Okay, thank you.
Well, I think I'll just go ahead and
start.
I know the first session it took more
time.
What we will be, I'll be sharing with
you today, it's kind of understanding the Muslim
mindset.
It's a course I put together to help
churches and Christians, and I teach it in
some of the colleges and seminaries, how to
understand the Muslim mindset and how to reach
them effectively.
So, I'll be touching two areas out of
this.
One of the first areas is where we're
going with understanding their mindset.
And then, if the time permits, there's five
concepts will help us to engage in a
practical way in conversation with Muslims.
Amen?
Well, let us just ask the Holy Spirit
to help us here.
Father God, I thank you so much that
we can come together here and learn.
And as we're praying for the Muslim, and
as we're engaging in conversation of telling them
about your love and forgiveness, Lord, I pray
for the seminar, and I pray with you,
Lord, that you will give us the understanding
you want us to understand.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
Okay, so the materials is kind of from
the Bible and also some information and instruction,
and just feel free if you didn't understand
some of the point, some of your, if
you have a question, just feel free to
ask me, and I'll try to do my
best here.
How many of you will agree about this
statement?
I know I'm talking to pastors and church
leaders, but I believe that today I'm a
believer because someone took the time and made
the effort to get involved in my life.
Amen?
And it happened to me personally, the friend
that who led me to the Lord, he
took the time and the effort to share
Christ with me.
In fact, it was over three years, I
know it's more than that, but I'll try
just to put it in perspective here, that
he took the time, and I rejected him
many times, but he took the time and
the effort to share Christ with me.
There are five things we need to know
about the Muslims, and as we engage with
them.
Number one is their face is different from
yours.
I wrote this down because I met a
number of Christians, they think that our face
and the Muslim face are somewhat similar, but
they're not, it's totally different.
And you're going to see that the concept
of God, the Bible, Jesus, the prophets, all
are different.
And so we're not pretending somehow they're similar.
And even we came in an area that
our God and their God is not the
same God.
It was a time when the people, their
saying is the same God, it's not the
same God.
Even in our Arabic Bible, it's written Allah,
like in the book of John in the
beginning, there were the word and the word,
and until you come the word God.
And we have Allah, and God create heaven
and earth, we have Allah create heaven and
earth.
But the Allah we have in the Arabic
is not the same Allah that the Muslims
are worshipping.
And this is one of the crucial areas
we were going through.
In Islam they said he's the creator, but
as you go in, in fact from the
first man has been created, Adam.
We don't count Adam as a prophet.
In Islam it's counted Adam as a prophet
of Allah.
For them, faith and culture, you cannot separate
them.
If you've been in the Middle East or
in an Islamic country, the way they talk,
the way they dress, the way they behave,
it's all coming from their religion.
So you cannot really separate them.
And I like to throw this question all
the time, how about your faith?
Is your faith separated from your culture?
And then, what is your culture really?
This is between you and yourself to answer
this question.
They're proud of the language and the culture.
And this is why we have a lot
of Christians are worshipping in their own language
because they're really proud of their language and
culture.
And when I became a Christian, and here
in Canada, I do a lot of dialogue,
sometimes debate, but I don't like debating.
But in my ministry with them, in my
interaction with them, some of them, they said,
you should stop speaking in Arabic because you're
not anymore a Muslim.
So they're really proud of the language because
they believe Quran came down in a pure
Arabic and is the language of Islam and
also is the language of God.
Faith is not a choice, but is a
part of their heritage.
So they are born Muslim.
In fact, my family, I have a cousin
here in Canada, actually she's in Calgary, and
I didn't know she was there until I
was in one of the Sudanese weddings.
I have a group of Sudanese Muslims from
the north.
I meet with them every Sunday night if
I am in the country or in the
city.
And they get to know me very well.
We meet in one of the favorite Canadian
places, Tim Horton.
And I turned Tim Horton in downtown Calgary
to a church or a Bible study.
So I meet with a number of them
if I am there.
And we got in a lot of biblical
and religious discussions.
And then one of the people get married
and invite me to the wedding.
And in the wedding, she recognized me, my
cousin there.
And so one of the things she said
that your children should not be with you
because they're born Muslim.
They still have the Muslim blood.
You are the one you choose to be
a Christian.
So it's not a choice.
Islam for the Muslim is not a choice,
but it's a heritage.
In fact, when we look at the growth
of the Muslim population, we have to understand
it from the Muslim mindset, it's not from
the Christian mindset.
As a Christian, when we see a growth,
that's because of the outreach and the evangelism
we're doing.
That's why we're growing.
But in Islam, it's because of the birth,
out of birth rates.
They're growing.
And this is why there are many, because
it's part of their heritage.
How about the culture of the West?
From the Muslim mindset, now we know a
little bit their heritage, where they're coming from,
what they're proud of.
They looked at the culture of the West
as Christianity.
And that's because of the spread of Christianity.
You have the spread of Islam, and this
is out of the Muslim mindset, the spread
of Islam because of the invasion that Muhammad
did in the area, and then he started
to invade after that the Caliphs, or his
successors, as they were invading different parts of
the world.
Recently, I was in Turkey, and I talked
to a number of the Turkish people there,
and all of them, they admit that Turkish,
it was a Christian country.
And it's kind of the birth of Christianity.
Paul was there in Ephesus, and I actually
went and visited Ephesus, and Azmir is one
of the seven churches we have in the
book of Revelation.
And if you've been in Turkey, in Istanbul,
I went to the Hagia Sophia.
It was a church, and then it became
a mosque, and now it's a museum.
And you can see all the influence of
Christianity in Turkey.
But it was the invasion.
So they look to it in the same
way, of the spread of Christianity.
Of course, it started by the Apostle, and
that's in our Bible, and then by the
Europeans, as they went, the Europeans to discover
the world, and watch this one about the
colonies.
They think the colonies are spreading Christianity.
In Sudan, my own home country, in the
capital, there is a big Anglican church by
the President Pallas.
And this is where it used to be
the General Gordon, the British governor, who ruled
Sudan, and he built a big church in
the middle of Khartoum.
It's by the River Nile.
And they look at that church.
It's still there.
Nobody use it because it's dangerous for the
president and all the things.
And there is an underground that General Gordon
used to go from the palace to the
church.
So they closed all this and it became
literally a base there.
But the Sudanese, they look to this kind
of part of the spread of Christianity.
And then you look at North Africa, the
Italian and the French.
And this colony, they didn't live really a
good repetition to the people there.
They're kind of people, they came and they
took the land and they slaved some of
their people.
And this is Christianity.
And then the Western world.
All these missionaries are going all over the
world, are from the Western world.
And this is the spread of Christianity.
So the West is Christian.
How they see that?
The Western world is seen as Christian and
corrupt.
So what they have for it?
They have no respect for it.
In fact, the Muslim here in Canada, they
warn their kids from associated with.
I am in the way here, I guess.
Let me see if I can move aside.
Is that good?
You guys, you can see the, okay.
So they warned their kids in the public
school to be associated with the Western people.
And what they mean is to be associated
with the Christians.
And they count everybody is a Christian.
And if you allow me to say that,
even Madonna, she's a Christian.
Because she wear the cross.
Okay.
So in our ministry and in Middle East,
we avoid using the word Christians.
Instead, we're using, we're the believer or the
follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And by the way, by using just the
follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, it help
a lot to spread the word and to
evangelize.
So when they ask me, most of the
Muslim, they ask me, now you're a Christian.
I said, no, I am the follower of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
They said, oh, all of us, we believe
in the prophet Isa or Christ or Jesus.
And here when the conversation, do you believe
the same way I believe in him?
And that will open a lot of opportunity
to share Christ.
How about the gospel?
The gospel, it's a crime for a person
to change his or her religion.
Why?
Because of the following things.
Number one is the culture.
As you remember, at the beginning of the
slide, they're proud of their language and culture.
Their religion is a culture.
So the minute you believe in Christianity, you
have to change your culture.
You're rejecting the culture.
And this is one of the things you
face as you're witnessing to the Muslim.
It's not only about what you believe.
Maybe they will come in an area that,
yes, Jesus is the way.
Yes, Jesus is the answer.
Yes, Jesus is more than a prophet.
But the other thing that is dangerous for
them is the culture.
What I'm going to do with my culture.
And this is one of the areas we
have.
Some of the Muslims, they return back to
Islam because of the culture.
I remember I was preaching in a revival
meeting in Vancouver in the Iranian churches.
They all came together and they asked me
to come to preach.
And during the weekend, there were three Iranians.
They were wearing ladies.
They were wearing the veil.
Sunday, when I did conclude all the messages
together and I gave the invitation, three of
them and others, they came forward.
They want to receive the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we did the same day in the
evening, kind of a follow-up for those
who came forward.
And to my surprise, these three ladies, they
came back.
But catch this.
They took out the veil.
But they were wearing a very short dress
and revealing in the shoulders, just like Western
ladies.
In fact, I had a hard time to
look at them because I didn't know where
to look.
And I told them, why are you dressing
like this?
You are dressed okay in the morning.
They said, now we are Christian.
You see?
So, the culture.
The other thing is community.
And you heard this morning from the EFC
and community for us is very important.
I planted a number of Arabic churches.
I have an Arabic church in Calgary.
In special occasions and sometimes in weddings and
funerals, the church is packed by Arabs.
Not all of them attend the church, but
this is the community.
If there is a crisis, you will see
all the Arabs, they come together.
Even if they don't agree, like the Christian,
we have a number of Christians, like the
Catholic and the Orthodox.
And then we have our evangelical group.
They will all come together as a community.
Even some of our funerals, we have Muslims
there coming to the church.
Because they are part of the Arabic community
or the Iraqi community or the Lebanese community
or the Sudanese community.
You see everybody there.
So, the other area, when they become a
Christian, is dangerous for them because they are
kicked out of the community.
I've been in a number of Muslim funerals
because I know some of the people in
the community.
And the second I walk to the funeral,
there is just hush.
This is the convert.
This is the one who denies Islam.
What is he going to say?
What is he going to do?
And because of our culture, because I carry
kind of a religious title and all these
things, out of respect, sometimes they will ask
me to speak.
At the same time, they are really worried
what he is going to say.
So, community.
The other thing is physical.
As I shared my testimony last night, some
of the dangers, they are going to go
through physical persecutions.
And by the way, they know about it.
But when they come to terms that, yes,
this is the way we want to live,
they know they are going to be persecuted.
But they still want to accept the Lord.
This is why the gospel is dangerous.
I was pastoring for two years the underground
church in the Emirates.
And I got very depressed actually doing that.
Can you imagine half or most of your
congregation, they are in prison?
Or they are going to be killed.
I remember one of the baptisms I had
a few years back in Easter.
There were two ladies, Hanadi and Fatim.
We baptized them in Easter.
Their uncle got to know about that.
He took both of them from the hair
and smashes their face in the ground, in
a concrete ground.
He destroyed their features totally.
I got to see them just when they
got beaten.
I didn't recognize them.
I went to the refugee camps to see
them there.
And I asked them, what happened to you?
They told me, Fatim, she talked because she
was able to talk.
But she had swollen lips from the beating.
And tears started to come out of my
eyes.
They understood exactly why I cried.
I felt so guilty what happened to them.
And they said, Pastor, watch this please.
Don't do that.
We were baptized and the same day we
remembered the resurrection of Christ.
And now we're just beaten like him.
We want to assure you we are true
Christians.
So this is the dangerous they go through.
Economy.
My father is a camel trader.
When I became a Christian, nobody wanted to
deal with him.
He didn't become a Christian.
His son became a Christian.
Our culture is based on shame and honor.
So I brought shame to the whole family,
in fact to the whole tribe.
So nobody will deal with my father anymore.
Even those who are Muslim and became Christian.
Nobody wanted to do a business with them.
We just have recently a convert from Jordan
in Calgary.
His wife, she kicked him out.
She just sponsored him as a new immigrant.
He has a license of flying engineering and
he built a website.
He's a very intelligent man.
She stopped the sponsoring.
She kicked him out.
She went and lied about physical abuse.
But we straightened all these things up.
So he has nothing.
And I got to meet him at the
Calgary Immigration Aid Society.
I'm part of that organization.
To meet new immigrants and able to evangelize
them.
And I couldn't stand beside him for one
second.
Because he's been in the street for a
week and he smelled so bad.
At the beginning, I didn't believe his story.
Just the way he looked like and smell
and all these things.
And he has a high degree in computer.
And he's a fly engineering and all these
things.
I couldn't really grasp it.
And then when I get to know him
more.
And then he showed me his computer and
his degree and some of the photos he
has.
He lost everything.
And I told him, did you regret it?
He said, no.
We put him in the Salvation Army shelter
for three months until our church adopted him.
And we rented a basement and we found
him some work.
So this is the dangers that they go
through, even here in Canada.
What are some of the costs?
Different view of life.
And different way of thinking.
And a different standard of behavior.
And this is the cost we take to
disciple them for the new life and thinking
and behavior they're entering to.
If you get with Canadian, I get to
learn.
Maybe you can correct me.
Hockey is your politic.
Like you guys, you like to talk about
hockey.
But for us, Middle Eastern and also people
coming from Islam, politics is the issues.
In fact, Islam is not just a religion.
Islam is a government.
There are politics.
There are special laws.
In fact, the Muslim, when I used to
be part of the Muslim Brotherhood, we're the
one we voted that Sudan will be an
Islamic state.
And now Sudan is controlled totally.
Everything is controlled by Islam and the law
of Islam.
Same as Iran and Saudi Arabia and the
Gulf.
And even they want to turn Egypt to
an Islamic state.
But the president has put most of the
fundamentalists in the prison.
Because he knows the danger if Egypt became
an Islamic state.
He's going to lose everything.
So politics is part of Islam.
But within one name, that Islam, there is
many difference.
Number one, politics.
I can bring two Iraqis here.
One of them will agree about the invasion
of Iraq.
The other one will not agree.
So as we administering to them, we just
avoid politics.
The other thing is ethnics.
Not all the Muslims are in the same
ethnic background.
Even within the Arabs.
My wife is a Jordanian-Palestinian.
And I'm an Arab-Sudanese.
Both of us, we speak Arabic.
But we're totally different.
Like I marry totally a stranger from my
culture.
So you need to learn that.
And I'm going to show you how to
do that.
Religion.
Most of the Western people, they thought that
Islam is all one religion.
No, they're different.
You can see now, again in Iraq, the
Sunni are fighting with the Shia.
And by the way, they're more than Sunni
and Shia.
You have the Ahmadiyya has been persecuted in
Pakistan.
And by the way, if you have an
Ahmadiyya in your community, they're very open.
In fact, the mosque in Calgary, I'm dreaming
and I'm praying.
I might change it to a church.
I go there and I take a lot
of tour to the mosque.
One time, there we were talking about, we
have a discussion.
Every time I take a tour, I have
to make a discussion there with the imam.
I told him, we're not coming like a
tourist.
We need to learn from you and we
need to ask you a lot of questions.
And one time, all the conversation is changed
to Christianity.
And they brought us PowerPoint and they were
ready for us to demolish Christianity.
And we keep telling them, sorry, sorry, that
verse doesn't mean that.
This verse doesn't mean that.
The original word of that verse.
And one of the leaders said, can we
have a Bible study inside the mosque?
I get a church to adopt that mosque.
I'm working with that church.
And the 20th of December last year, I
asked the pastor of the church, can we
have a service for the Muslim?
Can I bring the Ahmadiyya group there?
They want to see how we celebrate Christmas.
In Sudan, alcohol is forbidden.
The only day alcohol is allowed and there
is no chug stop, it's opposite from Canada,
is the 25th of December.
Because this is the day when the Christians
get drunk.
So this is the understanding of Christianity.
So I went to the mosque and I
invited the leader to come to attend the
Christmas service, the 20th of December, Sunday.
And 21 of them came.
And I asked the pastor, I said, well,
I need the first two pews to be
empty.
I want to put them there in the
front.
Number one, I don't want to see what's
happening around them.
Because I get discouraged sometimes what happens inside
the church.
And then I want them to focus on
the message and what's happening in the platform
there.
And it was a great time with the
Ahmadiyya.
They have a world religious conference.
They invite Christians to come to speak about
Christianity.
They used to invite Catholics and the United
Church and I attended one of them.
And I told them that's wrong.
If you really want to know Christianity, know
it from the source, from the Bible.
And I get to introduce them to some
of the evangelical pastors there.
So now whenever they have a world religious
conference, they will ask me to come to
speak.
I said, no, I'm not here to be
popular, just to be your speaker.
I start to call some of the churches
and to tell some of the pastors, will
you like to go?
And a number of churches now actually they
have a burden for Muslims because they get
to speak to them and to see them.
So if you have an Ahmadiyya group in
your community, oh, they're easy.
You can get to their mosque.
You can invite them to your church.
But be careful what you're going to do
because you want to present Christianity at the
best.
The other things, culture.
As I told you, there is a different
culture.
And then language.
Not all the Muslims, they speak Arabic.
And not all the Arabs are Muslims.
You have the Iranian, the Pharisee.
You have the Pakistani, the Urdu.
You have Indonesia.
You have all kinds of languages.
Yes, they all pray in Arabic.
Even some of them, they don't understand, like
just the old church in the Dark Ages.
They're praying in Latin, but nobody understands what
they're saying.
Now, many of the Muslims actually, they pray
in Arabic.
But they don't understand what they're saying.
I remember one time I was in South
Africa.
I went to a propaganda center.
And I found the leader of the propaganda
center, the Islamic propaganda center, he doesn't speak
Arabic.
And instead of going to preach the gospel,
I started to interpret the Quran for them.
Because they found an Arab man.
Can you tell us what this verse means?
Of course, I did it in my own
way.
OK.
The ministry is a long-term commitment.
I said this in one of the mission
conferences.
You can go to India for two years
and come back.
And you think that's over.
No.
The ministry is a long-time commitment.
And I'm going to tell you why.
To accomplish anything, you must commit time and
effort in this kind of any ministry.
This is one of the stages we take
when we do Muslim ministry.
Number one is a genuine friendship.
It's not business.
You have a deal, you convert them, and
it's done.
No.
It's a genuine friendship.
And we need to understand that.
The other thing is visiting back and forth.
I keep telling my Canadian friend, and I
have an Arabic pastor here, he understands what
I'm talking about.
You guys have it easy in your ministry.
Especially in visiting.
In our culture, if you don't visit your
members, the pastor not sending the elders, sometimes
they will not come.
They said, you don't care about us.
In Easter and Christmas is one of our
busiest time.
I hit five homes, six homes a day
for all my congregation.
And I spend the whole two weeks just
visiting them.
If I didn't visit them, they think I'm
mad at them.
It's part of our culture.
So visiting back and forth, not Tim Horton,
not a Starbucks, in their home.
That means you care about them.
The other thing is caring and holiday.
You know, the holidays, they will love to
speak about the holiday, about the Christmas and
Easter.
I have a lot of Muslims, they come
to my home.
I have my son Joseph.
When he was seven, eight, he get to
know the drill.
So I invite some of my Muslim friends,
and after supper or dinner, or the time
they will come here and we give them
hospitality and all the things, I have Jesus'
video.
And I will stick it in, and between
the meal and the dessert and the coffee,
in our culture it's too much expensive to
invite somebody in.
Because you have to give them all kind
of things, the meal, the dessert, and then
tea, and then coffee, and between each one
is a snack and other things.
So they're there for a long time.
So you stick the video.
So my son, he will come to me
and have the video behind him.
He said, now daddy, in Arabic it's baba.
Now it's baba?
I said, no, no, no, just let them
finish the meal.
And then he will come.
Now kind of, because he likes to use
the machine and putting in.
So this is one of the area you
can explain about your belief.
Bible study.
And I said to get advice, because not
all the Bible accepted by the Muslim.
The only things in the New Testament accepted
is the Psalms, the Zabur of David.
And you can select some of the wonderful
prayer, and they love it.
And then in the New Testament, take Paul
out.
They think Paul is the big liar.
By the way, Muslim, they hate Paul.
Until they get to know the Bible, and
then you can introduce them to Paul.
And then in the four gospels, they don't
like Luke.
They think Luke is a fake gospel.
And then they don't like Mark.
They don't think that Mark is eligible enough
to be with Jesus.
They don't like John.
They have bad things about John.
They call him bad things, because he was
the friend of Jesus.
So the only things, they have Matthew.
And within Matthew, there's only three chapters can
work with them.
Do you know what these chapters?
Five, six, and seven, correct.
Most of the Muslim, they come to know
the Lord through the Sermon on the Mount.
I came to know the Lord through the
Sermon on the Mount.
It's one of the effective ones.
In fact, when I was in Edmonton, the
mosque, they sent me one of their machineries
called Dawa.
He came to convert me back to Islam.
They hid me down there.
So I said, oh, my original name is
Omar.
Oh, we'll take care of Omar.
And he came, and he wanted to convert
me.
I told him, look here.
I know the Quran.
I know the Bible.
You only know the Quran.
So our level is not really the same.
You need to know the Bible.
He said, I know the Bible.
So I examined him in one of the,
I gave him some of the funny question
and hardest question.
And he couldn't answer.
I said, you see, you're not qualified.
You're not in the same level as I
am.
So you need to know your Bible, and
then we can enter to a discussion.
He said, how I can do that?
I said, well, I can tell you about
the Bible.
So I started with the Sermon on the
Mount.
And guess what?
The third time, he said, oh, you're coming
to convert me, aren't you?
I said, no, you're going to be at
the same level as I am.
And then he quit.
He said, no, this guy is too dangerous
for us.
He's going to convert us.
But I'm not really.
But when you give a Bible study to
the Muslim, they need to know what to
do and not to do.
This is what Islam is.
Islam is kind of a set of rules.
And the Sermon on the Mount will help
you.
I was talking to one of the Shiites,
Lebanese.
Whoever looks to a woman and desires her,
he sins in his heart.
And he said, how we can do that?
That's too hard.
Because in Islam, you're allowed to look.
I said, in Christianity, we're not allowed to
look.
He said, oh, your religion is harder than
ours.
I thought ours is hard.
So the Sermon on the Mount will speak,
in fact, to Islam itself.
Because some of the things happening in Islam
is totally opposite from the Sermon on the
Mount.
And they will get to know Christianity.
Adopt a new believer.
As I told you, we adopted Abdullah, the
Jordanian guy, now our church.
I am adopted by the Iskander family.
As you're ministering to them and welcome them,
you're going to come to a place you
have to adopt them.
Are you willing to do that?
Are you willing to take them in to
find a place for them as they've been
kicked out?
We have two converts now who take care
of my Arabic church in Calgary.
We just have Abdullah.
And before that, we have a young Palestinian
lady.
Her name is Sarah.
We put her with one of the widowers,
a lady.
We tell her, can you take care of
her?
And she treats her just like her daughter.
It's more than just sharing the gospel.
It's to accept them.
There are five things to do.
I'm going to go through this very quickly.
All of you are theological here and maybe
expert in the Bible.
But this is the things is to love
and pray for them.
As I said last night, pray for them.
By praying for them, you will start to
love them.
And I pick Isaiah 11 too.
There's seven things you need to pray about
for yourself and also for them.
I'm going to go quickly in this because
it's biblical.
You guys, you know your Bible.
Communicate Christ.
You want to help them to discover the
truth.
Most of the Muslims, their question is, I
want to know the truth.
What is the truth?
I'm involved in TV program.
I'm involved in radio.
I'm involved in other things.
And most of the call comes, we need
to know the truth.
I don't want you to become like me.
I want you to use the Lord Jesus
to you and you to him.
This is exactly what we're doing.
And of course, it's the work of the
Holy Spirit.
Without the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing.
Talk about the Lord Jesus as a natural
part of your life.
Use Christmas, as I said, and Easter to
your full advantage.
They would like to know.
Open your church to them.
Tell them about it.
And of course, in the Western world, Christmas
and Easter is being changed.
One of them to Santa and the other
one to the bunny and the egg.
But you need to explain it to them.
Do not compromise and do not criticize.
I am not ashamed.
Separate biblical truth and personal choices.
Believe in the Lord Jesus is a biblical
truth.
Attending, they have nothing there.
You just put your church is a personal
choice.
Sometimes in our approach, we bring the church
before Jesus.
But we need to bring Jesus and then
the church.
Be firm, but not fanatic.
And I'll explain this.
Handle criticism.
How to handle criticism?
In Islam, they criticize Christianity very much.
In fact, they're quick to criticize your belief.
And sometimes we're shy to criticize theirs because
it's not part of our nature.
It's not part of our belief.
How are you going to handle this criticism
about Christ?
For instance, they rejected Jesus not because we
make him God only or the son of
God.
We can explain this.
But there's more than that.
For instance, the Muslim, they...
Okay, this is a very little example here,
but it's big.
The Muslim, they believe God everywhere except one
place he cannot be.
The washroom.
God has not existed in the washroom, by
the way.
I am serious.
So, when you look to Jesus and we
say Jesus is God and became human.
He ate and drank.
Does he need to go to the washroom?
How come God can go inside there if
he's God?
And they will criticize you for that.
I was in Durban in South Africa.
Again, I was faced with a group of
Muslims.
They're all African converted to Islam.
And the leader, the sheikh actually, he met
me there and he came...
No, he didn't came.
Actually, he sent people to one of the
churches.
I was sharing my testimony and doing the
same things I'm doing here.
And they said, so-and-so, he would
like to meet with you.
So, I got some people to go with
me because I was afraid to get kidnapped
because I experienced this before.
So, I went there and he brought a
lot of Africans being converted to Christianity, to
Islam.
And he said, look at this.
He wants to challenge me.
I told him, can I talk to them?
He said, sure.
So, the first one in front of me,
I said, why you became a Muslim?
He said, my God doesn't go to the
toilet, to the washroom.
And a number of them, they became Muslim
because God doesn't go to the washroom.
So, I didn't know what to do.
I just asked God quick text messaging, if
you allow.
He was talking about the text messaging there.
Can you help me?
So, I asked him, where is in the
Bible that says Jesus went to the toilet?
They told us everything about Jesus.
He slept, he drank, he ate, he did
this, he did that.
Where is in the Bible?
If you found it in the Bible, I
will turn to Islam right away.
And guess what?
They were looking.
Try to find a verse that says Jesus
went to the toilet.
That is a big issue for them.
Be understandable.
At the same time, be humble.
You need to listen and to listen and
to listen.
I thank God for my friend who listened
to me.
And he get to know what I was
looking for.
I was looking for forgiveness.
In the Emirate, I was talking to one
of the people there.
And somehow our conversation turned about Jesus being
the light of the world.
And I was sitting with him and I
was sharing about Jesus being the light of
the world.
I don't know what really I said.
I said a lot of things.
I was talking for hours with him.
If you ask me to recap, I don't
remember.
And that was at night.
And then I went the second day to
see him.
And he said, guess what?
I said, what?
He said, you were talking about the light
last night.
I dreamt about that light.
It was a pleasant light.
Do you think that was Jesus?
I told him, maybe it's the light of
the Quran.
He said, no, no, no, no, no.
Don't tell me this.
I said, oh, this is the light of
Muhammad.
He said, no, no.
This is a different light.
And I started to listen to him.
And then I told him, are you willing
to accept that light?
He said, yes.
I took him to one of the corners
and he received Christ there.
Do not criticize Christians.
At the same time, don't defend them.
One time I was recording my radio program.
It was the ASNIC Radio 101.9 FM
in Edmonton.
And I recorded Wednesday night and then it's
broadcast on Sunday.
The same day, the Muslim, they will come
and record.
I record from 6 to 8.
They will come and record from 8 to
10.
And one time as I was sitting and
recording, I see from the production room, there's
a big glass window.
I can see the people outside.
And from the tip of my eyes, I
can see somebody coming back and forth.
I look at the time.
I still have time.
What's going on?
So after I finished my sentence, I got
really disturbed.
I can't think anymore.
I stopped recording.
And then I shut the microphone off so
the red light outside went off.
That will tell that there is no recording.
And it was the imam.
He rushed inside the production room.
And he has a newspaper in his hand.
And he said, is that Christianity?
He is so angry at me because he
knows I am a convert.
I am not only a convert.
I am a pastor and I preach Christianity.
And he wants to see any way to
broach him.
It was in the newspaper at that time
when the Anglican Church approved homosexuality.
Again, I sent a quick text to him.
I opened the Bible, the letter to Roman,
Chapter 1.
And I told him, can you read it?
I blocked Paul in the top there so
he doesn't.
And I let him read it.
So they said, oh, there again is the
book.
I told him, I'm not here to tell
you there again is or with.
This is our belief.
I'm not here to criticize them.
At the same time, I'm not going to
defend them.
But you have to point just to your
Bible.
In the past, before the Iraqi war and
the Afghani, the Muslim, they were accusing us
we're divided as Christians.
And now we can see them from the
news.
They're divided.
In fact, they kill each other.
So we just need to show them the
love of Christ.
Avoid debating.
I'm an apologetic.
I do some debating, but now I stopped
doing debating.
In fact, now I'm taking across Canada, especially
in the university, I'm doing dialogues.
We just finished a dialogue in Calgary.
And in October, I'm going to do two,
another one in Calgary and in Edmonton.
And then I will be going at the
end of the month to Montreal to do
another dialogue at Maygall University.
And my visit tomorrow to Vancouver, I'm going
to meet with some of the university chaplains
to see if I can do some dialogue
at some of the university in Vancouver.
This is one of the areas, actually, it's
kind of massive evangelism.
You bring a dialogue and the Muslim, they
will love that.
Hundreds and sometimes thousands of them.
They fill the whole auditorium.
And this is the opportunity to share.
Last dialogue, what about social injustice?
The coming dialogue about Jesus in the Quran
and in the Bible.
Each speaker will speak only to his.
And then we give the materials.
Some of the things I give to the
brother here is very important.
In fact, when I was in Turkey, I
couldn't speak to the Turkish because they don't
speak very good English.
And at the same time, they hate Arabs,
so I couldn't speak Arabic with them.
And I have these materials, actually, in the
hotel where I am.
I stayed there for five days.
I said I'm going to do my hit
at the last day.
But I friended all the waitresses, all the
workers, or the one who will come and
clean the room.
I give them high five in my way.
They think that I'm an American, black American.
Some of them, they said, oh, do you
know Michael Jordan?
Do you know some of Michael Jackson's moves?
So they thought that I'm a black American.
And at the last day in Turkey, I
have a whole bunch of road to Damascus.
And I start to give it to them.
No one rejected because I friended with them.
And I have the opportunity to share Christ.
So avoid debating.
Alternative, listen and share.
Debate, of course, where you listen to yourself.
And because of the debate I used to
do in Edmonton, I just closed the door
totally.
The whole Muslim community, they just hated me
when I was doing debate.
In fact, I have in Edmonton a nickname.
They call me Iskander the Devil.
Because of what I do, like try to
destroy Islam and the characters of Muhammad, their
prophet.
And one day I went to the Arabic
shop to buy some of the things.
And it's one of the newest one.
I went there.
And he said, I never saw you here.
Are you from the Arabic community?
I said, yeah.
He said, what's your name?
I said, I'm Wajdi.
He said, I never heard about you.
I said, I'm Iskander the Devil.
Oh, hi.
How are you doing?
You are Iskander the Devil?
I said, yeah, I'm Iskander the Devil.
And that's because of the debate.
You generate conflict or create conflict, generate pride,
and also never promote friendship.
So just if you want to make a
big event, just a dialogue, a friendly dialogue,
and use some of the materials to help
with that.
Respect their culture, tradition, and belief.
Ask and learn about their history and culture.
They know I am from a Muslim background.
They know I know the Koran and all
the things.
But they're still interesting.
Like one of the things, if you come
to my office in Calgary, I have a
pile.
Actually, it's become too much.
I want to get rid of them.
All about Jesus in the Koran.
As I meet the Muslim, I said, well,
what does the Koran say about Jesus or
Islam?
Even though they know I know it, they
know that I came from that background, they
still have hope.
So the next day, they will come and
a whole printed verses from the Koran about
Jesus.
And by the way, Jesus has been mentioned
in the Koran 93 times.
All nice things about him.
And that will be kind of a gate
for you to enter into a conversation.
Why say this about Jesus?
And the Muslim cannot say any bad things
about Jesus.
Only that Jesus has been mentioned in the
Bible.
Being the son of God and being God
and crucified and all these things.
Avoid these things.
You have other things you can enter into
a conversation with them.
So ask them about their culture, where it's
coming from.
But you be ready to answer their question
because they're going to ask you a lot
of questions.
Go overboard in respecting their culture and behavior.
Never contradict what is said.
They're going to say a lot of things
you're not going to like it.
Never contradict it.
Just say, that's interesting.
Even if he said that, I beat up
my wife and said, oh, that's interesting.
So just...
Okay.
You need to respect yourself.
Be honest and polite.
And this is why, actually, I brought the
Muslim leader and put them in the front.
Because sometimes in our churches, we don't respect
ourselves in worship.
I remember this from the first mistake.
This is why I put it in this
course.
The first mistake I did, I brought a
couple, a Muslim couple with me to the
church.
I was afraid they would not feel comfortable.
So I put them in the back of
the church.
And they know me.
And they were singing, and their husband and
wife were there.
And the husband started to wrap his wife's
back, you know, like any other Western guy
is being a good husband.
The pastor would love him for that.
But they were angry.
And they left the worship.
The next day, when I went, there's a
community.
There was a big rumor.
Watch the church.
They practice sex in the church.
I said, no, don't do that.
He said, they saw it.
There was sex while you guys are praying.
And he was just wrapping her shoulder.
So this is why, when I brought them
to the church, I put them way, way.
So I don't want them to see anything.
So guys, we need to respect ourselves.
At the same time, we need to be
honest and polite for what we are doing.
Any meaningful dialogue with your cousin needed to
start by walking with them, listening to them,
and asking them questions.
I give this course sometimes in perspective course
and in some of the colleges.
And now let us see the pastors.
What is this quotation coming from?
Or what is where you see it in
your Bible?
The New Testament.
After the Redirection.
Yeah, Luke 24.
The road to Emmaus.
This is exactly what Jesus did.
Any meaningful dialogue with your cousin, start by
walking with them, listening to them, and asking
them questions.
The best way to minister to Muslims is
not to give them a statement or preach
at them.
Just ask questions.
And I like in verse 31 in Luke
24.
After that, I like that their eyes were
opened.
As I mentioned yesterday, all over the world,
God has helped me up to 2004 to
baptize over 700.
And I see most of them, their eyes
were opened.
Because I just used that message.
Amen?
How much time do I have?
Because I was planning to go for a
concert, but I don't know.
10-12 minutes.
Okay, I don't think I can go for
the concert.
The second workshop is a repeat, yeah?
It's a repeat, okay.
So, maybe I'll try to send you the
second part.
It's very important.
I'll go, okay, quickly.
This is kind of the theological icebreak for
Islam.
It's about 90% belief and practice.
Islam is all on belief and practice.
Only 10% a theory, and that's coming
from the Hadith.
The Muslims, they have two books.
The Quran is coming from God.
And the Hadith is a saying of Muhammad,
of some of the issues that they have
in the community.
So they will come, oh, prophet of God,
what do you think about that?
And then he kind of gives them some
saying, and that's what we call the Hadith.
And within the Hadith, there are only 10
% theories.
But all the theological break of Islam is
kind of popular belief and practice.
I'm going to jump quickly, if you allow
me.
There is five concepts.
Actually, these five concepts will help you to
enter into a conversation with a Muslim.
But you need to know how they think.
This is why I call this the Muslim
mindset.
Sorry, I'm going to jump through this quickly.
This concept is kind of three areas.
One area for information.
So this is how the Muslim, they think.
Only for information.
You don't tell them, you think like that.
They're going to tell you, no, no, no.
Just like what you heard this morning about
playing chess.
When you play chess, you don't tell your
component that this is the move I'm going
to do.
But you study their move so you can
do your move.
Are you with me, guys?
OK.
And then the theme, which you're going to
repeat, and how you're going to do that.
So I'm going to go through this very
quickly because I want to respect the time
here.
Number five here, please don't play games or
pretending somehow they're similar.
Never talk about the differences.
Immediately when you start to talk about the
differences, you're going to lose track.
But at the same time, don't play games.
This is similar.
OK.
Especially with these five concepts.
And this is a very important five concepts.
I'm going to go quickly to them.
Number one, their concept of God.
As you look here, this is how they
see God.
And how the Muslim, they believe in God.
He cannot understand the crisis.
He's unpredictable, unknowable.
Everything the Muslim about God, they know nothing.
Even God, they don't know what he's going
to do next.
This is why they're scared of God.
OK.
So if you get to understand this about
the Muslim, this is what we believe in.
This is the theme.
We know that God is a loving, seeker,
deliverer, healer, savior, faithful, forgiving.
Right?
Amen, guys?
I'll call your superintendents now.
OK.
You believe in this, yeah?
So now you have to bring this story.
The Muslim, most of the way you share
with them is through stories or questions.
So this is the things you need to
bring it to them.
So you know now what they know about
God.
This is your belief in God.
And this is some of the way you
use it.
The slide I skipped is to use the
Bible all the time.
When the Muslim, they talk to you, they
use the Quran and they use the Hadith.
And sometimes we bring an illustration that does
not even belong to the Bible.
As if like our Bible is not enough
to explain things.
So they need to know what your Bible
is saying about this.
OK.
The second concept is the concept of sin.
Sin is a mistaken choice of a slip
of memory.
It's God's fault.
If I am hungry today, I don't have
any money, and somebody, one of you left
your wallet here, I have the right to
steal.
It's God's fault.
Because you know I am hungry, I don't
have money, and somebody left his wallet, I
have the right to steal.
This is God's fault.
It's not my fault.
This is what they think is God's, it's
justifiable.
You know the most people, we think it's
the Western world.
The most people practice adultery in the world
are the Muslims.
And all of it is justifiable.
Why?
Because it can be composed by good deeds.
Today the Muslim can go and steal $100,
$10 can give it to a poor man,
and he's OK.
You see?
He can go commit adultery, and go and
have an extra bowing in the mosque.
And that will give him good deeds.
OK?
And everything is over about sin.
OK?
This is why some of the areas I
enter in dialogue with Muslims is the concept
of God, the concept of sin, and the
other concept I'm going to show you.
And most of the conferences I spoke at
the Muslims, like with Ahmadiyya and the dialogue
and all these things, I touch this issue
because I know that they don't have any
answer.
And we have the answer.
OK?
So this is our number 10.
This is how we look at sin.
So how are we going to bridge that?
By the stories in the Bibles.
Are you with me?
Sorry, I'm going fast just to respect the
time here.
OK, about faith.
We know that accepting and acting upon what
God says, this is faith to us.
For them, faith is trying to keep the
rules.
Trying to do the ritual.
OK?
Knowing the fact and defending.
What that means, my wife, she led a
Turkish lady in Edmonton to the Lord.
Her husband, he breaks every single rule in
Islam.
He's an alcoholic, he's a womanizer, he steals,
he does a lot of things, he cheats
in his taxes, he's just unbelievable.
And we get to know the family very
well.
And my wife friended his wife, and they
spent a lot of time, and in fact,
actually, the reason she became to Christianity, because
she asked my wife if I beat her,
and my wife, she said no, and he
said, that means he doesn't love you.
And then she showed her how, what's woman
in the Bible, and she liked it.
And then they entered to more biblical discussions.
When she accepted the Lord, and she was
about to be baptized, Omid came and he
was angry at us.
In fact, he wanted to fight with me,
because of what my wife did to his
wife.
I told him, Omid, look here, you're not
really a Muslim, in my country you'll be
stoned to death because you're an alcoholic.
You do this, you do this, you do
this.
But you know, he has the right to
defend it, as a Muslim.
And by doing that, he's going to get
to doing as much good as possible.
In the mind of Omid, defending his wife,
and defending the right, he gets ten good
deeds in heaven.
So he's kind of, there is hope for
him.
So this is faith to them.
In Christianity, it's to respond to God, and
personal relationship with God, life transforming, and enlightened
heart and mind.
All of you know this kind of thing.
This is what faith is for us.
So how are you going to gap that
one with this one?
By using this.
The concept of forgiveness.
I remember in Medicine Hat, I was doing
a Muslim-Christian dialogue.
And at the end, the Muslim speaker didn't
know what to say about forgiveness.
Because it did not exist there.
So, for them, God's forgiveness has no objective
base.
Nobody knows if he's going to be forgiven
or not.
Impossible to know.
A certain amount of forgiveness will be achieved
by good deeds again.
No one, God or human, grantees forgiveness in
Islam.
No one.
And when I talked about forgiveness, he couldn't
answer.
In fact, both of us will be given
20 minutes.
I talked for 25 minutes, and he talked
for 15 minutes.
And most of the 15 minutes, he was
repeating himself, good deeds, good deeds, good deeds.
He couldn't answer.
He couldn't give a presentation about forgiveness in
Islam.
So, in Christianity, it's a gift and has
an objective base offered to everyone.
This is what forgiveness is in Christianity.
How are you going to do it?
Use a story from the Bible.
And by using a story from the Bible,
by using your Bible, will give them an
anger.
They want to know more what is written
in your book.
The last one, the concept of eternal life.
In Islam, unknowable, uncertain.
Is it physical and sensual?
Sometimes in my seminar or my talk, I
said, Las Vegas is the holiest heaven in
Islam.
Because all the things are going to be
in heaven.
Sometimes when the Muslims come around me, they
say, why did you become a Christian?
I'm not going to destroy Islam for them
because they're going to hate me.
I'm not going to generate any good thing.
I said, well, I became Christian because of
heaven.
They said, what do you mean?
I said, well, heaven in Christianity is like
this.
I go to the book of Revelation and
how it's been painted by John, the new
Jerusalem.
And I told them, oh, there is no
marriage, there is no sexual, I'm talking about
my heaven, but at the same time I'm
talking about their heaven.
And their heaven, whatever is forbidden here, whatever
is forbidden, whatever will come to your mind,
even homosexuality, is going to be in the
Islamic heaven.
Anything you're thinking about is going to be
there, and only for men.
So this is one of the areas I
use a lot when they ask me the
question, why you became a Christian.
So projected into the future, even Muhammad himself,
he doesn't know if it's going to happen
or not.
There is a clear verse, I'm not even
going to enter it.
And what Muhammad said to his people, I'm
going to ask God to let me in.
And if he let me in, I'm going
to ask for my people.
What happens if God says no to Muhammad?
Of course they're going to say, oh, no,
he cannot say to Muhammad.
He's the favorite prophet in the eyes of
Allah.
He's not going to forbid him.
So they have that hope.
But there is not any hope for their
eternal life.
In Christianity, I know you can bring more
points than I have for you here.
And then some of the stories you can
illustrate.
In conclusion, as I said last night, pray
and pray and pray.
Use the Bible, ask them to read the
passages, like what I did with the imam
when he came to the production room.
Do not use pressure, tactic, or threat, or
manipulation.
It can work with a Western mind, but
it doesn't work with Muslims.
They're willing to bomb themselves, so this kind
of pressure doesn't work with them.
Move at their speed.
How you can do that?
Measuring process of their readiness to verbalize biblical
concept.
Just like the one I talked to him
about the light.
If they start to kind of verbalize the
concept that you use, some of the things
you use, that means they're thinking about it.
So you can move to the next point.
You don't need to do it like the
way I did it, but as the Lord
will lead you, the Spirit will lead you
inside your heart.
Some of the area, as you're listening to
them to see what their need is, where
they're struggling spiritually.
So you can start to work with them
in that area.
Amen?