He (Samuel Marinus Zwemer, who was known as the apostle to Islam) gave main addresses on several occasions at the Keswick Conventions in England. It was there in 1915 that he had spoken with power on Peter’s words in Luke 5:5: “Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at Thy word, I will let down the net.” He related this to work in Muslim lands. Yet, he said by faith as we obey our Lord’s commission, the time will come when Muslims will be brought to Christ in such numbers that the boats (or churches) will not be able to hold them. The audience was so affected by the message that they asked what they could do? Dr. Zwemer said, “Pray.” From this was born the Fellowship of Faith for Muslims, which continues to this day as a prayer ministry in various countries.
(Wilson, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FRONTIER MISSIONS, VOL 13:4 OCT.-DEC. 1996, p.166)
To this day, Fellowship of Faith for the Muslims (FFM) forges on and continues to help Christians understand Muslims so that we can pray for them and relate God's love to them effectively. We work with churches and mission agencies worldwide to promote the ministry of prayer for the Muslim world by providing information, literature, and training. We compile prayer requests from across the Muslim world and send out our prayer bulletins in various languages to our prayer partners worldwide. Every quarter, we gather for a Day of Prayer where we meet for fellowship, worship and to hear firsthand from missionaries and field workers serving in the Muslim world and pray for them and the people groups they serve. The Day of Prayer is also a time of equipping where we invite experienced field workers to train the church in the areas of evangelism, disciple-making, and leadership.
J. Christy Wilson Jr. said in the above article: "The challenge Samuel Zwemer sounded in his time must be heard again today. For today the number of lost Muslims is much greater than it was when Zwemer dedicated his life for their salvation. However, then as now the laborers are still pitiable few."
Armin Gesswein, known as “the apostle of prayer and revival,” explains the inseparability of prayer and evangelism in the New Testament: “Prayer is the lifeline of New Testament evangelism, the oxygen for its holy fire. The New Testament was born in prayer. It knows no evangelism without prayer, and no prayer which does not lead to evangelism.”
Likewise, Reinhard Bonnke, renowned German evangelist and missionary to Africa, and founder of Christ For All Nations said: “Evangelism without intercession is like an explosive without a detonator and intercession without evangelism is like a detonator without an explosive.”
Samuel Zwemer also knew that prayer and evangelism were the keys to winning the Muslim world:
“We pray for our friends and relatives. But do we ever evangelize them? It is so much easier to talk about them to Christ than to talk to them, about Christ.”
“If faithfully, fearlessly, sympathetically, we preach Christ crucified, He can make the stumbling block of the cross a stepping-stone for the Muslims into His kingdom…more than this, the cross will win their love if rightly preached.”
If we truly care about our Muslim friends, neighbors, co-workers, and fellow students, our prayers for them will be two-fold: 1) We should pray for our Muslim friends that God might do a mighty work in them that they may come to the “knowledge of the truth” and be saved (John 6:37, 44). 2) We should pray earnestly that the “Lord of the harvest will send out laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:39)—these laborers would include you and me, and our brothers and sisters in Christ, that we may speak boldly, with gentleness and respect, to the lost where they are.
Will you join us in sounding the bell and passing on the torch to the next generation who will pray for their Muslim friends and neighbours and relate God's love to them in a meaningful and genuine way?
Email ffm.toronto@sympatico.ca to know how you can get involved.
Register for the Global Day of Prayer here: https://www.ffmna.org/2024daysofprayer
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