The video is horrifying the world: A knife-wielding man boasting on camera about butchering a British soldier. Michael Adebolajo and an accomplice ran over Lee Rigby with their car. Rigby was a veteran of Afghanistan and the father of a two-year-old boy. Then they hacked up his body with knives and a meat cleaver. Police wounded and arrested the two men. Two more people have now been arrested as accomplices.
Before police arrived, a Cub Scout leader named Ingrid Loyau-Kennett confronted one of the killers, despite the fact that he was holding a butcher knife. She later told The Daily Telegraph, “I asked him if he did it, and he said ‘yes,’ and I said, ‘Why?'” The man told her, “I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan.” She said, “Right now it is only you versus many people. You are going to lose.”
She is right. Not because the numbers of radical Muslims are insignificant; if recent surveys are correct, seven percent of the Muslim world has been radicalized. Seven percent of 1.6 billion Muslims equates to 112 million radicals. (To learn more about radical Islam, I invite you to read “Engaging Islam with grace” or see my book, Radical Islam: What You Need to Know.) Surveys also indicate that half the radical Muslim world is ready to die for their beliefs, which would indicate 56 million potential suicide bombers. Even if these numbers are 10 times too high, there would still be five million potential jihadists willing to die in order to kill us.
The good news is that God’s Spirit is leading more Muslims to Christ today than ever before. More Muslims have come to Jesus in the last 15 years than in the previous 15 centuries, many after seeing visions and dreams of Jesus. (My friend Tom Doyle’s fantastic book, Dreams and Visions: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World? tells the exciting story.)
And God’s Spirit is on the march in our culture as well. Yesterday some of our team had a conference call with the leaders of “OneCry,” a ministry that provides resources and encouragement for spiritual awakening. They told us about remarkable movements of God in Reno, Nevada; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Syracuse, New York. Scripture assures us, “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
You may have heard about the devil’s garage sale. His tools were on display, labeled and priced—anger, hatred, lust, murder, and all the rest. At the end of the table was a tool that was worn more than any other, with no label but the highest price of all. Someone asked the devil what it was. “Discouragement,” he replied. “Why is it priced so high?” he was asked. “Because no one knows it’s mine.”
Don’t let him use that tool on you today. God + 1 = majority.
Search
