Answering Islam
For more answers to questions by Muslims about whether Allah and Jehovah God are the same, watch the video above and visit the following link: Questions-Muslims-Ask-revised-Jan-2013
https://www.alwaysbeready.com/islam
Five Schemes of Satan
Source: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/five-ways-satan-undermines-muslim-conversions
The apostle Paul wrote, “we are not ignorant of [Satan’s] designs” (2 Corinthians 2:11). I can think of at least five schemes Satan uses to keep Muslims deceived.
Scheme #1: Satan insists Muslims are our enemy.
Satan wants us to forget that he, the Great Deceiver, is our enemy. Instead, he’d have us fear and neglect Muslims. Too many Christians in the West view Muslims as bad guys who deserve God’s judgment (as if we don’t!), and don’t deserve God’s mercy (as if we do!). That’s satanic. Why would we who are commanded to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44) be indifferent when hearing of the deaths and suffering of so many in Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Eritrea, Pakistan, and more?
Scheme #2: Satan spreads exaggerated reports of conversions among Muslims.
One popular book says, “Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are falling in love with Jesus.” Though well-intentioned, it’s a misleading claim.
Too many pass along undocumented stories, often told by national workers who are tempted to make claims that will please their financial supporters. If one would ask nearly any Muslim if he loves Jesus, the answer would likely be, “Of course. Jesus is our #2 prophet. Muslims love Isa Al Masih so much, we correct the false claim that he died on the cross. Allah would never allow that to happen because Allah loves him too.” But admiring Jesus, even as a sinless prophet, does not mean that a Muslim has been reconciled to God.
Most informed Christian observers of the Muslim world agree that more Muslims have become Christians since 1990 than all the previous centuries combined since Mohammed. But most of these conversions have occurred only in a few countries, and usually only among certain ethnic groups in a particular country. For example, the harvest in Algeria is among the indigenous people, the Kabyles, but very little among the Arab majority who conquered the Kabyles in AD 670. And Kabyle Christians are very slow to reach out to the Arab majority, whom they historically resent.
The movements to Christ in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Iran are examples of what we pray will yet occur among other Muslim peoples. Turkey has perhaps only five thousand known believers among 80 million Turks. Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Arabs, the Maldives, Malaysia, and Pakistan have less than one hundred known citizens of Muslim background taking an open stand for Christ.
Scheme #3: Satan tells the lie that Western missionaries to Muslims aren’t needed because national believers are already doing the work cheaper and more efficiently.
Where believers are able and willing to risk their livelihood, and maybe their lives, to make disciples among their own people or nearby Muslims, this may be true. But this is very rare. Most Christians in places like Pakistan, Malaysia, India, China, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and so on are either not able or not willing. Most of the bolder, outspoken former Muslims now reside in the West, not among their own people.
For example, there are wonderful, dynamic large congregations of Chinese and Indian believers in Malaysia, but hardly a dozen believers among them are willing to risk witnessing to the 19 million Malay Muslims. Not even one fellowship with elders of Malay believers exists there!
In Pakistan, the Christians (whose social contact with Muslims is hampered because they are still considered part of a low Hindu caste) face a very real and present danger of being accused of “blasphemy against the Prophet,” which not infrequently leads to being killed on the spot before they can get a trial. Who can blame them for remaining silent for Christ while surrounded by uneducated, often Taliban-oriented Muslims who would prefer to exterminate them?
Scheme #4: Satan creates dissension between missionaries over methodologies.
Satan is working hard to turn missionaries and their supporters against fellow missionaries over methodology. It’s not unlike the controversies that began in the 1960s when Charismatic Christians and non-Charismatic Christians wrote each other off as “unbiblical” or “demonic.”
This is an issue for urgent prayer. Pray that missionaries and their agencies would be delivered from consuming precious time and resources on debates over the “right” methodologies for witnessing to Muslims.
Scheme #5: Satan spreads the lie that it’s wrong to put our families at risk in order to serve on the mission field.
This is understandable from an emotional perspective. But it is not biblical. The witness of Scripture and church history all testifies to the need and the cost of Christians to put their lives, and sometimes the lives of their family members, at risk for the sake of the gospel. We are sent out “as lambs in the midst of wolves” (Luke 10:3). Lambs’ odds against wolves are not good — unless, of course, God is with them.