“Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
[Jan.25.2023] Ali, a Muslim living in the southern Philippines, met God in a dream one day. God showed him a bright light and instructed him to go to a certain church. Ali woke up from a dream and found a building with an unfamiliar church.
Ali heard the gospel from a youth leader he met at the church. The leader was also a convert from Islam to Christianity. Since then, Ali has been telling his family and the people around him about Jesus he met.
As with Ali’s story, there has been the assertion that an increasing number of Muslims are converting to Christianity through dreams and visions. Global Christian Relief (GCR), an American missionary organization, recently published an article titled, “The Miraculous Way God is Reaching Muslims”.
Citing the study of Muslims by Missionary David Garrison, one of the masters of Missiology, GCR explained, “Many Muslims convert through dreams and visions, accounting for 25% of all converts.”
Missionary Garrison belonged to the International Mission Committee of the Southern Baptist Church in the United States and worked as a missionary in Hong Kong, Germany, Egypt, and India for 25 years.
Garrison said that Muslim conversion happens in a ‘movement’, where “movement” means more than 1,000 Muslims in a specific community have been baptized and voluntarily practice their faith. In the article, he said, “A historically unprecedented Muslim conversion movement is taking place in our time. In particular, 70 movements have flourished in the past 20 years.”
GCR analysed that this is because many Muslims are open to the prophetic character of visions and dreams. An official from Assalam Mission said on the 11th of January that “there are many references to Jesus (‘Isa’ in Arabic) in Qur’an, as he is respected as a prophet. For this reason, if Jesus appears in a dream, there is a high possibility of conversion without much resistance,” he explained.
Rick Love, international director of Frontiers Mission, once said, “Just as God prepared Cornelius to hear the gospel through a vision, God is preparing millions of Muslims to respond to the Good News.”
“Today, Christian converts in many Muslim countries may face excruciating trials and suffering, including ostracism, imprisonment, torture, and death, for following Jesus,” the GRC urged Christians to pray that God will use dreams and other means to call Muslims to Him.
So Yoon-jeong, a professor at the Graduate School of Missionary Studies at Asin University, also said that among Muslim converts she met in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Germany, and Greece, many of them came to know Jesus and God through dreams. Professor Soh also said, ” Outwardly, Islam has a strong legalism aspect, but there are shamanistic elements at the root of its faith, so there are many cases of converting after experiencing God through mysterious experiences.”
However, Professor Soh advised that we should not leave Muslims understand Christianity only through the mystical element and added, “The task of Islamic mission is to help Muslims live a life of faith while receiving discipleship training with the word of Bible” (Source: Kukmin Ilbo, Missionary Newspaper Comprehensive).
He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” ( Acts 10:42-43)
God, thank You for revealing Jesus to many Muslims in the world through dreams and visions and guiding them to forgiveness of sins through the name of Jesus. Just as there have been 70 conversion movements of more than 1,000 people in the last 20 years, may You bring mega-revival to Muslims in all nations. May the church and missionaries faithfully disciple the Muslim converts with Your Words that the converts will be victorious until the end by overcoming loneliness, and persecution.
Prayer 24·365
prayer@prayer24365.org
