain: Knowing something like this could happen again, how are we to deal with it on a personal, day-to-day basis?

The Reality of Evil

Historian David McCollough made this comment after 9-11, “We have for a long time now chosen to see everything in shades of gray. We have eschewed the idea of a clear line between right and wrong, good and evil. I think this event changes that.”

Paul called it the ‘mystery of iniquity’. Evil, how it works and why it torments us, is a mystery. But it is not a myth. It is as real as the thunder of a falling tower and as terrible as the rattle of an automatic weapon, and it resides in our hearts too.[2] Each generation must come to grips with the reality of evil.

The Mandalay Bay shooter was not always evil. He was a baby at his mother’s breast. He was a little boy playing sandlot baseball. But something happened and he turned. He was a free moral agent and made a choice to nurture the evil inside and let it grow.

The Bible teaches us that we have a choice.[3] The question is, what will we do with the evil within?

Salt to a Rotting Culture

Were all of us more truthful with ourselves we would admit violence in our entertainment is just as poisonous as pornography. The more we consume it the less we abhor it and the more it becomes a viable option for calming our inner demons.

No one knows what evil drew the Las Vegas shooter to that hotel high ground, but nothing is more certain than that he saw violence as his only response.

Evil comes from within, but it is nurtured by corrupt culture. Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth, we are the light of the world. Surely that means that we have a role in reshaping our cultural taste for violence.

Find True Security

Stories are already emerging of people who made narrow escapes, or left the venue like John Rich of Big & Rich, before the shooting began. But ultimately, safety has nothing to do with where you are or what you are doing. Safety is found in God alone.

I’m not suggesting we ignore security precautions. I’m just saying that five minutes or five seconds one way or the other is often the difference between life and death. And none of us knows which side of that count we will be on when we walk out the door.[4]

If you do not yet have a relationship with God through his Son Jesus Christ, God doesn’t want to know your plans for tomorrow. He wants to know your plans for today. Will you trust him with all that you are for all of eternity?

Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”[5]

Let your grasp of who he is be so firm, and your understanding and respect for his power be so immense, that no evil on earth can intimidate you.

[1] http://www.breakpoint.org/2017/10/breakpoint-mourning-wake-las-vegas/

[2] Matthew 5:19

[3] Ephesians 4:26-27; James 1:14-15

[4] Psalm 103:15-16

[5] Matthew 10:28-31