Pure Church

This is an overdue 'thank you' to the many, many of you around the world who prayed for our recent ministry efforts in the Middle East. Today concludes our time here and each moment has met with the wonderful blessings and guiding providence of our loving God and Savior.

It's been a very hectic 10 days or so. We landed last Thursday at 7:30pm after a 13 hour direct flight from Atlanta. I think I'm all caught up on the movies I've missed over the last several months!

We arrived at our lodgings around 9:30pm or so, grabbed a light dinner, then off to bed. Fridays are holy days in Islam, so Friday morning found us gathered together with the saints here. It was an honor to preach during the two morning services at one international church here, and later to share my testimony at an Arabic speaking church. I can't quite describe what it's like to praise God with Arab brethren in Arabic... somewhat exotic and familiar at the same time as occassionally a known tune would be sang or a "halleluja" would go up while the rest of the service was a glimpse of that day when every tongue shall praise God. One thing about our Arabic brethren, though, they love to be together. We started service at 12:30pm and ended around 3:30pm. It was a full morning and afternoon.

That same Friday, the student leadership conference began. From Friday evening through Saturday, I delivered three talks on biblical theology, attempting to help the students see the unity of the Scriptures and the glory of the gospel throughout all of Scripture. The students interacted hungrily with the word and with each other. We hoped the conference would be useful preparation for the dialogue and the follow-up afterwards. By God's grace, I think we met with some measure of success.

Sunday included a time of prayer with the team here, some brief fellowship time with my dialogue partner, Bassam Zawadi, and discussion with the church elders. The entire day was sweet.

Monday's Muslim-Christian dialogue was the central reason for our visit. What a unique opportunity to proclaim the supremacy of our Savior in a land where He is not known. The Christian Fellowship Club, the only one in all of the Middle East as far as I know, did an outstanding job with all of the details. The event took place in the largest room available on campus. The room filled with some 275 people, overwhelmingly Muslim. Two years ago, we were able to distribute about 100 copies of the ESV outreach Bible. What a treat to see a lot of those Bibles show up again at this year's dialogue. In addition to those, we were able to distribute about 75 more Bibles this year.

An area mosque announced the event to the 600 persons on their mailing list. The wider the event, the greater the concern for a peaceful, constructive dialogue. Though a number of people, myself included, found themselves anxious about this issue, the Lord turned the room into a very hospitable and winsome atmosphere. Bassam and I were able to engage one another seriously and winsomely. The Lord enabled the gospel to go forward repeatedly throughout the event, including a concluding word of personal testimony about my conversion from Islam to faith in the Lord Jesus.

A senior advisor for Islamic Affairs attended the event. Following the dialogue, he very excitedly shared with others that such events should happen more often. Please pray for the King, the kingdom, and such officials in this region, that they would work to preserve religious liberty and the right of all people to worship according to their own conscience. Pray that this event would be precedent-setting and door-opening for the gospel in this region. Pray that the Lord would demonstrate His power through the gospel in the conversion of many.

The video of the dialogue should be up on YouTube at some point. Please check it out if it interests you. And please pray that the Lord would be pleased to extend the fruit of the dialogue across the region through this means.

We found out later that night, after having enjoyed so much of the Lord's favor, that two people dear to the saints here had been detained by the secret police in a nearby country. They've been caught up in an anti-Christian sweep being conducted by that government. Our joy melted into prayer for these brethren. This country is currently considering an anti-conversion law that would enforce a death penalty for Muslims who convert. In addition, some Christians suspected of affiliating with Westerners are in danger of being charged with treason and spying, also carrying the death penalty. Please pray for the nearly 100 Christian leaders who have been rounded up over recent months, and for these two brethren currently detained. The good news is we've heard from them since their arrest. But they still need the Lord's favor. Pray for their joy and strength in the Lord, and that the Lord would shake the jail causing the jailers to repent and believe.

Tuesday-Thursday included follow-up meetings with student leaders and some of the attendees at the dialogue. Again, the Lord showed great favor and blessing in these times. Stephen visited and shared at the host campus for the dialogue while I visited another university in a nearby city. I also had the wonderful privilege of catching up with dear friends during these days, friends first made while we were back in Washington, D.C. I felt like the Lord indulged me in these times.

Thursday night included a talk at the church's youth group. And Friday morning I spoke again at the church's two services. I was thankful for the Lord's sustaining grace on Friday, since I came down with some flu-like thing on Wednesday. We attended the evening service, where the church prayed for the saints and ministries back at FBC and celebrated the 19-year ministry of one of its elders now moving to Australia. A sweet time gathered with the Lord's people.

Saturday was spent with student leaders talking about spiritual leadership, its joys and challenges. The team went out to the dessert for a time of prayer and hymn singing. Finally starting to feel better, I stayed behind for a bit more rest.

It's been a tremendous week with much, much more to give God praise for. To see His sovereign hand at work here leaves one in awe! May He continue to make himself known and receive the praise of the elect among the people of this region!

Thank you for your prayers and encouragements. I trust the Lord will grant you an unfading crown for your love and kindness!

Apparently, the folks who filmed the recent Christian-Muslim dialogue in southeast Asia have made the video available on YouTube. They've added a nice pro-Islam intro, but the discussion is largely unedited and intact. If you're interested, you can find it here. I pray the Lord uses it for His glory!

Well, I'm trying to get back in stride here at the church and with life in Cayman. It's been a great couple of days back. I returned to the same loving family and congregation that sent me off nearly ten days ago. It's wonderful to return to such love and care.

I also returned in time to see a precious young couple from our church leave for a life of overseas service in the Gospel. We had their ordination service the Sunday we left for southeast Asia. And yesterday, we met them at the airport for a time of prayer and send-off. The young man look at me and said, "I feel like we're tag-team wrestling for the Gospel as you're returning and we're leaving." I love the image... tagging one another, taking turns combatting darkness with the light of the Gospel. And it's such a tremendously humbling, encouraging, faith-building, worthy, sad and joyous thing to see men and women give their lives for the Gospel in so committed a fashion. What a privilege.

The 10 days or so in southeast Asia were packed! The first night there was the night of the Christian-Muslim dialogue. We were discussing the question "Who Is Jesus Christ? In Light of the Bible and the Qu'ran". This is a topic that the muslims insisted on... and so we happily obliged! As far as the folks there are aware, this is the first time that this question has been openly discussed in a public forum by Christians and Muslims in any country in that region. A couple hundred folks (90% Muslim) turned out on just three days advertisement. Nearly 100 ESV Bibles were distributed. And to be sure, this is the first time most of them have heard the Gospel proclaimed in person.

The rest of the week was a blur! We spent several days interacting with college students on two campuses in the region. I had the privilege of preaching two sermons and doing a Q&A session on the dialogue at a local church. It was wonderful rejoicing in the Gospel with about a 1,000 believers from all nations in that region! It was just powerful looking out on so clear a manifestation of the Gospel's power as reflected in the tremendous diversity and unity of that body in Christ. And we ended the trip with a church-sponsored conference on evangelism. T.V. Thomas, an evangelist who now resides in Regina, Canada, served as the keynote. Due to another speakers' illness, the privilege of pinch-hitting on the topic "How to and how not to witness to Muslims" fell to me. That was a lot of fun.

Aside from the joy of serving with brothers and sisters there, I've left southeast Asia still processing several impressions and thoughts. Without much elaboration and in no particular order, here they are:

1. Islam is not impregnable. The Lord is at work! We need to pray for more laborers and that they would be bold to open their mouths with the gospel as they ought, but we really need to drop any impression that Islam is a steel door shut tight to the Gospel. It certainly is nothing of the sort.


2. There are many who are paying high costs to follow Jesus. Being there and interacting with a number of people who have come to faith in Christ out of Muslim backgrounds really blazed that across my mind. Our conversations weren't about whether God wanted them to take this or that job or NPP or emerging/emergent. They were counting the costs of telling family and friends that they were followers of the Lord--costs that ranged from being disowned to being killed by those same family and friends. To see their faith and commitment in such circumstances impressed upon me the shallowness of my own service to and identification with the Lord.

3. In the words of Piper, "risk is right." There's no two ways about it. It is good and right for us to take bold, faith-filled risks for God's glory and the spread of His name to all nations. And in point of fact, we're the only ones who can safely take such risks because we actually risk nothing eternal and can only receive glory with our Savior.

4. The Gospel is the power of God. Be confident in it. T.V. Thomas at one point in the evangelism conference stated that he thought the greatest risk to the gospel was that so many were not confident in it. I think he's on to something there. Romans 1:16 is still true. What vascillates is our confidence and reliance upon that truth.

5. I mentioned this earlier, but I was struck afresh by the glories of God revealed in His church. And I'm struck with the rightness of a church comprised of people from every nation united in their worship of the one true God. The church is a secondary doctrine, but the life of the church together is anything but secondary! There is a difference between the importance of the doctrine (formal systematic and biblical statements) and the living, abiding thing itself. And doing the living, abiding thing well is of utmost importance

6. I fear too much and am too often in fear.

7. Regard no man from a worldly point of view. My friend Mack, who also spoke at the evangelism conference, did a fabulous job of expounding 2 Cor. 5. I was convicted at how often I think of men in fleshly terms, and how often that prevents me from regarding them from God's vantage point, and how often that causes me to bottle up the Gospel and love from them. How easy it is to see the beards, the robes and head gear, and to think of them with something less than God's viewpoint. Lewis' words kept ringing in my head: "You have never seen a mere mortal." Amen. And I need to stop regarding men from a worldly viewpoint

8. Hold the rope. You all will know the famous story of William Carey and Andrew Fuller. Carey went to India to reap a Gospel harvest and Fuller stayed behind to excite support for the missions effort. Fuller's words: "We saw that there was a gold mine in India, but it seemed almost as deep as the center of the earth. Who will venture to explore it? "I will go down," said Mr. Carey to his brethren, "but remember that you must hold the ropes." We solemnly engaged to do so; nor while we live, shall we desert him."

9. Darkness is really dark indeed. This was so evident in some of the conversations I had with Muslim friends. They were lost in the darkness of their own minds and hearts. Their reasoning was confused, proud, and self-serving. This, of course, was not because they were Muslims but because they are like all of us who once walked according to the ways of this world, according the prince of the air, as children of wrath. That darkness is deeply dark and nothing but the light of Christ can pierce it. See #4.

10. Love is necessary. On the plane ride back, I began reaing Alexander Strauch's little book, Leading with Love. So much of the ministry in southeast Asia and the ministry in the local church would be "clanging cymbals" if it lacked love. At times, the Lord allowed me to see plainly when I was moved with love and when I was moved with pride or fleshly comfort. I could hear the clanging by God's grace. I'm struck by how love for Christ, His people, and the lost are so essential to everything. And I'm struck by how much farther I have to go in having and demonstrating the love of Christ.

We'll know in eternity what this labor produces to the glory of God. But right now, I'm thankful to all of you who sent notes of encouragement and to all of you who prayed for the trip. And right now, I'm more sure than ever that the Gospel ministry is the most important service to mankind and that our selling all for this great treasure is the wisest investment. May the Lord bear much fruit!

Tomorrow, a friend from church and I have the privilege of traveling to Southeast Asia for a week. We'll be there visiting some friends. The Lord has opened an opportunity to engage in a public dialogue with a leading Muslim apologist on the Person and work of Jesus. It'll be second such dialogue I've had the privilege of participating in. I'll also have an opportunity to preach at a church there pastored by a dear friend.

Please pray for our trip if the Lord lays it on your hearts. Pray that Christ Jesus would be high and lifted up and for the saving power of the Gospel to work in the audience of 99% Muslim men and women. Pray that we might have boldness as we ought, and that the Lord would fill our mouths once opened.

I'll try to post some trip highlights during the week, though that may be tough. Lord willing, when we return, we'll resume blogging with a couple concluding posts on reform in the predominantly African-American church.

Grace and peace in Him who has purchased us with His own blood.