What If We’re Over-run?

My Post (57)

A friend who’s lived among Muslims for decades and is way smarter than me says every Muslim hopes in their heart that Islam will take over the world. A Muslim Connect reader who’s more honest than me confesses to being mildly “triggered” by that notion.

How about you? Do you wonder about that? Worry about it?

First: If so, what are we fearing about a Muslim take over? Losing our way of life? Suffering of some sort? And what’s beneath that? If I dig down, I find that my worrying lands on a sad assumption that God’s getting beaten. Or more likely that I’m quite mistaken in my understanding of God.

Secondly, if it’s true that Muslims are trying to take over the world, what is the biblical response? I’m honestly interested in your thoughts on this. What does the Bible say we should actually think and do, whether that supports or contradicts American (Or your country’s) ideology?

Third, do suppose others wonder about being overrun? Do Muslims worry about Christians taking over the world. What do non-Christians feel when they see a Christmas card or song quoting Isaiah 9.7
“Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end. . . from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”

It’s vexing sometimes. I honestly believe Jesus will reign on the earth. And that he won’t make everyone to follow Islam, as some Muslims believe.

In the meantime, though, there’s plenty of pain and challenge to go around. Jesus’s words warn and encourage, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

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16 Comments

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16 Responses to What If We’re Over-run?

  1. Dan Barbour

    I’m of the belief that we are already over-run. We are over-run by sin. Whether that takes the form of Islam, Wiccan, a “christian” church with a gay pastor or progressive American thought doesn’t really matter. Despite my best efforts I sin every day and will continue to do so until the Lord takes me home. The Bible tells us there will be suffering in this world yet, we are surprised when it happens and many feel like God has abandoned them. My job as a believer is to accept that suffering and find every opportunity to share the love of Christ. I don’t care if they take over, this is not my home.

  2. Ramona Simons

    Hmmm, my initial response, taking a look at Jesus’ day. Christ followers were in the minority. What did they do? they kept sharing their faith. Hmmm. then countries became “Christianized” But sin and evil still existed and worked it’s way through the culture and in people’s lives side by side. We know the end of the story, it’s the in between part we have to deal with.

  3. Colleen Snyder

    Echoing the sentiments above; my “concern” is not for myself, nor that “God is losing.” It’s knowing that God will win in the end… but what might happen BEFORE that end.Will I be happy to suffer for Christ? Will I be strong enough in my faith to choose between my family and my Lord? Can I watch the suffering of my child being tortured and still maintain my loyalty to Christ? I pray daily that I will be as strong and unmoving as our brothers and sisters who suffer persecution and death on a regular basis. It’s not the suffering I fear; it’s my own weakness.

  4. Kaylea

    If we are overrun, then we are overrun. We should welcome any and all who come into our nation, and we have reasonable security measures in place already. We don’t know who the Lord has in the Muslim community who will one day belong to the faith. And if He is bringing the nations to our doorstep, it is not Christ-like to turn them away. If we are to be persecuted, if this far-off and unlikely situation happens, it’s comforting to note that the Church always flourishes in persecution. In all honesty, our comfort and culture are more dangerous to our souls than Muslims are dangerous to us in any sense. What does it matter if we gain our whole American dream and lose our souls? God’s heart is in proclaiming His glory to the nations. Not in our comfort. And when we are obedient, even unto death (which never happens here), our loss is such great a gain in the kingdom of Christ.

  5. Carmen Hahn

    Carmen
    I don’t believe that we will be overrun, I live in the east of Germany and in 1989 the wall fell – who would have ever thought that this would happen. The kingdom of God is advancing tremendously …80,000 people being born again daily (2013) … this we may not see in Europe or in the USA but in other parts of the world. As the bible says: ” of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end…” and many other scriptures, they are happening today. Our privilege of being part of this is in loving and respecting everyone around us just as Jesus would do and advancig love is advancing the kingdom.

  6. This is tangential to your main point, but whenever I see or hear a sentence that begins ‘Every Muslim’ I assume that the sentence will be untrue – unless it ends with something like ‘….does not think just like every other Muslim.

    Those who profess Islam as their faith are human beings, and just like the rest of us they disagree with each other. One of my Muslim friends told me that he believes Islam is true for him because he grew up in a Muslim culture while he believes that Christianity is true for me because I grew up in a Christian culture. He has no hope that Islam will someday take over the world. Maybe this makes him a bad Muslim, or not a ‘real’ Muslim, but to most of an Iranian who claims to be a Muslim is one.

    In the same way, many of us would like to say that all Christians hope to see everyone in the world acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ, but that statement is untrue. I know a lot of people who call themselves Christians and do not want to see this. Like my Muslim friend, they believe truth to be culturally relative and they either don’t care if others become Christians or they believe that evangelism and missionary work are immoral. Maybe that means they are bad Christians, Christians with bad theology or maybe not even ‘real’ Christians, but to my Muslim friend they are Americans who identify as Christians, so whatever they say or believe must be a part of ‘what Christians believe.’

    I think that it is always dangerous to assume that we know what someone believes, wants or hopes for based solely on the religious faith that they choose to identify with, rather than by getting to know them and asking them.

  7. My last comment was off of Shane’s point, so this one will address it:

    No, I am not worried at all. Jesus lived at a time when the Roman Empire wanted very much to take over the world – not with Islam but with their own mix of religious freedom co-mingled with dictatorial emperor worship. This did not seem to bother Jesus at all – he rarely even mentions it, other than to tell people to pay their taxes. (To a godless, pagan state that will probably use the tax money to subsidize idol worship and temple prostitution, or pay soldiers to crucify Jews.)

    Perfect love casts out fear – as Christians we are children of the almighty God, and He asks us to base our decisions on love – His love for us, and the love that He asks us to have for others – not out of fear. Ultimately making our decision out of fear – fear of sharia law, of Muslim immigrants, of terrorism, etc. – is demonstrating a lack of faith that God truly is sovereign and has called us to love others and make disciples in whatever situation He places us in.

  8. Cleo Young

    1. What are we fearing about a Muslim take over?

    The ethics and rights in our country will be defined by whomever has the most power.

    Would I rather live under the Constitution of the United States of America with its responsibilities, laws, liberties and freedoms (saturated in Biblical principles)? http://www.faithfacts.org/christ-and-the-culture/the-bible-and-government

    Or would I rather live under Sharia law, or Sharia-lite (http://www.billionbibles.org/sharia/sharia-law.html)?

    2. If it’s true that Muslims are trying to take over the world, what is a biblical response?
    What does the Bible say we should actually think and do, whether that supports or contradicts American ideology?

    Leviticus 24:22 “You shall have the same law for the stranger and for one from your own country.”

    Dt. 15:1-3 “At the end of seven years, you shall have a release of debts… Of a foreigner you may require it; but you shall give up your claim to what is owed by your brother.”
    There is a difference between “stranger” of Lev 24:22 and “foreigner” of Dt 15:3. Stranger is the Hebrew word ger, while “foreigner” is the Hebrew word nokriy.

    Example: Dt 14:21 “You may not eat anything that dies of itself. You may give it to the alien (ger) who is within your gates, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner (nokriy).

    There were two classifications of foreign people living in the land, showing that God’s law did not treat citizens and non-citizens with equal status.

    Any time a positive command is made in the Bible regarding the rights and privileges of an immigrant, the word ger is always involved – not nokriy. The ger had the same access to biblically mandated assistance as other poor social groups such as widows and orphans, including the right to gather what was left in the fields after the harvest (Dt 24:19-22) and to receive a portion of the tithe to the poor every third year (Dt 26:12-13).
    Numerous passages reiterate the command to show justice and mercy to the stranger (Lev 19:33-34; Ex 23:9), and these are without exception directed toward the ger rather than the nokriy.

    On the other hand, anytime the law restricts the rights of a foreigner, such as in Dt 14:21 and Dt. 15:3, it is directed towards the nokriy, who did not have legal status in the land.

    If you are interested in finding out more about this difference refer to this article: https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/beyond-today-magazine/immigration-what-does-the-bible-say

    The bottom line is that under biblical law, only the ger was granted beneficial citizen rights, including the right to permanently live in the country, but with those rights came obligations to assimilate into Israelite society, culture and religion.

    The exclusion of these rights from the nokriy did not mean that Israel could legally deny him or her basic standards of human decency. Rather it shows that the Israelites were not obligated to grant equal status to every foreign person living among them.

    Further, God sternly warned the people of Israel against approving, accepting and adopting the culture, religious practices of the nations around them, know this would corrupt the nation (Lev 18:24-30; Dt 12:28-32; Dt 18:9).

    *My answer to question #2 was either copied or paraphrased from the article I sited above.

  9. Doug Genty

    I really resonate with Kaylea’s response. Our pursuit of comfort, security and happiness is a far greater threat to us than being over-run by any outside force, which is highly unlikely. Our God is sovereign and faithful and we can trust him no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in.
    Weekly, I am hearing encouraging reports of former Muslims who are now believers that are breathing new life into the European churches in the cities where the refugees have been resettled. Many of these churches have been circling the drain for years but now are revitalized and are reaching out to share the love of Christ within their communities. Perhaps this is the kind of invasion we should welcome and not fear.

    • Kaylea

      I whole-heartedly agree. I fear some American Christians has forgotten that we were once the outsiders, the filthy Gentiles and that God’s great love and Jesus’ sacrifice have drawn us all into God’s family. Gentile and Jews are now the same in the body of Christ. We are going through Ephesians where this lays out how hard it was for the Jews in the Church to allow Gentiles in without becoming circumsized, and how Paul fought to make them see Gentiles as co-heirs to the Promise previously thought to only belong to the Jews. We, Gentiles, are only here in the Body because of God’s great grace and never had claim to such wonderful grace before God welcomed us in. How can we exclude those who could very well be called into the Kingdom? You are correct. It is inspiring to see how God changes the hearts of His church and those who would have never known Him apart from the circumstances that drove them out of their countries. He has decided it is good to send us the least of these. Will we love them like He loved us?

  10. thechark

    Several comments above have resonated with me, too. One of the strongest values in North American culture is that suffering is bad and to be avoided with everything you can throw at the suffering to make it go away. The pharmaceutical industry thrives on this value. (I also don’t like suffering, but understand that our Lord accepted the suffering that was his ‘cup’ to be the atoning sacrifice on our behalf.) We in N.America (I’m Canadian), suffer little for our faith in Jesus, although pressure is mounting against those who don’t endorse politically correct positions. A number of times and certainly recently, our church has prayed together for Asia Bibi, who has been under a death sentence in Pakistan for the last 9 plus yrs. How to pray? Lord, have mercy on this Christian, wife and mother. Most of you likely know her story, released but in danger of being slaughtered by zealous Isalmists, if found. Mostly, I pray that if our Lord has ordained for her to be a martyr for Jesus, that she will have sufficient courage to finish her race looking forward to the reward of hearing and seeing the Lord’s pleasure in her faithful witness. Here, many of us Christians are wimpy with flaccid spiritual muscles, perhaps because we’ve bought into the high values of self indulgence that our consumer society holds high. I confess that I too like comfort and prefer to be in my comfortable house rather than crossing the street to visit my South Asian neighbors. My town/area is ‘being overun’ by South Asian Punjabis, most of whom are Sikh. What an opportunity for us Jesus followers here! Whether it’s to extend our hearts and time to Muslims or to Sikhs, we can welcome them as potential friends, build relationships, hopefully become brothers and sisters – and know that our enemy, Satan, will fight back. Hmmm. I’m going on too long. Blessings on you all as you follow Jesus with all your hearts.

  11. Jennifer Herrera

    No fear of a Muslim take-over. It is unlikely, but if it did happen, we press on sharing Christ and living for Jesus. Biblical response, my opinion, is to pray the scriptures such as the Lord’s Prayer, “…..thy kingdom come, thy will be done…..” That is how Jesus taught us in advance to pray. 🙂

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