My Anguish and My Hypocrisy Toward Islam

For years I have had unceasing anguish over the fact that virtually 100% of Muslims throughout at least half of the world's nations are denied the opportunity to know about the two most wonderful events to occur in the history of man. I can say with about 97% certainty that that there has not been a day that has gone by for me in the last 33 years when I have not been deeply grieved that Muslims are taught by Muslim leaders that the Messiah did not suffer and die upon the cross. Therefore he was not gloriously raised from the dead by ALLAH/GOD due to his supposedly never having been killed.

But it was not until about one hour ago that I suddenly had insight into my own deep hypocrisy about these two important events. While I have spent hours and hours (hundreds and hundreds) writing to help persuade Muslims how they must interpret one verse in the Holy Quran in a different way so that they will understand that ALLAH's Messiah both died and rose so that the penalty for each person's disobedience has been paid for by the Messiah's aziim (Quran-As-Saffat 37:107) great sacrifice.

Also the fact that ALLAH raised His Messiah up alive (Quran-An-Nisa 4:158) guarantees that he is now spiritually present with each of us today. Thus, the present false and misleading interpretation of this one verse out of all the thousands of verses in the entire Quran results in Muslims seriously disappointinging our Creator ALLAH by denying the truth and historicity of the two most important GOD-centric events to occur in the history of man. But alternatively, if the verse is correct as all Muslims are now taught to presently understand it, the verse is blatantly historically false. Also, it counter-productively prevents Muslims from realizing that ALLAH's invisible, living, risen Messiah is spiritually in their presence at this very moment.

However, in the interest of truth and fairness the following inconsistency by Christians must be acknowledged. Though all of this is true about how Muslim leaders have guided Muslims away from how ALLAH's Messiah had revealed his love for them though his suffering and temporary death and victorious resurrection, it is a serious contradiction to not emphasize that most of the U.S. Christian Church could not care less about what sincere Muslims are missing out on by wrongly cancelling these God-Centric momentous events.

Therefore, though it is true about Muslims rejecting ALLAH's Mighty Sacrifice for them, this fact cannot cover up or excuse the contradictory if not shameful attitude, contradiction, inconsistency and blind spot that is prevalent in especially the Western Christian Church today. While we Christians weekly or monthly partake of bread and wine to participate in the communion of our Messiahs suffering and unjust death, we are simultaneously sinfully comfortable with being nonchalant about something that should deeply grieve us similarly to how it deeply grieves GOD. We are not grieved that so many well intentioned foreign nations containing vast multitudes of Muslims are compelled to hold a deep false belief that prevents each of the precious citizens of each of those many nations from participation with their Risen Messiah in his suffering for them and the benefit for them that his being miraculously raised from death has accomplished on their behalf. Their being excluded from these privileges is due to it being the official religious belief of those nations that ALLAH's Messiah neither temporarily died nor was raised by ALLAH from death.

But instead of the Church of the Risen Messiah deeply grieving over what these vast multitudes of Muslims are forced to miss out on, even our Christian leaders are satisfied and sometimes gleeful with viewing Muslims as Christian's enemies and even as GOD's enemies. But the actual truth is, GOD immensely values each and every Muslim and views each precious Muslim, not as enemies, but as sheep who have temporarily gone astray as the Scriptures faithfully tell us that "we all like sheep have gone astray."

Therefore, for me personally not to grieve over the wrong, harsh, condemning cold attitude of so many Christians and for our Church universal not to grieve over the condescending and too often hostile attitude that the Church of the Risen Messiah has toward one billion five hundred million Muslims is a significant contradiction and is hypocrisy on both my part and on the part of the Christian Church.

The Glaring Contradiction

Here is the background to the contradiction which suddenly overwhelmed my own conscience just a couple of hours ago. There is a particular Church group that represents hundreds of similar church groups throughout the U.S. and Canada, to which I am greatly appreciative for originally nurturing my own understanding of how I should Sunday after Sunday express my deep thankfulness for our Messiah's great willingness to suffer so much for all of us at the hands of hostile Jews and their Roman occupiers. But rather suddenly this morning I recognized a cognitive dissonance or calloused contradiction that appears to permeate these remembrance meetings' atmosphere. And this apparent contradiction bothers me a great deal when I am honest with myself and am not in psychological denial. But I also realize that this serious contradiction must bruise the tender heart of my Risen Messiah much more that it bothers my own heart.

It is abundantly clear that the night the Messiah was crucified, he instructed his closest followers to break bread, symbolic of his body that would soon be broken on the cruel cross for all of us. And he similarly instructed his disciples to drink wine or grape juice as symbolic of his own life's blood that was his blood poured out. Or, as Abraham's sacrificial ram's blood was poured out in place of the blood of his own first born son who Abraham was willing to offer as a sacrifice instead of offering his own son. (Please see Al Saffat 37:107). Thus, the Messiah was symbolic of that aziim/great sacrifice offered by the Prophet Abraham. And the Messiah's blood that he willingly offered is symbolized by the wine or grape juice, which is shared at the Communion. (Lord's Supper, Eucharist and other titles).

Then a few years later after the Messiah had given these instructions concerning the bread and the wine symbols, the Jewish Rabbi from Tarsus who became the Christian Rasuul Paul also taught the believers to participate in this remembrance ritual that was first taught by the Messiah. And so this significant ritual has been passed down through the centuries to consistently remind us each of the aziim/mighty Sacrifice that our Messiah made for us. So my former Church that I had been attending in Seattle, Washington only months after inviting the Living Messiah into my life while I was in the Navy in Naha, Okinawa, sincerely practiced this worshipful ritual each Sunday morning and I personally found it very meaningful. It was the normal practice that during the hour long service any man (not women) was encouraged to share meditations from the Scriptures regarding the sufferings of the Messiah in giving his life on the torturous Roman execution and torture device. Additionally, very meaningful hymns of worship are sung which had been composed to remind us of the preciousness of the Messiah's sacrificial suffering and of his willing attitude to endure that awful suffering for the benefit of our often rebellious world.

So it was in this precious communal setting where I suddenly, but totally unexpectedly experienced the four quite encouraging but consecutive, meaningful visions on Easter Resurrection Sunday morning in either 1996 or 1997 which 8 or 9 days later directly led to my dramatic and sudden unexpected traumatic expulsion from my former church.

I had lost my wife in 1994 to the same disease of lymphoma that later took Jordan's King Hussein's life. So at this Easter time I attended alone this church's "Lord's Supper" since my new Jordanian wife was visiting her elderly Jordanian mother in Amman, Jordan.

I had worked 6 and one half years in a combination of Lebanon, Jordan, and Riyadh, Taif and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Began in Saudi Arabia and completed in Seattle, I wrote a book, "Sound the Alarm from Saudi Arabia", that had attempted to explain the death and resurrection of the Quran and the Injeels Messiah to Muslims. (Significantly, though I have now lost this personally valued letter due to our several moves, the King of Saudi Arabia sent me a brief gracious thank you letter for my gift to him of the book, stamped with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia official seal.)

So after the 6 and a half years in the Middle East, writing the book, losing my wife of 38 years, and remarrying a lovely Jordanian, I unexpectedly showed up at my former church, where I returned alone on that Easter Sunday morning to the church which had nurtured me as a new serious believer. And so it was during the precious worship service that I received one of the most exhilarating positive surprises of my 63 years of life. But even more surprising, 8 or 9 days later in that same church's large kitchen where the small elders' meetings were held, I suddenly received the most discouraging, shocking and disappointing experience of my life, second only to the medical doctor telling my first wife and myself that she had only six months to live due to the rapid advance of her lymphoma cancer. Sadly, her diagnosis proved true almost to the very day.

Returning to the lovely, meditative Easter Sunday Communion, I was possibly the first to stand up and read a few verses from the Bible and to make brief comments. I read a very heart felt, emotional short passage from the Apostle Paul's only letter to the First Century Christians at Rome. I read aloud the following three verses from the 9^th Chapter of Romans.

"I speak the truth in Christ-I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race."

In two or three brief sentences, I related the Apostle Paul's great sorrow and unceasing anguish for his own Jewish brethren rejecting the Messiah, the sufferings of the Messiah and his resurrection. (His suffering is always the same meaningful theme of each communion service.) But as I read the words great sorrow and unceasing anguish, it quickly flashed through my mind of how I also, similar to the Apostle Paul, experience this type of anguish and sorrow for the Muslim multitudes each and every day. I anguish over their own unfortunate rejection of ALLAH's only Messiah's death and being raised alive from death by the Wisdom and Might of ALLAH. (See An-Nisa 4:158).

But I acknowledge that my own anguish is much less intense than the Apostle's Anguish for I am unwilling to wish that I am cursed and cut off from the living Christ for the sake of the Muslims as Paul was for the sake of his Jewish Brothers. But I did not mention any of my own anguish and sorrow for the Muslims rejection of the death and resurrection, for that concept would not have fit in with the theme of the Communion Service.

Nevertheless, apparently my thoughts of sorrow and anguish were considered by GOD and His Messiah to be appropriate for that setting. And also my compassion for Muslims seemed to be considered by GOD's Messiah to be appropriate for that time and place. For almost immediately after I had sat down after reading and commenting on the Apostle's sorrow and anguish for his own brothers, ALLAH quickly reinforced my compassionate thoughts toward Muslims with the first three very relevant supernatural visions, each indicating that millions of Muslims would relatively soon positively respond to ALLAH's Messiah's suffering, his death and his resurrection.

Immediately after sitting down I fought to stay awake and very quickly lost the fight. I will not now explain in detail the three clear sequential visions that I almost immediately had. But the first had two parts and a third vision represented the second President, George Bush, being uprooted from of his inserting himself into the Straight Path of Islam. (But it was not until our post 9/11 invasion of Iraq that I understood that the green Bush that I saw being uprooted from the straight Path of Islam represented the coming President Bush). But I did quickly recognize that each of the first three visions were vividly revealing a soon breakthrough in Islam for ALLAH's Risen Messiah who will relatively soon be embraced by much of Islam. And of course this is the very Islam that the Apostle Paul's emotional words of great sorrow and unceasing anguish had reminded me that I am in sorrow and anguish for each and every day. Thus, apparently to ALLAH and to the now Living Christ, it is not against the Spirit of the unspoken rules of the Communion Service to have compassion for others such as Muslims even while expressing appreciation for the Messiah's suffering. But that unrealistic rigid regulation, to exclusively focus only on the Messiah's suffering and to purposely exclude his compassion for others, seems to be part of the unspoken and unwritten rules of participation throughout these Churches.

During that next week I prayed and thought a lot about the impact and significance of the visions. Since they had been supernaturally revealed at the Communion service, I had no peace but to briefly explain at the next Communion Service what had miraculously occurred in my mind in their midst the previous Sunday. Additionally, ten years apart, two different leading elders used almost precisely the same words to explain to me that they had become convinced from GOD through His Genesis Scriptures, that I would be used by Him to have an integral part in aiding a large segment of the Muslims in the Middle East to come to a deeper appreciation of His Risen Messiah. So I should allow nothing to deter me from my calling and spiritual responsibility to follow through on trying to encourage especially Middle Eastern Muslims. And both men emphasized in almost the same words that it had been the explicit instructions from the Angel of the Lord to Hagar to name her child to be born, "Ishmael", which means that "God Hears". So by extension, that since GOD hears Muslims' prayers and also hears my prayers, so GOD would soon work it out that our combined prayers would be heard. Therefore, many, many Muslims would more fully embrace the Living Messiah just as my Easter visions in that same Church indicated.

So on the basis of those two virtual Prophecies from those two leading elders, one deceased at the time of my visions and the other in failing health, and the fact that GOD had seen fit to give to me the visions during the Communion service at the Church that had so much influence on me, I had no reservation but to share about them at the same service the Sunday following the visions.

So I briefly shared about the visions. And immediately after the conclusion of the service one quite elderly member who I knew to be a capable Bible scholar, rapidly walked toward me. I thought that I must have said something wrong. But he totally surprised me and graciously told me that he had very much appreciated what I had shared about the visions about our Risen Messiah becoming more appreciated by Muslims. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then I asked a couple of the men who I knew to be official elders if I could come to the Church's official elders meeting that Monday or Tuesday evening to request prayer that I would be an effective communicator for our Risen Lord with the Middle Eastern Muslim Community. They warmly welcomed me to join them to present my prayer request.

So that Monday or Tuesday I thought I was welcome. But I did not realize I was walking into a lion's den, where apparently one hungry lion had not eaten for months. Near the beginning of the meeting with about 5 to 7 men, I was asked to share my prayer request. No sooner had I started to speak than I immediately became the dinner for one hungry lion that every other man there feared so much that not one of them slowed him down or disagreed with anything he said while he devoured both Islam and I. Although two of the younger men soon followed me to the parking lot to say they were sorry for what had occurred inside where they had remained silent while this lone elder stated his strong negative bias both against Muslims and against me.

As near as I can now recall from about twelve years later, here is what the one self appointed spokesman said to me.

"There is no need for you to speak any more to us than what you already shared Sunday morning. There has never been such a disgraceful out burst by any one at this Chapel. Several of the young people came up to me after the service and couldn't figure out why the elders did not stop you from saying things about Muslims coming to believe more about Jesus from their own Koraan. And they said that every body here knows that since we have the Bible, GOD no longer gives visions to anyone."

"For you to think that you have the right to say anything positive about Muslims while we are concentrating on our precious Lord's death for us is disgraceful. (Apparently his death was only "for us" and not also for Muslims.) Well I had a brother who was a missionary among Muslims and they treated him in some very harsh ways. So you better know that you will never open your mouth again in this Church. No, you should never come back here again for you are not welcome."

I can't remember if I made any reply to anything he said. But I remember that I was crushed and was silently crying. And so I slowly got up and silently walked to my car in the near-by parking lot without having been allowed any opportunity to request prayer for Muslims.

To encourage me, and to soften the blow of what occurred, two of the younger elders followed me to my car and mildly apologized for what had been said to me in the name of their Church. But never did I ever hear from either of them again during my 12 year absence until I sought them out individually four weeks ago to invite them each out for lunch.

As I was just finishing up on the 210 papers on my web site I thought that 12 years might be long enough for me and for them to start over. So at the second Communion service after I returned, I individually made appointments with the two younger elders who had thoughtfully followed me out of the Church to my car in the parking lot over 12 years before. I requested to go out individually with each of them for lunch to update them each on where I was in my attempts to influence Middle Eastern Arab Islam. The individual lunches were both cordial. Among other things, I reminded them both of how their two now deceased, compassionate fathers had each individually encouraged me to continue to reach out to Muslims. (One immediately after I had shared the visions and the other at a chance meeting in a medical clinic. There at the clinic he used approximately the same words spoken to me as the previous leading elder had used ten years before about the significance of Ishmael being named while still in the womb of Abraham's second wife, Hagar, the very spiritually significant name of "GOD Hears").

Significantly, I received a call in the evening, two weeks after the previous lunch dates requesting that I again meet together with them for lunch the next day. After hanging up the phone, though the conversation had been short, but warm and cordial, I had a feint feeling that I would receive unwelcome news at the next day's lunch because I knew that they both had had an opportunity to consult my web site www.alqasas.net and to talk with other elders. But very significantly while I was in bed, very calmly attempting to get to sleep, every few minute's five words that had not crossed my mind for at least several years, began to repeatedly be said in my mind with several minutes between each time; "great sorrow and unceasing anguish." I said to myself that that phrase must be somewhere in the Bible, but I could not remember where. As soon as I awoke in the morning I asked myself: "Are those the words of Paul from Roman's 9 that I had read out loud to the Church just before GOD gave me the consecutive visions about Muslims embracing the Risen Messiah and the second President Bush being uprooted from Islam?" So I opened my Bible to Roman's 9 and there were the five words, great sorrow and unceasing anguish that had been repeated over and over to me during a period of about half an hour after having received the telephone invitation to have lunch with the two elders.

I told the two elders at lunch about the experience with the five words at the Communion Service 12 years before and hearing the words again and again inside my mind about 14 hours before our lunch just after the telephone conversation. But nothing I said about any of my unusual experiences or the need of Islam for our Risen Messiah, seemed to deter the two elders from their mission of gently this time, not harshly like before, helping me to realize that I was never again welcome in their Church unless I greatly modified my ways of communicating with Muslims. I am glad that they did not say "Our Risen LORD's Church" because I think the Church had become much more their Church than His Church.

The Church where I was married, the Church from which I had been commended to start a somewhat similar meaningful Fellowship in our home in the very secular University of Washington District, the Church from whose pulpit I had publicly spoken at least a half dozen times, the Church in whose parking lot the leading elder who had years before helped start the Church, virtually prophesied to me with his arm around me, telling me that he was certain that GOD had called me to have a major impact on Islam. (And after his encouraging message to me occurred I never saw this precious, kind, gentle, elder again because our family soon returned to Saudi Arabia. And within about a month this kind man unexpectedly went to heaven to be with his Risen Lord.) Also, it was the Church in which over three hundred people attended my sweet wife's memorial service two to three years before I was excommunicated the first time. Though I explained to the two elders about numerous supernatural occurrence that each had encouraged me in my calling, it seemed as though my words were drifting past the ears of Christian Elder atheists who appeared to have virtually no trust in the supernatural and much less trust in me.

Some of the reasons of why the two men told me I would not be welcome back were:

1. Why had I stayed away so long, totally discounting that I didn't voluntarily leave, but that at an elder's meeting I was hastily ordered to leave and this reason was probably never explained to anyone in the Church. To them I had just chosen to disappear.
2. I had used words like ALLAH on my website. (ALLAH is used in the Arabic Bible because it means GOD in Arabic and was in existence long before Islam. They seemed to have no appreciation that I had not written to communicate with Western Christians, but with Middle Eastern Arab Muslims.)
3. They said that I sounded on my website like I am a terrorist even though my website consistently condemns violence by Islam, violence by Christianity, violence by Iran, violence by the Palestinians, violence by the U.S. and violence by the Israeli's.
4. Other similar Churches of their denomination would be deeply critical of this Church allowing someone as radical as myself to participate in remembering our Lord's death with them. ("Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees"). ("They loved the praise of men rather than the praise of GOD").
5. I did not use acceptable evangelical language in trying to reach Muslims. (Can you imagine our Risen Lord or the radical Rabbi Paul attempting to use Western evangelical language in attempting to reach the Taliban? Or does Christ not love the Taliban?)
6. They had difficulty understanding why I do not attempt to win one person at a time like a traditional missionaries do. But, instead I feel called to attempt to inspire a people movement where millions will respond to the now Living Messiah and who will remain Muslims. But they will simultaneously have a deep love for all people's Risen Messiah.

First of all, I am not a missionary and have received no financial support from any one for many, many years and very little prayer support because most of my old friends think I am so non traditional that they have discontinued seeing me. They seem to want to avoid me. In contrast, in both the Christian and Muslim Arab world both Christians and Muslims are very friendly to me.

In fact, I do not consider myself religious. Instead I am reality oriented. Due to the overwhelming evidence that the Messiah is presently alive and that I am accountable to him for what he has patiently taken 33 years to teach me, it would take ten thousand times more pressure and faith for me not to believe in my Risen Messiah than it takes faith for me to believe in him, in his sacrificial death and in his gloriously being raised alive by ALLAH.
7. One more apparent reason for their arbitrary decision to lock me out of their Church apparently is due to my burning desire to attempt to use terms and thought patterns that I think could meaningfully communicate with Arab Muslims. One of the elders seemed to project on me a sort of guilt by association so that he seemed to consider me to be complicit in any historic conceivable wrong theology that can be considered antagonistic to sound Christian doctrine since I use the Quran to uplift the Messiah as Paul used Greek poets to uplift the same Risen Messiah.

One positive comment that I do give the two elders credit for is this. One stated that they did not want me to either violate my own conscience or to think I was disobeying GOD in changing my writing, if I thought that this type of change was what they would require of me in order to continue to worship in their Church. I guess that I thanked them for their being so liberal toward me and apparently liberal toward GOD.

My Own Hypocrisy

So the bottom line is that I now apologize to all Muslims for my own hypocrisy of how I have concentrated on exposing Muslims disbelief in the Messiah's death and resurrection. But I have simultaneously avoided exposing or speaking out against a too large a group of fairly traditional American Christians who want to avoid especially Arab Muslims. So they condemn strange persons in their midst like me who appear to have too much compassion for Muslims so that I use terms and words that I think communicate with Arab Muslims instead of with Western Christians. For my strange language might mean to Christians that I may be complicit with terrorists.

But why did I suddenly have the five words, "great sorrow and unceasing anguish?" repeated over and over in my mind after several years of not thinking of these five words, immediately after I received a call for a meeting with the two warm, but rejecting elders? I believe that this was because the whole reason that GOD gave me the visions 12 years earlier about my impacting Islam was due to His seeing in me, that despite my having a much larger bus load of deficiencies than most persons, GOD spotted one positive quality in my personality that very few appear to have. And that is that I have a great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart because of Islam's near complete rejecting of the Messiah's torturous murder and his victoriously being raised alive by GOD. And due to my great sorrow and unceasing anguish, every day that sorrow and anguish drives me to compassionate prayer for all of Islam. And ALLAH knows that it is prayer that influences people's hearts and that it is not cold rejection, rigid rules and suspicion.

So the Risen Messiah was at that time of my potential temptation by the two well meaning elders, whispering to my ear: "Tom, the price of your being allowed to attend that Church is for you to sell out your heart's sorrow and your unceasing anguish. And I need that sorrow and anguish from you for my precious Muslims. So Tom, don't sell it to two elders or to two thousand elders. Because my Muslims, my Kingdom and I, need your sorrow and your anguish. So please don't sell it to any elders or to any Pharisees for a pot full of acceptance like Essau sold his precious birthright for a pot full of his brother's stew."

So why am I exposing this callousness and arrogance toward Muslims by those who are supposed to be the Salt of the Earth? Because if the Christian leaders in that Church or in any Church have lost their saltiness by considering that their correct views about Jesus/Isa have made them superior to Muslims, then they have lost their saltiness. And once our saltiness is lost, our Messiah tells us that "we are no good for anything, but to be thrown out and trampled by men."

Therefore, I feel by my own writing being so hard on Islam's avoidance of acknowledging important historical and theological truths about ALLAH's Messiah's death and resurrection, I have sinned greatly against Islam if I hypocritically do not also expose gross callousness by my American Christian brothers and sisters about their own harsh attitudes toward Muslims. Because they would claim that all Muslims are cut off from the eternal life promised through the Messiah's being raised to new life by the resurrection of the Messiah who Muslims reject. But even though they would say that all Muslims are cut off from that future life, they have the audacity and inconsistency to not hesitate to demonstrate callousness by barring from their Communion service and from their Church a person who has anguish over Muslims and is trying to reach them.

But on the other hand, I will admit that from what I have observed of the xenophobic attitude of the leadership of this Church toward foreign Muslims, there would be no way that I would have the liberty of conscience to place my web site under their censorship when they casually and callously disregard the emphatic teaching of first Corinthians 9 to "become all things to all men that by all means, we might win some."

They seem to have no comprehension of the adjustments in perspective that it will require for any Western Christian to have an impact on Islam when a leading Evangelical associated with the leadership of the U.S. security firm, Black Water in Iraq seems to think that killing all Muslims or driving them all into the sea is the most effective way to deal with Islam and thus save and preserve his own distortion of what he thinks Christianity's view should be toward Muslims.

In a Nutshell – Why This Exposure?

It is no small thing to cancel the suffering and torturous execution of ALLAH's Messiah. Therefore, I have dedicated my very limited skills to sharing with Islam the truth about the Messiah's death and resurrection. But a Church that claims to exalt the Messiah for the benefit of all nations has treated this unworthy servant with suspicion and contempt for my sincere attempts to effectively communicate with Islam which is the official state religion of many nations. My categorical, calloused rejection came without truly attempting to find out whether the Living GOD and the Living Christ are actually involved with me. Yet, two of the former leading elders had personally declared to me that they thought that GOD and His Messiah were leading me in sharing with Islam. Additionally, a third elderly Biblical scholar, ironically the father of the one the messengers of my most recent expulsion, encouraged me immediately after the meeting where I explained the visions. Significantly, his response was quite warm and receptive. But each of these spiritually mature elderly three men has now passed into the next world to be with their Risen Messiah. So either I am intentionally lying about their positive responses or I totally misunderstood their sincere words to me.

But I feel for two main reasons that I needed to bring into the open to the World Community and to the Christian Western Community the way this sincere Christ loving Church, but not loving Church to one of his sincere servants, considers a person who cares about today's Muslims understanding of our Messiah's death and resurrection as a distraction to them and almost considers me to be a terrorist.

The first and most important reason that I am speaking publicly is that I am a hypocrite if I spend hours and hours being critical of how the leaders of Islam have unitedly rejected the historicity of Christ's being temporarily murdered, but then being raised alive by ALLAH's Wisdom and Might (Quran 4:158), but in contrast I have strangely been silent about the calloused error of Christians being strongly opposed to potentially effective communication with Islam.

So if I have been publicly critical of Muslim doctrine, but have not provided other Christian groups the opportunity to be aware of the actual resistance to the Scriptures' emphatic teaching for his messengers, according to First Corinthians 9, that we are to make radical adjustments in how we communicate the message of GOD's Messiah to each distinct people group, I have been irresponsible. For me to do less than to communicate openly about my rejection, is to dishonor both the Communion Service and the Scriptures. This present attitude in this Church potentially reduces the precious Communion Service to a private fetish for the most legalistic leaders rather than how God intends it to be a mighty exercise in expressing devotion and experiencing rededication. Thus, it is also to be a mighty motivational impetus for us to desire to share our Messiah's love with others such as Muslims. So we must not commit the grave sin of considering our blessed Messiah as our own private trophy to remove from our trophy case on Sunday mornings in order to discuss his unselfish sufferings for us. But we must be careful not to think that we must avoid also thinking about his suffering for the world that is standing just beyond our closed and sometimes locked doors and also beyond our sometimes closed and locked minds and closed hearts.

So from my observation at this time, this Church and probably many other similar Plymoth Brethren Churches have developed a conservative and sometimes calloused leadership that appears to have become a counterproductive hybrid. This leadership appears to be a carry over from a Jewish tradition that received our Messiah's open public exposure and condemnation. So these leaders, if they are not Christian atheists, appear to be a hybrid of the Pharisees who believed that keeping their own interpretation of the law made them superior to others combined with the Sadducees who entirely rejected the supernatural. Consequently, these leaders seem to have no grasp of the importance of the people from Issachar described in I Chronicles 12:32 who had an "understanding of the times and knew what (they) should do." It seems that in contrast to those wise ancient leaders, these contemporary Church leaders have no grasp of what our times demand of good leaders who are desirous of obeying our Messiah by being salt.

Where Now For This Church and Others Like It?

The first step is to forgive every elder and every other person who has callously ignored the Risen Messiah's great love for Muslims and have also ignored others such as Hindus and Communists. And the second step is to obey the Messiah's teaching to his disciples, his own peaceful Taliban, to actually learn vital lessons from those who do not share their own particular perspective of GOD and GOD's will. So they must realize that GOD's ways are often not our ways.

Learning From The Revolutionary War

So in this case, thousands of Churches throughout the U.S. and Canada must learn valuable lessons from two wise Americans, and from one gifted, unemployed Prussian military officer who finally became an American. General Washington, after the successful Revolutionary War with England, became our first President. It is he who is generally credited with having the leadership skills that won the Revolutionary War. But many knowledgeable historians think that the war would not have been won without the effective ability of General Washington's foreign drillmaster, Baron Fredrich de Steuben. And who discovered this unemployed military officer who could swear in three more languages than the cursing fisherman who became the Apostle Peter? It was our always flirting with women, Ambassador to France, the inimitable Benjamin Franklin, who discovered this unemployed foreign military officer while attending one of the many parties he frequently attended while in Paris.

The Revolutionary War was going very badly for the American's under General Washington, because his gentlemen volunteers kept unvolunteering when he needed them most and disappeared to their homes and farms. Our Ambassador to France realized this fact was causing us to lose the war. So he understood that the training of a paid military force that would not constantly leave General Washington in the heat of the battles was what was needed. And this was the same conclusion that General Washington had also arrived at.

Thus, when Ben Franklin met a self promoting dumpy, middle-aged former Prussian Army officer who was looking for a job, he decided to send him to America to see if he could hook up with and help General Washington.

General Washington soon discovered that this strange self promoting man had the most effective training that Fredrick the Great had to offer. And his American new raw recruits soon loved and respected him and he loved and respected them. The bottom line is that if this dumpy, but well trained military genius had not been discovered by an equally dumpy, but equally brilliant Ben Franklin, quite probably the war would not have been won without the amazing band of well trained young men that this one strange foreigner trained for General Washington.

But how does this Revolutionary War occurrence relate to very traditional Churches in the U.S., being totally cold if not actually hostile to non traditional ways of communicating our Risen Messiah's love to people groups such as Muslims? Because we totally ignore our Messiah's necessary teaching and example to his disciples to think out of the box like Franklin and Washington did when we attempt to show the now Living Messiah's love to persons such as Muslims who he sincerely loves more than we can imagine. But too many in the Christian Church, including big name Christians who have names that may appropriately rhyme with mayhem, want all Muslims to disappear from this earth because of their supposed threat to Christianity.

But I say with conviction that it is not thinking out of the box that is the total key. Rather, the most important key is much, much sincere prayer that produces compassion, sorrow and anguish for one billion, five hundred million precious Muslims who include terrorists and Taliban. But it is certainly not GOD's will to angrily or gently kick out of the Risen Messiah's own Church, (not the elders owned Church) those who ALLAH has called to reach out and embrace Muslims in a unique way. I firmly believe that our Risen Messiah considers this kind of wrong measure as a counterproductive, ungodly way to act. And I believe that our compassionate, wise Risen Messiah does not at all appreciate such behaviors and such attitudes. This type of wrong attitude may not be of the magnitude of the Risen Messiah's not appreciating Muslims denying his temporary death and his eternal resurrection. Nevertheless, this counter-productive attitude must be squarely faced, discussed, intensely prayed about and resolved. And it is very important that serious Christian leaders realize that they have much to learn from Islam about the priority of prayer. Additionally, it is vital to recognize that according to the teaching of Acts 6:4, the leaders of the early Church gave their first priority to prayer even before their ministry of the word.

A Shocking Reality

It is true that ALLAH's Messiah temporarily died, but was then raised by GOD to new life. When Islam's leaders oppose the truth of these two historical events, that GOD wants all nations to know about and acknowledge, Islam's leaders are opposing ALLAH. But here is the shocking reality that is dangerously overlooked regarding how Christians also vigorously oppose GOD.

The leaders of this Church, by excluding me and in affect punishing me for attempting to fulfill my assignment from GOD to communicate with Muslims the truth about His Messiah's temporary death and being raised alive, are also similar to the Muslims; de facto opposing GOD. And to the extent that these elders' attitudes and actions represent the other Plymouth Brethren Churches, the other Plymouth Brethren Churches are also like the Muslims; opposing GOD. Furthermore, to the extent that these two elders of this particular Church represent the attitude of other Protestant Churches throughout the U.S. and Canada, each of these Churches are similarly like the Muslims; they are in opposition to GOD by being in opposition to Muslims receiving the truth about GOD's Messiah's temporary death and glorious resurrection. And this is a very, very scary, ominous, and precarious place for a Church to be in; to be in de facto opposition to GOD.

In genuine love and sincerity I plead with all Christian leaders to remove themselves from this slippery slope of opposing GOD as quickly as possible. For just as it is dangerous for Muslim leaders to oppose GOD, it is also dangerous for Christian leaders to oppose GOD. (Please see The Acts 5:39.)

The New Testament/Injeel Scriptures are emphatic, uncompromising and relentless. The good news of the death and subsequent resurrection of GOD's only Messiah is for each and every nation and not just for non Muslim nations. Therefore, for Western Christian Churches to attempt to limit a servant of GOD to only using terminology that is able to pass through the filter of Western Christian Bias erects a needless barrier that is opposed to GOD's will. This erected barrier prevents especially ALLAH's beloved Muslim nations from more fully understanding and experiencing His great, magnificent and relentless love. Thus, for Christian leaders to choose to be a virtual DAM holding back the free flow of the great river of GOD's Mighty Love is a foolish and dangerous thing to do. They are not opposing Muslims. Instead, they are blatantly opposing the Almighty GOD who is the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.

You know, I truly had no understanding of how much my own great sorrow and unceasing anguish for one billion, five hundred million Muslims is so valuable to ALLAH until I stopped and reflected on an amazing miracle. He repeated over and over to my mind those five long forgotten words, "great sorrow and unceasing anguish," immediately after I received the call from the two elders. Although these two men were sincere, the next noon hour they would attempt to plant within my mind that grieving for Muslims due to their rejection of their Messiah's death and resurrection has a much lower priority to GOD than does my pleasing those official elders who do not even care much about Muslims. But the real truth is that a more accurate understanding for multitudes of Muslims of the now Living Messiah's death and resurrection has ten billion times more importance to GOD's value system than vast multitudes of Christian elders are able to even imagine that this truth has.

So in order for my Risen Messiah to alert me to how important it would be for me to preserve his precious gift to me of sorrow and anguish, he took time out of his busy schedule. Then he repeated those five valuable words to my mind and heart every few minutes until I drifted off to sleep. But it was not until I was given the gentle implied ultimatum at lunch the next day by the elders, that I understood the preciousness and wisdom of our Living Messiah alerting me to carefully consider whether I would choose to serve GOD or man, compassion or legalism, freedom or bondage, grace or censorship, service or stagnation, anguish or callousness, love or status quo luke warmness.