Monday, September 17, 2018
THE STRENGTH TO KEEP GOING
We learn from the missionary Raymond Lull (1232-1315) to follow Christ even into a martyr's death. Lull truly loved his enemies and died as did the first recorded martyr, Stephen. While we want to discount his Roman Catholic teachings, there is no doubt that he reached out to hateful Muslims with the love of Christ. And what a lesson in his studying Arabic for six years in order to reach out in their own language.
(Quote from 'VOICE OF THE MARTYRS')
Raymond Lull "First Missionary to the Moslems"
At age 55, Lull believed he was ready to go to northern Africa to share Christ with Muslims filled with bitterness toward Christianity because of the Crusades. Friends gathered at the ship to see him off. But the ship sailed without him when he panicked. Lull overcame his terror and boarded the next ship for Tunis. He announced his presence to learned Muslims and offered to debate them in public. He promised he would become a Muslim if they proved to him that Islam was superior to Christianity.
As a result of the debates, some Muslims became interested in learning more about Christianity. Others did not. They had Lull thrown in prison. He was deported, and stoned on the way to the ship.
At the age of 75, Lull returned to North Africa to try again to reach the Muslims there. He invited Muslims in Bugia, east of Algiers, to a public debate. Lull employed some techniques that would not be accepted by many missioiogists today. He presented the Ten Commandments, then claimed the prophet Mohammad had violated every one of them. He also said that Islam was full of the seven deadly sins. He was soon back in prison. Lull returned to Europe, but traveled again to Bugia in 1314 when he was more than 80 years of age. He visited a small group of former Muslims he had led to Christ, and tried secretly for ten months to draw still more to his Lord and Savior.
"I had been fairly rich," Lull wrote late in his life. "I had a wife and children. I enjoyed the pleasant side of life, but I gladly renounced all this to tell Muslims the truth about Christ. I studied Arabic. They put me in jail and flogged me. Now I have gotten old, but I don't give up hope. God willing, I wish to persist until death."
Zwemer said of Lull, who grew tired of hiding and spoke again in an open market: "He pleaded with love...but spoke plainly the whole truth...Filled with fanatic fury at his boldness, and unable to reply to his arguments, the populace seized him, and dragged him out of town; there by the command, or at least the connivance, of the king, he was stoned on the 30th of June, 1315, and he died shortly thereafter.
Grant Thou me strength to do With ready heart and willing
Whate'er Thou shalt command, My calling here fulfilling
To do it when I ought, With all my might, and bless
The work I thus have wrought, For Thou must give success.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 395:2)
