A Chance for Greatness

Some are born great,some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. [Shakespeare, from Twelfth Night

Very dangerous days are ahead for America and for Christianity. It is time for the church of Jesus Christ to shed the nonsense, the entertainmentism, the blatant heresies, the lust for fame and wealth, the sinfulness of our ways for the enemy that we face is fierce and implacable. What will it take for us to repent: our wives and daughters being executed in our football stadiums?

It is time to take the Bible seriously and return to the robust and manly faith of our faithers.

These are times that will thrust greatness upon Christians. The church is very weak today. False churches are strong and attract great numbers of people to their religious circuses and entertainment. There the people utter banalities or gibberish and think they are in the very heights of spirituality, as if people are edified by nonsense. Gain is confused with godliness.

I have great feelings of foreboding tonight. The war began long ago, with the birth of Mohammed in 570 AD or so. Islam's attempt at the conquest of the world was thwarted by brave Christian soldiers at Tours, France, in 732, under the command of Charles Martel. The Crusades were only a temporary part of the long war of Islam against Christianity and brought only a time of respite for Europe. Christians were put on the offensive for a while, but soon the onslaught was renewed and wave after wave beat upon Christian civilization until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 left Europe vulnerable. The history is long and complicated; war is sometimes ugly, but Christianity fought for its very life, and Islam fought to keep the gains that had been won by the force of arms at the expense of Christians. Over two hundred years of war followed the conquest of Constantinople. Only in 1683 after Islam was repulsed at the walls of Vienna did Europe know peace from those who thought they would gain heaven by slaying Christians. But Islam has never changed its fundamental faith, that the whole world must fall under the rule of the Islamic faith. There is no separation of church and state in the dogma of Islam.

The modern conflict, punctuated by the bombings of 9/11, is just a renewal of an ancient and deadly conflict. America does not realize it yet, but America has not caused the hatred nor can she do anything to assuage it. The evil is real and it is a religious evil. The only way Spain could gain religious peace was to expel Islam, and they did in 1492, after the fall of Granada. Harsh, but effective. But no harsher than the dictum of Islam to conquered Christians: Become Islamic, pay heavy tribute, or die. Spain's treatment was humane by the standards of the day.

From 1683 until 2001, a period of 318 years, the Western World was asleep, forgetting history, forgetting the deep roots of religious hatred that were being nourished in Islam. We should have known, but we disregarded the warning signs in our day. We were under a religious delusion of our own, that those who hate can be pacified by tolerance and kindness. We should have learned from the Nazis, the Fascists, and the Communists, but we didn't. We have to be hit in the head over and over again.

We forgot the words of Christ, "He that is not with me is against me," and we thought that our forbearance and kindness would evoke forbearance and kindness in others. It was wrong, of course. We should love and forbear, not because it is a good policy and will make us friends, but because it is the right thing to do. But love and forbearance does not imply that we must pretend that false religions and hateful religions are equal to the faith of our Lord Jesu Christ. We will not win men to vrtue by becoming an enemy of virtue.

But the gates of hell will not prevail upon the church of Jesus Christ, for Christ rules from heaven and is above all things [Eph. 1]. Men will have greatness thrust upon them and will do valiant deeds. The West may suffer immensely because we are a wicked people, but the future does not belong to the Crescent any more than it belonged to the Hammer or Sickle or the Swastika. Immense amounts of blood will flow and the world will be cleansed by that blood and life will spring from death. There are yet American heros in our future and we will not lose this war.

Even the evil of Islam has its purpose. It involved Charles V in so many wars in the sixteenth century and he was never able to deal with Luther and the Lutherans until it was too late and the Reformation was in full flower. God makes even the wrath of men to praise Him. God also has a purpose in this present war. This preacher hopes and prays that it will be the opening of the gospel to the Islamic world in a way that has never been seen before. What joy it would be to see northern Africa, the Middle East, Persia, and Egypt once again under the domination of Christian civilization as it was before the sword of the Prophet laid it waste. Islam should give back all the land it stole in the 7th and 8th centuries. Not to Israel, but to the people of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose land it was. Fair is fair, afterall. [These last sentences were written with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek].

Mohammed is dead. Those who worship dead prophets know nothing but death. Not only does Islam not have separation of church and state, they also do not have a Risen Lord Jesus Christ. We pity them, but must not yield our families and institutions to their dark control.

They will have no rest, and no peace, until they bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. Some temporary victories may cause Islamic children to dance in the streets as they did after 9/11 but such victories will be temporary. Julian the Apostate learned the power of Christ and exclaimed after receiving his death wound, "Galilean, Thou hast conquered!"

Do you?