- [Todd] Fouad Masri
interacts with Muslims all over the world and here is what he has been seeing and experiencing in recent years. - [Fouad] There is an
openness like never before. To be honest with you, we've never seen Muslims this open. Muslims are downloading Bibles.
Muslims are being baptized, so there is an openness like never before. - [Announcer] Jesus never
promised his followers an easy path. In fact, he told his disciples
the world would hate them. He sent them out as sheep among wolves. Jesus' words came true in
the life of the apostles and are still coming true today in the lives of his
followers around the world. Join host Todd Nettleton as we
hear their inspiring stories and learn how we can help right now on The Voice of the Martyrs Radio network. - [Todd] Welcome again to The Voice of the Martyrs Radio. My name is Todd Nettleton. We are connected today with Fouad Masri; he is the founder and the
president of the Crescent Project. In fact, we were just discussing this is the 30th anniversary year
for the Crescent Project. So for 30 years, they have
been teaching Christians how to share their faith with Muslims and how to do it with confidence,
how to do it with love, how to do it with courtesy, and we are excited, Fouad,
to have you back here on Voice of the Martyrs Radio. Welcome. - [Fouad] Thank you, Todd. It's great to be with you. God is faithful! - [Todd] God is faithful! Fouad, you have just written a book called "Sharing Jesus with Muslims," and I have a copy with me here. Why this new book? You have written other books about this. You have actually written books that are designed to be given to a Muslim to help them think about faith,
think about biblical topics. What is the purpose or what is the passion that led to this new book? - [Fouad] Yeah, in the last
four years we have grown and we have been doing things
we have never done before. We are doing church planting, we are talking to people who are direct in
evangelism, sharing directly with them the full gospel, and we discovered still there is a lack of understanding among believes on moving from fascinations to compassion. A lot of Christians when I talk to they are fascinated
with the culture of Islam and the meals, the food,
the dress and we say, "No, you need to move to compassion." So we wanted to present the idea that God has given us a message for them. The other thing is that
from fear to compassion. When you look at the last 15
years in the Muslim world, if you even go as far as India, Indonesia, things have not been getting
better in the Muslim world. It is getting worse. Yeah, we look at Dubai and see the nice
buildings and the markets, but that does not represent
Muslim countries, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and
you go even to Senegal. If you go to India, the conflict between the Hindus and
the Muslims is increasing. So we wanted to tell
people, yes, there is fear, there is terrorism. Not even two weeks ago before
the earthquake in Turkey, a terrorist walked into a
mosque and detonated himself, and 83 dead this first
day of the explosion. They are still finding
dead people and injured, so we wanted people to move
from this fear of Islam and Muslims to no, we have
compassion, we have a message. That is on the outside. The last thing I want to share
why this book is important. I took a whole section on the Great Commission, Matthew
28:18-20, where Jesus says, "Go and make disciples." He starts by saying, "All authority has been given to me; therefore go and make
disciples of all the nations." And so the reason we
wanted to discuss this, it is sad to say now in the
West we are noticing there is biblical illiteracy. People are forgetting that
the role of the church is not a bigger building or a better song, although these are important. We are not saying that churches and Christians should not have materials and tools and structure. What we are saying the goal
is not another campaign for a building fund; the goal is impacting the nations
among us and today, Todd, you know a lot of people are noticing that our neighborhoods are changing. It is no longer Ford and Chevy, you've got the Toyotas
and you've got the Kias. Basically what you are seeing is the world is joining us here in the US, but there also coming to Canada, Mexico, Latin America and Europe. Last summer, I was in
four cities in 10 days, and it is no longer like before where everybody was Swiss or French. You see Moroccans, Algerians, Pakistanis and Indians and Senegalese. So suddenly, I was in a train in Paris. I am standing talking to people next to me that were from Cameroon, I mean, I have never been to Cameroon, and I am talking to
somebody from Cameroon. And the beauty of what
God is saying to us, the Great Commission
was given 2000 years ago and Jesus says in Acts
1:8 we are his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria
and the ends of the earth. Well, the ends of the
earth are now not Judea. The ends of the earth are Jerusalem. So that is one of the reasons this book was written this time. - [Todd] I was interested
as I opened the book to see that it was
dedicated to Nabeel Qureshi, and can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with him and why this dedication
was made in his honor? - [Fouad] Yes, thanks, Todd. It is sad. I miss my friend Nabeel, but we know his faith is now sight. I met Nabeel who was
about a year in the Lord, so we had been years for many years and we wanted to write this book together; however, he had stomach cancer
and was not able to write. So I felt that this could be
a great way to honor my friend and my brother in Christ to
dedicate this book to him. Part of the outline was his idea, especially the issues with Islamic law. Many times Muslims say Islam is correct because it has a perfect Sharia, perfect Islamic law, and he
wanted a whole chapter on that. We did use the book and we have a couple of things
we included in the book, specifically on utilizing the Sharia Islam and the concepts they bring to say, "Oh, it is a perfect religion," and use that to create
a discussion on Jesus, on faith, on salvation because Sharia law does not save us; only Jesus, the Messiah, saves. - [Todd] I loved, as I opened it, I loved seeing that it
was dedicated to him. One of the first topics
that you tackle is fear and even as you opened up, you talked about that fear that we have. And I think for a lot of Americans, we fear sharing our faith with Muslims. A lot of us fear sharing
our faith with anybody, let alone with Muslims. Why do you think that
is such an issue for us, that we are so fearful? - [Fouad] You know, a
lot of American culture, a lot of European culture, there is this concept of
understanding privacy, respect. We always don't want to offend, so I wanted to talk about this section because I came as an
international student. And, yes, many times Americans offended me and sometimes I offended them, you know. Sometimes I use a word that makes no sense or I use a word that
has different meanings. I remember talking to a friend, I used the wrong preposition
in this idiom and they said, "Excuse me, that doesn't mean
what you think it means." So we wanted people to see,
hey, it is okay not to offend, but people understand. In our culture, the Muslim culture, even when you go to Muslims in India or Pakistan, there is this
concept of hospitality. So people understand that you
are not from the same culture and if you want to make an
issue that they are offended, it is easy to say, "I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to offend you." The fear is there; the other thing that is there we wanted to tackle is there is the social fear in the media. You know, the media is
always showing everything that is negative. I think, though, it is a little more spiritual. So we tackle this fear
from a spiritual point of view because the evil one does not want us to share the Good News. So we have to remember this fear is also a spiritual initiation. The Bible says in Ephesians,
"Put on the armor of God," and he says, "The shield of
faith to defeat the darts of the evil one." Well, one of the darts is fear. So the idea that somehow
you will never get fearful, well, that is not true. I have been doing ministry
for more than 30 years, and always, it doesn't matter
I am sharing with a Muslim or non-Muslim, if I want
to say I am a believer in Jesus, you know when you
use the name Jesus, some people are going to get happy and some
are not going to get happy. So you answer knowing that
that fear is from the evil one. He doesn't want you to proclaim the name. - [Todd] We are talking this week on Voice of the Martyrs
Radio with Fouad Masri. He is the founder of Crescent Project and the author of a new book called, "Sharing Jesus with Muslims:
A Step-by-Step Guide." Fouad, if I meet a Muslim
and I want to talk to them, they could be just the same,
I think, as Christians, you know, someone who
says they are a Christian. They might be a Baptist,
they might be a Pentecostal, they might be a Catholic, they might be a mainline Methodist, all of those people would
say, yeah, I am a Christian. That is somewhat true in Islam as well. They might be Sunni, they might be Shia, they might be very devout,
they might be very nominal. How much do I need to know
about their version of Islam before I sort of have a
conversation about faith? - [Fouad] Todd, the thing is it is good for people to do their
homework and it is true, like the Somali Muslims are
different than the Lebanese. There are some similarities, but your question is very important because of today's world with the wars, conflicts and transitions, students coming here to
school, there is an openness like never before. To be honest with you, we have never seen Muslims this open. - [Todd] Wow! - [Fouad] Now some are becoming believers, Muslims are getting baptized, but Muslims are downloading Bibles. They come to our website. Our digital outreach had 41,000 hours of reaching Muslims last year, 41,000 hours talking to Muslims
in Pakistan, Tajikistan. So there is an openness like never before and many Muslims want to talk about Jesus in a respectful way. It used to be they would
make fun of the Christians; today, they are respecting us because, number one, people
helping in these disaster areas, like Turkey, are the born-again believers. They are there with cash, with money, with blankets, with food,
so there is a respect, there is an openness. The other thing on our side, as believers, we don't need to know everything about the Muslim we are talking to, especially in the beginning. Just show love, show a
smile in a tangible way, maybe invite them to your home. If they moved into your
neighborhood, maybe say, "Hey, can we grab pizza for you today?" Something very simple. If you are overseas, it could
be the refugees or students. One of the biggest
needs for students today is just someone to talk to them because they are in a foreign country. When I came to America,
I did not even know where to buy toothpaste, and my classmate said to me go to the drugstore. And I am like, why do I
want to go to a drugstore? I don't want to buy drugs. But Americans and their slang, you know, the drugstore is the supermarket. Basically they are saying
go to the supermarket. Many times we look at the Muslim and we think, oh, I need
to know are they Shia or Druze, are they Alawites,
you know, are they Ahmadiyya. It's okay. Start the conversation, and in the book it describes the different denominations of Islam; we have about 200 different sects if you include Suffis and Tariqa. Not every Muslim the same. Most Muslims today are nominal, which means they know
traditional information. So for example, they would say to you, "Oh, we believe in the virgin birth and you Christians don't
believe in the virgin birth." Well, that's not true; we
believe in the virgin birth. But they think because
we say "the Son of God," this means there was a sexual
act between God and Mary. So you have to remember they
don't know anything our faith; they know traditional information. One person I was talking to said they were Muslim
because Islam worships one god; why Christians worship three? You know, he has never
understood our faith at all. Well, we believe in one God
from all the way to Abraham. Like they say they follow
Abraham, we are the same way. Our faith is from Genesis
where God calls Abraham. - [Todd] You encourage
us to pray in the book, and I remember this prayer from the Bridges video curriculum they did now more than a decade ago: "Lord, if you want me to share the gospel with this person, you open the
door in this conversation." And I love that prayer because
it kind of puts the onus on God rather than the onus on me. How have you seen God answer that prayer, even in your own conversations? When you pray that prayer and say Lord, I am ready to share the gospel, but you have to open the door. - [Fouad] Amen, brother. One key thing in the book
trains you how to listen. Biggest problem today for
everybody, including myself, is we forget to listen. My pastor used to say God gave
us one mouth and two ears, which means we have to listen twice more. And so you listen, and God answers. I was in a flight from Austria to France and I got the window seat. I was very tired. I really did not want to talk to anybody. In Europe, I spoke six times in six days, so you get to this place
where it's like "I don't want to talk to anybody anymore." I prayed this prayer and the man, the person sitting next to me, I couldn't figure out
was he French, Italian, I couldn't figure out. His name was Ahmad, and he was an engineer and he starts the conversation
and asked me what do I do? I am trying to beat
around the conversation, "I teach about religion,"
and he goes, "What religion?" I say, "I teach about
the Bible and the Koran." So he pulled his Koran in Arabic and I found out that he
was from Tripoli, Lebanon. And for the next hour we
talked about the Lord, we talked about how the
Bible has not changed, discovered that he had
downloaded the Bible and he was listening to it in French, he is a French speaker. - [Todd] Wow! - [Fouad] I like the story because the Lord was there before me. The man is already searching, he has already downloaded the Bible and I sit next to him and share with him how the Bible
cannot be corrupted, and the beautiful thing
about the Bible, the Bible leads us to Jesus. All other religions, their founders will
tell you about the book or rule or something
to obey, like the text. For us, the power is in
the person of Christ. God become flesh. Immanuel is here. We are not following a
book; we are following God. We are not following rules;
we are following a Savior. It is totally different. - [Todd] It is a very different mindset. We are talking this week on
Voice of the Martyrs Radio with Fouad Masri. He is the author of a new book, "Sharing Jesus with Muslims:
A Step-by-Step Guide." Fouad, one of the things
that you address in the book is the hurdles that
our Muslim friends have to overcome to follow Jesus. What are some of those hurdles that they have to kind of get past
in order to say, okay, yes, I do believe that Jesus is the Son of God? - [Fouad] The first thing is
we have to reach the mind. That is the first hurdle. So if they still believe
that we are pagans, worship three gods, that we are sinners, then
you have to address that. So there is a real
emphasis on conversations. Now, conversations count
because conversations explain the gospel and many times that is how people convert. They listen, and the Bible says, "Salvation by the Word of God,
by hearing the Word of God," so you have to hear. The second thing is reaching the heart. That's where Jesus saying, "Love
your neighbor as yourself." Why we as a ministry are involved in what we call the "Great Commandment." The Great Commandment is love
your neighbor as yourself. So we are involving the Great Commandment in structures and events because we want to have a
Great Commission impact. So why are we helping
people in the earthquake? Because we want them to
see in a tangible way that we love them. Now if they become believers, great! If they don't become believers, it's okay. That is our role as believers. So there is this tangible hurdle that they need to see the love of Christ; it cannot be just by
words: "Hey, we love you." It could be inviting them to your home, inviting them to go fishing or maybe a sister can invite
another Muslim immigrant to get their kids and go to the park. It doesn't matter if
the Muslim have a hijab or doesn't have a hijab
on; just become a friend, and a friend is a way to do this. That is the hurdle, and
the last hurdle is this, and there is more I talk in the book, but I want to highlight this. We have to wait on their decision. One of the biggest problems today is we as believers want to
kind of create this fame when somebody becomes a
believer from Muslim background. Oh, no, no, no, relax, it's okay. Salvation is a miracle of God. It doesn't matter if your
background is Muslim, Hindu, you know, evangelical. It doesn't matter. We all need salvation; it is a miracle. So we need to wait. Some of the hurdles could be
they could lose their life. Some of the hurdles could be
they will lose their family. One friend of mine is
an imam; his wife left. At first, the kids were young enough, and so the struggle was
he has lost his family; he didn't lose his life, but that's a lot. So you need to wait on their timing. There are these hurdles not only the mind and the heart but, also,
the society around them. Also, depending on their position, if they are in the political eye or the public eye many times, they cannot come and say I am believer. So I like the concept
there are secret believers, that's true. Now we know that Jesus says you
cannot stay secret for life. At some point the light
will shine, absolutely. But the timetable is not on
me or not on us as believers. The timetable is won by God's hand and on them, whether it's
a man, woman, teenager. So we just connected with a Saudi who became a believer in college; we cannot tell people about
his name. It is not right. He is in a country that executes people for changing their religion. So it is important to be
very careful and steward that information in a way
that protects the brother and let him tell his family, let him decide when to be baptized. - [Todd] Amen. How real, and you talked
about this a little bit, how real is persecution for
Muslim-background believers in the West? If my co-worker at my
American job leaves Islam to become a follower of Christ, what kind of pressure and
what kind of persecution is he or she likely to face? - [Fouad] Thank you, Todd, I love Voice of the Martyrs
because you guys are everywhere. You are monitoring these things, and God bless you, and
we need to highlight because we are losing brothers and sisters even today as we speak, church planters in countries
like India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia
and so, you are right. There is a pressure. In the West, there tends
to be a little bit hidden. It could be political pressure
on them, financial pressure. Sometimes if it is a
student, they pull the money and they end up having to
kind of fend for themselves. We have seen some people
lose life in the West, and if they are women,
usually, they marry them to someone's cousin overseas. The thing that Muslims who are fanatic have a problem with is they think that persecution will lessen the commitment of the believers. - [Todd] It doesn't
work that way, usually. - [Fouad] I was listening to a pastor just said he was doing a study. In 300 years from Acts 1:8
when the disciples left and persecution was at its
height, every decade the church, every decade, the church
multiplied by 50%. - [Todd] Wow! - [Fouad] In three hundred years, the Roman coin changed from having the face of Caesar
to having the cross of Jesus in three hundred years. What's happened today among Muslims, yes, there is persecution,
yes, there is loss of life, but the results of the persecution
is adding to the kingdom. The family of Jesus is growing. Now it is true we haven't
reached critical mass. Yes, it is true, we have numbers that are more than 10
years ago or 20 years ago; we haven't reached critical mass. So countries like India or Iran or Turkey, we are seeing faith grow, we are seeing people become believers, but still we haven't reached critical mass where we can impact the whole culture. So we need to pray, we need to
share the gospel, whether I'm on a plane or in a home or
campers or neighborhood, we need to share the Good News of Jesus. - [Todd] You have some
amazing opportunities, and our guest, Fouad
Masri, has been telling you about some of them. First, pray for Muslims. Pray that the openness Muslims have to engage in conversations about God and the Bible will result in a great harvest of people coming to know Jesus Christ in a personal way. Secondly, you can learn
how you can interact with Muslims yourself. Fouad has written a new book, it is called "Sharing Jesus with Muslims." I hope you will get a copy and learn how to engage with people with confidence, with love and with courtesy. We are going to give
you a link to the book when you visit our website, vomradio.net; again, vomradio.net. While you are there, you
can hear other interviews that I have done with former Muslims, people sharing their testimonies as well as people who are
sharing the gospel with Muslims. Maybe when you get into the
archives, you want to hear from Brother Rachid from Morocco or a brother named Al
Fadi from Saudi Arabia, or maybe you want to hear from
our Sister Benesh from Iran. All of these archived
episodes are available online, or you can find them in the podcast stream wherever you listen to
podcasts. Just search for The Voice of the Martyrs,
search for VOM, VOM Radio. Our website, again, vomradio.net. While you are at the website,
you can also give me feedback. I love to hear from listeners about how God is using this program, how he is encouraging you, how you are praying for
persecuted Christians around the world. Fred wrote in and said, "I just want to thank
you for your podcast. I tell others that this
helps me refocus on Jesus and what is true and most important. Praying for you and our fellow believers, I was really hit today
about how the communists don't want the children
to know about Jesus. Again, this shows me why
serving in kids' ministry is so important." Fred, it is very important. Sonya wrote in to say, "The
Voice of the Martyrs Radio has impacted my relationship with God. Most importantly, the podcast episodes have propelled me to stay
grounded in God's Word and prayer as I make
disciples of Jesus Christ." Sonya, the focus on God's Word is a theme that I hear again and
again in these stories. It has impacted me, as well, to be committed to my time in God's Word, to my time reading the Bible each day. You can send your
feedback at vomradio.net. The feedback box is just right
at the bottom of that page. Next week we are going to hear Part II of our conversation with Fouad Masri. He is going to continue to share what he has been experiencing
as he shares the gospel with Muslims not only here in the US but in other countries as well. He is also going to tell
us more how we, you and me, can share the gospel, too. I know you will be encouraged
by that conversation. I hope you will be back
with us next week right here on The Voice of the Martyrs Radio network.
