According to an article in the US News & World Report, of the top 10 most religions countries in the world, eight are Muslim countries, and only two are not. Not one of the western Christian nations is among this top 10.
The top 10, in order of those exhibiting the most religious fervor among their populations, are:
- Saudi Arabia
- Israel
- Iran
- India
- United Arab Emirates
- Pakistan
- Jordan
- Egypt
- Oman
- Turkey
Of the countries on the list, only Israel and India are non-Muslim countries. They rank as the second and fourth most religiously fervent countries. The residents of Israel, of course, are largely of the Judaic faith (Judaism). And the residents of India are largely of the Hindu faith.
Saudi Arabia turns out to be the #1 most religiously fervent country in the world. After eliminating Israel and India, you have Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, Oman and Turkey, respectively – all of which are Muslim countries.
The US News & World Report article states:
“Data shows Islam is spreading, on track to surpass Christianity as the world’s biggest religion.
While the world’s population is projected to grow 32 percent in the next few decades, the number of Muslims is expected to increase by 70 percent – from 1.8 billion in 2015 to nearly 3 billion in 2060, a recent Pew Research Center report shows.”
In my most recent Bible study, Taking and Holding Ground: a Gospel Message, I point out that much of the religious fervor of the Muslim world is based around the growing Islamic belief that the Mahdi (the prophesied redeemer of Islam) is soon coming to this earth along with his helpers to establish and rule over a worldwide Islamic Caliphate.
According to Islamic teaching, when this “Mahdi” arrives he expects to find Christianity in complete subjection to Islam.
This Muslim teaching is, in turn, catapulting religious fervor even among so-called “moderate” Islamics. Thus, attendance at Muslim mosques has soared by a whopping 77% in recent years, while Christian church attendance has dropped to as little as 20%.
And this is largely because Christians no longer recognize, nor believe in, the conquest theology of the Bible, and particularly the profound conquest language of the gospel of the kingdom of God.
How Political Correctness Is Destroying Christianity
Indeed, Christians have for decades now been beaten over the head with the erroneous and thoroughly liberal “politically correct” notion that throughout history, Christian conquest was an evil act… people were somehow forced to convert to Christianity by the superior forces of Christianity…and that the concept of “manifest destiny” was used as a flimsy excuse to exploit, overthrow and even destroy entire non-Christian populations.
Quite the contrary, of course, Christians were ordered by Christ to go into the world and preach the gospel, not overthrow the world militarily and force subjection to Christ on it. As it’s written:
Mar 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
And in the course of obeying Christ’s mandate, from the very start to this very day, it has been Christians who have been brutally mistreated by the heathen, non-Christian populations of the world. As St. Paul discussed of his own endeavors to preach the gospel to the known world of his time:
2Co 11:24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
2Co 11:25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
2Co 11:26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
2Co 11:27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
2Co 11:28 Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.
Christians were thrown into lion’s dens in the Roman coliseums. They were beaten, beheaded, hung on crosses, and ran through with spears. Their children were murdered before their very eyes. They were hunted and killed for sport.
Yet still they carried forth the Gospel message of reconciliation with God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and offered it to the very people who were brutally working to destroy them. As St. Paul would later write:
Col 1:23 If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;
Col 1:24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:
Col 1:25 Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;
Col 1:26 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Col 1:28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
Col 1:29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
For centuries, Christians were much like St. Paul, boldly carrying forth the gospel message to the heathen nations that through the shed blood of Jesus they could be reconciled to the Father and escape the unnatural, slavish and oft-times bloody constraints of their own man-made religions. They could be set free into the glorious light of Christ.
And gradually, as early Christians brought forth this message, usually under great tribulation, the world began to convert. Christianity became the largest religion on the face of the earth, and the greatest force in the world for freedom.
Fat and Lazy
But Christians today have grown fat and lazy, and have retreated to the safety and comfort of their homes and churches rather than going forth to preach the gospel message to the heathen of this world.
Christians have fearfully caved in to the politically correct notion that says preaching the Gospel of Christ to the non-Christians of this world is some kind of breach of spiritual ethics…some kind of precursor to worldwide religious slavery…some kind of insult to collective conscience the rest of the world.
And as a result, the heathen religions – particularly the Islamic religion — have picked up the mantle of religious conquest and now utilize that mantle to once again brutalize and subjugate Christians. Only not with preaching, but with brute, raw force and terror.
We saw it only a month ago, in March, when an Islamic terrorist attacked Britons near the House of Parliament, killing six and wounding some 50 others.
We saw it again today in the attacks in Paris, only a few days before the French presidential election, when an ISIS terrorist who had been jailed for 20 years for a previous gun attack on cops – but was released early — opened fire with an AK47 on the Champs-Elysees, killing and injuring police and French bystanders.
And we will continue to see it on a regular basis, throughout the western Christian nations, because “Christians” are no longer Christians. You can’t be a Christian and fail to faithfully obey Christ’s crystal clear mandate to “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
Wherever a void appears, something else will sooner or later rush in to fill it. And the Islamic world is rushing in to fill the void left by faithless Christians.
Take and Hold Ground
As Christians we are to both take and hold ground on behalf of our heavenly Father, through the preaching of the gospel message of Christ. As it is written:
Jud 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
In the original Greek language, the phrase “earnestly contend for the faith” means to fight for the faith like a prizefighter defending his title.
But Christians, as a whole, no longer follow the above admonition from Christ’s half-brother, St. Jude, any more than they follow Christ’s admonition to “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
As a result of this politically-correct rejection of the Christian conquest language of the Bible, the religion of Islam, which is based on a conquest theology of its own, is rapidly overtaking, and to a large extent overcoming, Christianity, both in worldwide growth as well as in global clout and influence. And they’re doing so through sheer brute force. That which fills the void left by Christians is never going to be as benign as Christianity. Never.
What’s the Solution?
The solution is quite simple: Christians need to re-educate themselves to the conquest theology of the gospel message of Jesus Christ and the Word of God. They need to get serious, for a change, about taking ground on behalf of our heavenly Father, through His Christ, and then holding that ground on His behalf until He comes. They need to get serious about earnestly contending for the faith. Real Christians don’t give ground. They take ground, through the preaching of the Gospel and the teaching of the Word of God.
If Christians in America fail to do so, we’ll soon end up like the Christians of western Europe, wading neck deep in a growing onslaught of 52 million hostile, anti-Christian heathen Islamic forces who seek nothing less than the complete overthrow and destruction of western Christendom, and the institution of Islamic law and Islamic supremacy over what was formerly Christian holy ground.
The bottom line is that believers in the Islamic religion are serious about the spread of their religion. Can the same statement be made of Christians today?
If you haven’t done so already, here’s the link you can use to download a copy of Steve’s latest Bible study, Taking and Holding Ground: a Gospel Message.
Regards in Christ,
Steve Barwick
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