Gospel Thumbs Up

This woman sat and listened as a worker shared the Gospel with several students from a Muslim academy called a Pesantren. It was interesting because the worker arrived just as the Mosque sounded the call to prayer on Friday afternoon. This is the main time for prayer for Muslims, but the students stayed to listen to the Gospel.

The thumbs up was not really for the Gospel. The woman agreed with the importance of being obedient to God and trying to deal with the sin issue that everyone struggles with. Her answer to the dilemma is good works. It’s like the Muslim brain is hard-wired toward good works. It just doesn’t make sense to them that good works are not sufficient to deal with the severity of their sin problem.

Prayer is essential. Only God can break through this hard-wired thought process that rejects anything other than a works based payment for sin. The Gospel can be shared contextually and compassionately, but until the cultural response is altered by a work of the Holy Spirit the results are small. They hear, but they don’t comprehend.

Pray for workers who are sharing the Gospel not to lose heart by the lack of response and in some cases with angry responses.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to remove the veil that is keeping people in Sumatra from receiving the Gospel.

Pray for Muslims in Sumatra to realize the futility of paying their sin debt through good works.