7 - Islam, Part 2

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy's School of World Religions. We are glad to have you with us.

It is always enjoyable to have our students joining with us and learning as we go.

We are going through basically some work that I've done in a book called What Do They Believe.

You would be able to get that book at strivingforeternity .org and get all the information that's in there because there will be more information in that book than we will go over in this class.

Another resource we make available that you can get at our store at strivingforeternity .org is the syllabus,

The Study of the Western Religions. That is exactly what we're going through.

That will actually give you some more things that we'll go over in class that we will not go over in the book like a

Christian response. That'll be part two. But as we go through our class, today's lesson is on Islam.

It is lesson three in our book. And just to give you a quick review where we are, we had started by looking at the authority

What is Islam's authority? We noted that the major authority in Islam is really the

Quran. We also looked at their view of God. And we examined this.

This week, or this lesson, we're going to start off with their view on Jesus Christ.

And we're going to go into this in a little bit of detail. We're going to hopefully get through this lesson tonight.

I will state again for the record, just so no one blames the engineer, that these lessons are not as ready for the engineer to always have answers to.

And so I sometimes will be reading a little bit more than I usually do because I want to make sure

I get the things accurate to my notes. And I also want to make sure that when I give the slides, it may take a split second for the engineer to get the right one because it's by the

Quran number. And this one's actually easier than the last one where we're having paragraph numbers or even really with Judaism, which are the previous classes that we looked at.

So if you are interested in Judaism or Roman Catholicism, we had the Pope coming through town so everyone was interested in Catholicism.

And so that's something that you may want to look at. But we're going to take a look at Islam's view of Jesus Christ.

Now I want to mention something that's kind of interesting is that the Quran actually mentions Jesus Christ more than it does

Muhammad. Just an interesting note. But Islam often refers to Jesus as the quote, son of Mary, unquote.

You're going to see that throughout the Quran. Actually, if you remember in the last class when we were looking at quotes from the

Quran, it was referring to Jesus, son of Mary. Not too many quotes where Jesus is mentioned that you don't see son of Mary mentioned or praise be him.

And so that is a phrasing that they have, a lot of different phrasing that they repeat like that.

Allah most merciful. If they mention Jesus, they almost always, if you speak to a

Muslim you're going to hear them say, you know, praise be him. Actually, when I see Muslims online, they just take the first letters of praise be him and just put that out there.

So I guess that's their texting form. But the phrase displays that Jesus is merely human.

That's your blank there. And if you have a syllabus, human and not divine. That shows us something.

The fact that it's son of Mary now is kind of interesting because if you remember when we talked about Catholicism, Mary was referred to as Mary, you know, the mother of God.

And we mentioned then that the emphasis was not on Mary but Jesus in that, in the first century.

And the idea being that Mary was, the identification of Mary as the mother of God was the focus on Jesus being

God. Here we see in Islam it's Jesus son of Mary implying that Jesus was only human and not divine.

And so Jesus was, is supposedly a messenger of Allah along with Abraham, Moses and Noah.

So let's see, if we have 30, do we have 33, 33, 7, 33, 7, good, thank you.

This is in your syllabus as well. It says, and remember, we took from the prophets their covenant as we did from thee and Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus the son of Mary.

We took from them a solemn covenant. Now notice, you don't see, if you leave it up there, you don't see

Noah's parents, Abraham's parents, Moses' parents, okay. That becomes something of note because if this was a case where this was

God writing this, why would he do it the way that the Koran is written?

Well, the Koran is trying to answer Christianity. It's trying to answer the view that Jesus Christ is

God. And it's answering it within its, within its doctrine, documents.

Let's look at some more quotes because I don't want to just make statements. One of the things you'll see in my book, What Do They Believe?, is a ton of quotes.

You'll also see lots of quotes, but not as many in your study guide. So if you wanted to get more quotes than you have in your study guide,

I encourage you to get the book, What Do They Believe? And we did sell out, by the way, in case you're watching relatively live.

We've sold out, but we have ordered more. We have a small shipment that came in, just so we have some on hand.

And I do know that Amazon has some, so you can get the Kindle and print version on Amazon, just saying.

All right, let's put up, thank you. That was the next one. You got that well. Thank you. You knew which one I wanted. You're ready.

All right. So this is the next one. It says, the same religion has he established for you as that which he enjoyed on Noah, that which we have sent by inspiration to thee, and that which we enjoined on Abraham, Moses and Jesus, namely that ye should remain steadfast in religion and make no divisions therein to those who worship other things than Allah.

Hard is the way to which thou callest them. Allah chooses to himself those who he pleases and guides himself to those who turn.

So you see, Jesus is placed on the same level as these other prophets.

There's no, you know, you don't see Jesus being higher than these other prophets as we do in the

New Testament, because in the New Testament, we see he's God. But it is kind of interesting because we're going to get into the fact that in Jesus's case, we see a difference.

Even the Koran speaks about his miraculous birth and the miracles he did. Not so with even

Muhammad, who's supposed to be the greatest of prophets. So instead of Jesus interceding with the father on behalf of Christians, Muslims believe that Muhammad intercedes for them to Allah.

Okay, so Muhammad pleads with Allah after his permission on behalf of humanity to judge among the servants when they suffer from worries and troubles that they cannot bear.

They go to Adam, then to Noah, then to Abraham, then to Moses, then to Jesus, and finally to Muhammad.

And Muslims believe in intercession that concerns some believers who were taken out of from the fire.

The mediation is granted to Muhammad and then to others among the prophets, the believers, and the angels.

So Allah will save from hell those of the believers without intercession of anyone, but by his grace and mercy, which all of a sudden you see the conflict, don't you?

How does Allah save the believers completely from his own intercession, without any intercession, completely from his own grace and mercy, and yet Muhammad is the intercessor?

Which is what you end up seeing. In Mormonism, we're going to see the same thing, that Mormonism has

Joseph Smith as the intercessor. Everyone wants to have, after Christ as the real mediator, every other of these false religions want to have their leader be the intercessor, and raise their leader up to a position.

Now it's interesting because they want to raise them up to a position that only God would have, but not call them

God, where in Christianity we know that Jesus Christ is raised to the position of God because, well, he is

God. So let's look at the next part you have in your syllabus, and that is that they see

Jesus as being born of a virgin. Islam believes that Jesus was born of a virgin named

Mary. Islam accepts a supernatural, that's your blank there, a supernatural conception of Jesus, but a normal conception of Muhammad, their greatest and final prophet.

We see this in the third, in 345, there we go, alright, sorry about that, thank you.

Behold, the angel said, O Mary, Allah giveth the glad tidings of a word from him, his name will be

Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honor in the world, and hereafter, and of the company of those nearest

Allah. She said, speak to the people in childhood and maturity, and he shall be of the company of the righteous.

She said, O my Lord, how shall I have a son when no man hath touched me?

He said, even so Allah createth what he willeth, and hath decreed a plan.

He hath said it to be, and it is. Now, one of the things I find interesting with this is, according to this text,

Allah is speaking to Mary and calls her son, son of Mary. That's kind of weird, right, that's the way my mind thinks, but it seems odd that if God was speaking to Mary, he'd have to tell her that this child of hers is going to be son of Mary.

But that is how it is quoted, but what we do see here is that Mary is a virgin, clearly a virgin, she hasn't touched a man, and she is going to give birth to a son named

Christ Jesus. Put that, well you don't have to put it up again, I'm just going to point out the fact that Christ is not his name, it is his title, a title meaning anointed one.

I find it extremely interesting that they would call him Christ Jesus, because Christ in Hebrew is a

Messiah, meaning anointed one, the same word that we have in Greek, Christ. So the fact that they would call him the

Christ, the anointed one, shows that he was not a regular prophet.

He was the Messiah of Judaism. And so I do find it interesting that if Christ, if Jesus, sorry, was not the

Christ, then why would they call him Christ? So that becomes a dilemma,

I think, and just one of many that we've already seen in Islam. But they call him

Christ Jesus almost as if they don't realize what the title is and what it means.

So as we look at this, I'm going to skip the next two, just so you know.

I want to go to the deity of Christ, if that's alright. And if we look at what

Islam teaches, Islam clearly denies the deity of Christ.

And so let me give a couple of quotations from the Quran. Surah 4359 says, and this is speaking of Jesus, was no more than a servant.

We, the we is, I guess, a royal we of God, we granted our favor to him and we made him an example to the children of Israel.

So there you can clearly see that they view Jesus as nothing more than a servant, he's not

God. But they're even stronger in Surah chapter 5, Surah 572, if you look at that one, they do blaspheme, who say,

Allah is Christ, the son of Mary, but said, Christ, O children of Israel, worship

Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Whoever joins other gods with Allah, Allah will forbid him the garden and the fire will be his abode.

There will be wrongdoers, be no help to him. So what you have here is, and again,

I find it interesting, so they agree with the Jewish people that if Jesus called himself the

Christ, or sorry, God, that was a purposeful slip by the way, but if they call

Christ a man, God, they see that as blasphemous. That was what the Jews thought and that's why they wanted him crucified.

Because he being a man claimed to be God. I find it very interesting that here in this, they say blasphemes who, you know, it's blaspheme who says,

Allah is Christ, the son of Mary. They don't say Jesus, the son of Mary, they call him

Christ, the anointed one, the one that was to be

God. I just find that amazing. I really do. I find it very interesting that throughout the

Quran, they refer to him as Christ when Christ means deity, you know, it's like they should have got their theology right before they wrote it down.

But that's the point is, remember in the last lesson, they did not have access to Christianity so much.

They had access to heretics of Christianity that were thrown out of the Roman Empire. And so they didn't know biblical

Christianity and therefore their reaction often is to the heretical views that they did know and Judaism.

So here they have this case where they say it's heretical, or sorry, blasphemous to refer to Christ as God.

And oh by the way, you and I who believe that Jesus is God, the only place that's reserved for us according to the

Quran is hell. We will be forbidden the garden for believing such a thing.

And that is kind of, well, concerning. Now they would argue that Allah is one in Surah 112.

I don't think, do I have this one? I don't. Okay. Surah 112, I'll just read it says, say he is

Allah, the one and only Allah, the eternal absolute.

He begetteth not, nor is he begotten, and there is none like him.

Now Allah means God in Arabic. Okay. There is some debate with some

Christian translators when they translate the Bible into Arabic. Should they call, should they use the word

Allah or is it become confusing Allah being specifically the name used in Islam.

Even when English speaking Muslims use the word for God, they say Allah. I don't know that it's as big of a deal.

I mean the Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons and you know Roman Catholics all use the name of Jesus Christ and they have a totally different meaning than we do.

Well, not so much Roman Catholics. They, their view of Christ is correct. It's the rest of their stuff that they got problems with.

But you know Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses as we're going to see have a very different view of Jesus and yet we don't get upset with that they say

Jesus in their translations just saying. We want to try to be fair with that.

So, you know, so what we see is that they deny the deity of Jesus Christ and so with that we get to another issue and that's the crucifixion of Christ and this becomes really important.

So we see a divine supernatural working in Christ's birth.

The Quran does speak about him doing some miracles but then we see a divine hand of God in Christ's death.

Something we don't see with Muhammad. So let us see there in your syllabus the crucifixion of Christ.

Now Islam denies the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Okay, they believe that Allah took

Jesus from the earth and allowed a lookalike, that's your blank there, a lookalike to be crucified in his place.

In other words, what you end up having here is that in Islam the idea is that Jesus being a prophet could not have died on a cross and therefore

God supernaturally took him from the earth, kind of I guess like Enoch, and raptured him, took him from the earth and then in place put a lookalike.

Okay, now I do know some believe that this lookalike was

Judas and that's why he was so hated but let's see what the

Quran actually says. This is Surah 4, Surah 4 correct, 156 to 158 so a little bit of a longer section here but let's take a look.

So you have here in Surah 4 that they, speaking of the

Jews by the way, that they rejected faith that they uttered against Mary a grave false charge that they said in boast, quote, we killed

Christ Jesus son of Mary, the messenger of Allah, but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them that those who differ therein are full of doubts with no certain knowledge but only conjecture to follow for of a certainty they killed him not, nay,

Allah raised him up unto himself and Allah is exalted in power wise, unquote.

And so what you see there when you look at that is that according to the

Quran their deity, their God is a deceiver of his own followers.

Now I know they don't think of it that way but there is another quote, I don't know that I, I don't think

I have this here but there is a quote in the Quran that refers to Allah as the masterful deceiver and here is an example of it.

According to Islam, Muhammad, sorry, Allah deceived his own followers into thinking it was

Christ on that cross and people said oh we killed Jesus, we killed

Jesus, that was the enemies saying that but the fact is is that Allah therefore is a deceiver.

If you remember the last lesson we did, we talked about how in Islam they believe that Allah could not keep his word from corruption, that men were stronger than God in deceiving, sorry, in corrupting

God's word. How in Islam, I mean just intellectually think about this, how could you have a case where Allah would deceive people and you want to trust him?

The simple question is if Allah deceived the followers of Jesus into believing that he was crucified when he was not, how could you trust him when

Muhammad said that he had a vision of a demon but it was a woman, his wife, someone as not as great as the prophet

Muhammad who said it was of God. Shouldn't Muhammad be the one that's right? So who deceived who?

According to the Quran, Muhammad is a deceiver. He even deceives his own followers and if he is willing to deceive his own followers then how can a

Muslim trust that they are not deceived? If Christ did not die and he was born of a supernatural conception, that would really in my mind make

Jesus greater than Muhammad. He was born supernaturally, he died supernaturally.

He didn't die a normal death, therefore the reference to Jesus, it seems would be that he would be of higher or greater stature than Muhammad, just in my thinking.

This is the idea that they have because in Islam they believe that a prophet can't suffer a death that would be not glorifying, not exalting.

So they would see this as not possible. So how do they handle the

New Testament references to the return of Jesus? Well they handle that, this is in Surah 19, there's a couple of quotes there.

Surah 19, there you go. So peace be to him and this is a couple, this is

Surah 19, 15 and then 25 to 30 and then 33 to 34, so I'll read those now.

So peace on him the day he was born, the day that he dies and the day that he will be raised up to life again.

But she pointed to the babe, they said, how can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle?

And he said, I am indeed a servant of Allah. He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet.

So it is on me the day I was born, the day that I died and the day

I shall be raised up to life again. Such was Jesus, the son of Mary.

It is a statement of truth about which they verily dispute.

Now the interesting thing there is you have Jesus supposedly in a cradle being able to speak.

So even in the cradle he was supernatural. He had an ability to speak to men and they were amazed, how can this baby in a cradle speak to us?

And yet he speaks about being raised again and coming again. So you see

Jesus in the Quran is raised to be higher than the prophet, the highest prophet

Muhammad. And yet Muslims do not put Jesus in a higher standing than Muhammad.

They put Muhammad as a higher standing but that is not according to Quran how it seems that Allah does it.

Allah seems to have a special interest with Jesus, speaks of Jesus more than he does

Muhammad. So what is the Muslim or the Islamic view of sin?

The Islamic view of sin. Let's take a look at this, we don't have much here. But Islam does not espouse the doctrine of original sin.

That's your blank there. Original sin. So they don't believe in original sin. Islam teaches that the sinner alone, the individual person and not his ancestors or descendants is responsible for his actions.

There is no inherited sin on the soul to be purged as a condition of entry into faith.

So Islam teaches that all are good from Allah and all evil is from man.

So they see that separation. Let's take a look at Surah 479.

Whatever good, O man, happens to thee is from Allah. But whatever evil happens to thee, it is from thy own soul.

We have sent thee an apostle to instruct mankind, and enough is

Allah for a witness. Now, you know, there is an extent where even as Christians we would say all good things come from God and evil is from man.

Okay, or, you know, against God, right? So demons do evil and whatnot. So there's an extent where we could say, okay, we kind of can maybe sort of agree, but you see we can't really kind of sort of agree because of the way that they define these things.

Because what you're seeing there is that they're saying that we don't have any inheritance and that becomes important because as we're going to see, we can get to it, the view of salvation.

The view of salvation. What you end up seeing in this is that because of their view of sin, being that it's completely from man individually, therefore salvation can also be ultimately by man.

If there's no inherited sin as Adam or federal head, if we don't have that federal headship, then what you end up having is you have each individual being responsible completely for themselves and therefore

Allah, I guess, would be unjust if there was a person who didn't break any law, which

I don't know how a person does that because we would as Christians say that they break laws because they're a sinner because they have a sin nature.

But they would just say that people do it, I guess, from observation, from environment.

That's the word I was looking for. But what we end up seeing is when we get to salvation, salvation to a

Muslim seems to be based on a desire to avoid hell and receive pleasure and happiness.

I point that out because I often tell people that say that they're Christians because they wanted to avoid hell.

They just didn't want to go to hell and they want to see their family when they die. They're probably not going to heaven because they came to Christ on their terms and not his terms and we need to come to Christ on his terms and not our terms.

Throughout the Quran, the principal motivation for accepting God and believing in his revelation appears to be fear.

That's your blank there, fear. Fear of the last judgment and fear of eternal damnation.

There is not as strong a view of salvation from sin nor of reconciling themselves with God as the purpose of worshiping

God and that he receives all the glory and the honor and praise. See, that's the difference between Islam and Christianity.

In Christianity, we repent because we want to be reconciled with God and we want to honor

God and please God. It's not for self, it's for God's glory but in Islam it seems to be more fear of the consequences of breaking

God's law or doing bad things and wanting self and selfishness is the very thing that we need to repent of.

Now, no Muslim can know for sure that he's going where he's going in the afterlife.

This becomes important. Allah, through an absolutely arbitrary kind of determinism, decides everyone's destiny and most

Muslims cling to a hope that good works might weigh heavy on Allah's scales of justice.

But killing and being killed in a jihad, well, now that's the only sure path to heaven.

And now maybe you understand why there's so much of the terrorism that we see. These people, what makes a person fly into buildings and kill themselves and spend the night before at a go -go bar getting lap dances?

Well, the guilt drives them back into their religion but their religion offers no forgiveness of sin.

There is none. And therefore, they feel more guilt the more they throw themselves into Islam.

And the only solution, therefore, to be forgiven of this guilt is to die in a jihad.

And that's what motivates many, many Muslims that kill themselves as suicide bombers and the like. Most Muslims attach supreme importance to their duties.

They believe on the authority of the Quran that salvation is by works.

Hence, their concern, even anxiety and fear, is to fulfill their duty as a

Muslim. Okay. So what you end up having, let me just give a couple of quotes. We're going to be short on time,

I think. I hope not. But Surah 23 there, 101 -102 says,

Then those whose balance of good deeds is heavy, they will attain salvation.

But those whose balance is light will be those who lost their soul in hell and obeyed.

And so there's some other quotes that you can see in the book but I want to move on.

But you end up seeing that they believe that you can't know for sure that you're saved. That's one of the things in Christianity. We can have an assurance of our salvation.

You don't have that in Islam. Let me go to the five pillars. If you look in your syllabus, this is letter

A. Islam has a highly developed code of religious observance, much like Judaism has.

And it's referred to as the five pillars. So, you know, Judaism has their code.

This is the Muslim code. There's five pillars. All right. So we mentioned the five pillars.

Let's look at these. The first one is confessing the faith. Confessing the faith.

When we look at confessing the faith, as I have in your syllabus there, this is reciting the

Islamic creed or confession of faith in Arabic. So in Arabic, you must say,

There is no true god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger prophet of Allah.

If you believe and recite this in the presence of two witnesses, then you have just been converted to Islam.

The creed is a structure in a form of a call to prayer, which is actually the next one is prayer.

Prayer is the second pillar. And prayer is reciting a ritual.

They have a ritual prayer that they recite five times a day. These are memorized in Arabic.

They're memorized and spoken, wrote by just memorization. They're wrote prayers, which always chanted in Arabic.

Before reciting their prayers, Muslims must perform a washing of their hands, their mouth, their nostrils, their ears, their neck, their feet.

So there's a washing that goes on. And the prayers are recited five times a day.

Bending, kneeling, prostrating at exactly the same time required.

Now, this is the thing that you'll see often in Muslim countries. They have a horn that blows. And when they blow that horn, everyone is to start their prayers wherever they may be.

And they're all to, if you remember in the last class, we talked about the history. They are to focus or pray toward Mecca.

The next is the giving of alms. The giving of alms. They are to give a religious tax, an offering to the needy of 2 .5

% on cash, gold and jewelry. Higher taxes exist on things like crops and animals.

But this is a thing that there is required. That they are to give to the poor.

It's one of also the reasons that you end up seeing in many countries where the poor are cared for where there's faithful Muslims.

Because they're all giving to that. It's something actually in Christians maybe we can learn from. But we don't make it mandatory.

But there is a mandatory giving of alms. Also, there's a fasting.

A fasting. This is the fourth of the five pillars. They fast during a month of Ramadan, the entire month.

During the daylight hours, no food, no drink, no tobacco, no sexual intercourse is allowed.

At night, the fast is lifted. At the end of the month is a very special festival to celebrate the completion of the fast.

Now children, pregnant women, sick people, some travelers and soldiers in combat are exempted from the fast.

Now the fifth of the five pillars is a pilgrim to Mecca. A pilgrim to Mecca.

This is, they have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

And if you watched the news recently, there was many that went there and were trampled unfortunately.

Trying to get on this pilgrimage. A Muslim must go at least once to Mecca in his or her lifetime.

If he has the money and the health allows. They are to go to the to the

Kabbalah in Mecca. Now one person can go on behalf of another such as a personal gain, merit and reward.

Excuse me, on the last day, on the judgment day. So notice, if you can't, if you don't have the health that you can go to Mecca or you can't afford it, someone else can go on your behalf.

Okay. Now having the syllabus, I talk about forgiveness. And there is very little in the

Quran about forgiveness in comparison with other subjects which are dealt with at great length.

And from what is mentioned, it is clear that it is regarded as quite arbitrary on Allah's part and has little, if any, moral basis.

So we end up seeing it's not an act of redemption or reconciliation. So surah 35, if we have that, surah 5, 7.

For those who reject Allah is a terrible penalty. But those who believe and work righteous deeds is forgiveness and a magnificent reward.

There's another, surah 4, 48. Says, Allah forgives not that, sorry, let me do that again.

Allah forgiveth not that partners should be set up with him, but he forgiveth anyone anything else to whom he pleaseth to set up partners and Allah is to devise sin most heinous indeed.

So what you have there is you see in both of those quotes, yes there is forgiveness but that forgiveness is decided by Allah after your death at the judgment.

And so the forgiveness received at salvation is not from sins, but from, is not from all sins, sorry, but only from past sins.

That's your blank there. Past sins. In other words, when you become a Muslim, when someone converts to Islam, God forgives all their past sins and evil deeds.

And after that it is up to you doing good works to be able to be right in Allah's eyes.

I have some quotes there in the syllabus that you can look up there. So basically after converting to Islam, everything else is up to you.

And your behavior. And that becomes a thing. So let's look at our sixth doctrine that we have.

The last of the ones we're looking and that is the eternal state. The eternal state.

What do they view? Now they call what we would say heaven, they call it paradise. The name is most, paradise is the name most frequently given and it's the abode of the blessed.

It's also called Jannah or garden. The description of paradise in the

Quran shows that it is essentially a place of central delights in which there are beautiful women and couches covered with rich embroideries, flowing cups of luscious fruits, and heaven is for the righteous.

However, it is man -centered, not God -centered. What do I mean by that? Men are entering into paradise to receive the desires of their hearts and that based on the values of earth or this side of death.

I mean you'll see that everything's about the man getting the women and all these other things. And so it's not what we see in Christianity of it being a place where God is glorified but a place where we look forward to getting what we want to get.

Let's look at Surah 78, 31 to 36. Verily, the righteous therefore will be a fulfillment of the heart's desires.

Notice that, let me read that again. Verily, for the righteous there will be a fulfillment of the heart's desires, gardens enclosed and grapevines, companions of equal age and a cup full to the brim.

No vanity shall they hear therein, nor untruth recompense for thy

Lord a gift ample suffice. So what you end up seeing is they're going to have a full cup of everything that they want.

It's going to be full for them. And there's not going to be anything that they were going to be lacking.

Wow, you know this is the thing why I say that this is a man -centered religion because what you end up seeing is it's what do they got?

All the women they want. And you know what do the women get? They get to be a tool of men for eternity.

I mean really? Alcohol is supposed to be bad in Islam on earth but they're going to have a cup full of the vine in heaven, in paradise.

So you might ask, well what's their view of hell? Well they call it hellfire. Hell is a place of fiery torment for sinners.

And actually I often make the comment that the description of hell in the Quran is pretty much is more graphic than that of the

Bible. I mean it's scary the way they describe it. But let's look at surah 78, 21 to 30.

All right surah 78, 21 to 30. Truly hell is a place of ambush for the transgressor, a place of destination.

They will dwell therein for ages. Nothing cool they shall taste therein, nor any drink, save a boiling fluid and a fluid dark, murky, intensely cold, a fitting recompense for them.

For they used not to fear any account for their deeds, but they impertinently treated our signs as false.

And all things we have preserved on record. So taste ye the fruits of your deeds, for no increase shall we grant you in punishment.

You see it's a little bit more graphic than we see in the Bible. There's more of a description.

And you can see that it's just there's no pleasure for men that go to hell.

All right and it is a torturous place. It is a place where they will be punished. And it is something that we end up seeing described much more than you do in the

Bible. So you can look more if you get my book. You can see more about that.

So now next week we are going to start on a lesson on Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

Saints also known as Mormons. Now if you have any questions about Islam or Judaism, Catholicism, any things we've discussed or maybe some of the other classes, you can email us at academyatstrivingforeternity .org.

academyatstrivingforeternity .org. If you'd like to get my book, What Do They Believe? Written by me,

Andrew Rappaport. You can pick that up at our store, store .strivingforeternity

.org. Also, if your church would like to host one of our

Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminars, that would be great. We go in one weekend, try to teach your church, your group, how to interpret the

Bible in eight hours, six sessions, one weekend, Friday night, all day Saturday. We come in and we'll teach how to interpret the

Bible. And so, again, next week we'll start with the lessons on the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. We will be also announcing soon a conference coming up in Georgia.

Miterville, I think it is called. I think. I'll check. We'll get the details. But we'll have some news with that, with who we're speaking with.

But it is the Absolute Truth Conference. In Georgia, it will be with, well, the speakers are going to be

Pastor Frank Mullis. Many of you may not be familiar with him unless you're in the

MMA world. Then you probably know. But he and another pastor are going to be hosting the conference.

He's going to be speaking. Also will be speaking is Anthony Silvestro. He will be speaking on issues of creation science and presuppositionalism.

Will be two of his topics or areas. And we'll have a whole list of the topics for you shortly.

But Anthony is with Creation Revival. Listen to that name. Get used to hearing that name.

You're probably going to hear that more often with Striving for Eternity. Because Creation Revival is a ministry that basically is coming alongside

Striving for Eternity. And we're going to be working together on many things. So that's kind of the way

Christianity should be. Ministries working together to help each other and not seeing each other as competition.

Just saying. I only have a slide. But this is a time where we have our brother or sister of encouragement.

And I really would like to do two. And I should have put another slide. I know. But this is a time where you know we all need encouragement.

Especially there's times of our life we need more rather than less. But I want to call out two individuals.

Both a brother and a sister. Actually two sisters. How's that? We're going to do three. We'll do a threefer. All right.

The first one. I just like to encourage you guys to encourage Chris Hunholz. I don't have a slide for him.

But Chris is a brother in Christ. He's a faithful servant who is very very sick.

He's not feeling well today. So just encourage him. And he's had fits where he's struggled with just some of the victory all that goes on on Facebook social media between brothers and sisters in Christ.

And it really bothers him. So just give him some encouragement. He's very faithful in serving the

Lord. He also thinks he's Captain America. Just saying. The other two. And I only have one of them.

But the other two are two sisters. Literally sisters. But I have Amina Dopp and her sister

Aisha Dopp. Reason I want you to encourage them this week is that the two of them have their father passed away.

Their father has died. And they are going to Senegal which is where they lived where their father is from.

And they're going to be returning to Senegal to bury their father. Now what's the importance of that?

And I guess I didn't think about that. But the importance of having this lesson with them. The issue being is both of them are former

Muslims. They were raised Muslim and converted to Christianity. They believe in the truth. And they're going back knowing that there could be some consequences.

I have the utmost respect for these two women. I tried.

I was like almost begging Amina not to go. Because I really do fear. I have great fears of what could happen.

And there is no convincing her. And as she said she's like, Andrew her first concern was she wanted gospel tracks in French so she can hand out gospel tracks.

And I was like don't do that. Because that tells you something of her fearlessness.

And she really said to me she couldn't find tracks in French. And she said you know that you know she said if someone asks me about Christ I'm going to tell them.

And I'm ready for the consequence. This is this is my hero. This is what

I consider one of my heroes. Someone that can can recognize the real and serious danger and say you know what?

I love Christ more. So pray for Amina and Aisha as they are going to be going to Senegal.

It is a long flight. And so be praying for them as they travel over there that they are kept safe.

And that they do have opportunities to be with their family. Some family they've never met. Just pray for them.

Give them comfort at this time. It's amazing to hear as as you know as any of us would grieve over loss of a loved one.

And you know to just be sitting there and hearing that you know a concern over lost family members rather than your own loss.

Just it boggles my mind. Encourage them if you would this week. You'd be greatly appreciated.

And that's what we should be doing. We should be encouraging one another in Christ. Not waiting till someone's dead to tell them all the wonderful things we think about them.

But let them know now what you think. We want to help you build a encouraging lifestyle.

That's why we do this each week. By putting a different person to encourage. Just to keep it in the forefront of our minds.

And hopefully so that we would constantly be looking to encourage one another. So don't just encourage a brother or sister of encouragement.

But encourage others as much as you can. I know I struggle with it too. But we can all work on it together.

All right. So until next class remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.