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    Which None Can Shut: Remarkable True Stories of God’s Miraculous Work in the Muslim World
    Which None Can Shut: Remarkable True Stories of God’s Miraculous Work in the Muslim World
    Which None Can Shut: Remarkable True Stories of God’s Miraculous Work in the Muslim World
    Ebook128 pages3 hours

    Which None Can Shut: Remarkable True Stories of God’s Miraculous Work in the Muslim World

    By Reema Goode

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    About this ebook

    Imagine a place where becoming a Christian is a punishable crime—and your own family exacts the punishment. Where those who spread the gospel among locals are deported if discovered. Where converts to Christianity face persecution, isolation, or even death as the price for their faith. “Reema Goode” and her family are Christians working in a closed Middle Eastern country where all of these things are true. Yet they are also firsthand witnesses of a whole new trend that is taking shape in missions to Muslims. Despite all obstacles, God is opening miraculous doors in the Islamic world, where an unprecedented number of Muslims are becoming followers of Jesus. In this powerful collection of personal stories, Reema takes us deep inside her Arab neighborhood to show how God is opening doors in just one of many Islamic communities. As she walks us through everyday life in a Muslim town, she reveals the diverse, creative, unexpected, and thrilling ways God is reaching her neighbors with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it.”—Revelation 3:8
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTyndale House Publishers
    Release dateSep 1, 2010
    ISBN9781414346922
    Which None Can Shut: Remarkable True Stories of God’s Miraculous Work in the Muslim World

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      Especially since 9/11 there has been a resurgence of interest in Islam and the Muslim world among Americans. For American Christians there is an interest in promoting Christianity in such lands. Yet the challenges seem insurmountable: while Muslims certainly appreciate the freedom of religion and freedom of expression that exists in the West, they do not provide such freedom in their own lands. While some countries tolerate Christians and others to practice their religion, they still demand a payment of a tax, and they are forbidden from proselytizing. The real danger is for the Muslims themselves: if they convert to Christianity, Islam demands their execution. Those who convert them also risk great personal danger to themselves.On account of these challenges it is easy for Christians to dismiss Islamic lands and focus on other places where there is a wider opening. Nevertheless, the call of the Gospel is to go out to every creature, even if it is illegal to do so (cf. Mark 16:15, Acts 5:29). Furthermore, despite the official lines, the ignorance, and the misinformation, many in the Arab world are curious about what Christianity is really about. Should they be deprived of the Gospel?There are some people who attempt to promote the Gospel of Christ in Arab lands. One such person has recently written an account of her activities in promoting Christianity there in a book entitled Which None Can Shut: Remarkable True Stories of God's Miraculous Work in the Muslim World written by "Reema Goode" (true name withheld, no doubt, because of security concerns)."Reema" seems to be an Evangelical with perhaps Pentecostal leanings. She describes the stories of how she worked among men and women in an undeclared Arab country. She talks about how the culture gave her an opening to advance her purposes: the women frequently visit with one another and talk about all kinds of things. Most of the discussions she has takes place in this environment.The Muslim women feel that they need to bring her to Allah; she feels as if she needs to bring them to Jesus. She demonstrates her methods-- the questions she asks them, the questions she is asked, the demonstration of the Christian life, her praying, casting out of demons (so believed), signs and wonders (so believed), and so on and so forth.While I am certainly in no position to limit God and His power, I am also not convinced, personally, that there is a need for casting out of demons and the "signs and wonders" mentioned in the text. I am in no position to judge what is being claimed, but I retain my skepticism about such things."Reema" certainly feels as if the Lord constantly speaks to her in some way or another, and again, I am not in a position to judge. I have some concerns about theology also, since the "believers" are encouraged to "pray" to receive Jesus as opposed to following the Biblical pattern of being immersed in water for remission of sin to put on Christ (Acts 2:36-38, Galatians 3:27).Nevertheless, the book has value in showing that many Muslims do want to learn about Jesus, that prayer has value even today, and that with the right people, the right manner of life, and the right information in place, many Muslims are willing to have their viewpoint challenged, are willing to see the bankruptcy of Islam, and are willing to become believers in Jesus, despite the risks.Which None Can Shut demonstrates that we should never write any group off and that we must find ways to get the Gospel-- and Jesus' representatives preaching the Gospel-- into Muslim lands.*--book received as part of an early review program.

    Book preview

    Which None Can Shut - Reema Goode

    The Story behind the Storyteller

    Meet Reema Goode

    As a little girl, Reema remembers being very affected by Cecil B. DeMille’s film The Ten Commandments. She believed in God and prayed to Him every night, even as a young adult. Still, she did not learn how to begin a personal relationship with God and find forgiveness for her sins until her early twenties, when she read a little Christian booklet someone had left lying around at work. It was the first explanation of the Gospel that Reema had ever understood. Immediately she gave her life to Christ and couldn’t wait to tell others about Him.

    Her first attempts to share the Good News probably confused people more than helped them. What were you supposed to say? How were you supposed to say it? Clearly not gifted to preach, Reema decided to think through what had happened to her and start by telling people that. As it turned out, many people could relate to her story and wanted to know more about a God who was so real and involved in ordinary people’s lives.

    In an effort to meet other Christians, Reema went to a different church every Sunday she had off from work for an entire year. But when she asked about their faith, people would talk about when they’d begun attending services or how they’d become church members, deacons, or Sunday school teachers. None of them seemed to know what she meant by having a personal relationship with God or deciding to follow Christ. Reema realized that, like her, many people grew up believing they were Christians simply because they belonged to a denomination or went to meetings. But then, she wondered, where were all the Christians? Why were they so hard for her to find?

    Tuning in to the radio one day, she heard a program that seemed to give her the answer. It was Moody Bible Institute’s Stories of Great Christians, the dramatized testimonies of famous missionaries. Hearing how believers had left the comforts of home to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth made Reema wonder: Had all the Christians already gone to other countries where the message of the Bible was unknown, unavailable, or even banned? Her humorous naiveté served to draw her on to more serious thoughts. The revelation that there were still places in the world where people could live their entire lives and die without ever having heard the Gospel caused Reema to ask herself a question. With what she now knew, how could she stay in America, where there were Bibles in every bookstore and complete freedom to choose Christ? And so, although she finally did find other followers of Christ and became an active part of a church fellowship, Reema was now committed to going to an unevangelized field someday. It turned out she wouldn’t be going alone.

    Reema met Mike in a cafeteria. She happened to get in line next to him, and then he followed her to her seat and wouldn’t go away. She was actually a little miffed, assuming that this obviously older man, who was also tall and handsome, must be married. It soon became clear he was not. He was a single Christian man who had committed himself to serving God on an unevangelized field, and he was looking for a like-minded wife to go with him. They were married within the year.

    While Mike finished his final two years of Bible college, Reema wrote to a number of agencies asking for information that might help them narrow their missionary direction to a specific place or people group. Where were the most people who were the least reached? Before beginning their search, Mike and Reema had barely heard anything about Islam. Half anticipating that they would end up working with a remote jungle tribe, they were surprised when the Lord began to lay the Arab Muslim World on their hearts. But the more they learned about it, the more that burden grew.

    After three years of establishing a church support base to stand behind them, Mike and Reema arrived on the Arabian Peninsula. They, along with their two children, Tim and Lydia, are still there.

    Preface

    God works in mysterious ways, and sometimes through seemingly unrelated events.

    In 1990, Luis Bush coined the term the 10/40 Window, referring to an area of the globe that is home to the largest, most unreached people groups on the planet. Also in 1990, U.S. president George H. W. Bush initiated a military action in the Persian Gulf, known as Operation Desert Storm. These two unrelated events had a profound effect on the Body of Christ. How? God used both of them to draw the eyes of His Church onto the Muslim World—a world whose population, at that time, claimed one-fifth of humanity and had virtually no Gospel witness. Over the next two decades, a succession of world events sharpened the focus of attention even further—onto not only the Muslim World at large, but the Arab Muslim World in particular.

    Words that never touched our lives before became part of our everyday vocabulary: Quran, Allah, burqa, jihad. Awareness and concern for the one billion people living under Islamic rule skyrocketed. Books on Islam, Arab culture, and how to share your faith with a Muslim came out in droves. Multitudes of Christians around the world began to pray, give, and go.

    Now after two decades of concerted and growing effort by the Church, the televised news from the Middle East seems to be just as depressing as ever. Is God answering our prayers? Is He actually doing anything in the lives of Muslims? If so, what? That’s what this book is all about.

    Our family has been living in the midst of a typical Muslim neighborhood, in Arabia, for more than a dozen years. We want to let you see what we get to see as Christians living on the ground inside an Islamic country. We believe you will be greatly encouraged.

    This is not a book about the religion of Islam itself or about Arab culture, nor is it a book about how to minister to Muslims, as there are many excellent volumes already written on those subjects. We’d like to shift the vantage point, refocusing the reader’s lens from a distant aerial view of the Muslim World at large to zoom in on how God has actually been working in the practical, everyday life of just one of many Islamic communities over the past several years. Instead of sharing statistics about how Muslims are coming to Christ, we want to walk you through the local scenery where we live through stories, and let you see for yourself the incredibly creative, diverse, unexpected, and thrilling ways in which God is reaching our neighbors with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His Word is spreading, and His Spirit is confirming the Truth to their hearts in very real ways.

    Although the stories in this book are encouraging, uplifting, and sometimes even humorous, we do not deny that the Muslim World is often a dangerous place. Where we live, leading a local to Christ is a punishable crime. Muslims who convert know they will probably suffer persecution or even death. Nevertheless, every year more Christians come to live as witnesses for Christ in Arabia, and every year reports of stories like these are increasing in number and frequency.

    The following accounts are all real-life events happening in real time to people we know personally. Of course some of the details, and all the names of people and places, have been changed in order to protect those involved.

    It’s our prayer that Which None Can Shut will glorify God, inspire His people in their own walks of faith, and encourage believers everywhere that God’s loving Light is penetrating the Dark Fortress. We also hope these stories will ignite more prayer for the Muslim World, and more compassion for those living under its rule, as they demonstrate how God is opening doors for the Gospel, confirming His Word, revealing His love, and winning hearts in Arabia.

    Yes! God is answering prayer and He is building His Church! If the gates of Hell won’t prevail against it, how can Islam?

    Chapter 1

    The Open Door

    See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it.

    Revelation 3:8

    It was a winter night in Little Town, Arabia. The crisp evening breeze was a welcome change from summer’s daytime highs of 120-plus degrees. As I shuffled through the irregular and unpaved hardpan streets, the warmly spiced smells of asha, the evening meal, arose from every house to comfort the chilly air outside. It was after nine o’clock, and as the women washed up the dishes, children who normally came out to play for a couple of hours before bedtime had opted to snuggle up in sweaters and caps indoors, in front of their televisions where it was warmer. The empty stillness of the well-worn streets amplified the quiet padding of my sandals on the dirt. A lack of streetlamps made the glittering stars above all the more vivid against the black sky. And that moon! A huge crescent, the very symbol of Islam, seemed to be hanging directly above our village like a signboard, a symbol of ownership. Joy bubbled up in my heart as I contemplated where I was and what I was doing. Here, beneath the dominating rule of the Crescent, I was on my way to a Bible and Quran discussion with neighborhood women.

    Come . . . and bring the books! they had said. But even more amazing was that they had said it often. Within eighteen months of arriving, our family had been able to share the Gospel at least once with virtually all of our neighborhood friends, and God was confirming His Word to be true in their individual lives. It was incredible the way He opened doors, and it had all started in a quite unexpected way through a rather ordinary event.

    We had just moved into the neighborhood and hadn’t put much effort into meeting the neighbors yet, as we needed some time to adjust to simply living first. There was no city water, so the tank on the roof had to be refilled by water truck every five

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