Day: 27

The End of History

It was the 1990s. The world had just witnessed the end of the Cold War and the exit of the Soviet Union from the world stage. The intelligentsia of the day proclaimed “the end of history,” pointing to the end of the cold war. They thought that the future would be characterized by an extended period of calm and prosperity. In short, it would be boring, i.e., “the end of history.”

They were wrong.

A New War

On September 11, 2001, radical Islamists leveled the Twin Towers. Almost overnight, the world turned upside down. Radical Islam burst onto the scene and began a new war, worldwide in scope and unlike anything we’d ever seen before. A war not fought by nations and their proxies but by millions of radicalized Muslims against the “infidels” of the west.

Despite the way Islam entered modern consciousness (9/11), the U.S. government spread the mantra that “Islam is a religion of peace.”

As the president of a ministry focused on victims of persecution, I have a hard time believing that “Islam is a religion of peace.” My perspective on Islam first began to change in the 1990s, when I became aware of the Iranian government’s solution for getting rid of pastors in Iran: assassination.

Around 2003, I traveled to Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation. At the time, it was trying to stamp out an Islamist terrorist movement that had infiltrated the nation. Fundamentalist Muslims had ravaged Indonesia’s Christians, killing approximately 10,000 of them. As I toured the burned-out Christian villages and churches of Indonesia, I was dumbfounded by the level of evil that had been unleashed.

More people are now aware of the problems with Islam, including why it is so closely associated with violence. One former Muslim, Ibn Warraq, summed it up succinctly:

People tried reforming Islam; it never worked. Again and again, Islam was mortgaged in the hands of killer leadership, while the rest of the Muslim world only said, ‘This is not real Islam.’ Nothing can stop Islam from breeding cruel killers time and time again. That is because many of the Prophet’s (Mohamed’s) deeds and Koranic instruction are always alive there to act as fertile ground for breeding killers. The dual character of Islam became clear. Islam has two sets of teeth, like elephants. One is ivory, which makes it elegant and majestic; the other set of teeth is hidden inside its jaws, and is used to chew and crush…

— Ibn Warraq, “Leaving Islam, Apostates Speak Out”

Even as I wrote this devotion, the final chapter of ISIS in Syria was being written, as Syrian soldiers overran ISIS’ last hideout. Tens of thousands of ISIS fighters used mass murder and torture in an attempt to birth a modern Islamic caliphate in Syria. They are now in the grave, having awoken to the fact that they were deceived and used by Satan.

Despite their atrocities, the reality of what they discovered at the moment of their death haunts me and breaks my heart.

The Greatest Evangelist in the Middle East

God is not surprised by Satan’s manipulation of mankind. While Satan is busy destroying, God is always redeeming. He’s always striving to redeem the lost and rebuild lives through the power of love.

The alchemists of the Middle Ages spent their lives in an endless series of experiments in an attempt to find a way to turn base metals like lead into gold.

Their life was spent in vain; they were using the wrong base materials and the wrong catalyst.

I call God the “Great Alchemist.” For out of the vilest, most raw materials (hatred, murder, and bloodshed), He creates life! HE Himself is the catalyst!

At the height of ISIS’s “success,” I asked a very prominent church leader in the Middle East about the impact of ISIS on the church in the Middle East.

His answer absolutely floored me.

He said, “ISIS is merely an evangelist, and I am only the baptizer.”

At the time, he was witness to a huge conversion movement of Muslims to Christianity. They were turned off by the savagery of their own religion; Jesus’s image shone even brighter against the swirling darkness of Islam.

Alchemy In Your Life

God is at work in your life in the same way. You will encounter battles in this life. Your energy and resources will be spilled on the battlefield of life.

But, He’s always there, ready to use evil to create life into you. He desires that your losses will drive you to Him. He wants you to drink heartily from the river of Himself, flowing out of heaven into the hearts of those who have discovered it.

He’s teaching you to let go of the world, to cling to Him tighter and tighter. As more and more of His presence is found within you, it will transform you into the image of Christ.

What Satan meant for evil, God will use for good. It will bring you more life than you ever experienced before.

Time, pain, and the Holy Spirit will transform you into someone you never could have imagined.

The Great Alchemist is waiting for you. Bring Him what you have so that he can transform your heart into what you never could have imagined.