Heat to Light

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Mark McMillion

So we were talking about the Middle East, about Islam and Islamic fighters, extremism and the phrase that was used back in the 70’s, “hearts and minds” came up.

Yesterday on the national news a German reporter was telling about his experiences in the radical Muslim camps in the Middle East and how new volunteers from the West came every day to join the forces there.

The reporter said that even the very best combat troops from the West would not really be able to defeat the Islamic fighters. The reason he gave was that all the Western forces basically still hoped they would finish their tour of duty and get back to their families. But the Islamic fighters, they were fully ready to die for what they were fighting for.

Electric heat

It really gives one pause for thought. I told my family that it’s almost like spectrums, how scientists say that in a sense, light and heat are the same thing, just different frequencies and ranges. In the same sense, it’s like the motivations that motivate someone when it comes to patriotism, nationalism and pride could be compared to heat that motivates us and even inflames us.

Electric light

But further up the frequency is the realm of light, or what some people call religion. So many Islamic people worldwide today feel strongly about their faith in God, which incidentally they will tell you, if you ask them, is in the God of Abraham, regardless of what some American Evangelicals will tell you otherwise.

But it’s like the phrase again, “hearts and minds”. The early Christian movement in the first centuries started out with a band of 70 to 100 young Jewish men and women in an obscure province of Rome. And in around 200 years, it had mostly taken over the Roman Empire.

How did they do that? With weapons? Technology? Education? Culture? Entertainment? No, it was what today is called religion. But back then it was more a matter of what was totally believed to be truth, love and a revealed reality. They reveled in the light that the promised Messiah of the Jews had indeed come, had risen from the dead and was now at the right hand of God, ready to forgive sins and to give eternal life to those who came to Him in prayer.

You may not believe that. Certainly 100’s of millions of people in the West think that’s not really true or relevant anymore. But Islamic people have not had the falling away from their faith that Westerns have had. They don’t separate out religion from the rest of their lives, like most Westerns do. Even that is as fairly recent event in our history.

Usually, in some sense, you could say that light will generally trump heat. Back at the time of Rome, the Christians had so much light, they didn’t physically attack the Romans, but the Romans attacked them. And it became clear over the first two centuries or so that the Christians were so full of their light and faith that they would joyously die for their faith, rather than renounce it. And eventually the light of Christianity defeated the heat of the Roman civilization of that day.

Mark, are you trying to say that the Muslim’s faith in what they believe is the light in their religion will not be overcome by the strength of our patriotism, our nationalism, our advanced civilization?

I don’t know. I do know from my experiences that I found the faith of many Muslims is often pretty strong and intact whereas the faith-foundation of many Westerners is kind of flimsy at best, if you really test it. People have souls and spirits. And patriotism, materialism and nationalism are just not really designed to enlighten our souls the way the God of the Bible and His Son can and will, if we let Them.

So I was telling my family tonight that I feel what’s really needed is to move out of the spectrum of heat and move towards the spectrum of light. For me, it wasn’t till I came to “the Light of Israel”, Jesus Christ, that I had the transformation of soul, spirit, mind and character that has carried me through my last 40 plus years. The Western world, what overall could be called “the Christian world”, is really pretty weak in spirit right now. So very few are strong in their faith, strong in its tenets, strong in a personal experience with God and with Jesus. And it’s just a law of nature that weakened, confused, unmotivated forces will loose to more highly motivated, envisioned, inspired forces of what are seen to be the enemy.

Most experts on international affairs and the intelligentsia of all that will openly admit that tactical, physical warfare can only do so much. If “hearts and minds” are not won, then you’re just chopping weeds without rooting out the cause. What of course is truly needed worldwide is for the people of Lord to be strengthened mightily in their innermost being, not with military weapons, foreign aid or patriotic pageantry but in the utter fundamentals of the faith of their forefathers.

Paul said, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but might through God to the pulling down of strongholds.” (II Corinthians 10:4) “We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12) This is a Biblical way of stating what folks were saying at the time of the Viet Nam war that “hearts and minds” needed to be won, not just to do battle in the physical.

But how many Christians today know how to fight with the spiritual weapons of His Word and love to bring this world to Him? Most of them seem to default to “send in the troops” or just to collapse in fear of Islam, rather than knowing how to move to the “higher frequencies” of the light of the Lord to win souls and win this world to Him.

Without a knowledge of God, a relationship with God, the protection of God and the salvation of God, no amount of carnal, mental machinations of man will stand up to stronger spiritual forces, if God deems it time to unleash them on a backslidden people. Heat has its limits and weaknesses. We must all get further up the frequency, into the realms of Light.

Conspiracy Theory and/or Bible Prophecy

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Mark McMillion

When John Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas, I was a young teenager, living 100 miles away. He was a major hero and role model to me and his death had a heavy impact on my heart and life. Later, as the info came out about the details of his death, it seemed clear to me that it was not just a lone gunman who got off some amazingly “lucky” shots. I saw the Zapruder film and from that it seems clear that the shot that killed Kennedy didn’t come from the direction of Oswald.

Lee Harvey Oswald

So I guess that makes me a conspiracy theorist. And since that time the whole genre of conspiracy theories has grown to a full industry and major phenomenon of our times.

Some years later I surprisingly came to find out that there actually is a God in heaven, as well as the devil, angels and the whole thing. It in some ways was the climax of a series of shocking, eye-opening experiences that caused me to see the world in a totally different way. And I guess you could say, “Well, if you can believe in conspiracy theories, it’s probably easy for you to believe in that God stuff too.”

But they are different. Admittedly there are some similarities. Conspiracy theorists see a lot of things going on that most people don’t know about. They see unseen forces, organizations and individuals, working behind the scenes to shape the destiny of man to go the direction they want them to. They see entities which want us to view things a certain way, to believe things that aren’t true and to basically enslave the human race. Is that all true? I’d say some of it is true and even verifiable to some degree.

But also there’s a difference. From my experience, conspiracy theorists seem to get mad a lot and there’s virtually no stopping place at where they will see “them” at work. Everything that happens is somehow not as it seems. “They” are active, everywhere and just about to take over our lives, our nation and our world.

What I don’t find in conspiracy theory is answers. There’s fear, there’s what is said to be a revelation of what is real, but there really isn’t much offered to alleviate all this. Also I feel that following a strong, steady line of conspiracy theory doctrine will come to make someone rather paranoid overall, distrustful, cynical and afraid of virtually everyone, even their best friends.

It reminds me of the verse in II Timothy, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (II Timothy 1:7) I came out of a lot of atheist, worldly darkness and that verse was like a promise I held on to for years that the Lord would create in me a “sound mind”, not burdened with confusion, fears and misunderstand.

That’s another good verse that could be applied to conspiracy theories” “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.” (I Corinthians 14:33) I guess in some ways it is good what those folks do since so many people walk in such dullness and blindness. Conspiracy theorists might wake some of those ones up that there’s some serious stuff going on and that common people are being deceived daily on a massive scale.

But this is all really different from what the study of Bible prophecy does. Bible prophecy not only exposes the systems and evils of man, which has been around for millennia, but it gives clear answers about what the solution is that God Himself has provided and is in the process of bringing to pass. Bible prophecy is a real eye opener. But it doesn’t carry that “spirit of fear”, as well as confusion that so often seems to accompany conspiracy theory teaching.

So I suppose those who avidly follow conspiracy theories might be woken up somewhat to the depth of evil in the world and shaken somewhat out of the general stupor that is upon so much of mankind. But then what?

God told Jeremiah that he was ordained to “root out, pull down, destroy, throw down” (Jeremiah 1:10) Conspiracy theory does that, sort of a general deconstruction of almost everything. But then God told Jeremiah two more things he was to do, “to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10) I haven’t seen any way that conspiracy theory builds and plants. But Bible prophecy does. It tells how bad it is and how bad it will still get. But then it tells of God’s solution and the happy ending to all this mess that He will bring in His coming Kingdom on earth.

Moses and Elijah appear to Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, as Peter, James and John watch. (Matthew 17:1-8)

I suppose one of the greatest witnesses of one of the greatest miracles on earth was the Apostle Peter. The Bible says he was there when Jesus was transformed on the mountain into His glory and shined like the sun in front of 3 of His disciples. And God the Father spoke to them as well. Peter said of this experience, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables but were eyewitnesses of the majesty of Jesus Christ. For He received honor and glory from God the Father, when there came a voice from the excellent glory, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice from Heaven, being with Him in the holy mountain.” (II Peter 1:16-18)

But then Peter goes on to say an amazing thing. He tells us of something that’s even greater than what he personally saw with his eyes and heard with his ears. Here’s what he says next. “We also have a more sure Word of prophecy, to which you do well to take heed, as to a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Daystar arises in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture came into being of its own private interpretation. For prophecy didn’t come in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (II Peter 1:19-21)

Peter says that the prophecies of the Word of God are more sure than even what he personal saw and heard at perhaps one of the most seminal moments in his life. That’s good truth for us today when we are at times “tossed and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14), by conspiracy theories with their adjacent fears and uncertainties. For believers in God and in Christ, we have a “more sure word of prophecy.” (II Peter 1:19)

Addicted to hate

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Mark McMillion

Years ago in Denmark my former wife and I were ministering to a recovered morphine addict. We read the Bible with him and tried to help him in his recovery. But a thing that both of us noticed was that, although he no longer used morphine, he was drinking up to 20 cups of coffee a day. In some sense, he’d traded one addiction for another.

It seems that’s how it is for multitudes of people when it comes to hatred. Vast numbers of people think of themselves as good citizens, faithful to their wife or husband and keeping the law. But, boy, they love to hate.

Around a year ago my dad passed away and I wrote a post about him, Bonner McMillion. One of the main things I mentioned there was how my parents taught me not to hate African-Americans at a time when virtually every white person I knew in our city was filled with racial hatred to one degree or another.

But today, hatred of blacks by whites is much less than it was when I was growing up. It’s not in vogue anymore, it’s less accepted. But it’s surely still ok to hate, perhaps more than in the past. Pew Research recently made a study and found that the USA is more divided as a nation than any time in the last 150 years. I wonder how much of that has to do with a thriving cultural acceptance of hatred.

The most popular hatred here in the States seems to be hatred of Islamic people. “They” are here. “They” will destroy us. But some people feel that way about Catholics. Years ago it was popular to hate Jews. That was normal and accepted. We just seem to stop one addiction but move on to another.

You could say a lot of things in support of hatred, at least if you are not a Christian. Shouldn’t we hate “them”? Here’s what the Bible says, even the Old Testament. “You shall not hate your brother in your heart.” (Leviticus 19:17) It’s one of the greatest truisms of Christianity that it teaches love. Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully use you.” (Matthew 5:44)

If you’re a Christian, and your life and words are full of hatred, then you’re living in sin, just as much as if you were an adulterer or whore monger. You’re just as defeated by your addiction to hatred as that man was that I ministered to years ago who was addicted to morphine first and then switched to coffee.

But, in a sense, you have my sympathies because “everybody else is doing it.” You’re mostly right on that; they are. But that surely doesn’t make it right if you’re trying to follow the light and path of the God of the Bible.

But Mark! Surely all hatred is not wrong!

Right again. Let’s look to God’s Word about that. Psalm 97:10 says, “You who love the Lord, hate evil.” Does it say to hate Muslims there? Or Catholics? Blacks? Jews? “Dagoes”? “Spics”? “Wops”? “Krauts”? “Chinks”? “Ragheads”? Obama? Or whatever your favorite hatred is? No. It says to hate evil, not people. God even “sends His rain on the just and the unjust”. (Matthew 5:45)

Does God hate? Yes, He does. Here’s what God’s Word says He hates. “These six things does the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto Him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among brethren.” (Proverbs 6:16-19) We are to hate sin, as God does. But not people. We are to love people, in our hearts.

But Mark! I really hate them! All my friends hate them! TV commentators hate them! They are evil, Mark!

My friend, this is a modern, virulent, satanic mindset that’s blinding and will snuff out God’s blessing and presence in your life, if it hasn’t already. You need to be “renewed in the spirit of your mind.” (Ephesians 4:23) You might need to turn off the TV, make new friends and move away from the old ones, just as if they were drug dealers or criminals.

If you love to hate, if you cultivate and nurture hatred, if you propagate hatred and start conversations with words about your hatred, then please don’t call yourself a Christian. If you’re doing this, you’re a reproach to the cause of Christ; you’re a mockery of what it is to be a Christian, no matter how outwardly righteous you appear to be. The evil you should hate is the hatred that has gripped your heart. Call out to the Lord Who can break every chain and cleanse ever stain. Flee hatred as you would drugs and ask the Lord to replace it with His love in your heart for all men, as He had.

With Muslims in Tragedy

Posted on December 27, 2014 by Mark McMillion

Ten years ago this week was the beginning of perhaps the most heart-wrenching experience I’ve ever had in ministering to others. You may have read that around this time is the 10th anniversary of the Asian Tsunami disaster of late 2004. I’d been living in Jakarta, Indonesia for over a year and when the disaster happened, we quickly found that the worst hit area was Aceh Provence at the northwest tip of Indonesian.
Those of us who were working in Jakarta at the time knew almost immediately that some of us had to go the disaster area to do what we could. After much prayer, a team of four of us left for the capital of the province, Banda Aceh. The city had suffered the death of 155,000 people. Below I’ll add parts of a newsletter I sent to friends from Banda Aceh a few days after we arrived, 10 years ago this week.

From that time in Banda Aceh, I made a 30 minute video of my experiences there that week in those camps and in other parts of the city. One thought I came away with from that time was what the famous lines from the Bible say: “Love never fails.” In spite of ethnic, geographic and even religious differences, love, the Love of God in this instance, made it so that people could work together to help each other in such a devastating tragedy. It changed my life to be a part of that and to see the Love of God in such a miraculous way. Below is the video of that time.

Where is a Saladin?

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Mark McMillion

I have a number of links and/or experiences in and with the Islamic world including some near relatives. From this I’ve come to a generally different view, as compared to what is considered the normal North American Christian view of Islam and Muslims.

So even writing about this is kind of “skating on thin ice”. But I’ll share my heart, while realizing that this will upset people on both sides of the divide, so to speak.

This has been prompted by the murder this week of over 100 children in Pakistan. It was perpetrated by the Taliban, Muslim against Muslim. But the shear barbarity of the massacre, the utter heartless, meaningless slaughter of innocents is beyond anything that qualifies in any way whatsoever as justified, in any form or theory or even more so, in any religion.

I’ve entitled this post, “Where is a Saladin?” Very few will have any idea what that means. Perhaps those of the Muslim faith will. I’m not hugely informed on these things, only marginally so. But to those who don’t know who Saladin was, he was the leader of the Muslims forces at the time of the Crusades, when the Crusaders came down from Europe to try to retake “the Holy Land” for “the cause of Christ”.

Saladin, magnanimous in victory against the Crusaders

It was such a time of infamy that I won’t get into it here. But from almost all historical accounts, the nominally Christian crusaders encountered in the leader of their foes, Saladin, a man more humane, gentlemanly and civilized than they themselves were. No, I’m not siding with the Muslims against the Christians here; this is the verdict of historians and the people of those times. The “heathen, barbarian infidel” had more character, maturity and even Godliness than the marauding Crusaders.

The Frenchman René Grousset, who wrote a history of the Crusades, wrote of Saladin, “…his generosity, his piety, devoid of fanaticism, that flower of liberality and courtesy which had been the model of our old chroniclers, won him no less popularity in [European Christian] Syria than in the lands of Islam.”

My question is, and I pose this as a friend and in acknowledgment of the many good qualities I’ve experience in my interaction with Muslims and Muslim nations: where is a Saladin today? You could be quick to say that I should be taking to task my own people instead of those of the Muslim faith. I’ve done that on occasion, you can read about one example here in this article, Hawks and Doves.

But sincerely and with hope, I so much wish to see a strong … is “uprising” the word?… or something coming from the decent, concerned Muslims of the world to truly stand up with horror and outrage at some of the things that are being perpetrated in the name of your religion. And some of my Christian friends may wonder at this point:

“Mark, are you calling on the Muslims to follow their Mahdi? The one the Koran prophesied would come?”

No, actually I’m not. It’s a matter of empathy with a battered and almost defeated people, a people not my own, who are being defeated from within at this time, not really from without. In our times there have been Churchill, Gandhi and even Nelson Mandela who arose to, in a sense, save their peoples in times of great distress. These Islamic people, with devotion towards the God of Abraham, need leaders to help save them from their enemies within at this time

Maybe here in the insular bubble that’s imposed by the American media upon its people, we’re just not hearing about the outrage and the groundswell rising in the Islamic world against these unspeakable outrages that are committed daily by people calling themselves religious and Islamic. If this is already going on but I’m just unable to find out about it since the American media doesn’t tell us about it, please get in contact with me. I do want to know about it.

But if there is apathy, fear, fatalism or indifference in the Islamic world to what has virtually taken over the name of Islam and religion in our times, then my question rises again. Where is a Saladin? Where is some mature, compassionate yet angry and animated leader within the Islamic world who will lead his (or her) people to stand up against this horrible filth that is done in the name of the God of Abraham?

Someone has said one time, “All that’s necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Why do the evil men of our day have more faith and boldness than those who stand for love and brotherhood, compassion and the higher things of the God of three faiths?

It really saddens me. Satan must be laughing with glee that not only is innocent blood being spilled every day, but that he is able to have it perpetrated in the name of the God of Abraham. What a defeat and besmirchment of the name of God for those who say they stand for and hold high the standard of God.

I don’t have an answer to my question. It reminds me of what one of the ancient prophets said, Ezekiel. As the mouthpiece of the God of Abraham, he said, “I sought for a man among them to stand in the gap and make up the hedge, that I should not destroy the land. But I found none.” (Ezekiel 22:30)

God looked for someone to “stand in the gap”, to lead God’s people to victory. But He couldn’t find anyone. People like this are not only needed in the Islamic world. They’re needed all over. To rally the people of faith out of their numbness, often their ignorance, out of their immaturity and up the mountain of faith, love and the light of God that could make them beacons to the nations.

To me, it’s particularly pitiful currently what is triumphing within the Islamic world which (and they will know this) is so far distant from the many great accomplishments and heights of civilization and benevolence that have been seen in their history. With sincerity and respect, I hope your people will rise above the heart-wrenching times that are upon so many parts of your society.

May God, the compassionate, the merciful, raise up warriors of faith, love and humility to fight against the darkness that’s engulfing their people now. Not with carnal weapons but with spiritual weapons of love and truth, drawing men away from evil. “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good”.

Blessed Is He That Considers The Poor

Posted on December 2, 2014 by Mark McMillion

I’d like to ask for your prayers for some dear friends who’ve been a tremendous help to me. I was praying for them today and got the verse from Psalm 41:1, “Blessed is he that considers the poor, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.”

I’ll explain. About 18 months ago a man I hardly knew at the time invited me to coffee. The result of that meeting was that he and his wife began to support me in my producing the prophecies of Daniel videos to the degree that I was able to work on them full time. Since then 6 videos have been done, 3 full length and 3 supplementary one. And there’s been a good start on getting these videos into several foreign languages. Also I’ve been able to post articles on my two web sites around once or twice a week during that time.

It’s been an incredible blessing to have their help in this way. And actually, if any of you have gotten something out of the videos or articles I’ve been doing, it’s this couple who’ve helped me to be able to have the support so I’d have the time to work on these.

It’s easy to have some type of stereotypical picture of the greedy, selfish, capitalist rich, gobbling up the poor and destroying the world. Maybe there are some like that. But my experience with these folks has been that they’ve been some of the more generous people I’ve ever known, concerned about others on an international scale and also on an individual scale. I’ll tell you one more testimony about them and then share my prayer request for them.

They’d been helping me for months to get the work done on the video series. Then one day my friend said, “You know a lot of missionaries, don’t you?” I paused and said that, yes, I did. So he said, “Well, do they need any help?” I paused again and again said yes, they did.

And it took me about a week for the idea to get through to me but my friend was wanting to share his prosperity with those on the mission field and he was asking if I’d be a conduit for that. The Lord one day almost had to prod or rebuke me for my slowness to catch on.

But since that time I’ve been able to be in contact with friends in many countries, mostly Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe and a relatively large amount of mission gifts have gone out to folks. As a result, thousands of Bibles and 10’s of thousands of Gospels of John have been made available throughout those areas, as well as mission gifts to those doing seminars in Uganda and other things like this. These people are like what the Bible talks about “cheerful givers” (II Corinthians 9:7). In their eyes they have “freely received” and so they “freely give” (Matthew 10:8).

These friends of mine now need our prayers.

I don’t know how much you keep up with it but there have been some recent drastic upheavals in some sectors of the international business outlook. This new economic turbulence has had a major impact on their company. There’s actually a question mark over whether they will still be able to be a help to me at all and we’re going to meet together soon.

But I thought that the least I could do is to bring this dear couple before you and ask for your prayers. They themselves have done mission work and have been to some pretty risky places that I’ve never ventured to, where they were passing out tracts there in order to win souls. They are a brother and sister who’ve willingly shared their abundance to help the work I’ve been involved with and also to help missionaries and the poor in many countries.

You don’t really need to know their names or more details than this. They remind me of another article I wrote a while back, called “Texas People”, about people from Texas that most folks don’t know about. But this is a time of trouble for them. They have people they employ, they have a family and they’ve constantly been trying to give to others. Could you please support these dear ones in prayer at this time? Their industry is going through strong upheavals and they’re seeking to find a way through this storm that’s upon their company and their lives. Thanks so much.

And perhaps you could also pray for me at this time. I’ve been aiming to make a mission trip to Romania, to visit churches in Bulgaria and to be in Christian refugee camps in the Middle East in around 3 months. These new changes bring uncertainly over this possible trip. Thanks so much for your prayers for my dear friends and supporters and for my ministry as well at this time.

Your friend in Him, Mark

Suicide Bomber sees The Light

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Mark McMillion

I received this letter from a friend in Europe recently. It was just astonishing. I’ll add it here as I received it; the English isn’t perfect but you’ll understand. Some names and places have been changed a little. Here’s what my friend wrote:

I know a man who lives in [West Europe] who used to be a “hodja”. That is a Muslim priest (you know, those who serve in a mosque and sing in Arabic). He has a wonderful testimony of how he became a Christian.

He was very ill of a kidney disease and had pain all over his body and a terrible infection. He couldn’t get any help from doctors and finally decided to commit a suicide by blowing himself up at a public place and kill many others with him, especially people from other religions .

So, he prepared everything for this “kamikaze” they call it and went to kiss his little daughter for the last time. But when he left her room and was in the living room, he heard a voice, “Is there only one religion in the world that can help you?”

He said to himself, “Of course not.” Since he was a religious figure, he knew there were more than 3,500 religions in the world. He had been praying to Allah to heal him but nothing happened. So, before going on, he decided to pray to another god from a different religion. “Who knows”, he said, “maybe I can get some help.”

He decided to pray to the Christian God because this is the second largest religion from their point of view, after Islam. So he prayed to Jesus and asked him to help him and heal him.

Immediately all the walls and the floor and the ceiling disappeared and he found himself in the middle of the universe and a great Light was standing in front of him. He knew that the Light knew everything about him but loved him so much. He felt like an empty bucket in front of the Light; he couldn’t give anything in return to this great love.

The Light said, “I am Jesus who you called for help and I’m healing you.”

Then great light came out of the Light and came over him, flowed through him and he felt warmth and peace. Immediately all pain and weakness disappeared and he found himself well and happy in the living room again.

He changed his mind about killing himself and decided that there was point in living now since he was well and somebody heard his prayer. From that day on, he started proclaiming that Jesus Christ healed him.

At first his family and friends thought that because of his illness he had gone insane. But he was getting better and better. He was gaining weight again and strength and went on talking about Jesus. So they decided to kill him because he betrayed his religion and turned to the enemies of God.

Then he took his wife and daughter and escaped to [West Europe] where he found plenty of other people like himself from his country – converted Christians– and joined a Christian church there. This happened about 10 years ago.

Now he is well and healthy, full of zeal for the Lord and weeps for his lost relatives to whom he went back again last year and gave them Bibles and urged them to read and get saved. When we prayed for his relatives in his country to be saved, he started crying dearly. He said, “You folks are happy. You have freedom and you do not appreciate what you have. Talk to the people, talk so that they get saved.”

It’s hard to know what I could add to that. This story affects me in so many ways. I’m thrilled and glad to hear of such a miracle like that. But I am aware that this kind of experience is something that is happening throughout the Islamic world. Not “en masse” but if you keep up with these things, there are many testimonies of Islamic men and women having incredible experiences in finding Jesus this way in recent times. Instead of fearing and hating Muslims, it seems far closer to the ways of God to realize that very many of them are turning out to be the “sheep” of God, rather than the monsters we are so often told that they are.

Many of us have known the verse, Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” But the next verse says, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” And in these times, the preacher most likely to reach out to the millions of Muslims in western lands around the world is you and me.

The Government?

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Mark McMillion

I don’t usually like to write about secular and especially political things. But the other side of the coin is that many, if not most people, are largely concerned with secular and political “affairs of this life”. (II Timothy 2:4) So I’m going to share something here that’s mainly going to go against the grain of modern American Christian thinking. Because so very much talk by Christians now here in America is about how very bad our government is and how very bad our society is.

From one perspective, it’s refreshing in some ways because for generations Christians here were some of the most “Pollyanna” pro-American society folks you could find. But now so many Christians can hardly start a conversation without cursing the President and our government, saying they think this is about as bad as it can get.

You think America right now is really bad? Let me tell you about my experiences abroad for 36 years. I have utterly no regrets concerning my calling as a Christian missionary. But I can tell you, as much as I love the countries I’ve lived in and the people I’ve ministered to, the things I’ve seen and experienced can make me really appreciate the things that are in the USA right now.

Let’s say your house catches on fire. I lived 5 years in a wonderful country where, if your house is on fire, you will negotiate in your front yard with the fire department for how much you’ll pay to save your house while it burns down behind you. This was just business as usual and how it was done.

They’re doing good: pencils and paper! So many don’t have that. And it’s 60 students, sitting on the floor.

I’ve lived in at least 3 countries, large, famous “third world” countries where, if you’re an adult with children and you had any money at all, the first thing you did was put your children into private schools. The government schools in those countries, I won’t name them, were so utterly failing that it was virtually a curse to your children if you let them go to government school.

You make $3 a day to support your family.

You as the bread winner make $3 a day. You, your wife and kids live in a two room house. You, your wife and kids ride on your 125 cc motor scooter, all 5 of you, as you wind through traffic in the capital of 20 million, but you actually are definitely middle class. And your goal is to get your kids into private school so they can get some kind of education.

Lower middle class in America

How does that compare to us living here in the US? Makes you feel you have it pretty good? Many, if not most folks here, live in a house with 3 bedrooms, two baths, a front yard and a back yard, and probably you’ve got two cars. That would be in the upper 1% of so many countries worldwide. But it’s virtually lower middle class here. And yet we often complain about our society and government and think we’re really suffering.

A sin often mentioned as grieving God in the Bible was murmuring. “Neither murmur, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.” (I Corinthians 10:10) Griping, belly aching; we’re all prone to it. But it seems to be rife today among Christians, especially towards our government. Many seem to think that the democratically elected officials of this county are all that’s standing in the way of this nation’s greatness. As if changing the political party in power is what’s needed for God’s blessings to be poured out on the nation.

Working in Denmark, I drew minimum wage and still paid 50% income tax.

On the other hand, I’ve lived in “Post Christian” quasi-socialist societies in Northern and Western Europe where I had a job for a while and drew minimum wages at that job. Nevertheless I paid 50% taxes on that income as that was the minimum tax rate in that country. And yet virtually no one in that country complains about the tax rate or hardly even the government. They feel they have it pretty good and the society at large has agreed to that level of taxes. Almost all Americans pay way below 50% taxes. But it’s probably the single most harped on issue that’s the source of unhappiness for so many Americans. We here virtually have a heart attack about the taxes we pay and make that the center of our conversations and focus in life.

The point is, for my American Christians friends, we have it really pretty good. Many now look forward to what they expect to see soon: a complete breakdown of law and order in the USA and a police state imposed after the collapse of American society and government. Maybe that will happen; I wouldn’t be real surprised.

But you may come to wish that you had the days we have right now, with a government that’s trying to maintain law and order, schools that children can go to, a President that is flawed but sincere and trying, institutions that were set up over 200 years ago which have been the envy of the world since that time.

There’s a lot that is wrong here. But on the other hand, there’s really a lot that’s not as bad as others have it. And yet so many Christians bad mouth, complain and go on and on with how bad we think it is and how bad our leaders are.

Maybe some of them are. The gridlock in our government has been really disturbing and concerning. But constantly complaining and leading the charge of negativity and hatefulness should not be the place of godly Christians. “Let no corrupt communication proceed forth out of your mouth, but that which is good, to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29)

We’ve got a lot to be thankful for. The day may soon come when we look back to these times as absolute days of heaven which will never be able to return. I suggest we count our blessings, including our government, and stay busy trying to bring souls to Him, rather than being constantly heard to be a fountain of negativity about our lot and our society.

“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

It could be worse. It is in so many places around the world. It may very well be that way here before long. May we all count our blessings while we have them and not be heard to gripe and complain.

Good news from the Middle East

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Mark McMillion

This is the first time I’ve made a news item the main substance of a blog post. But this article so struck me as good news, as well as an antidote to what I feel has been so much fear and terror that’s been spread on Christian web sites in response to recent events in the Middle East.

So this is a great article for the fear mongers and terror advocates. God’s not dead or even sick! It’s not all beheadings and terror in the Middle East. Here are Christians witnessing and singing, worshiping and bringing others to Him, even during their personal “great tribulation”!

For many Christians here in the West, they teach and believe that the Church will be waft away before the “great tribulation” (Mathew 24:21). But the Lord didn’t rapture out these suffering Middle Eastern Christians and we won’t be raptured out either, at least not the way many teach and believe.

This is a great article to show that “they that understand among the people shall instruct many.” “They shall be strong and do exploits”, (Daniel 11:32 & 33) even during great tribulation. I’d already been hearing this news from my missionary friends who have been in those places for decades. This article shows that there are those there who are standing up for Him, as more of us will be someday in similar circumstances.

This was found on the web site www.breakingchristiannews.com. I don’t know these folks and I don’t know what they believe. But it’s great that they are letting us know about these victories for Him as this Middle Eastern Christians stand strong for Him. Here’s the article:

Despite ISIS Grip, Holy Spirit is at Work: Tent Churches Emerge in Iraqi Refugee Camps

Christian Aid Staff: Sep 12, 2014: Christian Aid Mission

“They asked us if God even exists for this to be allowed to happen. It was very difficult, but the Lord has given us grace in their sight to represent Jesus and the love of the work, which was shown to be wonderfully accepted among the Yazidis. They asked us to come back and took all our Bibles ‘in secret.'”

In the Kurdish area of Iraq, where people of different beliefs fled atrocities of the Islamic State (ISIS), the Iraqi ministry team supported by Christian Aid Mission found people in need of water, food and medicine.

Fatima, an Iraqi woman who fled atrocities committed by the Islamic State, was drawn to the sound of singing in a tent in a refugee camp in Dohuk, in the Kurdish region of Iraq. She approached cautiously.

Though embarrassed when the Christians worshiping inside saw her, she came closer and asked if she could enter and listen to what they were saying. By the time the meeting finished at 4 AM, she was on her way to embracing Christ as Savior and asked if she could bring friends and family to the next meeting.

Fatima, her husband and three daughters put their trust in Jesus for their salvation, and within a few weeks her involvement led to another 60 families making the same commitment, according to an area ministry leader supported by Christian Aid Mission.

“Tent churches are going on everywhere,” said the ministry leader. “Last week we had 68 families openly surrender their lives to the Lord. With all their large needs and difficult situations that they are going through, they thank God for the indwelling of Christ in their hearts. Twelve of those families were Muslims.” In addition, 200 children who received Bibles and coloring materials prayed to accept Jesus into their hearts.

Broken Hearts
Near Amerli, which Islamic State fighters besieged for more than two months before Kurdish and Iraqi forces aided by US warplanes drove them out on Sept. 1, the ministry leader’s team encountered people in need of water, food and medicine. In a visit with a group of families able to escape before the ISIS siege, the team found opportunity to meet both spiritual and physical needs. “The Lord gave us many souls who believed in Christ there,” the team leader said.

In northern Erbil, the leader’s team met with displaced Yazidis, a predominantly Kurdish ethnic group practicing a mix of Zoroastrian, Islamic, and Christian rituals, who suffered the slaughter of an estimated 500 of their members at the hands of ISIS. Some 130,000 Yazidis of Sinjar had fled to Irbil or farther north to Dohuk. “Our ministry to them was filled with tears and broken hearts to hear scary stories about abducted children and women and the slaughter of men,” the team leader said.

The Iraqi ministry team has prepared 2,000 Bibles, including those for children, plus 2,500 New Testaments in Arabic, Aramaic and Kurdish, along with tracts and Bible-based coloring books.

“We have a lot more that is needed, such as gas, workers’ support, radios, clothing and miscellaneous ministry items,” the team leader said.

Christian Aid Mission is helping the ministry to provide two kinds of food to Iraq’s internally displaced people – one for those who have cooking facilities, and another for those who are homeless. A box containing eggs, salt, oil, rice, cheese, beef, tomato paste, powdered milk, macaroni and bread costs $25. For 300 tents for small families, the cost comes to $7,500.

The team provides 800 sandwiches a day to different areas and groups at a cost of $2 per sandwich, which amounts to a weekly cost of $11,200. The ministry has borrowed sleeping bags and mattresses from a local store with the hope of repaying the merchants at $20 per mattress. “Four hundred mattresses cost $8,000, and we are almost out,” the leader said.

The ministry team also provides medicines for blood pressure, diabetes, headaches and stomach ailments, along with personal hygiene items. “Our goal was to provide $10,000 worth. We are starting with only $2,000 now,” he said. “Thank you so much for your prayers and support.”

For more information on indigenous Iraqi ministries, visit ChristianAid.org or see #HelpLocalIraq on Twitter.

Sharing faith with Muslims

Posted on August 17, 2014 by Mark McMillion

Over 30 years ago I was on a local train in Austria, heading in to the capital, Vienna. Sitting across from me were two young men who seemed to be foreigners and they had a large Koran which they were reading. I struck up a conversation with them as they spoke English. After a while, I told them I’d read the Koran some and suggested they read Surah 3:55. They looked it up, read it, read it again, looked at each other, said a few words together and then looked back at me.

Surah 3:55 says, “Behold! Allah said: “O Jesus! I will take thee and raise thee to Myself and clear thee (of the falsehoods) of those who blaspheme; I will make those who follow thee superior to those who reject faith, to the Day of Resurrection.”

I had studied the Koran just a bit and somehow remembered that reference which of course says things about Jesus of Nazareth which most people would never think would be in the Koran, including these two young Muslims.

That was one of my first experiences sharing my faith with, and talking about God with, Islamic people. During the 6 years I lived in Vienna, we’d rather often have Islamic people over to our house or would meet them while we were out.

Then years later I worked for 3 weeks at the Nagyatad refugee camp in southern Hungary where thousands of Islamic Bosnians were being housed during the Yugoslavian war of the early 90’s. Again my experience with those people was a positive one. My friends and I would daily go to this camp which was an old Russian army camp, deserted since the fall of Communism, which had be converted into this refugee camp.

At this camp was an elderly woman and her husband and she was considered the spiritual leader of the camp. As it turned out, there was a young Islamic woman at the refugee camp at the time who was obviously being tormented by spirits that were not of God. The spiritual elders of the camp had not been able to help this woman to be free from the torment of those spirits. Some of my friends had asked if they could pray for the tormented woman. Permission was granted and when my friends had prayed for the woman, she was delivered from her torments and possession and was made whole. So the woman who was the spiritual leader of the Muslims there told everyone that we were the people of God and that they should receive us from then on, which they did.

This woman was the spiritual leader at the refugee camp of around 2000 Bosnian Muslims in southern Hungary.

In the centuries that the Ottoman Turks ruled over southeastern Europe, the only people who converted from Christianity to Islam was a portion of the people who live in Bosnia. Sarajevo later became at one point the northern most Islamic city in that part of the world. But others in that area didn’t convert from Catholicism or Orthodoxy to Islam. And the animosity between these peoples has been a running boil that has festered off and on for over 400 years.

With my translator, Rebecca, a Christian from Sarajevo, at the Nagyatad refugee camp

Perhaps the experience I remember most from being at that refugee camp was when my translator and I were invited into a room to talk to some people. As soon as we entered the room, my translator, Rebecca, said quietly, “Uh-oh.”

Sitting in the room were around 15 young men who looked to be around 25 to 35 years old. They were all sipping thick black coffee and talking quietly with each other but I soon found that these were all front line fighters who’d fled the fighting. I knew I wanted to and needed to share my faith with these men but how could I do that? Through our conversation I found that several of them had seen their wives and children killed in front of them. They all had been in prolonged, often hand-to-hand combat recently. I could take it for granted that they’d all killed enemies of their people in combat.

What could I say to these ones? “Jesus loves you”? Well, yes. But how do I communicate that to these ones who were alive and mostly well on the outside but extremely traumatized on the inside? I searched deeply to find some way to connect with these soldiers and hardened combat irregulars. And the Lord led me to share with them what was for me the most traumatic and excruciating experience I’d ever gone through. I won’t relate what that was here but it very nearly killed me or permanently scarred me. And I told them that at that time, I had to find the grace, the love and the power of God in order to not let that event completely destroy me. I had to find a way to rise above that injustice I experienced and that unutterable pain that took the life and humanity out of me.

One of the young men I talked to from the group of fighters. His wife and children were killed in the war. He turned his face to the side here because he had a very large scar on the other side.

It was a very intense time and my translator was doing good to hang in there and translate what I shared with her to pass on to them. Because these guys were killers; violence was what they had lived in for years.

But they listened. OK, maybe it helped that I was a little older than them and that I was an American. I just told them that for their own sakes, they somehow had to find the grace of God to not let their experiences conquer their hearts and souls and turn them into permanently evil men.

A question I was asked by one of them seared my soul. I had told them of what I felt had been a crushing injustice I’d suffered and which nearly snuffed out my soul and my heart. One of them then in the group spoke up and quietly, very sincerely, asked me, “Why didn’t you kill him?” I had to answer that question, with God’s love and wisdom, as well as with humanity and reality.

Yes, they were Muslims and they knew we were Christians, the people they’d been at war with. But, in that room that afternoon, God brought us all to a deeper level. We were all human beings. We were all wanting to find and take the high road of life. We found that we had a common ground of empathy and even faith in God that we could look toward together.

Even these Muslim “killers” were human beings. They listened to me and my friend, responded and asked questions. I believe the Lord used that time to at least plant seeds of His love in their hearts that day. We need to be “always ready to give an answer of the hope that lives within us” (I Peter 3:15), even to Muslim warriors.

Mark McMillion

Creeds and Deeds, Facts and Acts

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