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Subject – The Christian Church – Reaching Out To Muslims With the Message and Love of Christ – History of Islam – Part 2
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Sunday, 31st of March 2019
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NUGGETS OF WISDOM
“ A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right and evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority.”
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do.”
Matthew 26:52-54 The Message (MSG)
52-54 Jesus said, “Put your sword back where it belongs. All who use swords are destroyed by swords. Don’t you realize that I am able right now to call to my Father, and twelve companies—more, if I want them—of fighting angels would be here, battle-ready? But if I did that, how would the Scriptures come true that say this is the way it has to be?”
Key verses for Today:
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 The Message (MSG)
4 Attention, Israel!
God, our God! God the one and only!
5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!
6-9 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.
Matthew 22:37-40 The Message (MSG)
37-40 Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”
John 14:6
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Mark 16:15
15 Then he said, “Go into the world. Go everywhere and announce the Message of God’s good news to one and all.
2 Timothy 2:15
15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
2 Corinthians 5:20
20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
Acts 2:38
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
John 17:20-23 Message
20-23 I’m praying not only for them
But also for those who will believe in me
Because of them and their witness about me.
The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
So they might be one heart and mind with us.
Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
The same glory you gave me, I gave them,
So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—
I in them and you in me.
Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,
And give the godless world evidence
That you’ve sent me and loved them
In the same way you’ve loved me.
Introduction
Dear brethren, welcome to our second part series which is meant to equip the church of Jesus Christ to reach out to Muslims with the message and love of Christ. These series will clear up some misconceptions about Islam so you are better prepared to engage them for Christ by helping them to discover Christ for themselves. Today we are dealing with the history of Islam. Jesus died for the Muslim too. Our job is to present, Christ is the one that draws them to Himself. We can never win an argument over who is on the right path. We allow the Holy Spirit to do the job as we are willing to be the channel through which He can reach out to the yielding soul. Let’s dive in..
Islam – History from IslamReligion. org as told by Muslims
In or about the year 570 the child who would be named Muhammad and who would become the Prophet of one of the world’s religions, Islam, was born into a family belonging to a clan of Quraish, the ruling tribe of Mecca, a city in the Hijaz region of northwestern Arabia.
Originally the site of the Kaabah, a shrine of ancient origins, Mecca had, with the decline of southern Arabia, become an important center of sixth-century trade with such powers as the Sassanians, Byzantines, and Ethiopians. As a result, the city was dominated by powerful merchant families, among whom the men of Quraish were preeminent.
Muhammad’s father, “Abd Allah ibn” Abd al-Muttalib, died before the boy was born; his mother, Aminah, died when he was six. The orphan was consigned to the care of his grandfather, the head of the clan of Hashim. After the death of his grandfather, Muhammad was raised by his uncle, Abu Talib. As was customary, the child Muhammad was sent to live for a year or two with a Bedouin family. This custom, followed until recently by noble families of Mecca, Medina, Taif, and other towns of the Hijaz, had important implications for Muhammad. In addition to enduring the hardships of desert life, he acquired a taste for the rich language so loved by the Arabs, whose speech was their proudest art, and also learned the patience and forbearance of the herdsmen, whose life of solitude he first shared, and then came to understand and appreciate.
About the year 590, Muhammad, then in his twenties, entered the service of a merchant widow named Khadijah as her factor, actively engaged with trading caravans to the north. Sometime later he married her, and had two sons, neither of whom survived, and four daughters by her.
In his forties, he began to retire to meditate in a cave on Mount Hira, just outside Mecca, where the first of the great events of Islam took place. One day, as he was sitting in the cave, he heard a voice, later identified as that of the Angel Gabriel, which ordered him to:
“Recite: In the name of thy Lord who created, Created man from a clot of blood.” (Quran 96:1-2)
Three times Muhammad pleaded his inability to do so, but each time the command was repeated. Finally, Muhammad recited the words of what are now the first five verses of the 96th chapter of the Quran – words which proclaim God to be the Creator of man and the Source of all knowledge.
At first Muhammad divulged his experience only to his wife and his immediate circle. But, as more revelations enjoined him to proclaim the oneness of God universally, his following grew, at first among the poor and the slaves, but later, also among the most prominent men of Mecca. The revelations he received at this time, and those he did later, are all incorporated in the Quran, the Scripture of Islam.
Not everyone accepted God’s message transmitted through Muhammad. Even in his own clan, there were those who rejected his teachings, and many merchants actively opposed the message. The opposition, however, merely served to sharpen Muhammad’s sense of mission, and his understanding of exactly how Islam differed from paganism. The belief in the Oneness of God was paramount in Islam; from this all else follows. The verses of the Quran stress God’s uniqueness, warn those who deny it of impending punishment, and proclaim His unbounded compassion to those who submit to His will. They affirm the Last Judgment, when God, the Judge, will weigh in the balance the faith and works of each man, rewarding the faithful and punishing the transgressor. Because the Quran rejected polytheism and emphasized man’s moral responsibility, in powerful images, it presented a grave challenge to the worldly Meccans.
Muhammad ; Christians; Jews; Four Caliphs, Invasions and Crusades – The Christian account – banarbasfund
Muhammed first wife Khadija was a catholic. Muhammed told his wife about his experience and said that he had seen a demon. However, she thought that he must have seen an angel. Muslims now claim that this angel was the angel Gabriel. Khadija was a rich widow and 15 years older than Muhammad.
Muhammad believed that he was sent by God as the final prophet of the Jews and Christians. He had even chosen Jerusalem as the direction of prayer for Muslims. Muhammad at first tried to convert Christians and Jews peacefully to Islam. However, because his message was so different from their beliefs and customs, they could not accept it. This made him extremely angry. He changed the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca. It was at this time that the messages in Muhammad’s “Visions” stopped being peaceful towards Jews and Christians and became harsh and violent. He massacred hundreds of Jewish men and enslaved their families. After the Jews and Christians had rejected him, Muhammad led his army to Mecca. He conquered the town and declared that this was the centre of Islam
Mohammad died in 632 aged about 62. He was succeeded by one of his closest followers, called Abu Bakr. Abu Bakr followed Muhammad’s example of violence and used holy war or jihad to force people to accept Islam as their religion or to submit as second-class citizens. Islam spread rapidly
He wanted Islam to spread wider that just Arabia and so he began fighting against many of the surrounding countries. Abu Bakr died in 634 and was succeeded by Umar. Umar was assassinated in 644. He was succeeded by Uthman who was also assassinated in 656. Uthman was replaced by Ali. This caused a huge split in the Islamic community because some Muslims did not want Ali to be the leader. A civil war began that lasted five years until Ali too was assassinated. The minority who accepted Ali and his descendants as leaders became known as Shia Muslims. The main body of Muslims became known as Sunni Muslims.
Despite all the disagreements, assassinations, civil war and violence Muslims look back at this time as the “Golden Age” of Islam. They also call this the age of the four “Rightly Guided Caliphs ( the four being: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali)
The four caliphs used their Muslim armies to conquer vast areas. During their leadership Islam spread to Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Persia, Egypt and North Africa. Most of these areas had very strong Christian communities which were weakened by the violent Muslim invasions. Once an area was conquered large numbers of Muslims from Arabia would migrate into it. This helped to make sure that there was complete domination by Islam in an area. By 750 AD the Muslim empire stretched from Spain and Morocco in the west, to India and China in the east
From 14th to the 16th centuries, the Muslim Ottoman Empire expanded from its base (modern Turkey). The Ottoman Empire lasted more than four centuries. Many Christian areas were conquered and invaded by the Ottoman empire as it spread into parts of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. At its strongest the Empire stretched from Austria in Europe through Turkey and the Arabian Peninsular to Algeria in Africa. It was finally defeated in the First World War.
The Christians who were living in the conquered areas were pleading to their fellow Christians in Europe to help them against their Muslim invaders and attackers. In 1096 Christians in Europe finally decided to do something and the sent an army to the Middle East to stop the persecution of Christians. This was the First Crusade.
A total of nine crusades took place over a period of 200 years. The Crusaders were successful at first but later the Muslims gradually took back control of the area, including Jerusalem.
The Crusades were a very violent time. Many terrible things were done by both sides during these wars.
Conclusion and prayer: Two wrongs cannot make a right and truthful action is like the noonday sun and breath of fresh air to the needy soul. Love is the greatest weapon the Church of Jesus Christ has in her arsenal to conquer and put out wickedness and darkness which is rarely used because love – Gods, kind of love cost God something and it will, must, certainly cost us something. Are we ready to pay the price that Jesus is calling all of us to pay? Where He finds willingness, may He grant the grace to us to do exceedingly, abundantly and above all that we can even think or imagine in Jesus name. Jesus is looking out for our love actions that He can ride on to touch the souls of men and women. Are we available today? He is calling for obedient disciples and I see us already doing the needful as we step out of our beautiful cathedrals into the cathedrals of the heart and minds of clueless souls waiting for the love of Christ manifested in mortals like us. Thank You Lord for finding us faithful in so doing in Jesus name.
To our brothers and sisters who have not encountered the love of Christ yet, there is a line drawn in the sand of time more than 2000 years prior.. cross it today by asking Jesus to reveal Himself to you. He is willing right now to respond to any questions you have if you are really seeking and searching for the truth.. Father, as they ask You today, reveal Yourself to them because no one can come to You except You draw them to Yourself. Thank You for doing this to the honor and glory of Your name. Amen.
Shalom!
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