| Sept. 30, 2001 | Who Are These People, And Why Do They Hate Us? | James 4:1 |
What is Islam? Who are the Islamic fundamentalists, and why do
they seek to destroy our way of life? Why do they seek the destruction
of the United States? And Israel?
As Paul Harvey says, it is not one world. Islamic beliefs are
very different from Christian beliefs, and the more you learn,
the more differences there are. Islam and Christianity are totally
different. They are irreconcilable. If one is right, the other
is totally wrong. I make no apologies for saying that Christianity
is true and Islam is false. Islam is totally wrong, and while
I hope that I will not be prejudiced, I plan to show you that
Islam is blasphemous.
There are two groups of people in the world; one is the church
of God, those who believe and receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and
as a result of that have received a spiritual quickening by the
Holy Spirit. The other group is composed of those who are not
saved, all those who have not received Jesus
Christ as Saviour, those who are not indwelt by
the Holy Spirit. We may divide those who are unsaved into two
groups: nice, socially agreeable unsaved people, those who good
citizens of society and the world, that is one group. The other
group is socially evil unsaved people.
Moslems fall into one of those two unsaved categories, depending
on whether they are fundamentalists or liberals. Islamic liberals
believe that it is necessary to adapt the teachings of Islam to
society. Islamic fundamentalists believe that it
is necessary to adapt society to the teachings of Islam.
Moslem liberals believe that eventually Islam will convert the
world and meanwhile it is necessary to be tolerant of non Moslems.
They expect to overcome the world with teaching, education, indoctrination,
and political persuasion. And make no mistake: they do expect
to take over the world. Moslem fundamentalists believe that since
the teachings of Islam require conversion of everybody, and since
those who reject conversion are under a death sentence anyway,
their attitude is: Hey, let's get it on.
To understand Islam, you have to understand it's founder, Mohammed.
>From the time of Christ until about 600 AD, Arabia was populated
by numerous tribes who worshiped a number of pagan deities.
Mohammed was born around 570 AD, and he was an illiterate camel
driver, he could neither read nor write. He also had a form of
epilepsy, he would fall into fits, foam at the mouth, and when
he reached the age of about 40, he began to hear things during
his seizures.
The Arabs believe in Jinns, what we call genies. "I am the
genie of the lamp. I will give you three wishes." The Jinns
would come to Mohammed while he was in his fits and tell him things
which he would remember when he recovered, or else he would speak
out of his trance and his followers would write down what he said.
One of the Jinns called himself the angel Gabriel, and Mohammed
believed him. After all, angels wouldn't lie would they? Some
of them will. What did the Apostle Paul say in 2 Corinthians 11?
He spoke of false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves
into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself
is transformed into an angel of light.
Fallen angels, demons lie; that is their best weapon
against mankind. All of us are sinful enough to sometimes think
of things we shouldn't be thinking of, but along with that, sometimes
the enemy shows up and whispers his two cents worth into our heads.
Recognize them for who they are, what they are, tell them in the
name of Jesus Christ to go away, and then get on with your life.
No big deal. It's a straight forward process, like shooing away
flies. Mohammad didn't do that; he listened and believed what
he was told. Bad mistake.
Anyway, the so-called "angel Gabriel" told Mohammed
that he was God's final and greatest prophet, and Mohammed believed
him. Mohammed then went to the city of Mecca to convert the Arabs
who lived there. In Mecca there is a shrine called the Ka'ba with
a large black stone in it, probably a meteorite, that has been
worshiped for thousands of years. The people of Mecca worshiped
hundreds of gods, they were polytheists. Mohammed had been exposed
to a certain amount of Christianity and a certain amount of Judaism,
and became persuaded that having hundreds of gods was not
the right way to believe.
Unfortunately, most of the Christianity that he encountered was
corrupted. In that part of Arabia back then there was a Christian
heresy that the trinity consisted of God the Father, the Virgin
Mary, and Jesus their Son. Lately, one of the major branches of
Christianity is getting very close to that same heresy, so you
can understand how Mohammad got messed up.
Anyway, Mohammed rejected that apostate Christianity, and he rejected
Judaism, but he did believe that there could really be only one
god. Mohammed believed that the moon god was the greatest of all
the gods, and proclaimed him supreme. He called him al alah, the
deity. Notice how many flags and other symbols from the Islamic
world have a crescent moon in them, now you know why. Allah started
his career as the moon god, Mohammed got him a promotion.
Mohammed began to teach people what the spirits had told him,
and things did not go well, eventually he and his followers had
to flee for their lives to a place called Medina. In Medina he
did a lot better, he recruited a great number of disciples. Eventually
he had raised an army of 10,000 soldiers and Mecca gave up the
contest over religion. Mohammed emptied the Ka'ba of it's idols
and proclaimed Allah as the supreme diety.
It is common lately to hear a lot of people saying that Christians,
Moslems and Jews all worship the same God: that is a lie.
That is blasphemy. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Father
of Jesus Christ has nothing in common with Allah, the moon god
of Saudi Arabia.
Probably most of you heard the Moslems use the phrase; Allah akbar,
Allah is great? Let's talk about that: Islam is one of the world's
three major monotheistic religions, the other two are Christianity
and Judaism. If they want to say that Allah is great, that's fine,
after all, Allah the moon god is the god of one
of the world's largest religions, it's a free country, and they
can say what they want to. If they wanted to say that Allah is
the greatest, that's OK too, because of the 360 Arabian pagan
gods, maybe Allah is the greatest, who knows? But Allah akbar
really means that Allah is greater, and they reject the
claim that Jesus Christ is God's Son. They reject the
idea that God could have a son. This is very revealing. This tells
us a lot about where this religion comes from.
Turn to 1 John 2:22: "Who is a liar but he that denieth that
Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father
and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not
the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father
also." Turn over to 1 John 4:1: "Beloved, believe not
every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because
many false prophets are gone out into the world.
1Jo 4:2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
1Jo 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of
antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even
now already is it in the world."
When you deny that Jesus Christ is God, when you deny that He
is the Son of God, then you identify yourself with the spirit
of antichrist. Islam does that, and then proclaims that Allah
is greater. Who was it that said that he would be greater than
God? Who was it that said "I will ascend into heaven, I will
exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the
mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend
above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High."
Who was that? Lucifer. Satan. (Is 14:14)
If you believe that the Bible is true, and that what it says is
true, then you must logically come to the conclusion that Islam
is an antichrist, satanic enemy to Christianity.
Mohammed had a zeal for being religious, but just being a religious
enthusiast is not enough. He listened to a lying spirit, a demonic
spirit, he was used to create a demonic religion, and we saw the
logical results of that religion three weeks ago. If you have
a tree in your yard and your not sure what kind of tree it is,
wait until it bears fruit and you will see. We have seen the fruit
of Islam and it is evil.
Something that we have heard a lot in the media lately is that
Islam is a religion of peace. You cannot have a religion of peace
when you reject the Prince of Peace. In John 8:36, Jesus tells
us: " If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall
be free indeed." Islamic countries are the most repressive
in the world, especially for women, Moslems are not free. The
United States, founded on Christian principles, is the freest
country in the world; that is why they seek to destroy us. Our
freedom is a rebuke to them. They cannot appreciate it or understand
it, so they seek to destroy it.
How does Islam work? Where do they get their teachings from? Let
me try and explain it by comparing it to some other things we
already understand.
In the Roman Catholic religion, there is more than one authority
on faith and practice; there is the Bible, and then there is the
church. The Roman church forms doctrine based on tradition and
also based on the pronouncements of the Pope. The Pope, as the
so-called vicar of Christ, is believed to speak authoritatively
on matters of doctrine, and consequently Catholic doctrine has
changed over the years as the pope gets new revelations or makes
decisions on what is true and what isn't.
The Jewish religion: the Jewish religion is not just the Old Testament,
it is also the Talmud and the Mishna, the oral teaching and the
interpretation of it that the Rabbis give to it. The writings
of the Talmud and the Misna are much larger than the Old Testament,
and contain the opinions of thousands of Rabbis.
If you ever dialog concerning religion with a religious Jew, you
will have to deal with that person not just on the basis of the
Old Testament, but also on an enormous body of associated writings
that carry an almost equal authority.
Islam is the same way, only more so. Westerners have heard about
the Koran and sometimes it gets quoted for popular consumption,
but the Koran is only one part of the picture. There is also what
is called the Hadith. The Hadith is a record of things that people
saw Mohammed say or do apart from the Koran. Islamic clerics called
Imams then go on to explain what these things mean, and how Moslems
should behave based on the interpretation of the Hadith. That
is why when you read the Koran, you notice only a few things in
it that are mildly hostile to Judaism and Christianity, but it
is the Hadith that makes things really get interesting.
Lets take for instance the matter of peace treaties and keeping
your word, or being honest. When Yassar Arafat promises to help
bring peace to the Middle East, why is it that all we seem to
get is more war?
It is because a person lives as they have been taught. In the
Hadith book 78, number 619, Mohammed teaches concerning vows:
The Prophet said, "...whenever you take an oath to do something
and later you find that something else is better than the first,
then do the better one and make expiation for your oath."
In other words, oaths need to be kept only as long as it is to
your advantage to keep them.
When Mohammed and his followers were first beginning their religion,
there were difficulties, and on one occasion Mohammed had to make
a peace treaty with the enemy tribe of Quayresh. This was called
the Hudibiyya Agreement. Two years later, his military position
had improved considerably, whereupon Mohammed tore up the
treaty and slaughtered the Quayreshites.
During the Crusades, there was a Moslem leader called Saladin
who was fighting against the forces of Richard the Lion Hearted.
Things got a little sticky, and Saladin called for a cease fire.
Once the English troops got relaxed and settled down comfortably,
Saladin called for a jihad and captured Jerusalem.
Islam teaches that breaking vows, breaking peace treaties is an
acceptable way of doing things, and we should not be surprised
when Moslem people do as their religion teaches.
Following is a quote from an interview with Yassar Arafat on the
Egyptian Orbit Television, April 18, 1998:
"Question: For practical reasons, do you now suggest to maintain
quiet despite everything?
Arafat: Yes, I suggest that we maintain quiet. We respect
agreements the way that the prophet Muhammad and Salah a-din respected
the agreements that they signed." In 1,500 years,
the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
It is interesting when you look at the life of Mohammad, the revelations
from Allah changed as Mohammad's circumstances changed. When Mohammad
was militarily weak and had few followers, Allah's revelations
were pretty mild, and generally non confrontational. Then as Mohammad's
military situation improved. Allah changed his revelations to
take advantage of the situation. One of Mohammed's eleven wives
told him that Allah always seemed to tell Mohammad whatever he
wanted to hear, and I think that describes it pretty well.
There is a huge difference between what we find in the Bible and
what we find in the Koran. People would come back from encounters
with Jesus and say "Never did any man speak like this man."
When a Christian reads their Bible, when you as a believer read
your Bible; the Holy Spirit speaks to you. You can tell that it
is not the sort of thing that men would say; it is a revelation
from God. In contrast to that, let's read a little from the Koran:
This is from the Koran, Sura 19, the first 15 verses are about
the coming of John the Baptist, and then Allah reveals to Mohammad
concerning the announcement and the birth of Jesus Christ to Mary.
We'll pick up there:
"19.16": And mention Marium (Mary) in the Book
when she drew aside from her family to an eastern place;
"19.17": So she took a veil (to screen herself)
from them; then We sent to her Our spirit, and there appeared
to her a well-made man.
"19.18": She said: Surely I fly for refuge from
you to the Beneficent God, if you are one guarding (against evil).
"19.19": He said: I am only a messenger of your
Lord: That I will give you a pure boy.
"19.20": She said: When shall I have a boy and
no mortal has yet touched me, nor have I been unchaste?
"19.21": He said: Even so; your Lord says: It
is easy to Me: and that We may make him a sign to men and a mercy
from Us, and it is a matter which has been decreed.
"19.22": So she conceived him; then withdrew
herself with him to a remote place.
"19.23": And the throes (of childbirth) compelled
her to betake herself to the trunk of a palm tree. She said: Oh,
would that I had died before this, and had been a thing quite
forgotten!
"19.24": Then (the child) called out to her from
beneath her: Grieve not, surely your Lord has made a stream to
flow beneath you;
"19.25": And shake towards you the trunk of the
palmtree, it will drop on you fresh ripe dates:
"19.26": So eat and drink and refresh the eye.
Then if you see any mortal, say: Surely I have vowed a fast to
the Beneficent God, so I shall not speak to any man today.
"19.27": And she came to her people with him,
carrying him (with her). They said: O Marium! surely you have
done a strange thing.
"19.28": O sister of Haroun! (Aaron) your father
was not a bad man, nor, was your mother an unchaste woman.
"19.29": But she pointed to him. They said: How
should we speak to one who was a child in the cradle?
"19.30": He said: Surely I am a servant of Allah;
He has given me the Book and made me a prophet;
"19.31": And He has made me blessed wherever
I may be, and He has enjoined on me prayer and poor-rate so long
as I live;
"19.32": And dutiful to my mother, and He has
not made me insolent, unblessed;
"19.33": And peace on me on the day I was born,
and on the day I die, and on the day I am raised to life.
"19.34": Such is Isa, (Jesus) son of Marium;
(this is) the saying of truth about which they dispute."
Very interesting! The infant Jesus Christ speaks comfortingly
to His mother as soon as He comes from her womb. And also speaks
to those who would question her morals. That is certainly an interesting
miracle.
Also notice that Mohammed refers to Mary as the sister of Aaron.
Aaron had a brother named Moses, and a sister named Miriam, but
it appears to me that Mohammed has gotten his Aaron's and his
Mary's and his Marium's mixed up.
Why do Islamic terrorists attack this country? For the same reason
that they attack and oppress every country they come into. It
is not that the people of Islamic countries are bad people; they
are the oppressed victims of a bad religion.
Turn to the book of James, chapter 4 and verse 1: "From whence
come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of
your lusts that war in your members?
Jam 4:2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire
to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not,
because ye ask not.
Jam 4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that
ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Jam 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship
of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a
friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Jam 4:5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The
spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?" And
Mohammed was a lustful, envious man.
Verse 6: "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God
resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
Jam 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil,
and he will flee from you."
Islam is a religion that came about because Mohammed did not recognize
or resist the devil, he bought into a demonic deception lock,
stock, and barrel, a deception that enabled him to gratify his
lust for women and power.
At this time, instead of me telling you what Islam believes, let
me just put on the screen a few more quotes from the Koran, and
the Hadith, and let you draw you own conclusions.
A Moslem cannot convert to another religion under penalty of death.
They call that apostasy, and here is the teaching of Mohammad;
Hadith book 84, number 58:
"...The Prophet then sent Mu'adh bin Jabal after him and
when Mu'adh reached him, he spread out a cushion for him and requested
him to get down (and sit on the cushion). Behold: There was a
fettered man beside Abu Muisa. Mu'adh asked, "Who is this
(man)?" Abu Muisa said, "He was a Jew and became a Muslim
and then reverted back to Judaism." Then Abu Muisa requested
Mu'adh to sit down but Mu'adh said, "I will not sit down
till he has been killed. This is the judgment of Allah and His
Apostle (for such cases) and repeated it thrice. Then Abu Musa
ordered that the man be killed, and he was killed. Abu Musa added,
"Then we discussed the night prayers and one of us said,
'I pray and sleep, and I hope that Allah will reward me for my
sleep as well as for my prayers.'"
Here's an interesting quote from the Koran; did you know that
meteors, shooting stars are for driving away evil spirits?
And we have, (from of old), adorned the lowest heaven with Lamps,
and We have made such (Lamps) (as) missiles to drive away the
Evil Ones, and have prepared for them the Penalty of the Blazing
Fire, (67:5).
Here is an interesting
one from the Hadith, book 8, number 466 :
When he enters
the mosque he is considered in prayer as long as he is waiting
for the prayer and the angels keep on asking for Allah's forgiveness
for him and they keep on saying: 'O Allah! Be Merciful to him,
O Allah! Forgive him, as long as he keeps on sitting at his praying
place and does not pass wind.
This is from Hadith 21, number 245:
A person was mentioned before the Prophet (p.b.u.h) and he was
told that he had kept on sleeping till morning and had not got
up for the prayer. The Prophet said, "Satan urinated
in his ears ."
This one gets a
bit more personal:
That once he was in the company of the Prophet carrying a water
pot for his ablution and for cleaning his private parts. While
he was following him carrying it(i.e. the pot), the Prophet said,
"Who is this?" He said, "I am Abu Huraira."
The Prophet said, "Bring me stones in order to clean my private
parts, and do not bring any bones or animal dung." Abu Huraira
went on narrating: So I brought some stones, carrying them in
the corner of my robe till I put them by his side and went away.
When he finished, I walked with him and asked, "What about
the bone and the animal dung?" He said, "They are of
the food of Jinns. The delegate of Jinns of (the city of) Nasibin
came to me--and how nice those Jinns were--and asked me for the
remains of the human food. I invoked Allah for them that they
would never pass by a bone or animal dung but find food on them."
Make no mistake
here, my goal is not to mock the scriptures of another religion,
but to demonstrate that this religion is the invention of men,
and not from the mind of God. I don't want to get tedious with
a lot of quotes from their writings, if you want to go online,
I can show you where to document all of this and a whole lot more.
In addition to the small amount that I have been able to show
you so far, they also believe that a person who gives his life
for Allah's sake in Jihad, holy war for Allah's sake, is instantly
taken to paradise, where they will be waited on every day by numerous
dark eyed virgins who regain their virginity every night.
Mohammed wrote extensively on sexual behavior, and sexual activity.
Moslems seem to put a lot of emphasis on male sexual prowness,
they teach that Solomon had 90 wives and visited them all every
night, and that Mohammed had eleven wives and visited all eleven
of them every night. Of his eleven wives, the youngest was six
when he married her, and nine when he consummated the marriage.
At that time he was fifty years old.
To a Moslem, one of the greatest sins is to be naked. Mohammed
taught that in Paradise a woman would wear 70 veils over her body,
but that a man's eye would be able to see through all 70 of them
and examine her thighs. Perhaps that explains why several of the
terrorists were seen at strip bars before the attack. Maybe they
were just looking for previews of what paradise would be like.
I believe that God gave sexual intimacy between husbands and wives
to teach us about the spiritual intimacy that we will have as
believers with God. Islamic writings seem totally focused on sexuality
as a means of gratification, and in paradise, nothing has changed,
except that you don't get tired.
How many of you in here remember the Ayatollah Khomeini? The word ayatollah means "image of god", and Islamic clerics are awarded this title when they are considered truly holy men. In my research this last week I found several apparently authentic quotes from books this so-called "ayatollah" had written, explaining under what conditions sodomy with infants and animals was permissible. Even though the so-called "ayatollah" did terrible harm to our country, I would still like to think that these quotes were slander. I hope that they are slander. If they are true, and unfortunately, they appear to be, if this is typical of the kind of morals and thoughts it takes to become a leader in Islam, then we can just let the matter speak for itself.
Where do we go from here? What do we as Christians do about Islam?
We do the same thing with Islamics that we do about any other
unsaved person; we lovingly present to them the saving gospel
of Jesus Christ.
They have no plan of salvation, all they have are works. They
hope to be rewarded for faithfulness to Allah, for keeping all
the laws and ordinances. If they do everything right, that earns
them a maybe.
Unless they do everything right and then give their lives in Jihad, the struggle, the holy war, to prove their faithfulness to Allah. Then they get a free pass, and go straight to paradise.
They have a religion whose god requires them to give their lives
to show that they love him. We have a faith that shows us that
God gave His life because He loves us, and would even go to death
of a cross to save us. How can we communicate that great difference?
And if we do, will they listen? We don't know if they will listen
or not; our responsibility is to tell them and tell everyone else
of the Savior's love, and that He died that they might live.
1Peter 2:12 tells us: "Having your conversation honest among
the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers,
they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify
God in the day of visitation." The word conversation
here does not mean speaking to each other as we would
refer to it, it means our whole manner of life, how we conduct
ourselves in society. How we act day to day, and even when we
are attacked.
We need to defend ourselves, but not hate those who attack us.
We need to stand up for our Christian faith, and correct those who would blaspheme us, and at the same time, affirm the right of those people of other faiths to live peacefully in this country.
The last part of verse 12 speaks of those who by their good works
will glorify God in the day of visitation.
Certainly some of those who died at New York were believers in
Jesus Christ. The day will come when those Christian firefighters,
Christian policemen, Christian EMT's who died in the collapse
of those towers in New York will be a testimony against those
who killed them. Those terrorists will stand before God in judgement.
They will see what they thought were their good works for Allah
contrasted against the actions of those Christians who gave their
lives in service to others, and God will be glorified.
God will not be glorified not by those who committed suicide attacks
for Allah, the moon god.
God will be glorified by those whom the Islamics called evildoers,
Christians who lived their lives well and died for a just cause.
How about us? The terrorists are not done yet. They will seek
to have as many of us as possible die for our faith. We will do
our best to see that they fail, but in the meantime, are we living
for our faith? Are we speaking the truth in love to those who
don't know that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that He died for their
sins and rose for their justification?
This is a time when millions in our country are looking for answers,
are we going to tell them? Now is a great time to share the Gospel,
people want answers, and we have a great Saviour. We need to tell
people about Him. We need to share His life changing Gospel. Will
you do it?
Now is the time. Where you are is the place.
And you are the messenger of peace. Tell somebody
about Jesus Christ.
References: (not linked)
http://www.hraic.org
http://www.carm.org/islam.htm
http://www.islamicreview.com/index.html