Pastor Peter Simpson was preaching the gospel in the centre of Uxbridge on November 10th. The preaching began with a quotation of the Lord’s words in Matthew 11:28,
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
The pastor declared, Come to Jesus Christ, and He will remove the burden of your guilt, a guilt which all possess without the Saviour. All need to come to Him, be they Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist or atheist. He then tried to explain to the passers-by the many ways in which all have broken various of the Ten Commandments, be it in thought, word or deed.
Pastor Simpson felt some sadness that there did appear to be much interest in the serious and urgent message which was being delivered. Having said that, however, who knows what the unseen work of the Spirit was doing, as the truth of Christ was being proclaimed?
At one stage a young Muslim lady came up to Pastor Simpson and said that Muslims and Christians have much in common, both believing that Jesus Christ is returning to this earth, and when He returns, say the Muslims, one of His acts will be to pray with Muslims in a mosque. The only difference between Muslims and Christians, she argued, is that the former do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
Pastor Simpson tried to dissuade the lady from thinking that there is common ground between the two faiths, and indeed, the issue of the nature of Christ, whether or not He is fully God, is actually a salvation issue. After all, the Lord Jesus taught,
“He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him” (John 5:23).
Pastor Simpson asked the lady of she thought that she was a good person, and she replied that she thought she was. She was then asked, Are you going to heaven? In response, she began to talk about the various good works that she tried to carry out. The minister gently suggested to her that by trusting in her own abilities to do good, she may in fact be guilty of the sin of pride, and he further explained to here that the Bible plainly teaches that good works can earn no one a place in heaven. In any case, good works cannot cancel out the guilt of a single sin. The lady then sadly had to rush away before the conversation could continue.
May the Lord cause her and many other Muslims to realise that any dependence upon their own imagined goodness for eternal life is a futile exercise because of the sinfulness of the human heart with which all are weighed down, until, through repentance and faith, the Lord Jesus Christ gives them a brand new heart.