Hey everybody, how we doing?

So, first of all, turn in your Bibles if you would, or your cell phone, whatever.

One verse, John chapter 4, verse 13, it's a verse that we could analyze until the second coming.

It's one of those powerful verses.

As I was thinking about celebrating the Great Commission, and we're celebrating all the work that our church is doing around the world, and there's not enough hours in the day to take you...

into what is happening in Zimbabwe, in Nairobi, Kenya, in India.

I just got back from India.

By the way, those of you who prayed for me and my breathing, just want you to know something.

As soon as I landed in India, I had no breathing problems.

It was amazing.

It was a miracle of God.

But every once in a while, a pastor will come out and think, I wonder if the people ever remember anything I say.

It's just natural, because you get bombarded with information all the time.

And so sometimes I'll be preparing a message and I'll think, you know, I think I said that like five months ago, but they won't remember that.

Because they probably don't remember what I said last week.

You know what I mean?

I know my buddy Ricky Reed has a hard time remembering his golf score because he gets it wrong a lot.

But for you, I know you're much smarter, much more intelligent.

So as we celebrate the Great Commission, I want to remind you of something that I know I've mentioned numerous times, but it's so important.

to go back and review something, because what I'm going to do near the end of the sermon, about halfway through rather, is take you down a road that we've never been before.

I know that there are many of you have questions about the elections, about the growth of Islam, about all of those things.

You know I don't get political.

That's not my job.

It's not what I'm meant to do.

But I do want to talk to you about something that's going on in our world that does impact you as a Christ follower.

To get there though, I've got to take you back again.

and make sure you understand the foundation upon which these truths that we're going to discover later in the sermon are built.

And that is going back to the book that I've mentioned a thousand times.

The book that was written in 1973 won a Pulitzer Prize.

It was called The Denial of Death.

And the reason that book is so important is because when you go out on the mission field and you start to go engage in culture, you start to realize that every culture that has ever been built.

in human history has tried to come up with something that would silence the voice of death.

That there's a death cloud that follows all of us.

You don't think about it much when you're young, but as you get older, it just hangs there.

At my age, you feel like as you're walking around, it's just there.

I could kill you at any time.

That's how you feel when you're 62.

You could wake up dead any morning.

It could happen.

And you know it just hangs there.

Ernest Becker, who wrote the book, who won a Pulitzer Prize, is a secular atheist.

And he says, even though I'm a secular atheist, I know that every culture has tried to deal with the reality of death in one of three ways.

One is the romantic solution, which we've talked about.

In other words, a young man will say, hey, I need meaning and significance in my life.

I don't feel that I have it.

And I'm going to die one day.

So if I can just get married, I'll have no more problems.

And that's hilarious to us, isn't it?

Because we know, yeah, you're going to solve one and create a thousand others.

And when that doesn't work, every culture, marriage is a big thing in every culture.

We celebrate it different ways.

It is a huge event.

When the romantic solution doesn't work, we move to the creative solution.

And that's where we tell ourselves, okay, if I can go out into the world and do something that is so significant that I will separate myself from the herd, I will prove my worth I will prove my sense of significance and I will discover meaning in my life.

And even though the death cloud hangs over me and one day I'm going to die, at least I will have achieved something on planet earth while I'm living here.

I will prove myself to be better than everybody else.

And then when that doesn't work, even Ernest Becker, as an atheist says, we move to the third and final solution, the religious solution.

So we know that death is coming.

We know that there's something beyond.

So we tell ourselves, and every culture comes up with its religion.

There's never been a culture without a religion, without some form of God or gods.

And we say to ourselves, if we can live such a life that appeases the gods, that I don't know what's after this, but whatever is after this, I'm going to be fine because I have lived a righteous life according to my own definition of righteousness.

Every culture, every culture, romantic, creative, religious.

Now, you and I as Christ followers know that those things don't work.

It's only a matter of time before marriage brings problems you never knew existed.

It's only a matter of time before, no matter how creative you are, and no matter how much money you make and how successful you are, it's only a matter of time before you meet somebody that's far more successful and far more wealthy, and that crushes you.

If your identity is in separating yourself from the herd, you just go to another herd where there's so many other people that have separated themselves from you.

And then the religious solution doesn't work, because no matter how good you tell yourself that you are, you live with a constant sense of shame and guilt.

knowing that you don't measure up even to your own moral law.

And even Ernest Becker admits, as an atheist, it doesn't work.

We come up with those three solutions, they don't work.

But as Christ followers, we have something that no one else in the world has.

We know the solution, because we know that your soul will remain restless until you find your rest in him.

And you find your rest in him.

Because nobody loves you like Jesus.

You may have a husband or a wife and you may have this great relationship, but you will find yourself walking the halls at night thinking, I do love my wife or I do love my husband, but you know what?

There's still something missing because no human can perform or be a pseudo savior to another.

We're all flawed.

The creative solution, you will never find a greater significance and meaning in your life.

than serving and worshiping God.

And when you engage in that, suddenly you have ultimate meaning, ultimate purpose.

And you know that your Christ, your Savior, takes everything that happens into your life that is bad, that the devil rather means for evil, and turns it into using it for good.

And where the religious solution is concerned, you believe because you're a Christ follower that your salvation comes how?

By grace through faith.

So yeah, you have days of shame and dishonor, but down deep inside, you've discovered the centralized joy.

That's the term I've used often.

If you're a Christ follower, you have a centralized joy and sorrow is only peripheral.

You do experience sadness.

There is loss on planet earth, but you live with this overarching sense of joy because you know that you're good with God, not on the basis of what you've done.

But on the basis of what Christ did for you 2,000 years ago, nobody else offers you that, and only Christ gives you that.

Now, in John chapter 4, the Samaritan woman is going to get some water at the well.

You know most of the story.

Jesus has an encounter, and he says something that I said before could be analyzed till the second coming.

He says this, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.

But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Now, as a Christ follower, you and I know that those who have truly experienced and encountered Jesus, they have this abundant living, this wonderful joy that starts down deep inside and just springs up within them.

And that joy doesn't begin at eternal life, it begins in the here and now.

And the reason it does, once again, we have answered the big questions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.

And our answer, the answer Christ gives us is coherent.

We know that we came from God, that our meaning is to worship and serve God, that morality comes from the objective source or the objective word of God, and destiny ultimately will all end up in heaven with God.

And all of that is based on the work of Christ on the cross.

So the reason we are so passionate about taking the good news of the gospel to the world is because only Christ can give you this overarching sense of joy.

He's the only one that can give that to you.

And some Christians have been Christians all their lives, and they've never experienced it.

And the reason they've never experienced it is because they still think God accepts them on the basis of their goodness.

And as long as you believe that, you're never going to have an overarching sense of joy.

It's when you let go and you give it to God and you know, I am saved by grace through faith.

The big questions have been answered and the death cloud can follow me all at once, but we should all have t-shirts, can't touch this, because we know in the end we'll be with God in heaven.

Now, here's the thing.

If I ask you to articulate the gospel to someone, could you do it.

At a prayer meeting this past Monday night, I told one of my favorite stories about two English guys who went to an English pub, and they were inebriated, and they were walking out of the pub early in the wee hours of the morning.

And if you know anything about London, it's foggy, I mean, almost all the time, especially in the middle of the night.

These two guys prancing across the street, swaying, and they look to each other and they say, where are we?

And coming down the road is a police officer.

And they can't tell he's a police officer because they're inebriated.

And they approach the police officer and they say to the police officer, hey, can you tell us where we are?

And the police officer looked at them and said, do you know who I am?

And the two guys looked at each other and said, boy, we're in a fix now.

We don't know where we are, and this fellow doesn't know who he is.

That is a great example of how many Christ followers have no idea who they really are and where they are in their relationship with God.

And as a result, it is almost impossible for you to articulate the gospel.

Now, let me remind you of one more thing that we've talked about often, and it's this.

Go back to Romans 1.

Romans 1, verse 16 will tell you.

In a short passage, the greatest theological treaty is ever written, what the gospel is.

Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God to bring salvation to everyone who believes.

And I always stop here and ask the question, whose power?

It's not your power, it's God's power.

God's power brings salvation, first to the Jew, then the Gentile.

For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed.

There are two ways to be righteous, keep the law perfectly or pay the penalty for breaking it.

You and I cannot keep the law perfectly.

In the flesh, we are incapable, so we have to pay the penalty.

Unfortunately, the penalty is death.

The wages of sin is death.

But Christ, in the gospel, we find the power of God because rather than punishing us, we don't become the objects of the wrath of God.

Instead, he takes all the sins of the world, past, present, future, and puts them on the shoulders of his own son on the cross.

gives up what is most precious to him so that he will not lose us.

And as a result, we are deemed righteous, not because we have kept the law perfectly, because Christ paid the penalty for our sins.

Therefore, God sees us as righteous.

And the righteous, we're told, will live from the first to last, will live by faith, just as it is written, the righteousness will live or the righteous will live by faith.

That is the gospel.

And if you can't articulate late.

The simplicity of the gospel, that it's the power of God that puts us in a right relationship with God.

Here's the problem.

If you don't understand that, you will not recognize the counterfeits.

That's key.

We celebrate the great commission because we know how many of you in this room have had your life totally transformed.

You were addicted to drugs or alcohol.

You were a mess, man.

You made a mess of your life.

Somebody shared the good news of the gospel with you.

Suddenly it dawned on you that no matter what you've done or where you've been, you're forgiven through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Not only from what you did, but what you will do in the future.

That kind of eternal security only comes through Christ.

And therefore, joy becomes central, sorrow only peripheral.

So it's important that you and I understand.

What is included in the religious texts of the world as we go out into the world trying to appease the death cloud by the romantic, the creative, or the religious solution?

One of the things you do as a seminary student is you are forced to become very familiar with the other religious works in the world.

How can you claim the Bible is unique when you don't know what the other works say?

So if you take the Bible, the Quran, the...

Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu scriptures, the Egyptian book of the dead, the book of Mormon, the Tao, those are the same things.

Even the Orthodox Ethiopian text.

All of these books say the same thing.

Be a good person, live a good life, dedicate yourself to these rituals.

All except one, the Bible.

The Bible says you're not a good person.

You cannot save yourself.

You can never be good enough, no matter how many rituals you perform, journeys you make.

You'll never be good enough.

You cannot save yourself.

You need a savior.

Now, if the Bible is the only one that's different, and it tells me what, at first, I don't want to hear, and every religion and religious text points back to Jesus as one among many, but Jesus comes along and says, no, I'm the only way.

And everyone affirms him, but he affirms no one.

Then he must be the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him.

And through him and him alone, the death cloud that hangs over all of culture.

It dissolves because Jesus rose from the dead.

Death then becomes the doorway to life.

Could there be any greater celebration than helping a person of another place in culture, the scales are removed, and the God of this world who blinds the mind of the unbeliever suddenly begins to see that the thing they've been searching for all of their lives can only be found and is found in Jesus Christ.

Because that changes everything.

When you know that death...

is the doorway to the life you've always wanted.

You stop fearing death in ways you welcome it.

So Stella is with us this weekend who runs our ministry in Nairobi.

And I think I mentioned earlier that Robin and I made a trip there a few years ago and we met a little boy by the name of Christopher.

And we went into a home visit and you know, we're talking about poverty on a scale that most of us...

I mean, Stella is almost like a modern-day Mother Teresa.

She works with the poorest of the poor in the poor slums in Nairobi, Kenya.

And I sat this little boy on my knee, and someone asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he said, I want to be a pastor.

Well, you know what happens next, right?

I couldn't get my wallet out fast enough.

You sponsor a child in Kenya at $90 a month, $90 a month.

And I looked at Stella, and I said, this is my...

This is my child right here.

And Robin and I got pictures and diagrams and drawings.

And my buddy Rick Reed, I think we have a picture with Rick, with Christopher.

He went and I wasn't there, so he took a photo for me and sent it back.

And then we got news a couple of months ago that Christopher had passed away.

That somehow when he was sleeping in these homes, these makeshift homes that they're in, he was poisoned by carbon dioxide and passed away in his sleep.

And I'll tell you.

At first, I just sat in my office, because I have a picture right there by my computer, and I just sat there, and I was so sad, so sad.

And then I thought, wait a minute.

You know, the Bible says there are some people that the world is not worthy of.

There are some people that are just so...

pure of heart, that I wonder sometimes if God says, man, I'm going to spare you the struggle and pain of this world.

I'm going to get you out of these slums and bring you into the mansions of heaven.

I don't know how it works, but I do know all of culture everywhere is looking for this security.

And as I've said before, Jesus is the only one that died and came back from the dead.

I want to follow that guy.

That's the guy.

Now, here's the challenge.

This is the second part of the sermon, and this is the part that's new territory for us.

Here's the challenge we face as the ambassadors of Jesus Christ.

There is another kingdom.

There is another one who comes to kill, steal, and destroy.

And the last thing he wants in any people, group, or culture is a centralized joy.

And he's not powerless, unfortunately.

In fact, the Bible tells us that the entire world system, the cultures of the world, are under his control and influence.

1 John 5, 19, we know that we are children of God and the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

And we know that he detests our celebrations.

When we celebrate the Great Commission, when somebody far from God comes near, when somebody in darkness comes to light, he detests it with an unholy hatred, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to stop it.

And the Bible also tells us, which is quite intimidating, that he's very clever in his approach.

2 Corinthians 11, 14, and no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

This is incredibly revealing insight, isn't it, concerning the adversary's methods.

He hates, he detests our celebrating the Great Commission and all of its successful endeavors.

Everything we're doing in Zimbabwe and Nairobi through CICM, everything that we're doing in Europe and the South Pacific, he hates it.

He views this world as his domain and us as intruders.

And therefore, and this is what we miss, into every culture, He creates a counterfeit.

Ours is not the only celebration going on.

There's an opposite contingent.

And because he detests the inner joy and peace and the manner in which it comes through Christ, and because he knows that man has been created in the image of God and God has placed eternity in our hearts and that man will search for a sense of beyond.

Rather than offering an opposite, which would be too clear, he operates and offers a counterfeit.

Something that looks so close to the original that to the naked eye, it's very difficult to tell the difference.

One of my favorite movies, I'm sorry, is Catch Me If You Can.

I don't know why I love that movie.

Maybe it's because I like Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio.

I love the movie, and it's based on the autobiography of a guy named Frank Abagnale.

True story.

And the FBI is after him, and they can't catch him.

And he, Frank Jr., that is, is dealing with a hole in his heart because his family now has been destroyed.

And he appeals to the creative solution.

And he manages to impersonate a Pan Am pilot, a Georgia hospital resident supervisor, doctor, and a Louisiana attorney general, a lawyer.

Man, it doesn't get any more significant than that, right?

A pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer.

But his real gift, and by the way, for those of you who know this movie, I know the entire thing is fabricated, just so you know.

The real story is nothing like this.

I got it, but I still like the movie.

So just go with me through the movie.

Forget reality for a moment.

You do it all the time.

His real gift, according to the movie, he cashes millions of dollars, when in reality the true story is a couple thousand, but he cashes millions of dollars in forged payroll cashier's checks.

He becomes so brilliant at creating a counterfeit bank check that the movie tells us that the FBI hired him after he was in prison, which is not true, but the movie still makes a good story.

We could go on and on, but here's the point.

The counterfeit checks look so real, look like the real thing.

That's why counterfeits are so successful.

They're so close to the original.

Now, here's where Ernest Becker, in the denial of death, a secular atheist, misses the target.

Because the romantic solution nor the creative solution are the devil's primary weapons.

Did you hear that?

They're not his primary weapons because many find their way to Christ when these solutions prove lacking and insufficient.

When you realize romance isn't going to do it and you realize your job's not going to do it, God hands you over to that.

And sometimes what God does is gives you great success and shows you that the things you think these things will deliver will never deliver and hopes you'll turn back to Jesus.

But there's one solution.

The religious solution is the most powerful weapon he has.

And the religious solution steals, kills, and destroys.

Counterfeit spirituality is his number one tool to rob you of joy and peace and the security that every culture looks for.

And it ends up giving you a false sense of security because it looks identical.

to the real thing, and billions upon billions of people are deceived.

The religious solution, the devil's primary weapon, he does not merely offer an alternative, he offers a counterfeit.

So the question comes then, what is the counterfeit of our time, and how should we respond to it?

And remember, the counterfeit looks very similar to the original.

In fact, to the uninformed, untrained eye, it's difficult to tell them apart.

Now listen, the clear counterfeit of our time is Islam.

Now before those of you who are in the room who are so fragile...

Jump to the conclusion that I'm about to incite hate.

Don't judge me and listen to the end of the sermon.

Because the real God will always contradict you at some point.

The two dominant monotheistic religions in our world today are Christianity and Islam.

And their commonality is remarkable.

Both faiths worship a single monotheistic supreme creator who is all-powerful and all-knowing.

Both faiths.

trace their spiritual ancestry back to the patriarch Abraham.

Christians through Isaac, Islam through Ishmael.

Both respect the prophets and figures like Noah, Moses, Adam, David.

These are considered to be prominent and pivotal figures.

Mary and Jesus are revered by both to varying degrees, and both belief systems teach the immortality of the soul, a literal day of judgment, and the existence of heaven and hell.

However, just because two things have something in common doesn't mean they're identical.

I have ears.

An elephant has ears.

I'm not an elephant.

Islam, although it looks like it's so close to the original, is fundamentally different to Christianity.

Islam does not believe that Jesus is the son of God.

It categorically denies the atoning work of Jesus on the cross.

Islam teaches that both these claims are blasphemous.

They say that God is incapable of having the son, and if he did have a son, that son would not be subjected to human execution.

Islam categorically denies that Jesus died for our sins.

In fact, Islam claims that Jesus didn't even die.

The only religion that claims Jesus did not die on a Roman cross.

And they say that the way to God is not through Christ and Christ alone, which makes it a doctrine of demons.

1 John 2, who is the liar?

It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ.

Such a person is the Antichrist, denying the Father and the Son.

No one who denies the Son has the Father.

Galatians 1.8.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse.

Islam is the greatest counterfeit to the gospel, probably in human history, but most definitely in our time.

Stats tell us that one quarter of the world identifies as Muslim and one quarter of the world identifies as Christian and there's not a close second.

These are competing worldviews that are diametrically opposed to one another.

And Muslims are aware of this and it is the reason that the gospel is so offensive to fundamental Islam and the reason Islamic states execute those who convert to Christianity.

Open Doors, which is a source that I trust, tells us that 80% of the top 50 countries where it is most difficult to live as a Christian feature persecution predominantly driven by the Islamic State and enforce the Islamic restrictions.

388 million Christians.

Did you hear that number?

388 million Christians face high to extreme levels of discrimination and violence.

Globally, heavily driven by Islamic oppression, Nigeria, Mali, Mozambique, Congo, Somalia, Tanzania, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan are all murdering Christian pastors and their families every single day.

And this type of extremism is growing.

It's intensifying.

It's not decreasing.

You want to know the persecution of Christians by Islam in Africa?

Go a few rounds over here with Michael.

He'll be glad to tell you a few stories.

The reason this is important is for two major reasons.

Number one, Pew Research tells us that Islam is now the fastest growing religion and is expected to grow at roughly twice the rate of the overall world population.

They're having babies, and lots of them.

The great counterfeit has moved now into Europe and the Americas and seeks to overpower politically and religiously the Christian worldview.

We'll get to more of that in a moment.

And by the way, I am not saying that everyone who's in Islam or a Muslim seeks to overthrow the American government.

I'm simply saying those at the top, the regimes at the top, the ones who persecute Christ followers have a definite global plan and they are patient.

And if you don't believe that, you better get your head out of the sand.

But the greater concern has to do with the new generation of Gen Zs and millennials who have been deceived by secular worldviews redefinition of the word tolerance.

The old definition of tolerance, which by the way, originated out of a Judeo-Christian worldview, said this.

We should never discriminate against another person because of a religious worldview.

And I absolutely agree with that 100% that the intrinsic value of every person on the planet and the reality that every person has been created in the image of God and therefore possesses that intrinsic worth, every person should be treated...

treated equal under the law and never discriminated against regardless of their religion.

Absolutely.

But that's not the new definition of tolerance.

The new definition goes like this.

All ideas are equally valid and equally true.

That truth is subjective and no one truth supersedes another.

That is the great lie of Satan himself, who is producing counterfeit worldviews to the Christian worldview, hoping to lead millions, if not billions, astray and cause us to have a soft approach.

to those who oppose the message of Jesus.

Because here's what that looks like.

Let me tell you what that looks like.

I was in Nairobi a few years ago, and I was with a couple of millennials.

And as you go through the Nairobi airport, if you've ever been there, Michael, you'll know that as you make your way through the halls, you will see people of the Islamic faith, Muslims, down on the carpets praying.

I mean, they are committed and diligent.

And it's not just because they're afraid of flying.

Whatever time of day, they are diligent, they are committed.

And my millennial friend said to me, right there's the reason I could never believe that God would send anybody like that to hell.

My answer was this, because you know, I sometimes don't think and I just respond.

And my response was this, well, that's because you've usurped the authority of the Bible and you've rejected the all-sufficient, all-atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

What do you mean?

Well, you don't believe Jesus is the only way to the Father, and you don't believe the atoning work of Jesus on the cross is sufficient or necessary for the salvation and forgiveness of sins.

You're a universalist.

The Apostle Paul, as I took you through this a few months ago, was very clear on this, that sincerity and diligence cannot save you.

He says in Romans 10, Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.

He's saying, my people are not saved, for I can testify about them that they are zealous for God.

But their zeal is not based on knowledge.

Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

Christ is the culmination of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

The devil's greatest counterfeit involves the religious solution.

Every culture attempts to deal with the reality of death by being religious, by discovering a religious path.

But the Bible tells us there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end leads to destruction.

And as hard as it is for us to speak out loud, every faith system outside of Christianity is not merely filled with error, but it originates from the doctrine of demons.

The devil knows we've been created in the image of God and we're made to worship him.

So he offers us a counterfeit God.

Now, when I've gone down this path in the past, I will have people come up to me after the sermon and say, why would you do that?

Why would you say those things?

Because there's already so much hatred.

And I always say, did you listen to the second half of the sermon?

Here it is.

A couple of years ago.

I was on stage at my alma mater, Cincinnati Christian University.

I was asked to return and participate in an apologetic conference with Dr.

Ravi Zacharias, myself, and Nabil Qureshi.

Now, I don't know if you know who Nabil Qureshi is.

His story is amazing, and he's written some of the most intriguing books about the theology of Christianity.

I'll tell you what, I've learned more from him than I have some major scholars.

And the reason is because he was a devout Muslim in a devout Muslim family.

And he came to the States for his education.

And a young man by the name of David befriended him.

And they just began to discuss.

No intolerance, no anger, just discuss.

Because the one good thing about Islam is they do believe that Jesus is real.

They just don't know his true identity.

So over the course of seven years, they began to have these conversations, conversation after conversation.

And David would answer every one of his objections.

And after seven years, Nabil Qureshi became a Christian.

And when he became a Christian, he started traveling to the universities here in the United States, talking to those in Islam about the true and real identity of Jesus Christ.

You know, even in the Quran, the Quran says that Jesus was virgin born.

Do you know in the Quran, it says a prophet cannot lie?

And it says Jesus was a prophet.

And I like to remind my Muslim friends that Jesus said before Abraham was, I am.

So if a prophet cannot lie and Jesus is a prophet, he must be the son of God.

Some of the conversations in the books that you read.

Now, here's the part I want you to know.

It was my first time meeting the bill.

And the bill was seated right beside me.

And he said, Pastor Jeff, I know about you through Ravi.

I know that you guys have been good friends for a long time.

Can you tell me something?

I said, sure.

I have a question.

I said, you've got a question for me?

I said, I'm scared already.

I know how smart this dude is.

He said, and here's my question.

And I made notes of this because I wanted to make sure that I never...

communicated this in a false way, but basically here's how it started.

He said, why do so many of you Christians believe Islam is harmless?

He said, my people, and he's talking about his people, do not live with joy.

We live in constant fear of Allah, that he will not receive us.

Yeah, we're dedicated in the rituals we perform, he says, but it's not out of love like you Christians, it's out of fear and obligation.

And by the way, for those of you who thought I came up with this phrase, sorrow is central, joy is only peripheral on my own, I stole it from Nabil.

Because he said, do you understand, for Islam, sorrow is central and joy is only peripheral because we have the constant dread of judgment.

He said there's an overarching sorrow and fear that dominates the lives of committed Muslims, especially those who are diligent in keeping and pursuing the five pillars.

We don't have a centralized joy.

We don't have peace.

We don't have assurance.

We just hope that we can do enough good things that maybe, maybe Allah will be merciful and receive us.

And then when I began to learn about Christianity, and I learned that Christianity was not about perpetual responsibility that enslaves its people and creates a bitterness of the soul that never experiences acceptance, I realized that in Islam, religion is right.

identity.

And that's why you can't let anyone mess with it.

But in Christianity, Jesus is your identity.

And because Jesus is your identity, you truly have joy.

Why would you keep that message from my people?

Now, here's my final point.

If you and I truly love people and we love our neighbors as ourselves, we will demonize the religion because it comes from the father of lies, but we will not demonize the people.

If our heart has truly been melted by the gospel, we will in no way see ourselves as superior to a Muslim.

But we'll weep for their lostness and their separation from God.

You know, folks, the only thing worse than believing that sincerity and diligence equals salvation is believing that because you're a Christian, you're better than everybody else.

I can promise you.

And I'm sure Michael will affirm this.

We can promise you that there are Muslims and Hindus, when it comes to moral purity and commitment, will put many of you Christ followers to shame.

Maybe I should say many of us Christ followers to shame.

Tim Keller says, Christianity not only leads its members to believe people of other faiths have goodness and wisdom to offer, it also leads them to expect that many will live lives morally superior to their own.

We dare not demonize other people, but we also dare not believe that a person can go to heaven by being a good moral person or living a good moral life.

Because that kind of view makes Jesus a liar and flies in the face of his atoning sacrifice for our sins.

And worse yet, it makes God out to be a masochist.

If you can be saved by moral goodness and sincerity, why did God do that to his son.

As Christ followers, we love and value all people, especially those who disagree with us, so that we can enter into dialogue.

What we do not do is pretend that as long as someone is zealous and sincere, they're saved and are at peace with God.

What we do not do is pretend that there is not a concerted effort by those in the highest places of Islam to subdue the world to Islam by infiltration and force.

We keep our eyes wide open.

We do not pretend that Christians all over the world are not being persecuted, raped, tortured, and killed by Muslim extremists while the world looks on in apathy.

But at the same time, we will not think we are better than anybody else, that the only difference between us and somebody who's of the Islamic faith is that Jesus has saved us from our sins.

I don't know who's going to be listening to this sermon online, or I don't know who's in the room right now this weekend, but I need to say a few things, and I'm going to make a closing comment.

So will you lean in and let me finish for a moment?

If you're a pastor or Bible college professor, or teacher in a local church, or a leader of a mission organization, and you've come to believe there are many ways to God, would you please resign your post?

You have succumbed to the spirit of the Antichrist, you have made God out to be a liar, and you have become the God of God.

But if you're a Christian, and you think you're better than a Muslim, and that God will accept you because of your good works, repent.

If you only have disdain for those in Islam and cannot see a person who's been created in the image of God, repent and ask God to open your eyes to his love for all people and ask him how he can use you to reach those far from God.

Folks, please, please listen.

The only way to overcome the counterfeit is to passionately reveal the real thing.

And you cannot do that from a position of hatred and disdain.

Look, when you see pictures like this, do you have hatred or love?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

What's the first emotion that comes to your mind?

Fear, hatred, love, and pursuit.

Because any Christian who has spent time in the Muslim world, and I have, you know what will happen?

Your heart will begin to melt for the people of Islam.

And you will find yourself crying out like the Apostle Paul.

My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Muslim is that they may be saved.

For I can testify about them, they're zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.

It's the same prayer.

John Wesley said, catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn.

I'm asking you as a Christ follower, stop complaining that Islam is moving in.

Stop thinking it's the end of the world and ask God how he can use you to reach those who are far from God so that they can become near.

In my time, folks, I have seen the fires of evangelism quenched by the waters of universalism, stifled by the threats of cancel culture, pushed down by the Christian education's fear of being labeled bigoted, uneducated, or intolerant.

I wish I had time to tell you the story of APU.

APU fell for all of this.

Thank God they have hired a good man from Biola who has turned things around.

The church in the West has become far too appeasing to the masses, and in our efforts to not offend anyone, we have failed to teach the next generation the truths of the gospel.

So while you and I stand for nothing, the next generation falls for anything.

Christianity, this is the end now, but stay with me.

Christianity and the cross, they're still the world's largest faith narrative, and it's time for the American church to wake up.

and advance the gospel of truth, love, joy to the masses.

Jesus publicly dies on the cross so that we could publicly live out our Christian faith for him.

And while Christianity is being challenged in the West, it's certainly not true, not even remotely true in many parts of the world.

There's an explosion of faith coming out of Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

And the reason is because they still believe the core fundamentals of the gospel.

They still actually believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father.

I know I'm a little over, but you seem keen.

Let me tell one more story.

Can I do that?

And then I'll stop.

I just got back from India, and I went out, they escorted me down into a, basically what felt like a basement room in New Delhi.

And they had brought about 25 pastors from different parts of Delhi to come into this room.

And I sat there and listened to each one of their stories.

You know, they are being tortured with hydrochloric acid.

Their homes are being burned.

Their wives are being raped.

Their children are being abused.

And the thought doesn't even cross their mind to stop preaching the gospel.

It doesn't even cross their mind.

It's not an option.

Instead, they say, don't pray the persecution will end.

Pray that God will give us the courage.

And then one man stood up.

Tall man, kind of an ambassador type figure.

And he started to speak.

And when he started to speak, it just felt different than everyone else.

And of course, I had a translator there.

I don't speak Hindi.

And my buddy Mark Hall and I listened to the stories.

He said, I was the leader.

of the Hindu faith in my community.

I was at the very top.

One day, my wife became ill.

And the doctor said, there's no hope.

She's not going to get better.

We kept trying to get treatment.

I think she had something like stomach cancer, but it had spread everywhere.

It was the end.

I did all the rituals, nothing.

And then one day, I heard a knock at the door, and there's a man that I did not recognize from our community who said, I've come to tell you, I know how your wife can be healed.

You need to pray to Jesus.

Now, as a Hindu, he was furious with the man.

Threw him out of the house and said, Are you crazy?

Get out of here.

I'm a Hindu.

Guy came back a few days later.

I'm here to tell you.

You need to pray to Jesus.

He threw him out of the house.

A couple of days later, his wife comes to him and says, honey, we've got no, I mean, what do we got to lose?

Let's pray to Jesus.

And they prayed to Jesus and she was healed.

And he never saw that man again.

Did an angel come?

He became a Christian and now he's planting Christian churches all over northern part of India.

Why?

Somebody asked me, why don't we get more miracles in America?

Let me tell you why.

We're not trying anything so hard to need one.

I'm telling you, do not be sad that Islam and Muslims are coming to America.

You can't go to Iraq, so Iraq's coming to you.

And just in the same way that God sent Israel into Babylon and changed the entire Babylon culture, he has a heart for those in Islam, and as they come on our shores, who will go?

What young person in the room will say, here am I, send me?

Folks.

He who saves one life saves the world entire.

Your citizenship is in heaven.

And no matter who wins what election, it's not the end of the world.

And that's why I've told you from the beginning, do not align yourself with one political party.

It's temporary at best, but the kingdom of God will last forever.

Father, I'm thankful for the truth of the gospel.

Help us to be courageous as our African brothers, our Indian brothers, our South American brothers and sisters as they preach the gospel in the midst of heavy persecution.

And the more they preach it, the more lives are changed and transformed.

Help us to see what's happening in our country as an opportunity.

to impact Islam for the purposes of Jesus Christ, to never look at every person who is not like us as the enemy, but to look to them as someone who's been created in the image of God and an opportunity to help someone experience a centralized joy that only Christ can give.

In his name we pray and everybody said, amen.