Muslim Converts in the Middle-East
With all the problems that a luke warm church has today - with it feeling uncomfortable about the truth of the Gospel and the telling of it. I just wanted to share something about the new converts in persecuted countries. There is a revival going on!
This is something I have come across recently and although it is talking about Christmas just gone, the news is most welcome.
But before I go on to the following excerpt that I have found for you, I must say it brings to my mind a quote from C S Lewis that I think is worthy of your attention: You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.
Now with the above being said and I really do hope you have pondered on that quote …. here is some news about new converts who have most likely faced things that we can not really understand in our comfy homes.
These new converts would have gone through massive challenges that may have actually cost their lives, in fact their choices could still cost them their lives according to the religion they have renounced. They are now apostates of Islam! They have no room for post-modern debates, their lives depend on the Word alone. No argument about it. No conversations or double talk about double truths or mans traditions being taught as doctrines the precepts of men (Matt 15:9). Just the pure unadulterated Word of God in all its Truth. It puts the West to shame don’t you think?
Record Number of Ex-Muslims Celebrate Christmas this Year (Some Christmas Good News) [Excerpts]
More Muslims converted to faith in Jesus Christ over the past decade than at any other time in human history. A spiritual revolution is underway throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. As a result, a record number of ex-Muslims are celebrating Christmas this year, despite intense persecution, arrests, assassinations, and widespread church bombings.
Iraq: more than 5,000 new Muslim converts to Christianity have been identified since the end of major combat operations, with 14 new churches opened in Baghdad, and dozens of new churches opened in Kurdistan, some of which have 500 to 800 members. Also, more than 1 million Bibles shipped into the country since 2003, and pastors report Iraqis are snatching them up so fast they constantly need more Bibles. [Update: Iraqi Christians Celebrate Christmas, 12/25]
Egypt: some reports say 1 million Egyptians have trusted Christ over the past decade or so. The Egyptian Bible Society told me they used to sell about 3,000 copies of the JESUS film a year in the early 1990s. But last year they sold 600,000 copies, plus 750,000 copies of the Bible on tape (in Arabic) and about a half million copies of the Arabic New Testament. “Egyptians are increasingly hungry for God’s Word,” an Egyptian Christian
leader told me. Last Christmas, I had the privilege of visiting the largest Christian congregation in the Middle East, which meets in an enormous cave on the outskirts of Cairo. Some 10,000 believers worship there every weekend. A prayer conference the church held in May 2005 drew some 20,000 believers.
Afghanistan: only 17 Muslim converts to Christianity before 9/11/01, but now more than 10,000. Dozens of baptisms every week.
Kazakstan: only 3 known Christians in 1990, but now more than 15,000.
Uzbekistan: no known Christians in 1990, but now more than 30,000.
Sudan: more than 1 million Sudanese have converted to Christianity just since 2000, and some 5 million have become Christians since the early 1990s, despite a radical Islamic regime and an on-going genocide that has killed more than 200,000. Seminaries are being held in caves to train pastors to shepherd the huge numbers of people coming to Christ. Why such a dramatic spiritual awakening? “People have seen real Islam, and they want Jesus instead,” one Sudanese evangelical leader told me.
Iran: in 1979, there were only 500 known Muslim converts to Christianity, but today Iranian pastors and evangelical leaders tell me there are more than 1 million Iranian believers in Jesus Christ, most of whom meet in underground house churches. [Update: Iranian authorities arrest 8 leaders of house church movement.]
December 2001, Sheikh Ahmad al Qataani, a leading Saudi cleric, appeared on a live interview on Aljazeera satellite television to confirm that, sure enough, Muslims were turning to Jesus in alarming numbers. “In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity,” Al Qataani warned. “Every day, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity.”
Stunned, the interviewer interrupted the cleric. “Hold on! Let me clarify. Do we have six million converting from Islam to Christianity?” Al Qataani repeated his assertion. “Every year,” the cleric confirmed, adding, “a tragedy has happened.” @Jeol C Rosenberg
Mat 5:14-15 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
2Co 4:6 Because it is God who said, “Out of darkness Light shall shine,” who shone in our hearts to give the brightness of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
