Zwemer Center

Cash Godbold: Trust the Holy Spirit in your Friendship with Muslims

This is the final installment of the three part series by Cash Godbold. In this session, Cash Godbold reminds us to trust the work of the Holy Spirit as we minister to Muslims and to continually pray for them as they seek Jesus.

 Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Trust the Holy Spirit in your Friendship with Muslims: 

Hello. This is lesson 3, the last lesson in this series. We’ve thought about in in lesson 1 that the love of god is experienced in my friendship with my Muslim neighbors and contacts. It will take patience to have conversation, hospitality, and to spend time together so I can sprinkle in our talk statements about Old Testament characters. When I find a person who is open about spiritual things, I will continue the friendship without exposing him to danger.

In lesson 2, we talked about the power of God manifest in and through me. I should be a godly person who prays, reads the scriptures, and shares this walk with God with my friend. I should share answers to prayer that I experience. And when my friend asks for prayer, I should say yes, that I will pray all night for his problem and fast. When God answers my prayers in the name of Jesus Christ, the lord, for the request of my friend, I should get with my friend and explain why God does this.

I can believe God to do miracles to confirm that the message of the Bible is from God himself and that he, God, has sent the savior for us to have forgiveness. We listed biblical bridges for use in our conversations with our Muslim friend. In lesson 3, we will be looking at difficulties we may encounter. There will be several of them. Then we will look at some guidelines for our lives and then contrast what I have proposed for you with the way many used to do it.

Let’s get started. Islam contradicts or teaches against many Christian principles. In this area, problems exist which vary depending upon the country, the sect, the ethnic background of the person you’re talking to. It is best that you ask your friend about his beliefs so that you can better understand him and his thinking. There are so very many division divisions and sects in Islam that it is difficult to study them all.

It is better for you to understand the beliefs of your friend, which is what matters. You don’t have to understand all the others, but it is good to know what your friend believes. Let’s take a look at a few important general beliefs that would be common to most. Number 1, the family of Islam, umma. One should right away recognize the force and the importance of the concept of cohesion of the family of Islam.

My friend believes he is part of the largest religion on earth. Christians are more numerous, but your friend can leave your city and travel halfway around the world and walk into a mosque and be accepted. Muslims strongly sense the strength and the protection existing for them with the world of Islam. Within this world which we inhabit, there are millions of Muslims. Moreover, in his corner of the earth, your friend knows only Muslims.

For many of us, is it not love demonstrated by members of the body of Christ which drew us toward Christ? Then can we not find this same love in our hearts, this same welcome offered to a Muslim friend to be used of the Lord to invite him along this long journey, leading him finally to find the savior. Now let us speak of the Christian family. In the same way that Umma is important to Muslims, our lives should reveal that the Christian family worldwide is cherished by us. Be very serious about not criticizing our Christian brothers.

Although we may have many various denominations, we have one Bible and one Christ. We should eliminate from our conversation any derogatory talk of a pastor, the leaders of the church, or the family of God? Should you and your wife have an argument, Would it not be shameful for you to spread this news around your supermarket? You should resolve these things in private. When problems arose among Jesus’ disciples, he dealt with them among themselves.

Speak well of your brothers and sisters. They are a comfort to you. Their presence should encourage you. If this is your testimony before your friend, then he or she will realize that the family of Jesus is precious to us. When you were young in the faith, other Christians encouraged you and helped you to grow in your Christian life.

Do likewise for your friend, thereby to show him the way of Christ. According to Islamic thought, their prophet was the last, and therefore, that means the greatest prophet. According to the word of God, Jesus, 600 years before, said He is Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Jesus cautioned that false prophets would come after him. Please, nothing will be gained by arguing these things, but you should understand them.

Criticize neither your friend’s religion nor his prophet. It follows also that since their prophet is last and therefore superior to others, that therefore they who follow him are also superior those who do not follow their prophet. A strong doctrine in Islam is that its adherents must dominate all the world. Our defense is prayer. We are to pray for God’s protection.

Let’s look at another problem. In second Corinthians 614 to 18, god forbids his children to marry someone of another religion. It is that he wants to save you from bondage that he gives this teaching. You young ladies don’t believe the smooth words of a young man saying that you will be permitted to continue to believe in your religion. Such words are without value.

They change after you are married in 24 hours. A far greater worth is the word of our god and obeying his teaching. You must resist the temptation. God gives his teaching not to make you miserable, but for your good. Another important teaching to be considered is the law of apostasy or This means that if a Muslim changes his religion, there is a prescribed law as to what must follow.

If a Muslim seeks more light, reads a tract, accepts a New Testament, much is jeopardized. He could lose his job, perhaps his wife. He could be beaten up. If a wife, she could be divorced, her children taken from her. All of this is to coax the seeker back to Islam.

If these persuasions are to no avail and the person continues to search for truth, it is possible, even probable, that a relative will kill this recalcitrant one. In light of this law of apostasy, we need to apply much wisdom. We need to keep a low profile and do our best not to expose our friend to this persecution. Keep it all 1 on 1. Do not spoil what you have sown by insisting on contact, which will result in drawing persecution.

You need to protect the seed and water it whenever the Lord makes a way and a time for it, and this is best guided by your friend who will be abreast of the situation in which he or she is. This will take time and, therefore, patience on your part. Remember that whatever time you may think is being wasted without contact, the Holy Spirit is at work. It will take some time for the truths of the Bible to be understood. They are very different from what your friend has been taught.

Continue to water and nourish when there’s opportunity and pray. One day, he will confess Christ himself. You must not rush or force a decision. And during this whole time between first contact till his till his believing on the lord Jesus Christ, you must be prudent and understand not to expose your friend to danger. When your friend finds himself ready to accept the risk of death.

Let me say that again. When your friend finds himself ready to accept the risk of death, the Holy Spirit will give him or her the context in which to make profession of his faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit will show him, not you, with whom to share his faith. His profession will be more real, more pure than if you push him before he is ready. Often in our desire for results, we try to push for a public profession.

We should rather cultivate by faith and wait the harvest by faith. It will be clear when the harvest is ripe. Mark 426 to 29 says, and Christ was saying, the kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil and goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts up and grows. How? He himself does not know.

The soil produces crops by itself. First, the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle because the harvest has come. After your friend makes his decision for Christ, you must continue to nourish him personally, privately, but do not blow his cover. You alone will attend church.

Listen carefully to what is being taught, and you will be able to share privately and personally in your home what you have learned in order to teach your friend. You too will have become a little cell group of your church at whatever place the Lord directs for your personal and private worship service and teaching. You will pray together. You will open the bible together. It is your responsibility to feed this newborn in his Christian life.

Remember that the Holy Spirit will press him as to whom he will witness as to whom he will witness. The Holy Spirit knows who is open or who is against Christ. He will lead the new believer to choose from among his friends who will receive the message and who will persecute or betray or kill him or her. Let the Holy Spirit of God guide this young Christian. Your work is to nourish.

The Holy Spirit knows how to push or nudge. The lord has much work of testimony for his new child in his own milieu, his own culture, his own language. He has his friends, his family, his neighbors. The Holy Spirit now residing in him will show him who and when. You feed him on spiritual truths more and more both before his conversion and even more afterward.

I cannot emphasize too much how important it is not to draw attention to your friend. The contact you have with him above all that above all the changes coming about in his life, Do not invite him to church services or programs. This would draw attention to his interest in the gospel, subsequently then drawing ridicule and even beatings. Your part is to nurture by Bible teaching, fellowship 1 on 1, and by praying for him, and in all of this, being sensitive to any given situation that would expose him to persecution. An illustration of this is this story.

A Muslim priest turned from Islam to follow Christ. The church invited him to give testimony in service, followed by his baptism. After his baptism, everyone left the church and formed a parade around the downtown area led by this new believer flanked by the church leaders. Imagine what came next. His family jumped on him.

He stood for a while, but finally returned to Islam broken. Who is at fault here? I’m afraid we, the Christians. I fear we indulged ourselves in folly, ignoring those surroundings and their law. Leave it to the Holy Spirit to direct this babe in Christ where and when and to whom he will give witness.

You and I are not the Holy Spirit. Let’s move on and look at another difficulty. There are great differences of teaching between the Quran and the Bible. There are several biblical principles which have served me well in knowing how to respond to their thoughts of teachings in the Bible. Let me say that I find little value little value in arguing about miracles that Jesus supposedly worked when he was a baby.

They say that Mary didn’t have any food for Jesus when he was a little baby, and his hand touched a cup and it turned to gold. And she took it to the market and sold it and was able to buy food for them. I don’t think we need to argue about that. Titus 39 says, but shun foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. I have not seen that debate where I speak at the top of my voice and they debate at the top of their voices does much to advance the testimony.

To the contrary, Titus calls it useless and vain. Another difficulty is there are some problems impossible to rectify because your friend with whom you share the gospel does not yet possess spiritual discernment. The Holy Spirit does not yet reside in him or her. 1st Corinthians 214 says, but a natural man does not accept the things of the spirit of god for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Bearing this in mind, when we speak with a Muslim and refer to Jesus as the Son of God, our friend sees this as God having had sexual relations with a woman who then bore him this son.

To be sure, this is not our belief. It is abhorrent to us. However, we blaspheme to Muslim ears when we say son of god. His reaction is to spit and leave, never to have to do with you again. Therefore, you have lost all in a moment of time using the title son of god that you’ve built in your friendship up to this time.

It is useful to note how Jesus’ disciples conducted themselves in a similar situation. It was Pentecost, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and preaching to the Jews who had crucified Jesus for this same reason, saying that Christ called himself the son of god. For the Jews, this was blasphemy. Study acts 214 to 44. Really.

Study acts 214 to 44, noting the names or titles and descriptions which are given to Jesus Christ. Note also that the gospel was clearly preached and many were saved that day without Peter’s having used the title son of God in his sermon. When Peter stood preaching at Pentecost, he was among thousands of Jews, some of whom had participated in the crucifixion of Jesus just about 50 days prior to Pentecost. And he gave a clear gospel message, and people were saved. And he didn’t use the phrase son of god.

That expression, son of god, is very precious to us. Study the passage and imitate the disciples. Follow Peter’s example to the end that god can use you to reach Muslims around you. It is extremely important that you not blaspheme in the beginning of your contact. Be patient and wait.

Did you hear what I said? Be patient and wait until they ask you about this title for Jesus. Some years ago, my pastor at the time traveled to the Near East. His seatmate in the plane was an Arab. These 2 men conversed on many subjects and in friendly fashion up to the moment when the pastor made reference to the Son of God.

Our pastor told us that at that point, a wall, albeit invisible, was erected between those two seats. Total silence reigned. The Arab man refused to utter even one word. I encourage you, especially in the beginning, not to use this title for Jesus. There are others to use.

The scent one, I told you they like that. That’s a good one. The one who is coming again. Now that’s a powerful point. And if you use that title, it reinforces the fact that Christ is coming again.

You can use lord. That’s a very strong statement. You can use savior. That’s the practical working of who Jesus is. You can use son of Mary.

This is very, very often used by them. These titles will build an understanding of who Christ is, and that’s what you want to do. After some 6 months or a year, your friend will probably say something like, you Christians, you talk about the son of God. What does this mean? It’s significant that he is now asked for this and that it was not introduced by you.

You have not blasphemed. He asked a question, and you responded to his question. Since he asked you, he will not refuse to listen to what you say and you can explain the meaning. The trinity is hard for people to understand. The sonship is a part of that question.

So when your friend asks you to explain what we mean by son of God, you will have to be very patient. In many languages, the use of sun as an expression is used. In English, we have son of New York, to honor someone. We say son of liberty, to express that he is part of the liberty movement in the past. We say son of the soil to show where a person comes from.

These are all language expressions, and they have nothing to do with sex. The one I think is the best picture in explaining the title, son of god, comes from Africa. They have a title, son of the truck. This is the young man who receives the money from the passengers and puts their baggage on the top of the truck. There’s a flat tire, son of the truck is the one who repairs it.

When the driver goes to town to get something to eat, the son of the truck stays with the truck. So you could say that the son of the truck does the work of the truck, and he stays with the truck. The son of God does the work of God, and he is with God. It does not mean that the truck slept with a woman and they had a son. When we say son of god, we do not mean that god slept with a woman and had a son.

The son of God does the work of God and he is always with God. Son of God is a language expression of a relationship between God and Jesus. You will have to explain this many times to the same friend for him to get it because of years of teaching to the contrary. I hope one day your friend will be able to say, well, if that is what you mean when you say it, then we don’t have a problem with you. No illustration or parable can completely cover or explain a spiritual truth, but it gives us some insight.

I want to quickly give you 7 guidelines for your life and contacts with your friends. Number 1, in every way possible, try to engender prayer help for the outreach to those with whom you have contact without giving name or details. We need god to be at work. We need the holy spirit, not only to accompany our sharing, but to prepare the soil to receive the seed. Therefore, ask fellow believers to pray for your contacts in the neighborhood, at school, at the office.

What I am sharing with you in this course is simple but hard. It requires that we be willing to sacrifice that Muslims can understand the love of God and God’s power. Ask your Christian friends to pray for God’s undertaking for you. Secondly, number 2, sow the seed of the gospel in every way possible and as widely as possible. Be friendly.

Greet those with whom you come in contact in your daily life, not just a 1 or a 2. You want to sow widely in order to find that one person of good soil prepared by god to be receptive. Even when you find a receptive person, keep greeting others so as not to call attention to the one receptive person you have found. Stop and speak. Be friendly in order to see if one might have an even a tentative interest.

Number 3. Be humble and pray for a servant heart. Picture, if you would, in your mind, three places to sit, a bench, a folding chair, and a upholstered armchair, which should be the Christian’s choice. According to Jesus, the bench. Our natural choice is the armchair.

In an overseas country, the diplomatic corps, as well as other expatriates, wanted to build a place of worship for themselves. They applied for a piece of land, but since the country was Islamic, their request was denied. By and by, the president of the USA, at that time, paid a state visit and was approached by the diplomats and asked to make this request of the ruler on their behalf, which he did. His request was accorded. Since many among the diplomats were wealthy, they built a large, perhaps you could say imposing church rather than a modest chapel.

On the opening Sunday, they celebrated with a fine choir and great sermon and made it just a great occasion. Monday morning, the demolition crew arrived with bulldozers and flattened everything. Every stone was pushed down. Had wisdom and humility prevailed, their church might have survived even today, a place where they would still be hearing the Bible preached and worshiping together. They made a big splash and lost it all.

Present yourselves humbly. Number 4, utilize every cultural means at your disposal. Music, art, written script, social events. These will draw some and give you contacts. You need not enter into their worship when you participate.

These are subjects you need to do further study on, music, art, written script, social events. This course was meant to be a start, a simple way to get started. Ask the Lord to show you how Christ would meet the spiritual needs peculiar to this people, this person. Each culture has felt needs, and discovering these will direct you as to how best to present Christ. Individually, each person has his own spiritual needs.

Listen keenly to what he says to discover what a person really desires. For example, if your friend is very much aware of his disobedience or impurities or sins, it’s great news to share that God sent Christ to forgive us and purify us. If he’s desirous of going to heaven and afraid of hell, present God’s savior, presenting Christ as the one who gives eternal life with God. When my wife and I started making friends with Muslims, after a while, she started analyzing what it was that was important to this people. We found that when they said goodbye, they asked for forgiveness.

When they wanted to say thank you, they said, may god forgive you. When you ask what’s the most important thing in heaven or on earth, they would say forgiveness. Jesus shines very brightly when it comes to forgiveness, so I started preparing my teaching built around forgiveness. Because the teaching was on that wavelength that they were on, I believe it communicated better. Number 6.

Be on the lookout always for those in whom the spirit of God is finding a welcome. Those who are open or serious about salvation. Be available to these persons without obviously seeking them out. Ask the lord’s guidance to those with open hearts. In acts, it says that people were saved whose hearts the Lord had opened.

That’s what we’re talking about. Number 7. Know that you need to be patient for a long time. You probably have to spend months before seeing a person profess Christ. Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, Matthew 1618.

God is going to do it. God is doing it. Let us work together with him. Pray for God to bring a a 1000000 Muslims to trust Christ in 1 year. I have been praying this for years.

Will you join me in prayer for God to bring a mus million Muslims to trust Christ in 1 year? The last thing I want to touch on is a contrast of the traditional approach to Muslim outreach and what I am proposing. I hope the contrast will clarify what I’ve been teaching. Traditionally, first off, the first step was to go out and start preaching in the open, draw a crowd, pass out literature. The second step is that the unsaved believes the gospel, decides to follow Christ, confesses Christ openly in public.

The third step is baptism, church attendance, and receiving bible teaching. Unhappily, this brings about a social and cultural separation. It’s a serious defect. Relatives are more troubled by breaches of culture and family and thinking of the spiritual condition of their offspring. The 4th step is usually the removal of the new Christian from danger.

Because of the ruptured culture and cultural and social relationships, the babe in Christ is now under the threat of death, and it becomes necessary to help him escape to another large and distant city. He can no longer support himself financially and must be helped by individual Christians or an organization cared for, far removed from his people, his family. In this distant place, he knows no one. He has no contacts. The testimony that he might have had where he resided is now lost to the kingdom of god.

We have lost the influence he could have been by virtue of his background. This has been the traditional way to minister by some in the past. I admire their perseverance. Let me say now to each person listening to these lessons, I’m going to give you the contrast in hopes that you’ll understand what I’m trying to teach better. 1st step, make friends.

Testify to the love of God by your friendship. Testify to the power of God revealed in you as you share answers to prayer. Utilize the bridges we have in which we can be in accord. Keep the contacts personal and private. 2nd step, friendship.

Always friendship. Cultivate any seed you’ve sown with anyone who may show some interest. Keep it 1 on 1. When speaking with Muslims, start with God. Talk about the God who created the world.

God who has done all things well. Talk about the Old Testament first before the New Testament. Mention that it was God who sent Christ to pay the price of our sins. Base all your beginning witnessing or sowing on God. The Bible tells us in second Corinthians 518 and 19 that God reconciled us to himself through Christ.

Namely, god was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. This will seem right and good to Muslims because it starts with God. If you begin your spiritual conversation with God, your friend will lean toward receptivity. God is the normal starting place. Keep your conversation about god short at this step.

This step could take many months. Share about answered prayer in your life. When he asks for prayer, be ready to say yes and promise to pray. When god answers, explain why god hears prayer in the name of the lord Jesus Christ. If god gives dreams, be ready.

3rd step, friendship. Always friendship. Let’s say your friend has reached the point of aligning himself with the gospel, believing in his heart and personally. It is quite possible that you yourself know nothing of this. It is still totally internal, but he is believing.

It is a personal response within his own spirit. You do not know when this has happened. Keep teaching him. Give him or her the teaching that will sustain them during this time. 4th step, always continue the friendship.

Keep being available to this babe in Christ. The Holy Spirit will teach him or her, will lead him to confess his faith when God nudges him to do it. He knows the people around him, their language, who he can trust, and who will betray him. This new Christian will respond personally to the burden laid on him by the Holy Spirit. Your job is fellowship and teaching the truth of God’s word.

5th step, friendship. Yes. Each step begins with friendship. You lead your friend in studying the bible, worshiping the Lord together in prayer. You are drawing him gently to become a disciple, showing how to follow Christ, how to study the bible.

Always keep it 1 on 1 and private, your house or neutral, and do not draw the attention of others. Keep schooling yourself to help him study. Pray with him and for him, but it is the Holy Spirit who guides him and will show him when, where, and to whom he will witness. 6th step. The last step, and, again, we continue the friendship.

This is a strong important thing, that friendship. The love of god manifests itself in this friendship. Study the Bible, worship, be a disciple, now begin teaching the concept of the church local and universal. He needs to understand that he belongs to the church universal even if he is worshiping at your house with you. In addition to being a member of the church universal, he should understand that you and he make up a cell group of the local church.

It is neither needful nor desirable that he enter the building used to house the church or whole services. He is still a part of it. Perhaps your pastor would like to attend a Bible study with the 2 of you Only if your friend is agreed. Remember, you are still keeping this non public one on one. If there are other Muslims who have become Christians, perhaps they will want to have a study time, maybe include worship and prayer.

Also, big time caution. You do not do this on your own. You seek each individual’s agreement privately and seek the Lord for his timing on this. It is only normal for Muslims to distrust each other. New Christians will have a difficult time coming this because of their fear of one another.

Don’t rush it together time. Be patient. Bring up the subject once again in 2 or 3 months if they don’t agree at first. When you get agreement, keep the gathering small. 2 plus you would be great, or 3 or 4.

This is happening both here in this country and overseas. Be encouraged and seek the lord’s help in beginning an outreach such as this in your area. More and more, I get news of Muslims who are coming to Christ, which excites me wonderfully. I just heard of 1 group of over 35 here in the USA and even larger groups abroad. I was just blessed reading about a friend who did this kind of outreach and how God opened the way and led to open hearts.

May the Lord bless you richly. Take courage in your contacts with those outside of Christ. God is at work. Work together with him. Amen.

Cash Godbold: Demonstrating the Power of God in and through You

Cash Godbold shares practical tips on how to share the Bible with Muslims. This is part 2 in a 3 part series.

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Demonstrating the Power of God in and through You:

Hello. I want to continue to share principles that have helped me and that I hope will help you in your contacts with your Muslim friends and neighbors. Last lesson, we said that the way to manifest the love of God is to be friends with your Muslim neighbors. Say hello, converse with them about life, drink tea, and sprinkle in your conversation notable characters from the Bible and biblical teaching, but no preaching or long Bible studies at first. Hospitality is very important in all your contacts with them.

Remember to bathe this entire adventure in prayer for the lord to work in you and in them. If you have fear or hate, we must bring it to Jesus. The Roman soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross, then dropped the cross in a hole. As Jesus was hanging there in pain, he prayed, father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing. Which of the Roman soldiers asked to be forgiven?

Not one. Nobody, but just the same Jesus forgave them. When the g when the Jews were stoning Stephen and the stones were striking, were hitting him, Stephen prayed for God to hold not to hold this act to their account. Which one of the Jews asked to be forgiven? Not one.

Nobody. But just the same, he forgave them. When we pray the Lord’s prayer in church, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, that’s serious business. Usually, we pray, Lord, please forgive me and let me into heaven. And the lord looks down and says, alright.

I will forgive you, but you are to forgive that person next to you in a veil and robe. We need to deal with wrong attitudes in our hearts. Give what’s wrong that wrong attitude to Jesus and keep praying every day that the lord would fill your heart with love for those who are not following Jesus. So, we can manifest God’s love to them in friendship. This is our first principle.

Friendship is the way our neighbor understands the love of God. We must say hello to start a friendship, then it takes patience, hospitality, and wisdom. Be a friend. Men with men, women with women, never cross the gender line. From time to time, sprinkle your conversation with references to Old Testament characters.

Do not seek an argument. Do not blow the cover of your friend. Seek friendship to share the love of God and the message of forgiveness. Remember, these lessons are for you to study as a Christian and put into practice. They are not.

Again, I say these lessons are not to be given to your Muslim friends. The second principle, which I would like to bring out regarding Muslim outreach is that of the reality of the power of God. We proclaim a mighty God. And if we want our Muslim friends to consider our message seriously, God’s power must be visible and clearly so in our lives. First off, that the power of God which we proclaim be manifested, our lives should be characterized by praise and adoration.

If in my life there is little time consecrated to prayer you understand many Muslims believe that Christians do not pray. If in my life there is little time consecrated to prayer, the reading of the scripture, and to praise the God whom I claim is true, I will be viewed as a hypocrite. Many among Muslims are very religious. It is therefore important to them to see that I truly believe in the powerful God whom I proclaim and that I worship him. Let me give you just a little hint.

If when visiting with your Muslim friend, all you talk about is how bad your pastor is or how bad your church is or how bad the people at the church are, he’s gonna think your God isn’t very good. You should be rejoicing and thankful and say so. Amazingly, that’s what the New Testament tells us to do, and that’s what David tells us to do in the Psalms. The second thing is the power of God that we proclaim should manifest itself in our lives by the victory it gives us over sin. Our western world sends missionaries at the same time movies which evidence the most degraded of Moors.

In addition to this, it is from the West that the most vulgar pornography comes. The pornography and its origin both well known in the Muslim world. If I, as a Christian, watch films or TV or videos, which contain adultery, or my friend comes to visit and sees a magazine on my table with a nude woman, the Muslim truly searching for God does not recognize God’s power in me. 3, the power of God that we proclaim should be manifested in answered prayer on the level of our own lives. Gradually, as our Muslim friends see us petition God for needs and he sees that God answers these prayers, an interest in what you have to share by way of witness and proclamation will be born.

God does answer our prayers for financial needs, for health, and interpersonal relationships, so permit your neighbors to share in this. Matthew 413 to 16 says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. We are so taught about if you’re gonna pray, go in your closet. If you’re gonna give alms, don’t blow a trumpet. If you’re gonna fast, put on good clothes.

We don’t realize that this verse says a different approach to that same thing. All those things that I just quoted to you about getting into your closet is so you won’t be seen of men. If you are praying or giving alms or, fasting to be seen of people, then Jesus says, that’s wrong. If you are doing these things before men so that they can glorify your father in heaven, then that’s what Jesus says we should do. That, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.

Number 4. The power of God that we proclaim should be manifested in answered prayer with regard to our Muslim friends. If they can witness a response to prayer made in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, be it for needs financial or family or health, then a certain foundation will have been established on which you can base the sharing of the gospel. They know God has heard and answered regarding their personal problem because you said that God had healed your child when you and your wife prayed. Now this friend of yours has a sick son, so, of course, he’s gonna come to you and ask you to pray for his sick son.

And when that son is well, he knows that because that’s his son. That’s in his house. So he sees the answer to the prayer. In Hebrews chapter 2 verse 34, it says that God will confirm the message with miracles so that people can know that he is in it. God is going to allow your friend to have a need that he wants god to provide for him, and he’s gonna ask you if you would pray.

And when you pray and God answers, then he knows God has heard his personal need and God has answered his personal situation. That gives strong confirmation. That is a miraculous confirming of all the things that you’ve been saying all along. When my wife and I first went to, be friends with Muslim people, 2 men came to visit us, and they knew we were Christians. And we talked a while, and then they said, would you they will ask me if I would pray that they would get a ride to a town about 250 miles away.

They had been looking for a ride for about a week and found nothing. They were asking me to pray, and I was thinking, alright. Tonight, when I eat supper, I’ll pray about this. We were standing outside talking, but my wife who was inside the house heard us. And through the window, she says, why don’t you pray now?

Now I thought that was a wonderful idea, and that didn’t devalue me as a male to take her suggestion. In fact, I thought it was so good. I said, let’s pray. So we prayed that they would get a ride to this town that, they wanted to go to, and we prayed in the name of Jesus Christ, the lord. After some conversation, they left and went, to the center of town.

In the center of town, they saw a friend. That friend said, what are you doing here in town? They said, we’ve been looking for a ride to such and such of town for a week, and we haven’t found one. He said, am I not going there right now? Get your bags and put it in the vehicle.

We are ready to leave. After they came back, one of the men came to my house, and he said to me, I don’t believe in your god, but he sure does answer your prayers quickly. He had taken the first step toward the Lord in knowing that he was alive and that he answered prayer. That was a point of importance in his life. Pray also for the sick when you’re asked.

When someone asks for prayer, that opens the door for God to manifest his power. Say yes when you’re asked to pray. Tell him we close our eyes and pray in the name of Jesus. Find a quiet place, and if he’s willing, most of the time he won’t be because he’s so afraid of other people seeing him with a Christian that he doesn’t want to be with you especially praying. But if he’s willing in a quiet place where nobody can see you, tell him that we close our eyes so that we can think about the Lord as we pray and that we pray in the name of Jesus.

When you start to pray, praise God for how great he is. Pray for your friend’s request. 3rd, thank God that he has heard this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, the lord. That’s all you need to do. Don’t pray on and on and on about the tsunami in the Pacific, about aids in, South Africa, about the earthquake in South America, that’s not what you’re doing.

And he’s very concerned about you praying on and on and on, so make it short and sweet, to the point, and pray for what he’s asked for. When the occasion presents itself, teach from God’s word on the subject of healing, of faith, of obstacles to healing. I’m not asking you to be a healer. I’m asking you to be willing to pray that God would work to bring health to this person who’s sick. A Muslim neighbor may tell you about a family problem.

Pray for it. Note this occasion as a time to share biblical teaching on the resolution of such problems. Also, on the subject of forgiveness, faith, patience, hard attitude, not all of those things at one time, but at least something of teaching at that moment that he asked you to pray for a problem or that you prayed for it. Pray when requested for material needs, for work, money, housing. Conversation should ensue about biblical teaching addressing itself to the person trusting in something other than god or someone other than god.

Give attention also to the will of god and the working of the Lord in our lives, his purpose in our time of need. Talk about his love and how important it is to thank and worship him. Once a young man came to me and asked if I would help him with his taxes, which were CHF3,000. I told him I would pray that the Lord would provide that for him. Mind you, he wasn’t asking for prayer.

He was asking for CHF3,000. But after a while, I think he realized that praying was all I was going to do, and so he said pray. So we prayed for the CHF3,000 that the Lord would provide it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. After some conversation, he left and went on his way. I didn’t see him for a number of weeks.

When I’ve caught up with him, I asked him, I said, what happened about the CHF3,000 that we prayed for? He said, I didn’t tell you? I said, no. You didn’t tell me anything. He said, as soon as I got out your front gate, I met a man in the street who owed me a 1,500 francs for 2 years.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out the money and gave it to me. That in itself is a miracle. How did that man get to be right in front of my gate at that moment that this friend of mine was leaving. But, anyway, how did he have a 1,500 francs in his pocket? An utter miracle.

But my friend went on home to wait for his wife who was visiting her parents. When she got there, he told her about the taxes that they needed to pay and that he had half of it, a 1,500 francs of the 3,000 they had to pay. And she said to him, when I left home today, my father gave me a gift of 1,500 francs. Friends, that is a miracle of immense proportion. 1,500 plus 1,500 comes to 3,000 francs.

Exactly. And it comes from 2 different sources through 2 different people all in the same afternoon after I had prayed. That confirms the message of what you’ve been sharing and teaching during all of the months up to that point. When you pray, do it clearly in the name of the lord Jesus or the lord Jesus Christ or Christ the lord. This puts value in the fact that you do not approach God except by Jesus Christ and that Christ is Lord.

At the time the prayer is answered, the person in question has a marked reason to believe in Jesus and to embrace Him as his own Lord. When God answers the prayer that you prayed for your friend, make a point of getting together with him and telling your friend why God responded to his need when we prayed in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord. That’s very important. It astounds me how often God answers prayer, and we don’t explain to people at all about it. And they don’t understand and they don’t know, so be willing to, explain that to them.

It is good, if you can, to tell your friend that you will spend the night praying for his need and that you will fast and pray for him. When he asks you to pray and you tell him you will, tell him you will pray all night or that you won’t eat supper so you can fast and pray for his need. You may ask others to pray with you, but do not say to pray for a Muslim. Just say, pray for a friend who needs a job, for instance, or whatever it is. People talk too much, and the word gets out, and then they will start looking for whoever that is who ask a Christian to pray.

Just say, pray for my friend. To say you fasted during a certain time in order to pray about his problems speaks powerfully and underlines your commitment to him. Sharing his grief in this way reveals that you care and are not just trying to pass off his problem with a little something religious. You demonstrate your love for him and god’s love for him. In addition, you exemplify, exemplify a man of god who seeks after God.

To propose prayer of this nature will open up avenues of ministry in the hearts of your Muslim friends. Do not neglect to prepare your own heart in proposing this fast or this night of prayer. If you promise to fast, you be sure and fast. If you promise to pray all night, you pray all night. Even if you fall asleep, get up and start praying again.

You keep your word to him before the Lord. In most cases, it seems wise to respond to request for things addressed to you as those described above by committing to pray for their problem. However, you will probably be asked to take someone to the hospital or to school or to something like that, and, certainly, you will want to manifest the love of God by helping out in this need. Just as, certainly, you will share the reason you render this aid. Give the cup of cold water in the name of Jesus.

Christians do so much to help people, but they refuse to do what Jesus said and tell the people that it’s because of Jesus. I do not know why we are ashamed to say anything about Jesus or to say he’s the one who changed us? Let me just tell you this. If you do something for them and you don’t tell them why, you know what they think? They think you did it because you’re a rich American, or they think you did it because you’re a good Jew, And Jesus doesn’t get the glory.

Jesus changed me, and the reason I’m willing to help people is because he changed me. Now in the situation of where there’s a marriage or a birth and you’re invited to go, of course, you’d take a gift that’s normal and culture, dictates that you just present that to the person. Some importance should be given to knowing some general Muslim thoughts on this subject. This helps us in our understanding of the reason for which we address ourselves in this manner to our friend’s problems. Peter and John, entering the temple, did not give alms to the sick beggar as he requested.

Jesus says, give to him that asketh of thee. Peter and John didn’t do that. Do you know the other passage right there in the same place, which says, do not give that which is holy to those who are just going to desecrate it. There’s a time to give and there’s a time not to give, and Peter and John did not give to the beggar. Instead, they responded rather to his real need.

In this way, they had occasion to witness deliverance of a man infirm since birth, and they also rendered a powerful testimony. Muslims think that often Christians buy their converts with medicine or gifts and it’s thought that we Christians render Muslims dependent on us at a financial level so that they will convert and to cause them to remain converts. So it is better that you pray when they ask you for something so that they can see the power of God and the answer in the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord. They also believe that the charms which they can buy or talismans, are to specifically render us favorably, predisposed to whatever it is they ask us for. Additionally, according to their belief, this charm gives the bearer the benediction of his god permitting him to fool us or deceive us.

For instance, if he wants some cigarettes and he comes and asks you for $5 so he can buy some medicine for his child or milk for his child, and you give him the $5 and he goes and buys cigarettes, he feels he’s beat you. He feels his God is bigger. He feels he’s 1. Whereas if you say to him as Peter and John did, that you are willing to pray that God would provide the $5 for him to buy the milk or the medicine, and God answers that prayer when his baby does need the milk or the medicine, then he knows your god is powerful and alive. But he also knows that if god doesn’t provide it, then he he, God, knew that all he wanted to do with it was to buy cigarettes with it.

So by saying, I’ll pray that God will provide it for you, it separates the true from the false. And that’s very important in this situation. Expect to see the power of God confirm the gospel message. 4, which says, God will confirm the message by supernatural manifestations. Also, God will do it by dreams.

In the Muslim world, more and more often, there are dreams indicating that Jesus is Lord. And these days in which we live, God is working in a renewed way to reach the people of the entire world. During Ramadan, when they fast, they are looking to Allah to give them a dream at the end of the fast so that they will know what is going to happen in the coming year. It’s a way to find out their fortune for the next year. So they are praying that they will have a dream.

Christians began to try to understand this and they thought, you know, if God the father were to send dreams to these people of Jesus Christ, it would be a powerful testimony. So millions and millions of people during Ramadan pray that God would give dreams to Muslims of Jesus Christ. Guess what? God answers those prayers. If a person comes to you and ask you to explain a dream he had, Don’t go running away from him.

Don’t say I don’t know anything about dreams. Listen. Your Bible has plenty about dreams. Let me give you an easy, simple way for you to respond to him. When he says he’s had a dream, ask him to explain the dream to you, tell you what the dream was.

And when he does, then try to explain it from what you know in the bible. Basically, there are 2 types of dreams, and let me explain them to you so that you’ll know what to say and how to say it. There are the dreams in which Jesus in the dream tells the man who is sleeping that he is to get a gospel or a bible or he is to go to certain place and the gospel will be explained to him. Now it is important that you understand God does not explain the gospel in the dream. Nowhere.

He didn’t tell Cornelius what the gospel was. He told Cornelius to send for Peter and that Peter would tell him, And that’s exactly what Jesus what God does today in giving dreams of Jesus. And so when he comes and says, Jesus told me to get a Bible or Jesus told me to get the gospel, do your utmost to get a New Testament or a Bible for your friend and get it as quickly as you can so that he can begin reading it while the dream is fresh in his mind. The second thing that happens in the dream is that Jesus quotes a scripture. For instance, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Now when you hear that, I hope you think of a verse in the Bible that says that, and you can turn in your Bible to John chapter 14 verse 6 and show him that. And when he sees in the word of God, what he’s heard in a dream, he knows that God has spoken to him. And that’s tremendously important. It’s good for you to have some new testaments around, in your vehicle or in your house or in your pocket so that you can share it if the opportunity affords itself with your Muslim friends. It’s important to be prepared for god to do something that is spectacular.

In my class, one day, a young man gave testimony that when he was working in a particular area, he had a friend who was a Muslim. And one night his Muslim friend had a dream in which he saw Jesus, and Jesus told him to stop doing what he was doing and find out what the gospel was. In the morning when he awoke, he thought, you know, I really believe that was Jesus in my dream, but I don’t know what the gospel is. So he went over to his Christian friend. Where else would he go?

He wouldn’t ask a Buddhist about his dream about Jesus. They’re going to come to us who are Christians to ask us about what Christ said in the dream, and my Christian friend gave him a bible or a New Testament, and he read it and read it and read it. When you could lose your life over professing Christ, you wanna make sure you understand what you’re believing. And after reading it for a long time, he confessed that he wanted to follow Jesus Christ. Hallelujah.

That’s wonderful, and that’s what can happen right here in the USA. And we just need to, believe God to do that for us. Also, be willing to, pray for god to restore health to someone in a powerful fashion. A healing indicates that the all powerful God expects, excuse me, that the all powerful God accepts and responds to the prayers made in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that God desires that my Muslim friends, having always been taught that Jesus was not what he claimed to be, God desires these to know that he has sent the Christ to save the world, and there’s no salvation in any other.

Now I wanna talk to you about something that’s a little bit difficult, but, I want you to hear me at least because it is a fact. And though we don’t like the fact, yet we still have to deal with the fact. In some countries, some groups of Muslims deal with spirits to get advantages over other people or to get vengeance, with other people to provide their personal needs. This gives place or opportunity to the spirits. And when the spirits answer this call to come, they take up residence in the life of the person, and they give the person a great deal of pain and, problems.

When this is explained, the Muslim will often admit the truth in it and sometimes ask if Jesus can deliver them from the evil spirit. More powerful than demons, Christ desires to deliver those who ask him. God give gives even today deliverance by the strong name of Jesus in the framework of friendship, and outreach among Muslims. Now when you are asked to do something about helping them, you need to find someone who has dealt with this problem before and who will understand how to help you and your friend. And it’s good to have the whole church pray for you if your pastor thinks that’s a good thing.

When the occasion presents itself, do not neglect to explain clearly that this manifestation, whether it’s a dream or answered prayer or, restored health or whatever, is a manifestation of the power of God, and it is directly linked to the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what Peter and John did at the time God healed the crippled in Acts 3 12 to 26. When the love of God demonstrated in living fashion through friendship that you have with him is joined to the power of God in your life and through answered prayer and is manifested in a personal way, a powerful testimony exists. The Holy Spirit has already been using this type of witness in bringing Muslims to Christ around the world. Let us purpose, therefore, more and more to live this kind of powerful testimony while reaching out to our Muslim friends.

You would be surprised that the 100 of people who are coming to Christ from Islam. And I just encourage you to believe God, to be friends with them, and to live the power of God in your life. Biblical Bridges. The third principle constituting an advantageous avenue for sharing among Muslims is a biblical bridge. A biblical bridge is a person, an event, or a truth from the Bible that finds agreement both in the Christian and Muslim.

Three things are served by this bridge you and your friends share. Firstly, you have a point in common which he accepts and from which you too can continue in accord. This sympathetic exchange in the context of friendship is very important on the spiritual and functional level. Secondly, you’re breaking into a second stage where you both are accepting things that are true, things from God, and that possess a spiritual application. Thirdly, your friend will begin to think of you as a man or woman who has an understanding of the truth, as a man or woman of God.

I want to give you a number of examples from the Bible that you probably can use, that you would find agreement on. And here is a list of examples which we’ve used and certain spiritual truths drawn from them. Probably among these, you’ll find places of harmony affording bridges for you and your friend. Number 1, Adam and Eve. You should remember that Eve is called Hawa by them, and they were created by God.

You’ll find pretty unanimous agreement on that, and the destruction of their spiritual life, and the world in which God created for them by sin. Now the word sin does not carry the same weight with them that it does with us. With them, sin is like a personality imperfection or a faux pas or something. Whereas, you could use the word disobedience because that’s what Adam and Eve did. They disobeyed god.

The prophet Adam sinned, disobeyed, and God cared for them, searched for them, promised them a means of salvation. The second one is Noah, and he might be called Noe by them. The flood, the wickedness of man, the patience of God. God required that man repent. Repentance is a function that they accept.

The divine truth that God ordained that we follow him by faith, even if we’re alone in following him. The justice of God in bringing judgment on the wicked earth, and the prophet offered a sacrifice. You can follow sacrifices all the way through to the sacrifice that God sent for us. And the prophet also disobeyed God and sinned. The numb number 3, Abraham, Ibrahim.

God looks for faith even in a situation which seems impossible. The prophet, Ibrahim, Abraham, sins, disobeys God, the sacrifice offered for the remission of disobedience. But let me caution you when talking about Abraham, Ibrahim, that you do not give the name of the son who was offered as a sacrifice. They disagree with us. We say it was Isaac.

They say it was Ishmael. Just say God asked Abraham to offer his son. That gets away from trying to argue about who it was who, was being offered. Number 4, Moses, Musa. The Ten Commandments, don’t do all 10 of them at one time, but you can, from time to time, say that this is one of the 10 commandments of the prophet, Moses or Musa, the powerful works of God on behalf of Musa.

God guides the children of Abraham. Remember, they are the children of Abraham and provides their needs. The prophet Moses sinned, disobeyed God. He killed a man. And all the texts from the books of Moses, which are called the Torah, are very well known.

The books are well known. And if you quote text from these books, they will feel good about you saying, God spoke through Moses in the Torah. Now to them, all the books are in the Old Testament, except the poetic books, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. All of those are the poetic books, and they are called zabur zaburah. So, realize that everything else in the Old Testament is the Torah.

And then the New Testament is the. So if you say that Moses said something in the Torah or David said something in the Zobora or Jesus said something in the, that makes sense to them. They understand the use of those words. The 5th, one I’d like to propose is David. Now the prophet David, his name would be called Douda in some of their languages.

His sin of adultery is pretty well known. His disobedience of the 10 commandments, and he was confronted on the subject of his disobedience, and he confessed his sin. Psalm 51 is a good, portion in the Zabura to show them that the prophet himself confessed his sins, his repentance, and all text coming from the Psalms, the Zabura, are very, very good, and you can find some things that are very applicable to life there in Psalms, the zabora. Now we can go to number 6, which is Solomon, Solomon. He was blessed by God.

He received a great deal of wisdom, and all the text from Proverbs. If you would memorize from Proverbs text which are practical, maybe 3 or 4, so that you can toss them in from time to time in your conversation, It will help you. But the prophet, Solomon, sinned, he disobeyed God. His marriage to many women led him to idolatry, and idolatry, the worship of idols, is one of the most grievous of sins to Muslims. Number 7 is Christ.

He was sent by God, and that’s a title that they know and that they use for Christ, the sent one. And it’s a very beautiful, title, and it, says a lot. His birth announced by angels. His birth was miraculous. By the power of god, he healed people.

By the power of God, he called men to repentance. He taught the justice of God and the love of God. By God’s power, he called men to receive forgiveness. He taught on the existence of heaven and hell. If you tell the story of Lazarus and the rich man, they will be in agreement with you.

That’s something they believe in. God endowed Christ with power stronger than wind or stronger than water. He taught the necessity of a sacrifice for sin by God and God is sending him back. He’s coming again and that’s another title that they like and understand, the coming one. Christ is, his name in their language would be Alamasia or Issa is the name for Jesus.

But if you’re talking to somebody here in this country, they are going to know who Jesus Christ is, so you don’t have to worry about trying to use some other name. But if they use that name, I want you to be able to recognize it. Gradually, as you progress, meaning have gone through all the ones in the Old Testament and through the things that I’m telling you in the New Testament, then you can branch out and teach more of the following truths. Christ, by the power of God, forgave sins and accompanied his words with incontestable proof. You remember when they brought the man lying, who wasn’t able to walk, and Jesus said, take up thy bed and walk, and the Pharisees said, no.

No. No. Only God can do that. And he said, you then heal him.’ And they said, no, we can’t heal him.’ And he said, I’m going to show you I can heal him and I can forgive his sins.’ And Christ told him to begin with that he forgave his sins and they said, no. Then Christ said, take up your bed and walk.

Christ gave himself as a sacrifice according to the will of God, and you are not allowed to say that he died on the cross. But I think you would be allowed to say he gave himself a sacrifice by the will of God. God answers prayers God answers prayers made in the name of Christ. Christ is coming back in order to take with him to paradise with God those who follow him because they are forgiven. Christ lived by the power of God without sin, And all of the text, the parables, and the teachings of truth from the gospels, the, you can use from time to time if you will be careful with them.

Number 8 is biblical truths. All truths demonstrating that our holy book, the Torah, possess truth that this is a good book which blesses those who follow its teachings. This is very important in your friendship. For example, draw from the Bible for them some teaching on the subject of the family. They just need so badly to have some help about how a family is supposed to operate of practical finances and teach them that biblical prophecies are sure.

They they just have no teaching on the end times how this world is going to come to an end, and they may ask you. And it’s good to be able to point them to the word of God, show them the verse in the Bible, let them read it if they will, so that they can see that the Bible tells us what’s going to happen in the end, or give them a New Testament and let them read Revelation. It’s very, very good for them to see how practical our God is in giving us the Bible, which deals with life full orb. I wanna say a few words about how you treat your Bible. The Bible is a holy book to them, and it’s a holy book to us too, but, they have a lot more respect for the book than we do.

When you’re sitting in a chair, don’t place your Bible on the floor, and, don’t let your children sit on it. Don’t write in it. Don’t underline it. Have a Bible that is totally Bible and nothing else to use with your friends. They feel that if you put the Bible on the floor, then it may be that you have stepped in some dog poo or something, and you have put your Bible down on top of where you’ve stepped, and that would be horrible.

In fact, I don’t think that would be very good either. So we need to be careful. Your Bible should be on top of all the other books in your room if they come to visit you. It should be the highest book in your room. And for them, when they go to the toilet, they use their left hand for all of their procedure.

So they would carry their Bible in their right hand or the holy books in their right hand, and it would be good for you to learn to carry your Bible in your right hand because they just feel bad seeing a Bible in your left hand. God is at work in our generation, and we need to be aware of that and work together with him to that end. When, a film team came to show the Jesus film in a village, the priest of that village would not let the men are. He he told them they had to leave, that they couldn’t stay. They couldn’t give out their literature.

They couldn’t show the film. Nothing. They had to leave, and so they left. That night, he had a horrible night. Later on, he was go would say that was the worst night of his life.

The next morning, he got up and climbed up in the tower to give the call to prayer for the village. And as he looked out over the rising sun, where the sun was going to come up, he could see written in his own language, Jesus, son of Mary. This is one of their favorite, terms for Jesus, and it was written in his own language so he could read it in the sky. It shook him up so bad that he raced downstairs, forgot to give his call to prayer, and began searching for the film team. They weren’t in his village.

They had left and gone to another village. He went to the next village to find them and beg them to return and that they could stay at his house. He would feed them. They could give out their literature. They could show the film.

Anything just come back to his village. God is at work today in our generation, and we need to work together with him. I want to tell you one last story, and I want you to think about what I’ve been telling you today and look at the principles that I told you about. There was a Christian who was a friend with a Muslim man. The Muslim man came over to visit him very often and they drank tea together, and they talked about the Christian man’s life and his walk with God.

And after a long period of time of being friends, the Muslim man’s wife got mad at him, packed up her stuff, put it on her head and went home to mama. The Muslim man went to the priest and asked if he would pray that she would come back, And the priest said, yes, that he would be willing to pray, but that would require some money. So the Muslim gave him some money. After a week, she had not returned. And the priest said, if you want me to pray another week, it’s going to require some tea and sugar.

So the Muslim gave him some tea and sugar. The 2nd week, she didn’t come back. And the priest said, if you want me to pray another week, it’s going to require some grain to feed my family. So the Muslim brought him some grain. At the end of the 3rd week, she had not returned.

And the priest said, if you want me to continue to pray another week, then you’ll need to bring me some cloth or clothing for my family. After 2 months of this, the most Muslim said, finished. And he went to his Christian friend and he said, I know you pray. Will you pray that my wife will return? And the Christian said yes.

The next day, he spent the whole day in prayer that she would return. That night, the Muslim came to visit his Christian friend as he had done many nights before, and the Christian told him, ‘Tomorrow, you may go and get your wife.’ The next morning, bright and early, he was up and ready to go. He started down the road to get his wife, only to find her in the road coming home with her things. Hallelujah. God answered prayer.

The Muslim was so pleased that he went out and got tea and sugar and brought it to the Christian as a thank you gift. But the Christian said, I don’t want your things. I want to be a blessing to you. That’s the reason why I prayed. And the Muslim man misunderstood what the Christian was saying and thought that he hadn’t brought a significant gift, so he went out and got CHF5,000 and some cloth and brought it to the Christian, and the Christian said, no.

No. No. No. No. You don’t understand.

I am bringing you this. I I prayed for you so that you would become a Christian. You don’t need to bring me this to pay me. I wanted to do it for you so you will become a Christian. The Muslim said, okay.

And after a while, he went home. 2 weeks later, he and his wife came back to the Christian and said to them, we are ready to follow Jesus Christ. There you see the whole process that I’ve been talking to you about and you see an example of it working. Now it will take different forms, but I just encourage you to be patient and to use what you’re learning to be friends with Muslims who are around you. May the Lord bless you and enlarge his kingdom for Jesus glory.

Amen.

Cash Godbold: Biblical Principles for Relating to Muslims

Cash Godbold offers practical Biblical principles for developing relationships with Muslims. This is the first lecture in a three-part series.

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Biblical Principles for Relating to Muslims:

Hello. I want to share with you some biblical principles I have learned that I hope will help you in your contact with your Muslim neighbors and acquaintances. I want us to look at 3 principles that can help us, and then let’s look at some problems to avoid. The this is a simplified approach. There are books that have a great deal to say on this subject, but they are very long to read.

The amount of material is massive, but I want to make it simple and practical. I hope when you finish this that you will read more on a given subject and that as you interact with your Muslim friend, you will go and read up on the subjects he brings up. It is very important that you bathe the whole adventure with Muslims around you in prayer. You need the Holy Spirit to lead you and to give wisdom and boldness with humility. I think it is foundational that we accept that our lord Jesus requires us to reach out to people around us so as to share with them the good news.

These CDs are for you, the Christian, to study and put into practice. They are not, again, I say not, for you to give to your Muslim friends. Know that God has commissioned us to be a witness to his salvation. We’re not talking about what a nation’s government should do to protect its people, but we’re talking about what our lord has told us, his followers, to do in sharing the gospel with neighbors. The first principle I want us to take up is know that we are to love our neighbors according according to Christ’s instruction.

In Luke chapter 10 verse 25, a lawyer asked a question to trap Jesus. People do this to you from time to time to trap you, to show you up. Don’t be afraid. It’s alright to say you don’t know. If you don’t know, Jesus turned to the Bible and asked a question.

What do you read in the law? The lawyer had asked a good question, but he had asked it for the wrong reasons. What do you have to do to have eternal life? It’s a good thing when people ask you a question to ask them a question. The lawyer answered, you should love the lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.

I want to call attention to this one word, mind. As we study together these principles, I hope you will engage your mind to the fullest and think and use your mind to understand what’s being said. And then the lawyer added, and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said, you’ve answered correctly. Now go and do what you said.

The lawyer wanted to justify himself, so he asked, who is my neighbor? He saw that the trap he had laid for Jesus had fallen on him, and he was trying to get out of it. So he said, who is my neighbor? The answer to this specific question, who is my neighbor, is this parable of the Good Samaritan. Leaders in the church have used this parable to teach lots and lots of things, But the reason that this parable was given to begin with is to answer that question, who is my neighbor?

Who would you say is your neighbor? Jesus gives us this parable to explain that. A certain man left Jerusalem and went on a trip. Now, evidently, he was from Jerusalem, so probably he was a Jew from Jerusalem. And as he traveled and got out in the, country, he fell among robbers.

They beat him severely, stripping him of everything, clothes, baggage, everything, and left him half dead. What does half dead mean? It means he’s not going to make it. He hasn’t got enough strength to go to the next village. He can’t crawl.

He can’t get there. Unless somebody comes and helps him, he’s gonna die right there. And then Jesus chooses these people to teach something terrible. A priest, a man who, knew God’s word and who was of the same nationality as the Jew from Jerusalem came by. And he did not even come close to the man lying by the side of the road.

He passed by on the other side, it said. And then a Levite, He knew the Old Testament very well and served God in the temple. He was the same nationality as the Jew. But when he came, he passed by on the other side. He didn’t even come and take a good look at the poor man.

It was as if he didn’t want to get his priestly robes dirty. This man lying there was lying in his blood and with dirt mixed in with his bruises and with the places he had been beaten. And then Jesus says, but a certain Samaritan. The but tells us we’ve got a contrast coming up. This man was of a different nationality, a different religion, a different dress.

Probably, the Jews wore robes, and this man wore Levi’s. And in another place in the Bible, it says the Jews and the Samaritans have nothing to do with each other. They don’t even eat the same. Their what? Their wives don’t even do their hair the same.

They were just different from each other, a certain Samaritan. This Samaritan stopped his journey. In other words, he took time to see what was happening. And when he saw this man and his condition half dead, he felt compassion. He came to him.

He did not pass by on the other side, but he came up close to him. And he took oil and wine from his own baggage, and he poured the wine on the, broken places, the bruises, the wounds to sterilize them and wash off some of the dirt. And then he poured oil on to bring a healing. Do you ever think about where are the robbers during all this time? That Samaritan had put himself in danger to do something for a Jew who would have nothing to do with him.

Then it says he bandaged up his wounds. Where did he get bandages from? Did he have a first aid kit on the donkey he was riding on? I don’t think so. He probably had to take some of his own clothing and tear it up into strips to be able to bandage up this poor man.

Then he put picked him up dirty as he was and got himself dirty. And now the Samaritan is walking, and the Jew who had nothing to do with Samaritans is riding. What humility on the part of the Samaritan. He took him to the inn and took care of him. He washed him and fed him and gave him something to drink and paid for him and offered to pay more if need be.

Jesus then turns to the lawyer and says, alright. You ask a question. Who is my neighbor? Now which of the 3 do you think was neighbor to the man from Jerusalem who fell among the robbers? You know, the lawyer would not even say the word Samaritan.

It would have rendered his mouth impure. So he said, the one who had mercy. His prejudice was so strong that he would not even pronounce the word Samaritan. Jesus says to the lawyer and to us to us, go and do the same thing for someone not of your nationality, not of your religion, who does not look like you, who doesn’t eat the same food you do. It will cost you time.

It will cost you humility, your goods. It will mean you will have to take risk. This is the way you love your neighbor. Perfect love cast out fear. 1st John tells us, a pastor told me that he hated Muslims, but that he was going to give his hatred to Jesus so that he could be their friend and share the gospel with them.

A lady told me that she never spoke to them. She had nothing to do with them. But now, after this course, she’s going to be friends with them to be able to share the gospel. If we have fear, If we have fear or hate for our neighbor, We must deal with it now. Give it to Jesus just the way that pastor did.

And I encourage you right now as you listen to these lessons that you would just say to Jesus, I’m giving the problems in my heart to you. And keep on praying day after day that God would fill your heart with love so that you can be a friend with them. Friendship is the way our neighbor understands love. Friendship is the way our neighbor understands the love of God in our lives. How do you become a friend?

You must be willing to say hello. Can you say hello to a Muslim? Will you say hello to a Muslim? Usually, we just look down at the ground and pass by and say nothing. We must be willing to take the initiative to speak to Muslims who are of the same gender.

Never cross the gender line. Because of Hollywood movies, they get the wrong impression when we cross the gender lines. But say hello. Seek to be friends. Reach out to them.

Friendship involves listening and conversation, not preaching or confrontation. It is very important if you say hello and the other person responds in a friendly manner that you converse. Talk about life. And as you talk, you sprinkle or seed your conversation with references to Old Testament characters of note. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and the teaching concerning them so that your neighbor knows that you’re a person of the book of God.

They call all these men prophets, including Jesus. I said sprinkle your conversation, not drowned it. They are not looking for an hour and a half Bible study. Sprinkle your conversation every time you have a chance. If you say hello and they respond, then stop and talk a few minutes.

A few. If they invite you to drink tea, then take time to drink tea or to chat about sports, culture, their country. Lots of topics. Friendship will involve hospitality, t plus. Sometimes crackers, sometimes peanuts, sometimes any number of different, things you can add to tea.

But it will also involve t plus patience. It will take a long time for them to understand the difference between Allah and God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. They have been taught that Allah is a judge, and he sits there. And when you do something good, he puts it on one side of the scale. When you do something bad, he puts it on the other side of the scale.

And all through your life, the scale is measuring how many good things and how many bad things you’ve done. And at the end of your life, God looks at the scale. And if the bad things are greater or if the good things are greater, that determines where you’ll go. If there are good things, then maybe maybe, just maybe, he might let you into paradise. If the bad side of the scales is heavier, then god puts you in the fire.

But you understand that God the father has sent a savior to pay the price for us and for the bad things we do. It doesn’t matter how many bad things are on the scales. It doesn’t matter how many good things are on the scales. A holy God knows that to get into heaven, you are going to have to be forgiven. And so he has sent the savior to pay the price for your sins so that you can be forgiven all the bad things you’ve done, and he will let you into his heaven.

That’s just incredibly difficult for them to understand that for free, he forgives you, That all you do is accept him, trust him, believe him, put your faith in him, and god will forgive you? That’s beyond their comprehension, so it’s going to take a long time for this to sink in. But I encourage you to, from time to time, mention what a blessing it is that your sins are forgiven, that your disobediences have been forgiven. Let me remind you that sin does not have a great deal of force for them, so you may wanna use the word disobedience. But we want to continue to share the historical message of the Bible of salvation by faith in the savior that God sent.

There is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved. The message cannot be diluted, distorted, or changed. It must be faithfully shared. And then the difference between the Quran and the Bible is also difficult and will take time for them to understand. They say and have been taught that the Quran was dictated by an angel, and so that’s what the Quran is.

The Bible says that it was inspired by God through men, that God inspired men to write the Bible. Therefore, you have the message of God through the Savior, Jesus Christ. In Matthew, you have the message from God, in Mark, in Luke, in John. And if you compare these four gospels, you will see that all of them tell you the same thing. So you can be confident that you have the message from god.

There’s also the difference between the mosque and the church, and you’ll need to be very careful about this because it’s a cultural thing in many countries. In many places, down the middle, there is a wall or a curtain that divides the two sides of the mosque. The men sit on one side and the women on the other side. Whereas in the church, we sit with our wives, with our daughters, with our neighbors, side by side, and we think nothing of it. But to them, that’s a scandal for a man to sit next to a woman who is unmarried in God’s house?

They just cannot understand that. And some will not understand if you show a film in a church because they know what films are like that come out of Hollywood Hollywood, and they know that that kind of stuff ought not be seen in a church, in God’s house. When you talk about Christians, it’s best to talk about followers of Jesus, not Christianity. And don’t ever bring up the question of the crusades. That’s like pouring gasoline on the fire.

But the main point is to be friends. If he asks you to drink tea with him or her, drink tea. Drinking tea or eating together, no matter how little what you eat is, it is a sign of friendship. Ask about their family, how their work or studies are going, how are things in their country, How is their health? How are their parents?

How you can do this each time you encounter them anew. Avoid insulting your neighbor. Be a friend. Ask about the customs in his country and in our country, and be positive, but don’t preach. If he says something you don’t like, don’t jump on it.

Share is what is acceptable to them. Preaching and teaching, they are very, very leery of. They feel you’re trying to convert them. Whereas if you are sharing as a friend, they’re very happy to know how you walk with God. So you can talk about, in a personal conversation, head to head, talk, not butting heads, but a friendly, talking, They will be happy to listen to you talk about your walk with God.

Don’t criticize. If you say anything about god, it is best to start with god as the prime mover. It’s best to say God created or God moved Moses. God sent his spirit, But just sprinkle a little at a time. Don’t do a Bible study.

And you note that when I’ve been talking, I talk about God sending a savior, and that’s a much easier way for them to understand it than the way we talk from the Bible. All of these concepts are in the Bible starting with God, but we just need to remember to do that with our Muslim friend. But don’t do a bible study or a sermon. And then it’s very unwise to say Israel or the Jews. That’s like pouring gasoline on the fire again.

Talk about the children of Abraham. Just replace Israel or Jews with the title children of Abraham. Also, you blaspheme when you say, Son of God. When you say, Son of God, it’s precious to you. But to them, when you say son of god, you are saying God slept with a woman and had sex, and they produced a child.

You don’t believe that, and so don’t say that by saying, son of god. Don’t bring that up in the first times with them. Wait for them to bring it up, to ask you about it, and be ready to give an answer. If you don’t have an answer, then tell them you don’t have an answer. Ask him about his world, his nation, his religion.

There are 5 major pillars of Islam. Ask about them. 1st, there’s the creed. There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. 2, pray 5 times a day toward Mecca.

3, Ramadan, fast 1 lunar month a year. No eating or drinking during the day, only at night. And the month moves every year a few days because it’s not the same month as the solar month. Then number 4 is the giving of alms, and 5 is the pilgrimage once in a lifetime to go to Mecca if possible. You can ask him about his book, his language, but try to find things in your friend’s world that you can admire.

Do not speak about things that you don’t admire, but try to find things that you do admire. Many of the types of art that they have are gorgeous and just absolutely exquisite and delicate. But try to find things that you can speak a good word for. You can always speak in favor of the Bible and truth from the Bible, but try to find things in his world that you can admire. Listen carefully to what I am about to say to you now.

Not everyone is ready to hear the message of salvation. The parable of the sower who went out to sow found that some seed fell on hard ground. And there will be those who seek violence and are closed minded about others and just want to do harm. Some seed fell among thorns, and you will find those who are seeking political power or financial power and pleasure, and they do not want to listen to the message of the gospel. Some fell where there was little depth, and you will find that people like that have little spirituality, little desire for forgiveness, little desire to know about God.

But but there are some God seekers who want to know about the forgiveness of sin and God’s love and mercy. Those are the people we are looking to find and share the good news with. We continue to be friends with others as someday they may change their minds and want the good news, but the God seekers are the good ground where we can plant the seeds of the gospel in due time. But remember that if 3 out of 4 are really not interested, then that’s the same proportion that Jesus told us about in the parable of the sower, and don’t be discouraged. We are looking for God seekers who want to know God and want to have their sins forgiven.

Their disobedience is pardoned. When you’re talking to a neighbor about spiritual subjects face to face in private and others come up, then change the subject. They are very afraid of one another. They are very afraid of persecution. Yes.

Right here in America. Change the subject. Talk about sports. Talk about economics. As a woman, if you are visiting a woman and another person comes in, then change the subject.

Talk about sewing, cooking, babies, language learning. Do not blow the cover of the person who is interested in spiritual things. They will appreciate what you are doing for them by protecting them from the persecution of others. Once a man asked me in class why his Muslim friend with whom he talked a great deal would not even speak to him in a public place. The answer is simple, because of persecution.

The Muslim cannot be seen as being the friend of a Christian. Do not bring harm to your friend. Be sensitive to his circumstances. Be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, Jesus says. Your friend wants to know how you walk with God.

He is going to watch you very carefully to see if you are a godly man or woman. Our friendship will express the love of God to him or her. When you talk in private, tell of your personal walk with the Lord and prayer life and what you learned from the word in your meditation time today, and that God has forgiven your disobedient is to him. Since your friend has no sense of forgiveness, it is important that he hear you share that you have been forgiven. From time to time, repeat this wonderful truth that god forgives us because of the savior.

Don’t go on and on and on about it, but bring it up from time to time. But don’t dwell more than 3 minutes on it unless your friend asks questions. When he asks questions, then you can talk more about it. When you cook rice, you put a cup of rice and 2 cups of water in the pot and a cup of salt. No.

No. No. No. No. You don’t put a cup of salt into a cup of rice.

It would make it so bitter you could not eat the rice. A little bit of salt is plenty of salt to give it a good flavor, not a cup of salt. But all too often, we pour in so much salt that it makes it bitter to partake. Jesus had a different approach to Nicodemus and a different approach to the rich, young ruler. One was an old man, one was a young man, the Samaritan woman, and the man born blind.

We should not think that we can have the same approach to each person. We must let the Holy Spirit guide us as to what approach is best. What did Jesus tell Nicodemus? You must be born again. What did he tell the rich young ruler?

Go and sell all you have and come back. What did he tell the Samaritan woman? Go call your husband and come back here. What did he say to the man born blind? Do you believe in the Messiah?

Why didn’t he say to Nicodemus, go sell all you’ve got? Because Nicodemus was in a different, circumstance. He had a different mindset, and Jesus understood that he was seeking. What about the rich young ruler? He was seeking, but Jesus understood that the problem for him was his riches.

And the same was true of the Samaritan woman. It wasn’t riches. It was pleasure and her worldly life. And why didn’t he say to Nicodemus, do you believe in the Messiah like he did the man born blind? Why didn’t he say to the man born blind, you must be born again?

You see, Jesus had a different approach for each person. Does that mean there’s a different gospel? No. The gospel is the same, but the approaches are different for different people. We should not think that we can have the same approach for each person.

We must let the Holy Spirit guide us as to what approach to take with our neighbors. This is difficult, but the lord has given you a mind and the Holy Spirit. He will guide you if you apply yourself to it and try to learn. Do not give up if you make a mistake and say something that you should not say. Go back and try again with another person.

I’ve made mistakes, but I did not give up. Try to learn and listen to the Holy Spirit. The approach that you would use for the average American and the approach you would use for a Muslim are very, very different. And that’s what these lessons are about, is helping you understand the approach you need for your Muslim friend or acquaintance, your neighbor. We must work while it is day.

Jesus tells us because the night is coming when no man can work. There are 3 truths that are very precious to us as Christians. To our Muslim friends, these three truths are heresy. They do not believe that Christ died on the cross, that he rose from the grave, or that he is the son of god. These three things are very precious to us, but to them, it’s like pouring gasoline on the fire.

Don’t try to deal with these 3 precious truths early in your friendship. It will end your friendship with a terrible argument and they will have nothing more to do with you. Work on being a friend so they can see the love of Christ in you and that you are a godly man or woman. Jesus, twice in the scripture, told people not to tell others about what He had done for them. Was Jesus ashamed of what he had done for them?

No. He knew if they talked about it, it would ruin his ministry in that area. We should not think that because we are not dealing with everything that they don’t like, that we are being ashamed of it. We just don’t wanna ruin Christ ministry with them. Little by little, the Holy Spirit will deal with them about these three truths and draw them to desire forgiveness for their disobediences.

It takes time, patience, wisdom, and godliness to be their friends so they can understand God’s love. Jesus had a problem with religious people of his day. Because he was a friend of sinners, religious people did not like it, and they talked about him because of it. When my wife and I started being friends with Muslims, it was the Christians who complained to us that we should not be doing that. They said they were our brothers and sisters in Christ and that these other people were not their friends.

We needed to stick with them. If we had listened to them and followed their counsel, there would not be brothers and sisters in Christ among the people we went out to be friends with. Don’t be surprised if people in your own church will criticize you. When you engage in conversation, sometimes your neighbor is going to bring up controversial subjects for one reason or another. Let him talk.

You listen. Let it go on in one ear and out the other. The scripture says a soft answer turns away wrath. Don’t try to argue. You will get nowhere.

A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. The scripture tells us not to involve ourselves in foolish arguments that are unprofitable in Titus 39. Remember that the object is to manifest the love of God by friendship. It is a friendly thing to do to drink tea when you’re invited to drink tea. Invite them after a while to drink tea with you.

You can serve cookies and peanuts. If your friend invites you to a meal, go and watch what others do and ask questions about what you should do. You can invite them to a meal in your house, but be very careful. Never, never, never serve any kind of pork and do not even talk about pork. To eat pork would make them impure religiously.

They may not eat even the meat you cook because it is not butchered according to Islamic rules. I would suggest that you ask if they eat fish and serve fish, canned fish, fresh fish, frozen fish. Fish does not have the same rules. And if they say they eat fish, then that makes it possible for you to serve fish. They have many holidays in the Islamic calendar.

If they send you some food for the holiday, then it would be good for you to eat some. If they invite you to come for a meal for the holiday, then go and eat. Look up and study, 1st Corinthians 8 and 1st Corinthians 10 19 to 33. That’s 1st Corinthians 8 and 1st Corinthians 10 19 to 33. Here we are told when it is right to eat with a non Christian.

If he invites you and say nothing, then go and eat. You have liberty from the lord. But if he invites you and tells you the meat is their sacrifice, then politely say, no. Thank you. God has already provided a sacrifice for you.

But that you would like to eat with him the vegetables, the rice and gravy, the desserts, all the nice breads and cookies and other things that he has because he or she is your friend. Try to find something you can eat to show your friendship with him or her. Always be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s voice to you about this and discernment from the scriptures. Our object is to manifest the love of God to our friend so that he can come to find forgiveness in the savior. Let me give you this story to illustrate.

A Christian greeted people along his route to town. He was able to be friendly with a man who lived along the way. They talked from time to time. 1 afternoon late, he was talking with the man in front of his house. The children of the household called their father to come to supper.

The father asked his Christian friend to wait a moment while he went inside. He went inside and asked the extended family if it was alright to invite the pastor at the front gate to supper. The term pastor is a title of respect, not a sign of a man who has passed his pastoral examination. We would say a godly man rather than pastor, but that is what they call a godly man. It is a title of respect and honor.

The extended family gave their okay for him to be invited to supper, a real sign of acceptance. When the Christian was seated inside, and sometimes you’ll find that they all sit on the floor, all the men sit on the floor together and eat out of maybe a big platter together. And the women may have a platter over in another room where they will eat. 1 of the men said to the Christian when he arrived, you Christians pray before you eat. Right?

The Christian said, yes. So the man said, pray for us before we eat, and the Christian prayed. All this came about because of greetings and talking over a period of time. God used it to give this opportunity to this Christian. God will use you also if you have the patience and the humility to put in the time to be a friend.

A Muslim died, and some Christians were invited to the funeral. At some point in the wake, everybody raises his hands as if to read from a book, and they recite a certain passage in the Quran. The Christians took out their Bibles and silently went over a passage. When it was over, the Muslims asked what it was they were reading. They replied it was the book of God.

The Muslims asked that it be read out loud for them. The Christians did so and the Muslims were very impressed with the comfort the passage gave. The effort on the part of the Christians impressed the Muslims, and it made the opportunity for them then to share. Let me close with this story. Some Christians were visiting in an area of town.

The Muslim priest at whose house they stopped invited them in. They talked for a while, and then he told them that he was a follower of Jesus, but that he could not come to church with them because of the problem of persecution. He says that each week, he gets together with his 3 sons, and they read the bible together and pray. Praise the lord. Looks to me like the lord has a church started there.

God is at work in our day. I know in America that we use inviting people to go to church with us as a means of communicating the gospel. We get them to church and let the pastor explain the gospel to them. Basically, that’s the wrong thing to do with Muslims because if they are seen going to a Christian church, they are going to be persecuted. You have to be the person to explain the gospel to them, And God will use you and you will have to be the one to continue to feed them and teach them.

But don’t blow their cover, and don’t tell anybody that they’re coming to your house or that you’re talking. Just ask them to pray for a friend that you’re talking to about the lord, but don’t even tell them he’s a Muslim because word will get back and they will persecute him. Pray that the Lord will fill your heart with love so you can be a friend and manifest the love of God to your neighbors and acquaintances and contacts around you. Amen.

Planting Churches in the Sahara with Cash and Ann Godbold – Part 3

Planting Churches in the Sahara with Cash and Ann Godbold – Part 2

The Tuareg are some of the most difficult people to reach with the Gospel. Find out why and how Cash and Ann dedicated most of their lives to these nomadic peoples.

MUSIC:
Sponsor Music by: Drunk Pedestrians – Mean
Interlude Music by:
Chris Zabriski – Laserdisc, Cylinder One, Oxygen Garden, That Kid in Fourth Grade Who Really Liked the Denver Broncos
Adrianna Krikl – Tomorrow
Scott Holmes – Old Oak Tree
Steve Combs – Delta Is (Theme K)

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Planting Churches in the Sahara with Cash and Ann Godbold – Part 2:

Alright. We’re back. This is truth about Muslims. This is Howard. And I’m Trevor, and this is our episode 2 of our interview with Cash and Anne Godbold.

And we love them. Yeah. They are just amazing people and so we’re really excited to give you this episode. Yeah. But before we go any further with episode 2, let’s just start with a clip from last week.

I’ve heard in the past, like, that you guys saw very little fruit for a very long time. That probably is a wrong vocabulary word. Okay. Give us the correct What what people keep thinking when I say what I say, they I say it was 24 years before we baptized the first believers. Okay?

They say it the way you say it, no fruit. We were having fruit for 24 years, and you’ve got to realize that. You are planting seed and as long as you’re planting seed, then God can use it. Quit thinking we don’t have any fruit. That is a very discouraging thing.

I say there are only 2 kinds of missionaries. The one at night who goes to bed and says, nothing happened today. Lord, I don’t see how you’ll ever use me. The other one who says, thank you Lord for everything you did today to advance the gospel. Same man, same actions, but 2 different points of view.

Okay, so that was my favorite clip from last week because, you know, essentially what Cash does is give us a biblical theology of missions, and explaining that the mission of God is more like farming. We tend to think of the mission of God as just the harvest. Yeah. Like return on investment, kind of, you know, modern mentality, and cash, man. And you kinda tell he’s a whippersnapper man.

He’s he’s the kinda guy that it’s just like, you know, this is tedious, it’s hard, it’s not easy, but we will continue to do it and forward the gospel. And I’m just like, man, I could just hang out with you all day long. Right. And I was really excited to ask Cash just a bunch of the details. Like, what was it really like to live amongst the nomads and the Sahara Yeah.

Specifically. It’s not every day that you get to meet somebody that has nomadized. Yeah. Is that even a word? But, you know, we used it.

Yeah. Ash used it. He used it. That’s why I’m using it. And he he takes us all the way back to day 1.

Well, the first day I can remember, I can even see it in my mind. The older missionary, who had been there for many years, had a compound and his house and a house that he, the mission gave to us. And he invited me that first day to go out to the backyard where he had some guests. See, in nomad style, you have guests almost anytime because wherever they end up, that’s where they got to stay because they haven’t got a a Motel 6 or a hotel. They go where some friend is.

And when we would make contact with them out in the bush, then when they came to town, they would stay with us. That would be normal, fair for them. It helped them keep their their camels, corralled. Inside of our fence. But they didn’t always live in the compound.

We first started off with the wagon as our living facility. It was about twice the size of that desk there. And we put our food and our beds and our water and everything in there, children and wife, and I rode the horse and, she rode the wagon. Alright. So listeners, you have no idea how big the desk is that he’s referencing here, so I was trying to tell Howard, like, how do we explain the size of what he’s defining here?

And it really comes down to, like, a 4 by 8 sheet of plywood. Yeah. If you’ve ever seen one of those at Lowe’s or whatever, so it’s not a very big wagon. And this is what he is, you know, carting around his family in and traveling around with the nomadic tribe. Yeah.

They’re just following around these animals that are looking for grazing land, places where they can set up and, you know, like an oasis or water. Right. But space isn’t the only issue. There’s other stuff that they have to deal with too. When we were with the nomads, we didn’t have any wall around us.

We had to be open and bare and, just be able to be available to them 247, because you don’t have any protection like, in a city where you have a fence or a wall. Talk about lack of boundaries. I don’t think there is such a thing as boundaries in a nomadic society. I think maybe for me, this is the one thing as an American that would be the most difficult thing, just to be able to have my space, my privacy, the place where I can recharge and just kinda relax. Yeah.

It’s not happening here. No. Where are you gonna go? You’re in the Sahara. Like, you can’t just walk.

I’m gonna go for a walk in the desert. Yeah. You’d die. Yeah. And, yeah, where would you go anyway?

I mean, it it once you see part of the desert, I guess that’s probably what most of it looks like, you know? What? So, I mean, that sounds really intense. And I think for a lot of folks listening, it would be like, that’s what I couldn’t handle. You know, if you’re introverted, the idea of never having privacy or an alone time would just be an incredible struggle.

But there was a huge benefit to being stuck out there just available to everybody. It’s he got to spend a lot of time learning language. And if you’ve never heard a language and there are no language schools and there is no textbook written on learning language, you have go old school and that looks like literally picking up a rock and saying, what is this? Yeah. So those are the words that he learns first.

Right? He learns the word, what is this? And then he goes around and picks things up, holds up a rock and says, what is this? And they tell him. So he’s starting to learn a lot of nouns.

Yeah. The problem is Like a baby, pretty much. That’s the method. Right? Total immersion.

And then he’s realizing, well, I gotta get some verbs here, right? So he takes the rock and he says, okay, this means rock, so, and then he just kinda throws it over and over again until they say, oh, okay, you mean throw the rock, and then he’s like, okay, that must mean throw. And so, if you can imagine learning a language where there is no language helper, you know, you pick up a stick, they say stick, then you throw the stick, throw the stick. Okay, I got the verb, I got the noun. Then you gotta get with the adjectives, you know, long stick, short stick, maybe it’s a twig, It’s incredibly complicated.

Yeah. And all this time as they’re learning the language, Anne makes this amazing discovery. I have a wife who is a wonderful linguist, and I could bring home what I learned and she could analyze it. And she, in language, found that the torics have a written language different from any script in the world. So they find out that the script is actually called Shafina.

Right. It comes from the 3rd century. It’s very rarely used, and they’ll explain why, but, you know, it’s very strange looking. Yeah. It actually kinda looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Yeah. And that’s not the only problem. There’s another problem regarding this line. We non mother tongue speakers need, a lot of help in in in reading this language. The mother tongue speaker knows the words.

So it’s not nearly as difficult for them. Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where, if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad. So if you wanna be a part of the show, you wanna partner with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know.

Alright. So Cash is super excited about the discovery of the script because he’s thinking, we can translate the scriptures into this. Right. And he starts asking people, including, like, UNESCO, the Peace Corps, people in the government and everybody says, no. Actually, they say phooey.

Yeah. He says they say it’s phooey and it’s because they think nobody understands it. There are no vowels. Right. It’s too confusing.

It’s difficult for, everyone to be able to understand what what you’re trying to say. So if you imagine for a second, could you understand a continental language, no vowels? And the answer is yes. I encourage you guys go online. You can mix up all the letters inside of English and only keep the first and the last letter the same and you will be able to understand it.

It’s fascinating. And the reason is it’s your mother tongue. But with the Touareg, they wouldn’t be able to understand this thing as far as everybody thought, but it was because it wasn’t their mother tongue. And they decide to go ahead and try this radical experiment. If you want to communicate something written, you do have to build a context.

If it’s familiar material to them, that’s not nearly as crucial. But if you’re telling the story of the raising of Jairus’ daughter, you want to be very careful when Jesus and Jairus were coming back to the house and it says they found the people crying because of the death of the daughter. The same vowels are used for greeting as for wailing. Daughter? No, that doesn’t work.

So, we just changed the word order around a little bit. Then when they read it, it was because of the death of the daughter, people were, and they immediately said, wailing. It’s amazing when you think about how important context is. Right? Just from the example she shared.

Yeah. You take one word and it becomes something totally different. The story means something totally different. And so they just had to be really careful about their wording, about their sentence structure. Well, they eventually take this translation of Jarius’ daughter and they begin to pass it out and they find out that people get it.

They understand it. And the radical experiment, it worked. And not only does it work, it actually takes off. People are buying these, tracks. I guess that’s how they put them in that form.

And people are reading them all over the place because it’s produced for them. But they say that in Africa, every piece of literature is read by 19 people because they don’t have anything to read. If I sold a 100 tracks, multiply by 19 and you will see how much that expanded the witness of the gospel. Some people are probably wondering why sell them, why not give them away. I’m sure that’s a question in people’s minds.

If you give them away, they’ve got no value whatsoever. If you didn’t have any value on them, they it. We sold them greatly subsidized. We were down to 2 pennies a page. And so they could get a whole track for 2 pennies.

And, they they were certainly willing to pay 2 pennies for it. So eventually, Cash and Anne are joined by a coworker who is a linguist. Yeah. That’s his specialty, and he actually does something remarkable with Anne’s work. Right.

It’s he translates the book of Mark. But, it was a beautiful book made out of a plastic that looked very much like the leather that the Tuaregs use for all of their things. The Tuaregs are considered the blue men of the desert because they wear a veil and it’s made of blue indigo cloth. It comes off on their face and so they look blue. They get it on their hands and when they’re reading a book then the blue gets on the page.

And we had plastic pages so they could just take a damp cloth and wipe the blue off. And the book was made so it would go in the pocket of a robe. We tried to figure as many things culturally as we could that would fit for them. So it was the right color, it was the right size, and it was washable. Yeah.

Something I had never really thought about is when you’re doing Bible translation, you’re not just even thinking about just the text, but you’re thinking about the design of the Bible. In this case, it would it had to be perfect for the nomad nomads. Because, like, imagine if it was a paper Bible, like, how long would it take? Honestly, how long would it take before, you know, on one of these nomadic trips, how long would it take before it was destroyed? I I don’t know what the sun would do to the pages or just the blue ink like he was talking about.

So the way that they did it, they paid very careful attention to every detail so that the Touareg would see this as their book, not something that was being introduced from the outside. So even though Cash took really, really great care in making this book for them, he’s still finding some obstacles in his way. But Cash doesn’t stop. Right? He doesn’t give up.

He actually finds out that speaking and teaching, that’s not the only form of communication. They would let us sing the gospel. They would not let me teach. If Cash said the same thing spoken, they would merely lift their veils and turn their heads and spit. To show their disgust.

They would tell us, we’ll put wood on the fire. We’ll stay here till tomorrow morning. Let her sing all night long. As long as she would sing, they would sit there and listen to it and clap and shout, at the concert on the dune. Hey, ladies.

I’m from, truth about Muslims podcast. Have you heard of it? Yeah. Okay. So we want you to read an ad for us.

Can you do that? You’ll be famous, like, world famous. It’ll be amazing. C I u? C I u.

C I u. C I u. C I u. I’m Kevin Kekaisen. Kevin in the world.

Yeah. Oh, wow. Fame. Lose fame. Lose fame.

Lose. Alright. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with a message of a voice. Worker. We’ll do that again alongside I don’t feel like I’ll be so embarrassed.

Apparently, he’s also a gifted musician. He’s got the whole gamut, man. All the talents. He he he writes over a 100 songs explaining the teachings of Christ from, like, creation all the way to crucifixion all through singing and in the Touareg style. But it’s a unique style, something that you need to understand before we give you the sample that we have.

Right. So the the big deal is that there’s 2 singers because the main singer, when she sings or he sings, it is such an ordeal. It is so, consuming, you know, with their voices straining, that they need a backup singer. Yeah. Actually, the way that he explains this, he says it’s like opera and that you need to breathe because you’re singing so hard and so long that you need a moment to breathe and that’s what the backup singer does.

Yeah. And he calls them the filler. And these fillers, they come in and it oddly enough, it doesn’t even have to go with the song. It just has to give the main singer some time. And Anne actually started out as a filler singer for this guy who was the gifted linguist and the gifted poet and musician and just the renaissance man.

Right? I kinda don’t even know who this guy is, but they really speak highly of him. Kudos. It’s actually, Cash says that he was a miracle from God and so the Lord knows. But Anne started off as a filler for him and then eventually Anne takes on the role of singing as the lead singer and poet.

And so we ask, can we get a sample? And this is what we got. And they just loved Aminata, as she was called. She was one of the top 10 female singers on the Sahara Desert. Alright.

I mean, it’s a let’s hear it. I got are you gonna do the filler? I am trying to think of what what I remember the words of. You’ve got to realize it’s been a number of years. Yeah.

But none of us are gonna know. We’re not gonna know. We wouldn’t know anyway. I can remember the beginning of the song on creation, which was why our coworker said, Anne, I must have a second singer singer on this. I cannot do it by myself.

And so You would can imagine how long a creation song is. He listed off all the grasses and all the birds and all the. He was just great. And they love it. They that somebody somebody from the other world came here.

The chief of the priest group said, I can believe that Americans went to the moon because this lady can sing our music. That’s how powerful it was. Does he know the filler? He knows the filler. Alright.

I’m I’m gonna hear it. Let’s I’m so excited. Namahe la. Thank you. That was good.

Gretchen. You got that voice up there. Wow. That’s fantastic. Interesting enough, in a lot of different cultures, you know, beauty is different.

And one of those cases in this culture is that when voices crack when they’re singing, when they reach those high notes and they strain and they crack, it’s beautiful. And because Anne masters this way of singing among the Taureg and all the other things that they had done to respect the culture and the people, they eventually gained favor. And they gained favor with a chieftain who provides the land and the lake where they have their first baptisms. We had a chieftain who was very favorable to the gospel, and he would say, Gadigal, come here. Teach these people about Jesus.

So Kas does face an unlikely cultural barrier when it comes to baptizing the Touareg. And, of course, Touaregs have never been in underwater. They don’t do that, so to speak. And so they were apprehensive about being baptized underwater, and I had to give them the security and the confidence that it was alright, that nothing bad was going to happen to them. Though they’ve never seen that done before and though they never, had done it themselves.

That was, so I chose the strongest of the believers and the most mature of the believers to be the first, person. And, it was it worked out well for him. So I figured I had gotten the jump on the problem. There were 14 being baptized. When we got out in the water, I would say, have you put your faith in in Jesus Christ?

They would say, yes. And do you believe your sins are forgiven? Yes. And so it was quite, joyful. And some of them coming out of the water danced.

We don’t wanna mislead everybody. Not everybody was coming out of the water dancing and shouting. Actually, Cash and Ann said that a lot of the younger people, it was like they had watched a lot of sporting events and felt like if they were joyful about that, they should also be joyful about the Lord. So they they watched all this stuff. So they were the ones that were like, yes.

And I just think it’s really cool because, you know, culturally, you know that every moment after that when people become baptized, that’s what they’re probably gonna do because that’s what they’ve seen. And so now you’re going to have this shouting of yes and yes because, you know, our baptisms are nice. There’s, like, applause and people clap or people sing, you know, but, you know, and here you just have this sporting event. Yes. And I think that’s pretty cool.

So not only is it, like, everybody is excited. There’s one guy. He’s so excited. He wants to baptize himself. Now we had a man who was a polio victim and he his legs, didn’t work.

He had to crawl on his hands, so to speak. After he saw how you got baptized, he said, Gadigal, I’m gonna do it. And he went out by himself in the war. I said, no, Girolamo, you can’t do it by yourself. You’ve got to have somebody help you.

And, no, I’ll do it by myself. And I said, no. I’ve got to help you do it, because I didn’t want him to get water down his nostrils, and and that would be something Satan would be delighted to have happen in a situation like that. And so I insisted and he insisted and I insisted and he insisted, and finally, he let me baptize him. And he was one of the most powerful witnesses among the Torahs.

I mean, he really would talk to anybody about Jesus when they came within range of him. Shout. Shouting. Alright. I love this story about the guy with polio just wanting to baptize himself and wanting so badly to be baptized.

It reminds me of Bible stories. Right? The people that just so desperately want Jesus that that, you know, you have lepers shouting out Jesus, master, have mercy on us. You have blind man, shouting out Jesus, son of David. And it’s like this guy with polio, he just wanted baptism so badly that he was gonna dive right in there and come out and just be shouting for Jesus.

It just sounded right out of the Bible for me. It did. And I love Cash’s expression. He’s just like, no. You can’t.

You can’t. You just can’t do this, you know. He wants to help baptize the guy, and the guy’s like, I’m gonna do it. I’m just gonna go and do it. And I just thought, how comical it must have been for Cash because, you know, Cash is a jolly guy.

And so how much fun it must have been just this guy was so adamant about being baptized. It’s a beautiful thing. Yeah. And we don’t wanna give you the impression that everything about the Godbold story is, happy all the time. There’s difficulty.

And in episode 3, we’re gonna share some of the struggles that come. And I think it’s important for Christians to realize that when you start to see breakthrough, when you start to see God work in magnificent ways, you can also anticipate there’s going to be a backlash. Alright. So that’s what we’re gonna get into, next week. So here’s a clip from next week’s show.

Do you know Elizabeth, our daughter? Mhmm. Okay. One day one day, she was talking to me about it while he was in captivity. And, she said, dad, they’ve got our best cowboy.

And it was really a good expression that, we had the best man we had to represent us there with them. And, if anybody was gonna be able to take it, he would. Because there are just a lot of people who just couldn’t have stood 9 months of captivity in a little cornstalk hut, that’s all. But Steve could. So I hope you guys have been enjoying this series with Cash Godbolt.

We know we have, and we just want to encourage you guys to continue to to tune in, because I know that with these stories, as long series, maybe it’s not your cup tea, but I think that next week’s podcast is going to be absolutely amazing. Yeah. And be sure that you guys continue to spread the word. We really appreciate the reviews. You guys continue to share it on Facebook, and, as the listenership grows, it just is really encouraging for us.

So spread the word

Planting Churches in the Sahara with Cash and Ann Godbold – Part 1

Former Congressman Mark Siljander Imprisoned for Building Bridges To Muslims – Part 4