In this sermon, Father Andrew shares his experience of preaching to a group of Hamas and Islamic jihad members in the West Bank. Despite encountering resistance, he emphasizes the importance of reaching out to others in love. He also mentions a project he is involved in to help alleviate physical suffering in the Palestinian community, while also sharing the message of Jesus Christ. The sermon highlights the need for forgiveness and love in a world filled with anger and fear, and calls for support in making a positive impact through organizations like Open Doors.

It is my distinct pleasure to introduce you this morning, our speaker. If you want to know a lot more of the details and background of his life, there is an insert in our bulletin today that gives some of the biographical background, and I won't take time to rehearse that, and you can take time to read that if you'd like some more detail. I just want to say that as a Bible college student back in the mid-seventies, we were required to choose a part of the world to be involved in a prayer group, and I had no particular leanings one way or the other, but I was required to pick one, so I just sort of arbitrarily picked Eastern Europe, because it seemed like an interesting and intriguing place in the world, and I began and joined a prayer group for Eastern Europe. Figuring I ought to learn a little bit more about that part of the world if I was going to pray for it, I picked up a copy of God's Smuggler and read Brother Andrew's book. And in my life, it really changed my life. It would be a few years after that that God would call Ginger and me to Europe, and we would work in that part of the world for a number of years. So the legacy of the ministry of Open Doors and of Brother Andrew has a very special place in my heart. He's a man who has served the suffering church throughout the world for almost 50 years now, and he comes this morning to share for us a number of the great things that God has been doing and is doing around the world. Before he comes to speak, I want to tell one very brief story. There was probably 1960-1961, there was a young Dutchman out hitchhiking, and Brother Andrew picked him up and shared the gospel with him. And that young Dutchman didn't hear the gospel very well that time, but some years later, through a series of other things, would come to know Jesus Christ. And when he heard that story, he would remember back the gospel that was told to him when Brother Andrew picked him up. Many years later, in 2003, that man is here to read the scriptures for us this morning, Tinus Poppema. Tinus, come on up. As we're doing each week during this series where we're looking at God's heart for the world, Tinus is going to read the scriptures for us in his native language, in Dutch. The English copy is printed in your worship folder on your song sheet. So join with us now as Tinus reads the scriptures to us. Yeah, thank you very much. And my heart, it's not hurting, but I'm overjoyed. So every time I think about it, I have tears in my eyes. So give me a second so I can do normal again. This is about Acts 11, 19-23, and it is in Dutch, we know that a handeling an elf. The believers who had fled to the martyred village of Stephanus for persecution came, among others, to Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antiochia. Everywhere they told Jews about Jesus, only to the Jews and to no one else. But some of those refugees were originally from Cyprus and Cyrene. When they came to Antiochia, they also spoke to non-Jewish people and told them about the Lord Jesus. And the Lord worked mighty with them, so that many of those people also believed in him and turned to him. The followers of Jesus in Jerusalem heard of it and sent Barnabas to Antiochia. When he arrived there and saw what great things God was doing, he was very happy. He spurred everyone to agree and to make a good decision, to remain faithful to the Lord, whatever the cost. Amen. That's the word of Jesus, of the Lord. Thank you, Rines, that sounded very clear. Any more Dutch speaking here? Okay, welcome. I better switch back to English then. Sorry about that. It's a nice language, Dutch. But it struck me, Tinus, as you were reading, that there was a persecution and there was revival. There were restrictions and the gospel spread. And it was spread by people who involuntarily were driven from their homes. And yet they carried on. And I remembered suddenly a couple of cartoons I saw years ago in a Christian paper. It was about this revival in Jerusalem before they were scattered. And you saw the big crowd on the temple square, all shouting, Hallelujah, praise Jesus, raising their hands, jumping for joy. Terrific. And then the next drawing was, you saw a big plank come down from heaven and fell right on top of them. And they squeezed out from under and then dispersed in all different directions. And the caption was, God's first mission board. Made me think. Because we, we Westerners tend to complain about persecution and restrictions and opposition. But the Bible says there's nothing wrong with it. Russian believer recently asked me, Andrew, what is worse than a persecuted Christian? I said, well, you tell me. He said, a non-persecuted Christian. They got a good pointer. And in some of the translations, not in my New King James I have here, but in some of the translations that you probably have with you, the last word in Acts of the Apostles is the word unhindered. Yet they were killed and driven out and tortured and imprisoned and unhindered. Because the fate of the messenger has basically nothing to do with the spread of the gospel. And in the measure in which we are willing to pay the price, in that measure, of course, the gospel will spread. So I was thinking about that very significant part from Acts 11. And thank you for reading that, Dinesh, and I hope you followed it on your sheet. It's very significant. And I want to share with you today as much as I can about that great subject. Which now, of course, after all those many years, has taken me and a large number of our workers and open doors to the Muslim world, an area and the religion and the challenge and ultimately threat, it has already become that in America, that we have not come to grips with. And we're only hesitatingly beginning to see some analogies, some points where we can chip in and make connections. But be very careful, because we are afraid. And the message of the New Testament was, of course, do not fear. Fear not. Because fear and faith do not live in the same heart. And God wants to fill our hearts with faith, but he has got to cast the fear out. And I remember a while ago, I was back in Sarajevo. Now, Sarajevo is a place where in the late 50s, I was traveling in my old little Volkswagen. I was not old at that time. I just started traveling in my first car. And we were there with my translator from Croatia. And I'm still in touch with him. He's mentioned in my book, God Smuggler. And we were there establishing the first underground evangelical church in Sarajevo. Seems like ages ago, doesn't it? So, not long ago, I decided to go back. But this time, my main contacts were not the Baptists, but the Muslims. Because they have taken over the area of Bosnia, Kosovo. And I found that the evangelicals in former Yugoslavia were not reaching out to the Muslims. So, I went to see the Muslim leader, the Grand Mufti in Sarajevo. I went to his palace and we drank coffee and had a great time. And in the course of my traveling in the Muslim countries, a kind of a story had developed that I very much wanted to share with the churches here. But I didn't want to because I thought I must first share it with a Muslim. If they object to my story, then I won't ever tell it anymore. So, as we were sitting and I observed him, I thought, well, okay. He's a good bloke. I'm sure I can try it out on him. If I get away with it, I'll tell it to you, which I will now do because obviously I did get away with it. But I might not have. Listen, I asked him, I said, Grand Mufti, which religion in your opinion is the closest to God? Well, that's of course a difficult question if you don't know what way you want to go with it. So, he said, well, Andrew, tell me. And I began to explain the Gospel. I said, that's us Christians. Because we have a relationship with God as our Father. Now, mind you, in Islam that is blasphemy. If any Muslim in any country, even a fairly open country like Pakistan would claim God as his Father, they'd kill him. Definitely. So, he sat straight. I said, yes, Father. Because wherever we are, under any circumstance, happy or sad, free or bound, we can always call upon God and say, Father, the way is open to Father's throne. We have a relationship with God. He is our Father. We are His children. We don't have to dress up. We don't have to go to a specific place anywhere in the world. We can say, Father. And He's there. The man listened as I explained the Gospel in that way. Well, of course, all good stories come to an end. And I thought, I have to come to my punchline. Let's move on. So, he said, well, what is the second? I said, well, as it happens, that's the Jews. Because it's a lot more complicated for Jews to pray. For one, there have to be ten men together. Whenever you watch there on the Western Wall in Jerusalem, you see them searching for ten men. They have to dress up with all those paraphernalia, all those tassels and what have you. And then they have to go to the Wailing Wall to make a local call. I mean, it's, you know, it's quite, it's far more complicated than just anywhere, anytime saying, Father. Well, he liked that one and he laughed because, of course, all Muslims hate the Jews anyway. So, he thought it was a good one. But now he was sitting at the edge of his chair. He said, Andy, what is the third? I said, that's you. You need a loudspeaker. You never guess his reaction. He did not get out his gun. He laughed. He said, Andrew, I can't wait to hear you preach in my mosque. Now, you would not have expected that reaction, would you? Because deep in their heart, every Muslim is a God-seeker. And anyone who can tell them a little more about how to get closer to God is welcome to come and explain it. But you have to take a few little risks. You never know how to finish it. But they are God-seekers. And even this morning, as I was having my quiet time, I came across the word God-seeker in reading the Old Testament, the Message translation, which I enjoyed tremendously. And I came across the word God-seeker and then I thought, why are they God-seekers? And I wrote it down. And then I... By the way, did you write down anything this morning? What was your best thought this morning? If you had one, write it down. That's how you learn to know God. So I wrote it down and I have it here. Muslims are God-seekers because they do not have a God who seeks them. Isn't that tragic? They do not have a God who seeks them. That's why they are God-seekers. And that's why you can find always the difference between a religion and Christianity. Every religion, every one, is man-seeking God. Christianity is God-seeking man. Hallelujah! That's why we are here today. He sought us. He gave His Son to live among us, to be one of us and to die on the cross to take our sin. That's why we don't ever have to be God-seekers. We just have to open our heart to Him who seeks us. That's why Muslims are God-seekers. What a blessed situation if God sends you to become the answer to that prayer. I wrote that down this morning and when I get home later in the week I'm going to write that in my diary. That's why they are God-seekers. They really are. And I want to speak about that, what we can then do about getting them into a relationship. Not deeply into a religion and certainly not switching their religion for ours because then they are still lost. They need a relationship. The father-child relationship and it is based on forgiveness. Now their book doesn't really speak about forgiveness. I do bring that subject up and say the Koran teaches us we can forgive or we can take revenge but to forgive is better but to revenge is easier. Now I can see that. But to forgive, how do you get there? How do we get there even as a married couple or as church members? How do we get there to the point of forgiving? And I remember one day in Pakistan and I know that this church and a number of your elders and pastors have a deep interest in Pakistan that's where I met them actually that's how I got in touch and how I got here actually today because your folks go to Pakistan and minister with us. But here, so before I met them there was a town in Pakistan and in one night an angry Muslim mob swept into the town and destroyed everything that belonged to the Christians and left 15,000 Christians without a roof over their head without any possessions no more tractor, bicycle, tree or cow or goats they destroyed everything that belonged to the Christians including Salvation Army Hall and the Christian Clinic and the library, everything was destroyed. Of course you will not have read it in your papers all we read about is about the police corruption in San Francisco but I mean 15,000 Christians losing everything in one night that's barely news, worth reading for us we've got other problems anyhow we quickly went there Azad who has been here and a team of open doors and a couple of ministers from the government and the leader of the Muslim League and we called together the local police and Muslim leaders and the Christians we had to put up some makeshift tent because there's no building where we could gather anymore everything was destroyed and I was there to preach now what would you read, what would you preach on? so I had quickly decided that my reading would be from Matthew 5 about the beautiful attitudes in the first 12 or 13 verses about blessed are those who blessing is a result of our attitude towards God our Father blessed are the peacemakers but then it doesn't mean you're a pacifist because peacemakers have to go to where the war is otherwise you cannot make peace it's so simple that you've got to read on blessed are those who are persecuted now they knew what I was speaking about for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceedingly glad you'd probably grumble and complain but the Bible says rejoice and be exceedingly glad we still have a long way to go folks for great is your reward in heaven so they persecuted the prophets who were before you rejoice so I went on to read a few lines that pray in the same chapter love your enemies I'm speaking to both groups now bless those who curse you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you pray for the Bible is so clear about praying for your enemy and loving your enemy because it simply means that he's not your enemy anymore and especially in this age of confrontation that we've only just entered actually 9-11 was only small delude to something that I fear is coming over us and we are not ready for it but we should be we have to eliminate our enemies by loving them and I am teaching everywhere that we must learn to spell Islam as I sincerely love all Muslims otherwise we get nowhere but how do we love and what is the effect of our love one that we go to them bless that peacemakers they could go to the front line and then pray for your enemies those who persecute you and then 6-14 forgive men their trespasses and then your heavenly father will also forgive you but if you do not forgive men the trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses that is a very unknown text actually in evangelicalism we think that forgiveness comes automatic and yet now we see suddenly there is a condition and you may be forgiven before the throne of God through the blood of the Lamb but why don't we get on better with each other it's because we hold a grudge against others we have not forgiven and then on that horizontal level father cannot forgive us he wants us to go a step further and build up that relationship with your friend and with your enemy and I was explaining that I said we are here to forgive we Christians are here and the other half was Muslim to forgive you for what you have done then I turned the pages a few of them to gospel of Luke where I then began to speak about the cross and of course in our theological training we are usually taught that when speaking to Jews and to Muslims you don't mention the cross because that's an offense to them wait a minute you don't speak about the cross you mean let them go to hell because without the preaching of the cross and preaching of the crucified one there is no salvation there only is one name given on heaven whereby we must be saved and that is the name of Jesus but through the cross we must never eliminate the cross in our preaching and teaching but very often we have to earn the right to the retention to do so so here at this point I introduced the cross and I went to the cross and Jesus said father forgive them for they do not know what they do and they jolly well understood what I was saying to that crowd then I said who in that bloodthirsty crowd that angry mob that crucified Jesus who was asking for forgiveness not one so it is not necessary to ask forgiveness before you in Jesus Christ can offer forgiveness that even in evangelical world is a new concept I have noticed that in my own country when I speak and write about it I get very angry letters from evangelical pastors saying Andrew there is no forgiveness if they do not ask you forgiveness gee hell will be crowded soon we get nowhere in that attitude Jesus teaches us to offer forgiveness so they can then find a way to God that sets them free if we forgive even if they would never ask forgiveness why don't we go a step further than the church a thousand steps further than the Muslims to somehow show them the life of Jesus Christ well that was the content briefly of my preaching in Shantinagar and after the service the minister of justice came to see Azad he said can I have a copy of brother Andrew's sermon I have never heard this concept totally new to us Azad said well sorry he probably doesn't have a sermon it comes straight from the book and from his heart but he has never forgotten the forgiveness that we offer before they ask and that demands the love we need for sinners because we face an angry a very angry world today increasingly so we talk more about war and revenge and increasingly so as this world is filled with fear of terrorism there is a tremendous hunger for the life of Jesus where is it if it is not in us I sincerely love all Muslims is it easy to forgive in our travels to Eastern Europe in the good old days of communism these were good days we knew where the enemy was but now it is so complicated it is so subtle especially in this time of ecumenical movements you are not allowed to say who is wrong can we really forgive and there were two evangelical pastors in East Germany at that time and we were travelling through with our vehicles loads of Russian Bibles through the Soviet Union the first stop was then in East Germany to talk to the East German pastors and have the fellowship and they would pray with us and then we would continue and we would share the Russian Bibles so that they could accept the responsibility and take the Russian Bibles across the border so that we wouldn't have to be the evangelical stuntmen all the time we would share that burden and teach them how to get scriptures into forbidden territory there were two evangelical pastors who betrayed us they prayed with us accepted our Bibles, accepted our money to buy vehicles and took the Bibles straight to the KGB for destruction we only discovered that after the Cold War was over when the papers were released from the secret police and when I don't laugh, I got 142 pages about my activities I have them at home I greatly treasure them it's amazing what they knew, they knew everything one thing they didn't know they did not know how to stop me because people prayed and they do not know the power of prayer they do not know the power of love and through those papers we discovered our traitors and then my colleague who was arrested and interrogated and threatened he and his family and children we decided we must go to these pastors and offer forgiveness they probably never asked but we must offer forgiveness so they can then reestablish the direct line with God well they got word of it that we were on the way so they disappeared into Italy and a year later we came back to Berlin and we thought we do some gate crashing and we did and indeed they were in the house and they couldn't stop us, we went inside had coffee with them and we said we come to forgive you you have made our life very difficult very dangerous, very costly and they said yeah but we also worked for the CIA well, big deal I wanted the Bible to go to the Soviet Union I wanted to build up the church there in their resistance against evil so we said we forgive you it's not easy it hurts it hurts when you are betrayed, it hurts even when you forgive because the basis is that cross of Christ what he did for us no other basis for doing that and as we parted they repeated their beliefs communism is still better they still have not repented from communism maybe there are some people that you you cannot win but at least we must enable them to go to find a way to Jesus by not blocking their way because we are not forgiving them there is a way where we can forgive and where we can reach out to them and where we can go on in spite of our fear please don't ever think that brother Andrew is a courageous man, he is not, he is scared stiff he doesn't like danger but I've got to press on in spite of it and if I dare not cross the border I've had those experiences in my car I would just pull back a few miles and check into a little pension and pray and fast until fear had left me and I could go in the strength of the Lord it's a battle and in the battle even on the side of the victors there are casualties we've lost people in Pakistan alone three of my personal friends have been killed during torture in other countries my friends have been killed in Africa in Burma taking Chinese scriptures in, it's a strange world, it will only get better when the kingdom of God becomes visible but it will be in the lives of people who together will make an impact on the world the question then remains, can we make an impact, will people listen of course they will listen you'll be surprised, one day I was having a house meeting in the home of Hamas and Islamic Jihad people in the West Bank and we were having a great time, I was explaining from the scripture about Jesus and his way and there was one young man who was so fanatically wanted to convert to Islam and he was so eloquent, he knew all the arguments, the Bible arguments and the Quranic arguments he was so bright and he didn't get very far with us needless to say I think he was agitated he jumped up from his chair he went straight up somewhere in the building and my colleague American director for Open Doors he got scared, he thought this guy is going to gun and kill us it was that tense situation so he came back after a few minutes with a stack of papers study on the life of Jesus Christ that he had followed through transworld radio at night they listened to the gospel and they asked for the papers, they fill them out and they study the life of Jesus they are still God seekers even if in one hand they have the study of life on the life of Jesus, on the other hand a gun, they are God seekers but will we venture into their territory and confront them with the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is the whole issue and I want to say so much more about that because we are so rich with that one book that we have their book doesn't speak about forgiveness it speaks about revenge and war it speaks about Jihad but then of course for your comfort or discomfort this book also speaks about Jihad because in the Arab Arabic Bible it says in 2nd Timothy 4 verse 7, I have fought the Jihad that is what Paul did, he was fighting the Jihad we must fight the Jihad but the other Jihad but they are preparing just to do that one thing and they are waiting for us and they want to know later I will speak more about my initial contact with the Hamas which was so revealing it was exactly 10 years ago a few weeks passed when Israel deported over 400 of the top leaders of the Hamas to southern Lebanon in the midst of a very cold severe winter dumped among us by God and Allah forsaken mountains and it looked that they were there to die so who turns up with two bags of Bibles brother Andrew and the first word the first word we knew that Christ would come to us who told them suppose we had not come we would have let down Jesus Christ they would never have gotten a chance to believe in him we knew that Christ would come to us because this is what they are waiting for, they are God seekers but who will take Christ it will not be only or barely through radio although it is a good instrument it will be by personal contact because if we do not take the Gospel physically to a place where it costs us a little bit how can they ever embrace the religion that is going to cost them everything their lives we knew that Christ would come to us so I began to hand out Bibles and I had Corrie ten Boom books with me I said here read this and then you can see how you can even become famous when you save Jewish lives instead of destroying them and they did not kill me because they want the reality of life how can anyone live like Corrie under torture and concentration camp and come out and love her tormentors they want to know more about that so a tremendous friendship developed with Hamas with the Hezbollah more about that later with the Islamic Jihad of course with the PLO but that was easy they are not so fanatical can we go in and do something will we accept the challenge few years ago when a couple of terrorists blew up the most modern warship the US Navy had the coal I had just been to the city that is where we worked from and some other place I am not going to mention but then I read I think it was in Time magazine or Newsweek an article about the coal you remember that big hole that was blown and I think 17 sailors killed and the two suicide bombers and it said in the article I will never forget no one on that warship called that day expected to die but these two men in a rubber boat sailing toward the coal came to die that is the difference you we cannot beat an enemy who comes to us to die we can only win that battle by loving them into the king there is no other way and I had just been in the same country in Yemen with the minister of justice whom I had befriended on the airplane I usually do that because on the airplane you have a captive audience nowhere they can go and I always have my books with me I work on these guys I challenge you have you ever been on an airplane even a western airplane during the time of prayer for the Muslims they go to that empty space next to the cockpit and they pray they kneel down on the airplane and they pray with their face toward Mecca they do that their dedication is absolutely unmatched by us that is why we are so weak unless we live a more dedicated and revolutionary life then they will get nowhere ever and I was with then I visited the minister in the ministry buildings in Sanaa capital city and we talked and he had read my books by then in Arabic five of my books are in Arabic absolute best sellers there and he said Andrew could you please come to my country to open schools and clinics and literacy centers I couldn't because we have no personnel we got no big funds to do that they ask for us and we say no why do we wonder that they come to us as terrorists they seek God in us we say no we do not love enough to give like Jesus did and we do not love enough to forgive as Jesus taught us and only a few weeks ago I hope you read it when those three American doctors were killed in Jiblanet hospital and I was way in the past partly responsible even for getting that hospital there and every year I visited them and I knew these people now they are killed the hospital is no longer a Baptist hospital because we did not aggressively do what Jesus told us and shown us what to do and how to do it so as we face the world today you tend to be pessimistic but is there reason for that you probably wonder why I have this I wonder too I better get this out before I quit there is a tremendous persecution going on and it is spreading and is threatening the very life of the church there from Indonesia to Morocco and launching out north and west into Africa and Europe already you in America have as many Muslims as you have Jews 6 million of each London has 600 mosques Paris has 300 mosques my little town has 3 mosques but we were again take you back to Pakistan not long ago actually on 28th of October 2001 in one church service half the congregation was killed by hand grenades that Muslim terrorists threw into the congregation it was a small congregation most congregations are small in Pakistan Babapur the Paris Anglican Church whole family young people all killed and this was exactly half of the congregation there is persecution there is a body of Christ that is paying the price and we can still reach them but for how long how much more is it going to cost us in the face of a war that I pray to God will be averted but then these people had the guts to make a calendar out of the pictures of the victims so that the whole year every day they will be able to look and I would never have done that but that's what they did so Azad and I went over there we had the memorial service and the survivors they were sitting here big church crowded with Christians and Muslims of course Muslims Muslims always come to the meetings sometimes I have mixed meeting half half sometimes I have only Muslims to which I can preach, who said you cannot do it you can my biggest meeting with Hamas was when I had 400 Hamas men in one meeting and giving my testimony speaking about the cross and reading from the new testament I spoke here and then I it was one of the hardest sermons I ever preached what do you say the group that has just lost half of the congregation including the pastor and then they all stood up I mean the surviving group and they sang a song to us what strength then we went to the directory and Opendoor was able to give them money, every one of them for them much money for us not that much they have to restart their life again without father, without children without grandmother but it is the body of Christ and the bible says if one member suffers the whole body suffers with it and I will close with that one question how much pain do we feel when they suffer how much do we want to suffer by identification by being with them by visiting them by adopting them by so many things so that somehow they can make it they have to there is no survival for us if we don't help the other half of the body survive because the church is a body it is not half a body how would you cut up a body and how can one half survive and not the other half both cannot they must reach out in love and that's all I wanted to share in this service I'll just go on with the other stuff in an hour or so meantime God bless you I love you ok as father Andrew has challenged us there are needs around the world in the body of Christ and we are going to give you an opportunity to share in a particular project of that nature why don't you tell us a little bit about the project you mentioned to us the big project that we are working on now is to help people in the physical suffering my base there is the Bethlehem Bible College I was there until just Christmas last December there is so much need and poverty actual hunger those areas 30 to 50 percent of the children are malnourished, undernourished they are so poor they have no work, no money, no future they cannot go to school and even going to church is dangerous there is often total curfew they cannot go out shopping not anything and together with the Shepherd Society and the Bible Society and the Bethlehem Bible College Open Doors is supporting 1000 families just to get by with food and clothing we cannot send clothing to that area that is forbidden all we can do is bring in money so that they can buy something if the shops are open if the curfew is lifted it is an absolutely desperate situation and in the desperation the only hope to have is the Christians from abroad to reach out and help them that is what we are doing on quite a big scale and we need a lot of help to make it effective I am going to ask the ushers to grab the offering plates and come forward Jake and the band are going to lead us in some songs as we sing and as the ushers come this is specifically to donate money for Open Doors and their assistance of Palestinian Christians who are impoverished and suffering so Jake you can lead us now and the ushers will come and take this offering