Response to Sheikh Awal (Part 4)

And, uh, remember he's just starting to wrap up here, but he was just in the section talking about the total corruption of the

Bible and, uh, and things like that. Why do thoughts arouse in your mind and heart?

It is I myself, handle me and see, for a spirit have no flesh and bones as you see me, because they thought he's dead.

He said, it is I myself, touch me and see, look, you think I'm a spirit, handle me and see for a spirit, meaning any spirit have no flesh and bones as you see me have, and they touch him and why they were not happy for joy.

And he wants to convince them further that it is him flesh and bones. He said, have you here any meat to eat?

And they gave him broiled fish and honeycomb and he took it and he ate it in their very side and they were overjoyed and they went and told the other disciple and they told they told

Thomas the doubting Thomas and said, they said, Thomas, watch what they say. They said, Thomas, we have seen the master and that he was alive.

They didn't say Thomas, we have seen the master and that he was resurrected. Now, of course, anyone reading

John and allowing John to be John knows exactly what they mean when they say we have seen him and he's alive.

The whole reason for that, they're not going, oh, we've been deceived. We were, we were wrong or, or John, you were at the foot of the cross, uh, and you misled us.

And I don't know how anyone can read the text just so completely out of its own context.

But the argument honestly here is, we'll see, uh, they said he was alive, not that he had been raised from the dead.

And so they didn't believe Jesus died on a cross. Now, no one just reading John would come up with that.

But the mindset here, and I realize a lot of people go, this, this, this kind of argumentation is just so poor.

But the point is that you're probably going to be talking to a person who's never read the text of John for themselves.

You have to know where to go to demonstrate that they're misreading this text.

And the, the reaction of utter amazement of how can you miss that so badly is not an argument to them.

You, you have to be able to, with some level of patience, uh, say, well, you know, that, that's, that's very interesting, but that doesn't seem to be even slightly possible if you just allow

John to be John and, and point out that John was at the cross. And, uh, you know, were you aware of that in this, this instance of people listening to shake a wall?

They don't know that he's given them no indication of that. Um, and so you have to be able to respond to those, those particular things and to understand the mindset that, that many of them have such a radical, radical idea of the corruption of the

New Testament that they feel warranted in isolating entire portions of the text that completely changed the meaning such as, well,

John was actually there. They can, they can get rid of that and ignore that by just simply saying, if it doesn't agree with Islam, therefore it must not be true.

And some people would say, well, you know, this gentleman's arguments really aren't a, you know, up to the level of a, of a

Shabir Ali, but remember, remember, and I present this and every time I talk about Islam, I present this section, but, uh, even in that context, remember the question

I asked Shabir during cross -examination, the very first debate we did, I said, as a

Muslim, can you tell us how we can recognize what is and what is not inspired in the text of the

Bible? What was his response? That which agrees with the Quran would be, and that which disagrees wouldn't be.

And so you really do have this, it, you know, it's, it's the old illustration, but it's a good illustration.

They, they have these, the lens through which they're looking at the New Testament is the Quran. And the

Quran comes long after the New Testament. And so you would think it would be the other way around, but it becomes the lens.

And so when the Quran in interacting with the Injil contradicts that, and the whole question is, why does it contradict that?

Why was the author of the Quran unaware of these things? Um, but when it comes to those areas, then they'll just go, well, you know,

I don't have to worry about that portion because I can take this portion, read it in a way that fits with Islam and say, your book is supporting me.

Of course, they would never allow you to read the Quran that way. And is that consistent inconsistency?

That is, uh, that is the problem. Because in spite of them, you would have said, Thomas, we have seen the master and that he was disrupted.

But they say, Thomas, we have seen the master and that he was alive, meaning we expect him to die.

But he didn't die. He was alive. Suppose you have an accident and that accident looks like you're going to die. But later, you know, the first of his brought the jaw of life, they bring you out.

So, oh my God, they are alive, meaning they did not die. So Jesus Christ did not die on the cross. He did not die on the cross, but it was made to appear to them so because they didn't have the exact knowledge of what.

And that's where that one cut off. So I'm going to continue on with the next one, which was because that was right at the end of his presentation, as I recall.

So I'm going to continue on with the next one, which is the rebuttal period. Unfortunately, the

Christian debater really did not respond to almost any of that. He just went back to saying, well, the

Bible says this and the Bible says not that, not so much answering all the misrepresentations that's just been given.

And so he then gets up for his rebuttal period. Mr. Lazaro just brought the charges that I was not,

I was out of context. I was not talking. Look, because I've given you the quotation to prove that Jesus Christ did not die on the cross.

Now, if he died on the cross, then we will talk about salvation. But the question, what I did was I've given you over 20 verses or so from your scripture that Christ did not die on the cross.

And I gave you reasons upon reasons, and I was on top of the topic, salvation through Jesus Christ, through the

Quran or through the Bible. Now, if Christ did not die, then that means there's no salvation. So what I did was I dismantled the concept of salvation, uproot it completely from your books.

That's what I did. And I'm sure that's exactly what he feels that he's doing.

He clearly does not see that you can deal with any ancient text or modern text in an irrational fashion.

You can, you can take anything apart. You can ignore anything. You can, you can ignore context.

You can, you know, that's, that's not difficult to do. Even if you do memorize the text and things like that, it'd make it much more impressive that way.

But, but to say that I've uprooted it from your own text would mean that you were actually treating them in their original context and what, and in the way that their original authors intended them to be understood.

That's the only way you could do it truthfully anyways. And he's not done that. As I've begun to do that, his, his opponent had pointed out, well, you're, you're ignoring this issue and that, that issue and, and you know, which is the only thing you can say, but then you have to be able to go in and demonstrate those things contextually.

But I'm sure he actually does believe that. And it requires a Christian who knows their, their scriptures to be able to provide that kind of response to them.

What are you talking about? In Islam, there's no salvation. Really? There's no salvation? Ask Jesus.

Didn't Jesus say, if you want to go to heaven, keep the law of Moses. This man came to ask him,

I've given you already, Matthew 29, 16. This man wants to go to heaven. He said, good master, what good must

I do to enter life eternally, to enter heaven eternally? And Jesus Christ said, if you want to enter heaven, keep the commandment of Moses.

And that is the law. And we already pointed out that that's not what Jesus said. When you actually look at the text and read all of it, he mentions some of the commandments and the man's response is,

I've kept these from my youth. And Jesus' response is, if you would be perfect, then do what?

Go and sell all that you have and come follow me. Now, even, even if we didn't go any deeper than that, the fact that this demonstrates that Jesus knows the heart of this man, he knows that at the very root of his problem is idolatry.

He loves his stuff more than he loves God. And he is putting his finger upon that.

And so there's, there's something supernatural going on here. I mean, this man just comes up to Jesus and Jesus knows exactly what his problem is.

I mean, there's something supernatural there, but even leaving that aside, listening to the youth that Sheikha Wall is using the text right here, isn't it sufficient to know that Jesus says, sell all you possess and come follow me.

He adds following Jesus. So is

Sheikha Wall really going to suggest to us that Jesus' own teaching was the

Islamic way? And that is follow the law of God perfectly and follow

Christ. The whole point of the Christian message is no one ever did the first.

No one could ever do both. That would be a complete mission impossible plan of salvation.

But the point is, again, to even present the idea that Jesus is presenting the

Islamic viewpoint here requires that he never actually quote the whole text to the people in the audience.

And if there was a meaningful response being offered, the Christian would have pointed that out and gone directly to the text and said, this is what he's not telling you in this text, and this is what he's not telling you in that text.

But unfortunately, that didn't happen. If Lord blesses and everything stays on track for next month, that will happen if that kind of argument is presented when

I have the opportunity of responding. Islam is simple, rational, straightforward, unambiguous statement.

Now, at least, did y 'all catch that? That's something that, believe it or not,

I think over time you might start even recognizing that. That's called the

Shahada. And the only reason I stop it right there is that there are certain people, I mean, that flows off the tongue of any

Muslim with such ease. Because they say it over and over and over in all the prayers.

And so anybody who is actually ever a practicing devout Muslim would never confuse that with the beginning of Surah Al -Fatiha.

No, I don't think they would. Period. You believe in Allah and his messengers and the books, and then you do good.

And that is exactly what the Bible said. Where? In the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 12, verse 13.

It says, listen to the end of the matter. This is the whole matter.

Follow God, do good, and act upon the laws and commandments. Because upon that,

God will judge you in the day of judgment. Simple, clear -cut statement. As if Ecclesiastes is even meant to start being a full explication of the entirety of the biblical doctrine of salvation.

I mean, Ecclesiastes, what's the whole book about? The futility of life outside of having a divine view.

Over and over again, it's futility. It's futility. It's futility. I saw this. I saw injustice arose. I saw that.

And it is a poetic discussion of what life would be like if you did not recognize the purpose of God.

But that comes long after the giving of the law, the sacrifices, the prophecies of the coming

Messiah and his work, and all these other things, to isolate that one text and say, well, this is it.

And to say, see, it's from your own books. Well, if you won't treat my own books fairly, why do you expect me to treat yours fairly?

Just looking for consistency here. Because, as I've said for a number of years now, inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument.

I'm not quoting from any book but from your books. Yet you are accusing me that I'm out of context. I'm not out of context.

I'm on target. And the concept, now you just quoted a verse that Jesus Christ did so many miracles.

Now this is interesting. This goes on for a while. And I guess

I understand the argumentation here. I'm going to give you, again, this is,

I think this is important to understand. It is hard for us

Westerners to enter into the mindset of many of these folks that are not coming from how we've been trained.

It's one of the difficulties, for example, that I've mentioned many times. One of the reasons

I don't get into dealing with the Eastern Orthodoxy is because just the foundational discussions of just how different the mindset is normally takes up the entire time you've got and you have trouble going from there.

But we need to try at least to understand where they're coming from. And the argumentation being presented here, in essence, is

Quranic in that it is Jesus never did any miracle by himself.

He always did it at the permission of Allah. And that's one of the arguments of the Quran. Now here, folks, is where you have to be very careful.

This is where theology matters. This is where if you're going to be a sound apologist, you need to be involved in the church.

And this is where, listen to me now, you have to resist the temptation to be drawn into the defense of things you don't actually believe.

One of the most common things I have seen as I have walked the streets of Mesa or wherever it might be, and I walk up and I hear

Christians talking with somebody else, is that so very often we will get, we will become so embroiled in the give and take that the other side will say something and we automatically think we have to contradict that because they said it.

And I know they're wrong. So if they said it, they must be wrong about everything. That's what

I've appreciated. And I hope that I have shown the same thing. That's what I've appreciated in the examination of the

Ergin -Kanner stuff, is that a Turretin fan has been very, very careful.

You know, we've disagreed with Muhammad Khan in saying, you know, we've said from the beginning, yes, he's,

Ergin and Emir are ex -Muslims. The question is, does that make them experts in Islam? Why does

Ergin make up all this stuff about his history, et cetera, et cetera? It's not a question as to whether their father was a

Muslim or that they were raised with Muslims. That's not even an issue. That's only being made an issue by the other side right now as a smokescreen.

So we have been careful, and there are arguments out there. You know, one that I'll just mention in passing.

Muhammad Khan has, and maybe he just did this initially, to provide evidence in regards to Ergin -Kanner's name,

Ergin -Michael -Kanner, not Mehmet. But he's dragged up the fact that Ergin -Kanner has a massive lead foot.

He has got a bazillion speeding tickets. You can see them all online.

Just got one, I think, the 20th of May. If I recall correctly, it was 72 and 55.

If not, it was an 80 and 55. And he's got lots of them. He's got lots of them.

Now, on just a Christian leader level, that bugs me. There's this thing called

Romans 13 in the Bible, and I think becoming infamous amongst every road cop in the entire

Lynchburg area by name. Hey, Bob! Hey, Joe! Hey, Ergin! How you doing again? Hey!

I saw you last week! Yeah, boy, you had it on two wheels going around the corner there. I don't know that that's really the way you want to witness to people, okay?

But I haven't mentioned it because it's not directly relevant to the question of the integrity of Ergin -Kanner in the pulpit.

I think it's relevant. I think it should be very relevant to the people of Liberty. I don't know.

Do you not have a problem with someone who just, you know, every couple months, about you know, maybe six a year or so?

Collecting those, you know, that sort of bothers me. But there have been people who have raised issues, and we've said, you know, okay, fine, but I don't think that's relevant.

You have to be careful about the argumentation that you're using and being fair.

I don't think it's relevant to whether he was a Muslim or not or whether he's lied about his background that he can't seem to keep his car in under, you know, anywhere near the speed limit.

And so what I mean here is, what you're going to hear is an example of this. The argument that he's going to present is that Jesus never did a miracle on his own.

Folks, that's exactly what Christians believe. Think about it for just a second.

What does John chapter 5 say? I do nothing but I see my Father doing.

Perfect unity between the Father and the Son. Jesus is not a renegade deity out there doing his own thing.

And as the incarnate Son, normally Jesus is dependent upon and utilizes the

Holy Spirit. Because that's what we do in our lives as well. So the argument is aimed at a straw man.

The immediate response should have been, we don't believe that Jesus acts separately from the

Father. In fact, we don't believe the Father acts separately from the Son or the

Spirit. There's perfect unity between the divine persons. That should be the response.

But what would be the natural inclination of most Christians? Is to start racking your brain going,

Lord, did Jesus do something on his own? Now, the argument is flawed not only because it's against a straw man.

But it's also flawed because it doesn't take into consideration the purpose of miracles.

And it does not take into consideration the fact that Jesus does do things that no mere prophet could ever do.

And I think the greatest example of this, and I hope you're thinking about this. I realize sometimes when we talk about Islam, people tune out.

I'm never going to talk to one of these folks. You don't know that. But if you're sitting there thinking, all right, where would

I go to? Having established that Jesus doesn't do anything apart from the Father, does

Jesus do things that no mere prophet would ever do? Well, there are a couple possibilities there.

But I think the clearest one that I would go to is John chapter 2.

And what does Jesus say? Destroy this temple, and in three days,

I will raise it up again. Not by Allah's permission or something like that. I will raise it up.

Then you can go through the text of Scripture and say, well, here in the book of Acts, this

Jesus God raised up. The Father raises up Jesus. Jesus' own prophecy is he will raise himself.

And it is the Spirit of God that raises Jesus. Father, Son, and Spirit doing what

Jesus said he himself would do. That's the perfect unity of the Trinity. And you're back to using all the text of Scripture.

And you want to make a testimony. You want to make a witness that the text of Scripture is consistent in these matters.

That's what I'm going to be trying to do. I hope you'll pray for our encounter. But that's what I'm going to be trying to do here in just a matter of weeks.

Which miracle? Believe me, Jesus Christ never performed a single miracle in the

Bible. Not a single miracle. I've never seen it yet. And I read the Bible from cover to cover, different versions, for more than 20 years.

I have never seen a single miracle performed by Jesus. Not even one.

You know why I say that? Let's ask Jesus if he did the miracle. Where? Book of John, chapter 5, verse 10.

Jesus Christ is speaking. He said, I can of my own self do nothing.

The way I hear, I judge. Because I'm not seeking my own will. But the will of the

Father who sent me. Did he do miracle? He didn't do miracle. He said, I can of my own self do nothing.

Whatever I do, it is my Father. Book of John, chapter 28, verse 14.

He said, my Father is greater than all. That would be John 14, 28, not 28.

But hey, you know, at least he's trying to quote it off the top of his head. My Father is greater than I.

If I do any miracle and performance, if it's not I that do it, but the Father in me who sent me and gave me the power with the

Holy Spirit, then I do this. Where did Jesus perform miracle? Nowhere. You say he walked on water, therefore he's

God, therefore he's destined to die for you. You say, you know, somebody died and he raised him up. You said Lazarus died.

Look, they always give you Lazarus died and Jesus raised him up. Only God can raise you up when you die.

Let's ask Jesus if he actually raised Lazarus from the dead. This is the book of John, chapter 11.

Now before he goes into the Lazarus thing, and it is interesting, he makes a fundamental error in the

Lazarus presentation in the order in which he presents things. That if you, again, if you know the scriptures, you catch those things.

But I did want to make one, again, we've talked about before, but we always have new listeners and not everyone in the audience is

Algo. I never have to repeat anything for Algo. That's the amazing thing is

Algo knows all. But I did want to emphasize something in the citation of John 5, 19.

May I suggest that for dealing with Muslims, dealing with any subordinationist at all, so that would include

Jehovah's Witnesses and, well, most liberal Christians and so on and so forth, who would call themselves Christians anyways.

May I suggest reading and understanding, having more than a mere passing knowledge of the fifth chapter of John is extremely important for you.

And I will not apologize, in the modern sense of the term apologize, for calling believers to have a scholarly understanding of a text of scripture.

I mean, isn't it amazing amongst Christians how there is this anti -intellectualism that tells you that you should never challenge folks to, for example, go deep into a particular text of scripture, that there's something unspiritual about that.

And yet, like I said, we'll buy phones that have a user manual that's thicker than the

New Testament. And we'll spend hours figuring out this function and that function and everything else.

And yet there's something unspiritual about going in depth on a text of scripture. I think there's every reason why housewives and mechanics and school teachers and I don't care what you do, engineers, whatever,

I don't apologize for a second in saying I think that you should take the time to, if you don't want to buy the books, go to a library, get hold of some decent commentaries on the book of John, F .F.

Bruce, Leon Morris, just some of the ones you can look at, D .A. Carson's pillar commentary on John, and work through this text so that you have it clearly in your mind to the point where you can explain it to somebody else.

That's when you can find out whether you really understand the text. Could you explain it to somebody else?

Because this is probably one of the most abused texts and if you know it well and you know the context well, you can shut anybody down from the abuse of this text.

For example, in verse 19, Truly, truly, I say to you, the

Son can do nothing of Himself unless it is something He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, these things the

Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all the things which He Himself is doing. The Father will show

Him greater works than these so that you may marvel. For just the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the

Son also gives life to whom He wishes. Now, you will almost never hear contextual citations of this text because there's too much about the

Deity of Christ in John chapter 5. There are just too many words, too many phrases, too many assertions that demonstrate the

Deity of Christ for them to give you the whole thing. But I want to just briefly focus upon that one phrase in verse 19.

Nothing of Himself. Af hayal tu. Now, what does that mean?

I suggest to you that once you look at what the rest of the text says, for example, the fact that in verse 23, so that all will honor the

Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. I say to my

Muslim friends, you are not honoring the Jesus of John chapter 5. You may say you honor

Jesus because you say you have to believe in Him and you pronounce blessings of peace upon Him like you do any other prophet.

But you say He's a mere Rasul. He's not the Son of God. He did not die and rise again on the third day.

You do not believe the testimony of the Gospel of John to Jesus Christ. And in fact,

I suggest to you that the Jews believed everything about Jesus that you do. So, the point is, that was enough.

But this very same text of John, when it says, of himself, is not saying that he himself lacks authority, he himself lacks power, he does nothing by himself, from himself, in distinction and disconnection from the

Father. This is an assertion of the unity of the Father and the Son, not the incapacity of the

Son. You have to emphasize that. They are taking a text that is actually, remember what prompted verse 19?

Jesus had said, back in verse 17, that His Father was working until now, and He is working.

He's talking about on the Sabbath day. He's talking about the Father's maintenance of creation,

God's maintenance of creation, and Jesus claims the same right for Himself. And for this reason,

Jews are seeking all the more to kill Him because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making

Himself equal with God. One of the errors we're going to hear, and I hope we haven't missed it, and I didn't miss it as He was making it, but one of the errors that Sheikhawal makes is that he talks about, you know, the sons of God.

Quotes John 1 .12, as if we're all sons, and therefore Jesus isn't anything different. The Gospel of John never uses huyas, of anyone but Jesus.

He is the monogamous, the unique Son of God. Tekna is what is used of everybody else.

And so the unity that exists between the Father and the Son flows directly from this statement, was calling

God His own Father, that's in a unique sense, not the way that we would have, would call

God Father, but there is a unique sense to this, and as a result, making

Himself equal with God. Making Himself equal with God.

This is Jesus' response. His response is not to say, oh no, no, no, no, that's not it. His response is to emphasize the unity that exists in activity and purpose between the

Father and the Son. That's what we need to remember.

All chapter 11, the whole chapter 11 of the Book of John is speaking about Jesus and Lazarus. I'm going to put it in a nutshell, and I'll give it to you in condensed.

What happened was that Christ was very close to Lazarus, and Christ left the city.

He left the town. He left the village. By the time he left, Lazarus died. So when Lazarus died, they went and buried him in a sepulchre.

A sepulchre in the ancient time is a carved out roomy chamber of a stone that they hewn.

So they put him inside, and they put hewn stone at the entrance of, that's how they buried in those days. So after four days,

Lazarus was dead. The fourth day, Jesus Christ came to the village. When Martha, the sister of Lazarus, heard that the master was in town, she ran to him.

She said, Master, your friend Lazarus is dead. If you were here, you would have raised him. And Jesus Christ said,

Martha, he's not dead. He is alive. He will be awake. And she said, Yes, master, I know he will be up in the day of judgment.

And Jesus Christ said, Even now, Martha, if you have faith, you will see the glory of God. Show me where you bury him.

So on the way going to the sepulchre, Jesus Christ began to commune with God. Listen to what he said.

I am quoting word for word. I'm not adding. I'm not deleting. Jesus Christ, on the way going to where they buried

Lazarus, he began to commune with God. But what he was saying was not audible. The people could not understand that mysterious communication between him and God.

So the Bible said, And Jesus wept in the Spirit. The shortest sentence in the Bible.

And Jesus wept. Jesus wept in the Spirit? I've never heard that one before.

It's always good to check your memorization every once in a while. So I go over those note cards because it doesn't say Jesus wept in the

Spirit, of course. It says Jesus wept. I'm not sure what the in the

Spirit edition part had to do with it. And Jesus groaned in the Spirit. In other words, Oh, my father, give me the power.

Oh, my father, this is it. Oh, my father, give me the power to raise him. So the people who were there, they could not understand.

Where is that coming from? I'm looking at the text right here. I don't see any of that.

Jesus' groaning in the Spirit is due to the presence of death and sin in man's experience.

But we're getting a little bit of a different perspective here. So they said, And Jesus groaned in the

Spirit. When he got the assurance to raise Lazarus, he said, Open, remove the stone.

So when they removed the stone, Jesus Christ spoke Hebrew, and he said, In other words, get up,

Lazarus. And Lazarus came out. He came out from the dead with bandages around him.

And Jesus said, remove the bandages. So they removed the bandages around him. And the people began to say,

Oh, my God, he is God. They did? They began to say,

Oh, my God, he is God? Um... I've seen a lot of different translations of the

Bible. I've got the Greek right there, right on the screen. No, of course, it doesn't say anything like that.

Actually, I think that might be a really bad paraphrase of verse 45.

Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he had done believed in him. Now, is he saying that to believe in Jesus is to believe that he's

God? Maybe. That would be nice. But I really don't think that's where he's going.

Now notice, the prayer of Jesus before he calls Lazarus forth, we haven't heard that yet.

Because for effect, out of misremembering, I don't know, that's going to move to after Lazarus comes out so as to emphasize the point that Sheikhawal is making.

But Jesus Christ, he knew or he heard what they were saying. Listen to what he said after Lazarus came back from the dead.

And notice, after Lazarus came back from the dead, actually in the biblical text, this is before he called him forth.

Christ looked up in the heaven and he said, O my father, I know that thou hearest me, and I know that thou hearest me always, meaning whatever

I ask of you, you give it to me. O my father, I know that thou hearest me, and I know that thou hearest me always, but I'm saying this loudly so that they may know that thou art doing the works.

Where did Jesus perform miracles? No. Actually, that's not what he said either.

Um, so they removed the stone, then Jesus raised his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

I knew that you always hear me, but because the people standing around, I said it so that they may believe that you sent me.

Not that you're doing the works, but that they may believe that you sent me. When he had said these things, he cried out loud, voice,

Lazarus come forth. So the entire argument, other than the fact that it's a, it's a straw man in the first place, we don't believe

Jesus does miracles separately from God, the Father, but then the entire argument becomes, oh,

Jesus says that, uh, you know, I'm just doing this. Interestingly enough, it uses language fulfilling the

Quranic understanding. Not what the text actually says, but fulfilling the

Quranic understanding. Uh, quite interesting. Wait. Himself, no miracle.

Moses parted the Red Sea. You know what is the Red Sea? Parted the Red Sea. Was he God? No. God gave him the power.

I was waiting for you to quote me, you know, that verse, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I was hoping that you quote that.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. Now, I'm going to take an audience poll, and we have installed special equipment on our new system that will allow me to see all of you who put your hands up.

Okay, no, it doesn't really do that. I can see people going, you know, looking at their computer going, ah, but here's an audience poll.

I guess I'll just poll the audience that we have, the massive studio audience. Y 'all want to say hi, massive studio audience?

Okay, there's two people out there. But anyway, um, this very text

I addressed within the past six months. And I addressed it in the context of Zakir Naik speaking about John chapter 14.

Since this is one that happens all the time. Is this not one of the texts that would come up in a discussion between yourself and a

Muslim? Obviously it is. I am the way, the truth, and life. No man comes to the

Father but by me. One of the keys to maintaining control of a conversation.

This is something that those of you you know, Rich has gone out to Mesa for many, many, many years, and has seen me witnessing

Mormons out there, and you've learned what? The way to control a conversation is to know what the

Mormon believes, where they're going to go before they get there, and so if you're going to present a Bible verse, you want to know what they already think about it, and so you can present it in such a way as to short circuit their misuse of it.

You want to interpret it correctly so that they can hear the correct interpretation and can't misuse it.

That's how you control conversations. Well, same thing here. And when you go to John 14, 28, you need to understand what the

Muslim's going to say. We address this, in fact, I believe it's on YouTube, in my response to Zacher Naik and his appearance on the

Dean Show. John 14, 28. No man comes to the Father but by me.

What's he going to say? Well, of course. First of all, he's going to assume it's by my teaching.

Not by me, but by my teaching. You have to challenge that. But then he's going to say, well, in the days of Moses, how did you come to the

Father? It was only by Moses. Or by Isaiah. And now today, the final prophet is

Muhammad, so the only way to come is by Muhammad. Now that's not what Jesus said.

And Jesus did not make it impersonal that he, well, he's giving the teachings of Allah, and therefore, that's how you come to the presence of God.

There's something very personal in what Jesus said there. But knowing where they're going first will help you when you present it to do so in the most effective way.

That's what they always quote. I agree with that. Jesus Christ was the way. He was the truth. He was the life.

I agree. No problem. In return, I'm asking you this question. At the time of Moses, who was the way?

The truth. And the life. Who? Moses. Because if you follow him, you are successful.

At the time of Noah, who was the way? The truth. And the life. Noah. Christ did not say,

I am the only way. There are so many ways, but at that time, he was the way, the truth, and the life.

And really, no one go to the father but through him. But he said to you in John chapter 14 verse 16, if you love me, keep my commandment, not anyone's commandment.

Keep my commandment. In Matthew 24 24, he said, for there shall arise many false prophets and false

Christ, who will show you many great wonders and sign, if it were possible to deceive my own very elect. You know, aside from the miscitations, um,

I hope the Christians in the audience who don't spend any time memorizing the word of God are feeling rather guilty right now.

That a Muslim sheikh can stand in front of an audience and quote texts and yeah, he's made some mistakes and needs to review his text more closely and is inaccurate in his understandings of them.

But still, we, we possess the word of God. We've been blessed with the word of God.

And yet, how much time do we spend with the word of God? And some of you say, well,

I can't memorize it. You know, I think a lot of people can. There are different ways of memorization, there's effective ways of memorization, etc.

etc. But the real question is not to become defensive, not to feel like I'm jumping on you or something like that, but just ask yourself a question.

Do I really desire to do so? I mean, do

I take it so for granted that I always have it? I mean, it's on my phone. You know, there's always a search function.

But there is a real blessing to being able to quote the word of God. And in these types of situations, man, it is extremely, extremely helpful.

But I just hope we hear this, and maybe it'll be enough to push some of you to turn off that television, shut down that computer, or use the computer!

The computer can be a great way of helping you to memorize stuff. There are some great memorization programs out there. But hopefully just to, you know, glorify

God and to be better prepared to give an answer.

Did you catch that? Paul wrote 28 books in the New Testament, folks.

Of course, there's only 27 books in the New Testament. And he wrote,

I believe, he wrote 13 of them. There are a couple of you out there, I believe he wrote 14 of them, because of the book of Hebrews.

But there's only 27 books! Now, again, maybe he just got going too fast here, but just a few moments ago he was saying,

I've been reading and studying this for 20 years, cover to cover, etc., etc. And you don't know how many books are in the

New Testament? I know how many surahs there are in the Quran. There's 114 of them!

Unless you're talking to Ibn Ka 'b or something like that, but that's a historical thing. Makes me sort of go, hmm, that's interesting, that you would make that kind of mistake.

27 books, wrote by Paul. More than half of the book was written by Paul. See, I think he's realizing there this isn't working, because I think the numbers, 27, okay, half of them, that's approximately half, 13, depending on whether you go 13, he said more than that, so he's probably going with Hebrews being

Pauline or something like that, that's fine, don't need to argue about that one. Since I have two minutes more left,

I'm going to throw in this, it is not part of it, but I'm going to throw it, because this is the only time I've seen you. I'm telling the Christians, the name of Jesus is not

Jesus. In the day of judgment you see Jesus cry, you say, Jesus, he wouldn't even look at you, because that was not his name.

And we're coming right up to the end of the program, so this would be a good place to stop anyways, but this is the old

Yeshua, Jehovah's salvation, versus the Greek version, Jesus. Let me assure anyone, if you call on Jesus, he will know why you are calling upon him, and will respond.

That's not really an issue. So, there was the opening statement, and then the rebuttal, and there were some,

I played one of the questions in a previous iteration of the program, where he made the comments about Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus being in the 12th century, that's the 4th century actually,

Alexandrinus early 5th century. And so there's some serious misapprehensions on Shekeval's part, factually, regarding historical issues and things like that.

But hopefully, this response has given you some idea. We'll continue with the other material next time on The Dividing Line.