This week's promise: Christ will return

A message for all people

With my authority, take this message of repentance to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: "There is forgiveness of sins for all who turn to me."
Luke 24:47 NLT

A man named Muhammad

In an age of pluralism, most people assume that all religions have equal access to heaven. One getting much attention today is Islam.

Muhammad, the founder of Islam, the world's youngest major religion, was born in Mecca between 570 and 580.

When he was forty, Muhammad claimed that he received a prophetic call from Alah through the angel Gabriel. He began preaching monotheism, a final judgment, alms, prayer, and surrender to the will of Allah. Persecution in his hometown of Mecca forced him to flee to Medina. Traditionally dated to July 15, 622, that flight, or hegira, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

During his time in Medina, Muhammad's revelations become more legalistic and more secular and Islam, as the new religion was called, became a community and state with Muhammad as ruler and lawgiver.

By the time he died on June 8, 632, almost all of Arabia embraced Islam. The successors to Muhammad encouraged jihad, or holy war, against non-Muslims and within a century built an empire stretching from Spain all the way across North Africa to India.

In 1900 only 12 percent of the world's population embraced Islam; by 2000 it had grown to 21 percent, partly due to a higher birth rate. Islam is the majority religion in forty-two countries and territories. Most of these countries prohibit Christian evangelism and exclude Christian missionaries, yet since 1980 more Muslims have turned to Christ than in any earlier period in history. Pray that the doors will open even wider and that many more will come to Christwhile there is still time.

Adapted from The One Year® Book of Christian History by E. Michael and Sharon Rusten (Tyndale, 2003), entry for June 8.

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House