Dividing Line on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015 - keep your balance !

Dr. White keeps a good balance between the power of prayer and the power of the gospel for Muslims;
and
supporting just war/ self-defense principles against the evils of Islamic terrorism/Jihadism.

It is discouraging to see some Christians and conservatives to just have a response to Islam as "Bomb them all!"

We must keep our balance:

1.  Pray for Muslims.  Pray for God to make more and more Muslims disillusioned with Islam and all the violence and evil of the Global Jihadism, and that more and more regular Muslims will be drawn to the true Jesus Christ.
1 Timothy 2:1 says  "first of all" = our first priority should be to pray.  "pray for all men" " 'υπερ παντων ανθρωπων" means "for all kinds of men/people".  (see samples of videos below of prayer for different nations and countries and cultures.)   We usually jump to the praying for leaders and those in authority, but first it says, "pray for all kinds of people".

Matthew 9:36-38 - Jesus' insides turned with compassion for the masses of people that were like sheep without a shepherd; and He exhorted us to pray for God, the Sovereign Lord of the harvest, to send forth more laborers (evangelists, pastors, missionaries, teachers, etc.) into the harvest.

2.  We can be patriotic and desire justice and support just war principles against evil Muslim Jihadist types.

3.  But the gospel is still powerful to reach Muslims, even some who are Jihadist types (though it rarely happens; as their hearts are very hardended; but Dr. White pointed out the guy named Saul in Acts 8-9 who was watching the coats and watching Stephen get stoned.); but more importantly the gospel is powerful to reach other Muslims who are not the Jihadist types; so don't avoid all Muslims and don't think they are all like the Jihadi types.

4.  Don't let fear or anger or prejudice lead you into a heart attitude of "Bomb them all" and hatred and never being willing to reach out to a Muslim.   Remember Matthew 5:21-26 - "If you have anger and hatred in your heart, you are guilty of murder, and liable to go to hell."  "the anger of man does not achieve the justice/ righteousness of God" - James 1:20

"perfect love casts out fear" - 1 John 4:18



In order to understand Dr. White's points, one also needs to read his previous very thoughtful article here.

By the way, it was Marie Harf who said the root cause of the violent Jihad is lack of jobs.  That is not the root cause, (maybe a symptom of why some others join in with them, as in Iraq, the Sunnis were alientated and lost lots of jobs by the Malaki Shiite government, but is the not the root of the leadership of Jihadism, as many Jihadist leaders were rich people - like Ben Laden, Al Zawahiri, the doctors and engineers, who commit suicide bombings, etc.) but liberals in our USA government like to use it as a way of avoiding the religious motivations of people.

Some examples of prayer for other nations by national believers: It is neat to hear people from those countries praying for their own land.   The point is to develop a burden and heart for people and praying for these nations held in bondage by Islamic culture.

Egypt  (there are some Evangelical Coptic Christians)



Iran - many Iranians are disillusioned with Islam today.



Saudi Arabia



See here for many other videos of other countries and prayer for them.

You can pray for places like North Korea, Syria, Iraq, Lybia, Israel, Palestinians, Kurds, Russia, China, India, Ukraine, Nigeria, Somolia, Afghanistan, etc. in the same way.


See also the listing of countries and text information about each country for information for fuel for prayer. 

Turkey