How and why did Churches become Mosques in the Middle East?

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddasbg/535177033/

"But I have this against against you, that you have left your first love" Rev. 2:4

"Remember, . . . repent, and do the deeds you did at first, or else I am coming to you, and I will remove your lamp stand out of its place, unless you repent." Rev. 2:5

The Hagia Sophia ( The Church of Holy Wisdom, from the Greek words, “Hagia” for Holy, and “Sophia” for wisdom) was built under Emperor Justinian’s reign (consecrated in 563 AD), after other smaller churches were on the same site since 326 AD, under Constantine. This is still the most incredible dome structure in the world that has never been able to be reduplicated at that size without much more support underneath. The famous early church father, John Chrysostom (bishop of Constantinople 398-404 AD) ministered from the old church building that was here before the current structure was built.  According to tour guides, Chrysostom’s stone pulpit is in the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia. When the Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453 and renamed the city Istanbul, the church was converted into a Mosque and the minarets were added. All of the pictures of Jesus and Mary and other Biblical stories on the walls were plastered over for many years, because in Islam, to paint a picture of a prophet is considered idolatry. In 1847-1849, the building was restored and since 1935 it has been a Museum.

Part one: the Divine Factor: God is ultimately in charge of history

Ultimately, God allowed Islam to overtake the early church and territories that were formerly Christian; because God is Sovereign over history, but man is still responsible for his sinful actions. 1

Leaving their first love (Rev. 2:4; see also Matthew 22:36-40); which resulted in lack of evangelistic outreach; and the combination of false doctrine and sin in the churches (most of the other churches in Rev. chapters 2-3) and other political and social factors, and becoming lukewarm and self-sufficient, (Rev. 3:15-19), is the root of all of the other human and historical factors that eventually led to the demise of the once on fire and somewhat healthy churches of the New Testament.            But just because the apostles Paul, John, and Peter; and leaders like Titus and Timothy got the churches started, does not guarantee that they would last. Each generation must be wholly devoted to God. “. . . teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you . . .” (Matthew 28:18-20)      But ultimately God in His pleasure and wisdom and for His own glory has allowed all of these things to happen so that He could get greater glory later, when the gospel would go to the Muslims and other unreached peoples. God is beginning to do this mighty work of sovereignty in providentially opening up the Muslim World in this day.               And God is using the fanatical expressions of Islam to make Muslims disillusioned with Islam all over the world.  

In the last 30 years, it seems more Muslims are turning away from Islam, to Jesus Christ, than in previous generations!            This is especially true among Iranians, who are not Arabs, but Persian.  They have t                          heir own language and rich culture history, including Kings mentioned in the Bible; Cyrus, Dariush, Khasharyasha ( Xerxes) and Ardishir (Artaxerxes).  The Khomeini regime (beginning in 1979) exposed the true nature of doctrinal, consistent, political Islam to many peaceful and normal Muslims.   

The cruel dictatorships of Qaddafi of Libya, Hafez Al Assad of Syria, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, the Taliban of Afghanistan, and the trickery and deceitfulness of Yasser Arafat and suicide bombers, the violence and Al Qaida, Hamas, and other Jihadist Muslim movements are also creating a turmoil in many other normal everyday and secular Muslims.   God is working in more Muslims' hearts today, than ever before in history for them to seek the truth all over the world, including the Arab World.  More than ever before, peaceful Muslims are realizing that their religion itself and its doctrines in the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sharia jurisprudence contribute to the violence and nature of a lot of Islamic terrorism and oppression in today's world.  

The first and foremost reason for Islam conquering the Middle East is that God Himself ordained (decided to allow it), permitted it, in His wisdom and right to do such; for His own glory. God could have stopped it, just like He could have stopped the 9-11-01 terrorists. But just like with Job in chapters 1-2 of the wisdom book of Job, God pulled His powerful protecting hand back and let Satan attack Job for a purpose. In the same way, God pulled his Omnipotent hand back and permitted the terrorists to do what their evil nature enslaved them to do. “And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was very great on the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continuously”. (Genesis 6:5) “The Lord looked down on the earth and saw it was full of violence” (Genesis 6:11-12) The Hebrew is very emphatic and descriptive in these verses. This describes the depravity and the potential for evil lurking in all of our hearts. Only God’s grace and sovereignty holds back more violence and corruption from becoming even worse. Humans act according to their nature.

God is sovereign and only acts according to Holy nature, being completely separated from sin. God is Holy and Pure and completely separated from evil. “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all”. (I John 1:5) God cannot lie. (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18) But God is also completely Sovereign and in control. The evil imaginations of the hearts of humans are so bad, that when God takes His protection off, He lets us see the potential of our own wicked hearts. As John Piper wrote, “How God governs all events in the universe without sinning, and without removing responsibility from man, and with compassionate outcomes is mysterious indeed! But that is what the Bible teaches. God “works all things after the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11) . . . All of us are sinners. We deserve to perish. Every breath we take is an undeserved gift. We have one great hope: that Jesus Christ died to obtain pardon and righteousness for us (Ephesians 1:7; 2 Corinthians 5:21), and that God will employ His all-conquering, sovereign grace to preserve us for our inheritance (Jeremiah 32:40). We surrender this hope if we sacrifice this sovereignty.”1  God could have restrained the evil as He kept Abimelech, the king of Gerar from sinning against Sarah and Abraham in Genesis 20:6.

“For His Own Pleasure and Glory” --

This was William Carey’s answer to a Hindu Braham in India after he went there in 1792, as to why it took them so long to come and share the gospel with them. “For His own pleasure and glory, and God has His reasons; He is wise” is how Tom Wells summarizes Carey’s answer. 2  William Carey cited Acts 14:16 and 17:30, putting them together:

“In the past, He let all nations go their own ways, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent.”

Carey told the Hindu Brahman:

“. . . thus by the diffusion of gospel light, the wisdom, power, and grace of God will be more conspicuous in overcoming such deep-rooted idolatries, and in destroying all that darkness and vice which have so universally prevailed in this country, than they would have been if all had not been suffered (allowed) to walk in their own ways for so many ages past.” (Tom Wells. A Vision for Missions. Banner of Truth, 1985, p. 13. ( ibid, same as 2) 

God gets more glory by showing evil for what it is and then destroying it later. That is the basic story line of the Bible.

God in His Sovereignty is not only bringing more Muslims than ever before to the west; but He is also sending out more laborers to the Muslim world today than in all previous history; and more Muslims have come to Christ in the last 30 years than in all previous mission history!! Let us make Matthew 9:37-38 a part of our prayers in our churches. When we pray for the Sovereign Lord to send out laborers into His harvest, we must surrender and we willing to be those laborers.

William Carey’s answer was in response to the question as to why it has taken so long to bring the gospel here, if it is the only hope of salvation from sin. We cannot go back and change History and it is certainly evil to rebel against God and his Sovereignty (Romans 9:19-24); so every generation must start afresh with its own responsibility for the contemporary generation of non-Christians in the world, and that it is the business of each such generation of Christians to see to it, as far as lies within its power, that the Gospel is clearly preached by planting churches in every un-reached people group. (Matthew 28:18-20, Romans 15:20-21, Revelation 5:9)

God’s sovereignty in the past is no excuse for disobedience in the present! Don’t be afraid to witness to Muslims. Learn and get equipped on the issues and how to preach the gospel to Muslims.

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1 John Piper, “Why I do not say, ‘God Did Not Cause the Calamity, But He Can Use it for Good.”, September 19, 2001.  
see also:  The Westminster Confession of Faith, and the 1689 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith 3:1:
The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 3, verse 1, “Of God’s Eternal Decree”

"God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass;[1] yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin,[2] nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.[3]" (my emphasis)

2 Tom Wells, A Vision for Missions. Banner of Truth, 1985, p. 12-21.