WHOEVER IS NOT FOR ME, IS AGAINST ME
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans: “Wie nie aan My kant is nie, is teen My”
Translator: Robin Barker
Someone wrote the following to me:
Please help me with the internal turmoil I have within me about Moslems.
What is your opinion based on the Word.“
The Word of God teach us that all who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, are unsaved people – for whom our Lord died on the cross, but who have not yet accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
JOHN 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the [only] Way [to God] and the [real] Truth and the [real] Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
Therefore, if a Muslim or any other person has not accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, they are lost – and therefore, with Jesus' love, if I get the opportunity, I must tell them about Jesus and try my best to introduce them in this way to Jesus Christ, so that His Holy Spirit then can continue to talk to them in their heart – if they want to listen.
ACTS 4:10-12
10let it be known and clearly understood by all of you, and by all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you [demanded be] crucified [by the Romans and], whom God raised from the dead—in this name [that is, by the authority and power of Jesus] this man stands here before you in good health. 11This Jesus is the STONE WHICH WAS DESPISED and REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE. 12“And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among people by which we must be saved [for God has provided the world no alternative for salvation].”
In other words, I see that all people who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, as lost, unsaved people.
ROM 10:9-10
9because if you acknowledge and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord [recognizing His power, authority, and majesty as God], and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with the heart a person believes [in Christ as Savior] resulting in his justification [that is, being made righteous—being freed of the guilt of sin and made acceptable to God]; and with the mouth he acknowledges and confesses [his faith openly], resulting in and confirming [his] salvation.
In the Old Testament under the Old Covenant there were only two types of people: the Jews and the heathens (gentiles).
In the New Testament under the New Covenant there is also only two types of people: The Christians and the heathens – and you do not get greater or lesser heathens, just heathens.
There is only one criteria and Jesus Himself said the following about it:
MAT 12:30 He who is not with Me [once and for all on My side] is against Me; and he who does not [unequivocally] gather with Me scatters.
Thus, I look at anyone who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their Redeemer and Saviour in the same light. – and I remember: Here is a person that Jesus died for on the cross, so that he/she could achieve eternal life – if he/she would accept Jesus as their Redeemer and Saviour.
Yes, even if you are a murderer as a result of your belief, just like my great hero Paul who was a murderer of Christians before his conversion to Christianity.
We read:
ACTS 9:1-2
1Now Saul, (who later would become Paul) still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord [and relentless in his search for believers], went to the high priest, 2and he asked for letters [of authority] from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any men or women there belonging to the Way [believers, followers of Jesus the Messiah], men and women alike, he could arrest them and bring them bound [with chains] to Jerusalem. (Where they could be put to death, just like he helped putting Stephen to death)
ACTS 7:58 Then they drove him out of the city and began stoning him; and the witnesses placed their outer robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. (Who would later become Paul)
Paul testified about his life before his conversion, and remember when you read it, our Lord had so much trust in him after his conversion, that He allowed Paul to write the majority of the New Testament.
ACTS 22:3-5
3“I (this is Paul speaking) am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strictness of the law of our fathers, being ardent and passionate for God just as all of you are today. 4I persecuted and pursued the followers of this Way to the death, binding them with chains and putting [followers of Jesus] both men and women into prisons, 5as the high priest and all the Council of the elders (Sanhedrin, Jewish High Court) can testify; because from them I received letters to the brothers, and I was on my way to Damascus in order to bring those [believers] who were there to Jerusalem in chains to be punished. (Which sometimes also included the death sentence)
I look at the decaying world around me and then I remember:
ROM 10:14 But how will people call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher (messenger)?
Then I tackle the word/command which our Lord gave to me, with new zeal. Especially through the way I live my life and also through my verbal testimony, when I get the opportunity to do so.
Of which command I am speaking of?
MAT 28:19-20
19Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations [help the people to learn of Me, believe in Me, and obey My words], baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always [remaining with you perpetually—regardless of circumstance, and on every occasion], even to the end of the age.”
I believe that what I have written to you, will also help you with your internal conflict and will help when you look at a Moslem, or for that matter, any other person who has not yet accepted Jesus Christ as their Redeemer and Saviour, that you will, like I try my utmost to do, to strive to look at them like what our Lord’s Holy Spirit, which resides within us, does:
JOHN 3:16-17
16“For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, (humanity – which includes Moslems) that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, (Jesus Christ) so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17For God did not send the Son into the world to judge and condemn the world [that is, to initiate the final judgment of the world], but that the world might be saved through Him.
Greetings,
Sakkie