An american Al Queda Member

Last night I watched a PBS report on a young American member of Al Queda with a growing sense of horror, not because a seemingly normal American could turn against America but because he typifies what so often happens in churches today.

As a child, he attended a Baptist church where he made a profession of faith and was baptized, attending church and Sunday school for several years. As a teenager, he began to question what he had been taught in the church and began to accept Moslem teachings as being more logical. Eventually he renounced Christianity altogether and finally joined Al Queda. He now devotes most of his effort to enlisting other American youth into the Jihad movement to establish world wide Moslem control. He is a leading terrorist in the effort to overthrow the Somali government.

I can only guess why he made the profession and was baptized, but through the years I have seen so many others do so. While Romans 10:9-10 is absolutely essential to salvation, there are some underlying conditions that must also occur. Simply praying the sinners prayer, a belief in God, or being baptized will not save anyone.

The first part of John 6:44 states, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” No amount of psychology, or persuasive skill, or excitement can result in salvation, until God himself causes the motion. Far too often, in an effort to impress others with our fervor, we rush to get a profession, and like the Scribes and Pharisees, merely proselyte. In Matthew 23:15 Jesus warned “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.”

Hebrews 6:4-6 warns “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”

When God draws a person, there will be real repentance, and as Luke 13: 3 and 5 tell us, “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” His drawing will also produce a commitment to Christ beyond all else. Without such a commitment Salvation is not possible according to Luke 14:26. “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”

Many preachers have said, “well if they didn’t get saved, maybe they will later. Unfortunately by giving false confidence we decrease that likelihood. While most will not reject Christianity as completely as the young man described, how many will be in hell because we have not waited on the Lord? The book of Hebrews devotes considerable attention to this problem, and what teachers need to know to overcome it.