Jonah and the 60 Million Dollar Man

This past Sunday the guest speaker in my church was Father Zakaria Botros, the Coptic Priest who has a 60 million dollar bounty on his head by Al-Quada. Father Botros is the most effective Arab-American evangelist, and has been reaching Muslims with the gospel of Jesus Christ for over 40 years. Since being exiled from Egypt in 1989, he preaches in the Middle East via satellite radio and television, and reaches many here while living in the states.

I thought it was perfectly fitting that this man, who was imprisoned at a time for preaching to Muslims, made his entrance during our worship service while we were singing "How Great is our God".

Before giving us a presentation on understanding Islam and Muslims, Father Botros explained:

"Christianity teaches us to love all man-kind and love our enemies. But by no means does it tell us to be blind to reality and truth, or be misled by misinformation."

Father Botros also made it quite clear that:

"Many Muslims are good constructive members of society, therefore the problem is one of Islam and not of Muslims in general."

So Father Botros' mission is to reach Muslims with the truth by exposing the false religion of Islam. Here are some facts on Islam:

Islam is the only religion that adopts "terrorism"

There are 35,213 verses in the Quran that speak about terror and killing those that are not Muslim

In the West, Islam is viewed as just another religion

Father Botros explained that Islam has 2 faces:

1. Mohammed's character in Mecca:

In 610 A.D. Mohammed started out as peaceful and loving because he was not yet strong
An early verse in the Quran is "Let there be no compulsion in religion".

2.Mohammed's character in Medina:

Now that he has become stronger he spreads his religion by the sword

He also makes claim that Allah told him to kill whoever rejects Islam, primarily Christians and Jews

A later verse in the Quran,"And slay them wherever ye catch them".

Father Botros chose to follow Christ at an early age when discovering some notes in his older brother's Bible after his brother was beheaded by Muslims in 1947 for preaching the truth.

So here's Father Botros in 2010, reaching Muslims by the thousands with The Truth.

Now your probably thinking, "How does Jonah fit into this?"

Well if you can remember, Jonah was extremely loyal to the Jews and God wanted him to go deliver the Good News to the Gentiles(the non-Jews,who Jonah considered to be the enemy). Jonah was reluctant to obey on that one and chose to run the other way. Next thing you know he's inside the belly of a large fish for three days!

Once being deposited to land, and his mind obviously changed about the situation, (which my guess would happen to any of us if we were inside of a large fish for three days)Jonah agreed to declare God's message, and much to his dismay the Ninevites "responded" to God's call.

I think if Jonah knew that it was going to be that easy to reach the enemy with the gospel he probably would have had a different response then running the other way.

Father Botros obviously trusts God as he delivers the Good News to Muslims who follow the Islamic religion. He chose not to run away from the will of God but move forward in response to the call.

So I guess the question for us is: Do we need to spend three days inside the belly of a large fish in order to decide? Or do we follow the example of Father Botros and respond to our call with complete trust in God?