Religion is human’s attempts to get to God. Most religious systems require works as a way of improving oneself to be able to earn one’s way into heaven. This is very different than a having a relationship with Jesus Christ as our Lord since followers of Christ recognize that mankind is so inherently sinful that it is impossible to ever be able to do enough good works to earn entrance into heaven with God. Jesus came down from heaven and lived a perfect life without sin and the only way to get a relationship with our Heavenly Father is for a person to humbly ask Jesus to forgive their sins, repent of them, and through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ be saved.

Dr. Jay Smith is a 3rd generation missionary who was born in the Muslim section of India. He has spent his missionary career witnessing, developing apologetics, and researching polemics to Muslims. His and his associates research has uncovered an amazing amount of truth about Islam, which is very important because it is projected to become the world’s largest religion by 2050. He has had the courage to stand for Jesus Christ at Speaker’s Corner in London when almost nobody would do so. In addition he was willing to debate top Islamic Scholars on the reliability of the Bible and the Koran for many years now.

Jay is a pioneer in affirming the Bible as an accurate account of God’s history to Muslims as they have been taught the Bible has been changed and was unreliable for centuries. He has also become a pioneer in investigating if the Koran’s claims about Mecca and other claims after Muslims have questioned the validity of the Bibles for more than 1,000 years. The information his colleagues and he have found out about the origins of this major religion is quite remarkable. Therefore, the truth of Jay’s findings needs to be proclaimed to encourage followers of Christ that not only is the other religion’s deep skepticism towards the Bible false, there are some major issues with the other book that people need to consider.

With that said, Jay has condensed his Bible School course with 16 hours of his teachings into two 2-hour speeches that investigate different aspects of what he has found. The link for part 1 is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyzPRCKaPB8&t=1557s and part 2 of his teachings is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl1LYH6UudY. These two teachings provide insight into the origins of what is soon to be the world’s largest religion. As followers of Christ we are commanded to love everyone no matter how resistant they may be to the gospel. The Lord wants Christians to have the courage to witness to people from this background in a way so that the truth of God’s love can touch the hearts of Islamic people as. We have been commissioned to make disciples of all nations and unreached people from this religion is a good place to start.

The fight or flight reaction is a human response to fear. However the Bible commands the Lord’s people to “Be not afraid” 155 times using a variety of words as “God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind,” (1 Timothy 1:7). The fight or flight choice is a human response that goes against the Bible. Unfortunately, Old Testament Israelites and New Testament followers of God have mostly, if not reflexively, responded to challenges in this way as habits can be so deeply ingrained that most Christians instinctively follow this path.

The church has had a fight or flight response to the global advance of Islam for so long that, to a great extent, we are conditioned to react to this religion’s assertiveness in this way. Which is so sad since neither response has ever worked. The Crusade or military approach has failed since nobody ever came to Christ through bombing. The retreating approach that Europeans and others have been doing for so long has also been an abject failure as Muslims continue to spread their religion while churches close. Is there a better way to respond to the global challenge of Islam than this human fight of flight behavior that the church has followed for more than 1,000 years? 

Yes! The Lord told Joshua to “Be strong and courageous,” in Joshua 1:6, 1:7, and repeats it again in 1:9 beginning with asking “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous,” (Joshua 1:6-9). The Lord doubles down on this as He knows how prone to fear mankind is, which is why the concept of not being afraid is so pervasive in both Old and New Testaments. Instead of humanistically responding to fear with a fight or flight mentality which are both completely failing at this time, we need to obey the Lord and return to the New Testament Christianity that the early church who “turned the world upside down,” (Acts 17:6b) was practicing.

Jesus commanded Peter to “put your sword in your sheath,” (Matthew 26:52 and John 18:11) because killing of injuring people with weapons of the opposite of love and other fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-24 as they turn people further against the Christian religion. Western Christians have done a great deal of this starting with the Crusades as the west was militarily stronger for so long, but this approach has always disobeyed Christ’s command to make disciples of all ethnic and religious groups and instead can make people hate more. And retreating/fleeing has not fared any better as both have completely failed. Then what is the solution:

To boldly proclaim Jesus Christ by knowing our Bible so well with apologetics and polemics. This includes recognizing that New Testament disciples were persecuted and suffered for their faith so that even if it comes for our having to lay our lives on the line we would not deny the Lord Jesus. Muslims respect people who stand their ground for their belief, not those who flee (of which there has been way to many) as they think they are not genuine believers. They also do not respect the military approach no matter how much stronger a western military might be as bullets and other methods are not exalting Christ, not showing love, and not revealing biblical truth.