A recent issue of Newsweek devotes its lead article to “Muslims in America.” Filled of course with statistics of their growth and power (“Islam in America is a success story”), our brief look at the article is not concentrated on statistics (we deplore the one that says that 26 percent of our Muslims age 18 to 29 believe that suicide bombing can be justified). Strange as it may seem, we here are hooked on the cover picture.
It’s a gathering of American Muslims looking you in the eye, faces sober, serious, very human but very different than almost any similar group of American faces would be. Nobody is grinning, no flashing white teeth; the photographer hasn’t been telling jokes to get the people to look hilarious. The young women are as beautiful as ours in our post-Christian culture. But you are looking at thoughtful people who tell you they are resigned to living for a sober purpose, which in their thinking is “holy.”
Is there some way these people can be granted at least a glimpse of what it means that the Son of God became one of us, took our nature upon Himself, redeemed the world by His sacrifice on His cross and will yet win the great controversy with Satan?
When the Bible says that the proclamation of His message must go to “ever y nation, kindred, tongue, and people” and “lighten the earth with glory” (Rev. 14:6, 7; 18:1, 2), does it embrace the world’s billion plus Muslims?
It has to, because “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” and He is “the Savior of all men, especially those who believe,” and is “the Savior of the world” (John 3:16; 4:42; 1 Tim. 4:10). These Muslims looking you in the eye have hearts that have not as yet been stirred and melted by the self-sacrificing love of that Savior; to them the idea of agape is strange even if they could comprehend it; but Jesus Christ is their Savior just as much as He is yours—they just don’t understand the truth about Him.
“The everlasting gospel” in this biblical “time of the end” proclaims that we are living in the world’s solemn cosmic Day of Atonement. All who will recognize that final “enlightening light” will be the world’s most sober-minded people in history. They will be delightfully happy but at the same time in a Christlike way, serious. Muslims will hear and see; some will believe with honest hearts. May the message to be proclaimed be so clear that it will fulfill its divinely inspired purpose—to grip every heart that will survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died. Hang on, don’t give up; there has never been an hour on earth like the one just before us.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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