Dear Editor,
One day I went to a local Muslim-owned clothing store to buy a couple of shirts. As I was leisurely browsing the shirts in the store, my eyes fell on what looked like a Bible on a small desk. What’s a Bible doing here? I thought. Muslims do not read the Bible. As I knew the merchants fairly well, and being a lover of books, I walked over to the table and picked up the book to examine it. Immediately, one of them came running out of his office towards me, “No, no, don’t touch!” I was surprised at his reaction.
He took the book, which turned out to be a Koran, from me. I used to own a Koran, I told him. It was given to me by a cousin in the USA, who had converted to Islam. (Shortly after his conversion, he went back to being a Christian) I read all spiritual books, as they all contain a measure of truth.
However, my Koran was at least three times the size of this one. “That was an English Koran, he said; we use a lot fewer words in our language. I saw that he was still visibly upset because I – a non-Muslim – had touched the book, so i bought my two shirts and left.
What had first attracted me to the Koran is that every sura (chapter) starts with: In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
Several weeks later, as I was walking past the store, he came out and invited me in. “Let me explain what we do before we read the Koran,” he said. He led me to the store’s washroom, left the door open and told me to watch. He proceeded to wash his hands and his face, took off his shoes and socks and washed his feet, and even blew his nose to make sure it was clean. After he had done all that, he looked at me and said: “Now I can read my Koran.”
I was impressed. “Do you do that every time you pick it up to read?” “Yes, and we do that 4 times a day.” I then understood why he had been so upset when I had picked up his Koran with unwashed hands. I left the store that day with a new respect for the way Muslims – at least this one – treat their holy book.
Muslims also prostrate themselves on the floor 4 times a day when they pray. They have an awesome zeal for what they believe in. I have never seen them do that here, I guess that’s because they are greatly outnumbered by us Christians.
I don’t know any Christians – myself included – who get on their knees every time they pray; neither do many of us read our Bible on a daily basis … much less 4 times a day.
However, for the last few months I have seen documentaries on YouTube about the far from compassionate and merciful actions of radical Muslim immigrants in the countries that have taken them in, and what I have seen is scary.
They are destroying their host countries, violently attacking non-Muslims on the streets and gang-raping women and children. They are literally and forcefully taking over their host country and demanding that Sharia law be enforced in what they now consider their country.
I assume the immense hatred comes from being indoctrinated from an early age with the contents of the Koran. I suspect the reason the host countries even allow Muslim immigrants to enter is due to the fact they don’t want to be accused by other countries of being politically incorrect.
Political correctness is no doubt an invention by American politicians. They justify their lack of political courage to say NO to whatever or whomever they can’t control by referring to political correctness.
If only Christians were as devoted to their Bible as Muslims are to their Koran, things would be very different. We wouldn’t hesitate to fearlessly defend our Bible teachings as fiercely and as boldly as Muslims defend their false teachings.
Is this ever-growing hostility between Muslims and everybody else ever going to come to an end? Absolutely not! But, the problem is that Muslims are multiplying at a much faster rate than non-Muslims. It’s a matter of only 2 or 3 decades before there are more Muslims in the world than everybody else.
Things are going to get increasingly worse as we near the end of days. God’s Word warns those of us who read it of the unavoidable persecution. “They will kill you, thinking they are doing God a favour.” We are no longer living in the last days, people, but the last hours. There are a great number of friendly, well-intentioned, intelligent people out there who, unfortunately, couldn’t care less about what the Bible says. The Bible is in fact foolishness to their “intelligence.”
There are those who believe in God, but don’t feel the need or take time out to read His word, and would likely not take it seriously if they did. There are those who do read God’s word on a regular basis and therefore know what lies ahead, but are complacently at ease, hoping “it won’t take place in my lifetime.”
There is also widespread spiritual misrepresentation, disclosed by people who should know better. As a child growing up on Aruba, a Dutch teacher once told our class, “Yes, there is a place called Hell, but added – as if he were still quoting Scripture – “God is love and love will not send people to Hell.” He was obviously unacquainted with another Scripture that reads, “God’s severity is as great as his love.”
Jesus spoke more often about Hell than he did about Heaven. Why would God create Hell if he didn’t have a purpose for doing so? And doesn’t the Old Testament say that Hell had to enlarge herself in order to accommodate the number of people that are heading there?
Fortunately, God, who commanded us to seek Him, will not judge us by our ignorance of His word (though ignorance of His word is not a good thing), but by our deeds and how we treat or mistreat our fellow human beings.
I wish all my readers a merry CHRISTmas and a blessed, safe and productive New Year. I encourage all of you to let your primary New Year’s resolution be: Getting to know your Maker! Nothing else in life really matters!
Clive Hodge
