SALIM was a Turk and a follower of Mahomet, the false prophet, in days when there was not religious liberty in his land. Taught from childhood to regard Mahomet as greater than our Lord Jesus Christ, and to receive Mahomet’s book, the Koran, as God’s Word, he might have lived and died ignorant of the true Saviour, God’s dear Son, and God’s precious Book, if it had not been for the Lord’s grace toward him.
God caused a little tract on repentance, printed in the Turkish language, to fall in his way. When Salim read it the Spirit of God awakened in his heart an earnest desire to know the truth. The tract referred him to the Bible and Salim sought everywhere to get a sight of that most valuable of all books. He went from place to place to find the holy Book, as he called it; but alas, he sought in vain.
Salim began to despair of meeting with that which alone could direct him to the Saviour of sinners. How thankful we should be, we who live in lands with an open Bible, that God has so richly blessed us with His precious Word!
Poor Salim was so much in earnest that he could not rest without God’s book, and so, leaving his business to his eldest son, he devoted himself to the search. At last on coming to Salonica the Lord caused him to meet one of the American missionaries from whom, to the great joy of his heart, he not only obtained a copy of the Scriptures in Armenian but also was taught to read that language that he might learn from God’s own Word the way of salvation. The missionaries helped him too to understand the way more perfectly, and by God’s grace he and all his family became Christians.
Now followed persecution, for his own people hated the Lord Jesus Christ and His followers. Salim and his family moved to Constantinople and when the news spread that they were Christians they were in great danger of their lives. The American missionaries got the whole family aboard a ship bound for Malta where they would be free from persecution and even death.
However, before they got to Malta, the ship had to stop at Smyrna where they, having no passports, were detained two weeks. Again the Lord interposed for their deliverance. It so happened that while staying there an old acquaintance of Salim’s, one for whom he had done favors in the past, and a zealous follower of Mahomet, came to see them. This man did not know Salim had become a Christian, and asked him “Where are you going?”
“The right path,” was Salim’s answer. Mohammedans are accustomed to going on pilgrimages to Mecca, to the tomb of Mahomet, and this friend had been there himself, so he thought that when Salim said he was going “the right path” that he meant he was going on a pilgrimage. Finding Salim had no passport, and being full of zeal for the prophet Mahomet, this friend, who, had he known what Salim really meant might have delivered him over to his enemies, busied himself in securing, and at last obtained, a passport for him.
Thus the Lord overruled the very zeal of one who was an enemy of Christ for the deliverance of one of His dear people and his family, so that they all reached Malta in safely. There they were all baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, rejoicing in the grace that God had shown to them. In the meantime Salim had changed his name and that of the family to Williams. After three years he returned to Constantinople and there he lived, openly preaching the gospel of the grace of God without fear. He was used of God in blessing to many poor blind Mohammedans, seeking to win them for Christ, that they too might learn the value of His precious blood which cleanses from all sin.
ML-01/28/1973