From Jihad to Jesus

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We went over the entirety of Ergun Caner’s testimony played on Monday’s Focus on the Family broadcast on the program today. Given how this story is moving into a national platform outside of the Christian community, at least there will be documentation that 1) serious and open attempts were made to call for accountability, and 2) the intentions of those of us who spoke out were focused upon the purity and integrity of the gospel.

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. I spent the first 17 years of my life assuming that you as Christians hated me.
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Does that make sense? I mean, I've never been in a church, I've never really been around too many Christians, and coming to America, I've lived under the misconception that you hated me as a
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Muslim. So there you go. You recognize the music, you recognize the program.
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This was Monday on Focus on the Family, From Jihad to Jesus, Ergin Kanner.
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And no one is going to question that Ergin Kanner is a good speaker. You can tell by the cadence, by the tone of his voice, that he is seeking to create a particular emotional response in his hearers and he's accomplishing that.
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And the great problem, of course, that exists is that everything in the context that he is presenting to you is simply untrue.
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It may have a worthy goal to encourage us to witness to our
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Muslim friends, but the fact of the matter is we can document that this man was here from the time he was two and a half years old.
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And while the possibility still remains of some trip to Turkey between two and a half and seven and a half years of age, from seven and a half onwards, there was a court order saying that he could not leave the continental
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United States. And so all the stuff about living in Ankara and watching, as we're going to hear, the
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Dukes of Hazzard and broken English and all the rest of this stuff is just all made up.
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And the big problem is when you embellish your story so as to then join it to your gospel presentation, that's where the problem is.
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That's where repentance needs to be enunciated, confession and repentance and abandonment.
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And that's what's not happening in this situation. Today, we're going to be listening to this program.
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It's not all that long, but today I linked to an excellent, excellent article by Tom Chantry on this particular issue.
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It's a lengthy article because he goes through a bunch of stuff about Ambrose, the historical writer that I did not even know about.
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Evidently, I, of course, this is because I don't necessarily read in this area, but I guess there's questions about the author of the book upon which
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Band of Brothers was based and all sorts of stuff like that. And I didn't even know it.
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But he goes through that first and his own experience of that to then lay foundation for a discussion of what has happened with Ergen Kanner.
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And it's very, very useful. So I put the link up today. I hope you'll take the time to look.
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I believe there are five blog articles on that particular subject for you to take a look at.
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But I want to get through this and then I want to invite anyone who wishes to argue that I have done wrong in addressing this issue, that I have in some way been unfair.
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This shouldn't be something we should talk about. This should only be done in private, whatever your objection might be to the fact that we have pressed for a honest answering of honest questions regarding Ergen Kanner's claims, regarding his life, his being trained as a jihadist and the
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Islamic jihad and all the things that have taken place, particularly since I was in London in February.
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Give us a call. It's going to take us a while to get through this, but we'll get to you at the end of the program. Let's listen to the
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Focus on the Family program, respond to it as it is moving along. And after listening to that little audio clip,
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I have a question for you. I wonder if when you meet someone from another culture, you feel rather uncomfortable, especially if they're from, say, a
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Middle Eastern country. Do you wonder what they believe and how they might live out those beliefs?
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If so, I'm pretty sure you're not alone in that. And I just comment right here, we all need to know these things, but we need to know them from people who've actually lived the life.
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Living as living in Ohio, it's not someone who lived in Ohio whose dad was a
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Muslim. OK, it wasn't a Muslim scholar. He wasn't a Muslim cleric. He's going to claim in this. But he was a
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Muslim and maybe even a Wahhabi Muslim, very conservative Muslim. That's fine. But that was especially after the divorce.
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His noncustodial parents, we do need to know these things, but we need to know them from people that can actually speak to us from a real position of expertise.
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And that unfamiliarity with the general world of Islam. And on today's Focus on the
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Family, we'll hear more from the man we just heard from there, a former Sunni Muslim. I'm John Fuller, along with Focus on the
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Family president and CEO Jim Daley. And Jim, this is one of those broadcasts that I think will take some of our listeners a little bit by surprise.
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But I hope they listen all the way through because there really is some great stuff in here. Well, there is,
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John. And, you know, our guest is very distinctive in that he's experienced both the Muslim world. By the way, we're not exactly sure when this was recorded, but this sounds like one of the early versions.
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Oh, you got a date on that? He mentions in either they mentioned. No, they mentioned that this was done after 9 -11 in 2001.
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So this is 2001. Oh, OK. Because it was at Prestonwood. I knew what church it was at.
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I just didn't have a specific date. OK. All right. Thanks. As well as Christianity, you know, which makes him uniquely qualified to address today's topic.
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Dr. Ergun Kanar has been the president of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and graduate school at Liberty University since 2005.
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And, John, imagine that. This is the first ex -Muslim who's become the president of an evangelical seminary here in the
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United States. Wow. He was raised the son of an Islamic leader. And then in 1982, after immigrating to the
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United States, he converted to the Christian faith. Yeah. After immigrating to the United States in 1969, you know, there's that little gap there that.
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And consequently, because of his Christian beliefs, he was disowned by his family. He was disowned by his father.
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With whom he was not living and had not been living for quite some time. I've heard this over.
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I was disowned by my family. His mother didn't disown him. His grandmother didn't disown him. The people he was living with did not disown him.
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And again, you say, yeah, but it's still it's. And the amazing thing about the way people think is, yeah, but still be bad to be disowned by your dad.
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Well, of course, but that's not the same thing. He doesn't bring up the fact that there had been this divorce.
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He didn't bring up the fact he's not living with his father because he's created this mythology that that precludes an honest recounting of these events.
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That's a very common thing, John, when this happens. But that's only part of the story. And the rest of the story has a very interesting twist.
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Which is why I said listeners should plan to stay with us this entire broadcast or perhaps request a
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CD or go online and listen to the entire presentation. Ergun has either written or co -authored 17 books, many of those with his brother
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Ymir, including the bestseller Christian Jihad, which is about the 1300 year old conflict between Islam and Christianity.
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And together, they also wrote the gold medallion winner, Unveiling Islam, which gives readers a glimpse inside the life of a
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Muslim. And we'll encourage our listeners to ask for that book from us today. Now, since the 9 -11 terrorist attacks,
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Dr. Kanner has become a national speaker representing evangelical Christianity in the media.
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He's debated Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and other religious leaders. Someone, of course, is just reading from a prepared bio, which is no longer the bio that's actually on the website, but probably they did this preparation for this prior to the cleaned up bio so that we still have the claims of the debates that never were.
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At college campuses in the US and around the world. And he has three master's degrees and two doctorates, including a doctor of theology from the
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University of South Africa. So he's, as you said, uniquely qualified and he's a highly educated man as well.
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That's true, John. But, you know, more important than his education, of course, is the heart change that he had in his conversion to Christianity.
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And that's why we're airing the message today. And, you know, I've traveled to a number of Muslims. And that's why we're airing the message today, too, because that heart change is real.
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The problem is that heart change should also result in a love of truth. And to connect that heart change to the
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Muslims that are listening to this who know the truth with the gospel of Jesus Christ is to undercut its very truthfulness and its foundation.
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That's the problem. And one of the things that I experienced myself was that uncomfortableness.
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But yet when you get people, it's amazing how similar humanity is. We want similar things.
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We have similar needs. And it's been a privilege, actually, to work in that part of the world to see people open up to come to a better understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And there are exciting things going on in the Middle East. Well, maybe we can come back at the end of this program and give a little update on that.
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For focus on the family's perspective. Let's go ahead and listen in now to Ergun Kaner as he describes his life as a
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Sunni Muslim and his turn to Christianity. And I'll mention this presentation was recorded at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.
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I was born in Sweden, raised in Turkey, came to America in 1978.
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Okay, this is, like you said, is one of the earlier editions. And we just know that that's not true.
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He didn't come here in 1978. He came here before 1970, 1969, according to his mother's sworn deposition in the divorce papers.
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Will someone argue that he just, you know, one day asked and mom said and no, because 1978, he graduates in 82.
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I remember what was going on. I mean, he's only graduated. If he graduated in 82, he's only a year behind me.
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I remember what was going on in 78, 77. I remember where I was. I have very clear memories. I was working, you know, there just isn't any way you can be 8, 9, 10 years off.
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It just doesn't. I'm sorry. It's not it's not possible. That has to be a purposeful emendation, a changing of one's history.
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And for what reason to create all the rest of stuff, this living in Turkey, I was living in Turkey.
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And therefore, this lays the foundation for everything else.
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I came through when I came to America, I came through Brooklyn, New York. I cannot confirm or deny that we don't have any evidence one way or the other.
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But one thing's for certain when he came, he was only two and a half. So what they would have been doing in Brooklyn, picking up languages or anything else would have been irrelevant at the age that he was at that point in time.
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Of all places, which is why I learned English. No, he learned English in Ohio. Bless God.
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God has such a great sense of humor that my wife, we've been married now seven years, is a deep, deep, deep
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Southern belle. If you could imagine, our wedding was like the
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Godfather and the Beverly Hillbillies all gathering together in a big, to beat all, as if it isn't even ironic enough.
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My son thinks he's a cowboy at two and a half, since we've lived here now for about a year. You know,
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I went to Criswell College. I'm actually a graduate of the Criswell College. Aside from being a professor there, I teach systematic theology and church history there.
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But when I came to Dallas, I had never been to Dallas before. And I had read up on some books about what it was like to live in Texas, because I wanted to fit in.
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And so I came here. Remember, English is not my first language. I'll explain that in a moment. Now, it's fascinating to me.
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I've noticed he's done this a number of different times. English is not my first language, but he never tells them what his first language is.
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He just says he lives in Turkey. So he leaves it to them to assume what his first language is.
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What is his first language? Swedish. It's not Arabic. It has nothing to do.
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It's not any of the languages of Turkey. It's Swedish. Ymir even mentions this.
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I've listened to Ymir giving his story, and it's amazing how much light it sheds on the Ergen -Kanner story.
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But Ymir says his first language was Swedish, and he was born here.
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So clearly, that would have been Ergen's first language. But he never tells them that. He just lets them fill in the blanks there without ever actually saying, well, actually,
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I speak Arabic. Because as he admitted, briefly anyways, on February 25th in his thing, that's not his language at all.
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I came here thinking that I would fit in. And I bought boots, big, huge boots.
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And I bought a belt buckle that I'm not kidding. I bought a big, looked like a hubcap belt buckle.
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And had a hat. And went to the West End. And, well,
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I didn't fit in at all. But you see, it was a misconception. I thought that everyone in Texas dressed like that.
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The only thing I'd ever seen about Texas was a television show called Dallas. And I did read someone who knew
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Ergen and then heard him speak for the first time once and was shocked when all of a sudden this accent appeared that he had never, ever heard before in his conversations with Ergen Kanner.
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So Dallas, all of a sudden, all of a sudden pops up. What's an Aggie, by the way?
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I had to ask someone what that was. I thought it was, I understood it was agricultural. But I find out that it's a college.
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All I'd understood about Texas was what I'd seen on television. And it was a misconception. The reason
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I tell you that is because misconceptions play a large part of what's taken place since September the 11th of this year.
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Especially in my life. Ah, this year. There you go. There's 2001 right there. September 11th of this year.
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So yeah, this is pretty close. I'm not just, I'm not just a Muslim. I'm not just a
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Sunni. And I wasn't just involved in the Islamic Jihad. I was the son of a muezzin.
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That's the cleric. The one who does the call to prayer at the beginning. No, he wasn't a cleric.
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He was not an imam. And people have now interviewed the people at the mosque. They didn't even have that position at that time.
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He may have led in prayers a few times. That does not make you a cleric. This is a common, common conversion thing where you exaggerate the religious significance of things of your, of your former life, et cetera, et cetera.
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To try to, you know, again, just increase your capital, shall we say, as a convert.
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Beginning of the prayer time, the one who climbs the minaret. Well, they didn't have a minaret there, by the way.
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And when I, I'm trying to say this in a nice way. I spent the first 17 years of my life assuming that you as Christians hated me.
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Of course, the first 17 years of his life, he was spent around a lot of Christians. I mean, let's think about it for just a second.
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We know what high school he went to. What percentage of the students in the late 1970s at a high school in the
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Midwestern United States would have called themselves Muslims or atheists or humanists?
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Very small. What would have been the majority of the students in a high school in Ohio in the late 1970s?
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Christians. Christians. So again, it's all, you know,
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I want to communicate this idea that we have misconceptions about Muslims. That's true. But I communicate that with people and I'm Scottish.
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I didn't have to make anything up. I didn't have to, you know, embellish something.
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That's what just, just, I just don't understand this. Did he really think no one would believe him? I guess he has felt no one would ever listen to him.
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So let's make things up as we go along. I mean, I've never been in a church. I've never really been around too many
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Christians. There's not that many of them in Turkey or in Sweden. But there are plenty in Ohio.
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That's again, if you're standing there in front of an audience in a church saying this, how can you do that?
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I just don't, I don't, I don't understand it. And coming to America, I'd lived under the misconception that you hated me as a
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Muslim. That really affected a lot of what I did in my younger years.
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I'm not really proud of the fact that I'm part of, was part of the Islamic Jihad. I'm not proud of the fact that it actually was my people who were involved in what took place, in the horror.
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But I want to spend about 15 minutes explaining to you why they did what they did. And perhaps answering some of your questions as to what may happen next.
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I wasn't a nominal Muslim. I was a good Muslim. There's, there's the issue. Because if he was a nominal
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Muslim, if he was a Muslim raised in the United States, and especially after his parents' divorce, he only sees the active
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Muslim parent every other weekend and five weeks during the summer. And if, as Emir says, by this point, by very early on in their life, their mother had become a hippie.
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She had been raised Swedish Lutheran, converted to Islam to marry Ergen's father.
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And then once they got to the United States, she became a hippie. So he's not even living within that context.
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So the big push is, I was a real Muslim. Islamic Jihad.
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I... And that's just, there's, there's the issue.
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There's the, the assertion has to be made to try to embellish and to, you know, gotta admit, it has gotten many a
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TV camera in his face. It's gotten him behind many a pulpit. So there's a reason to do it,
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I guess. 17 years of my life, I was the equivalent of a preacher's kid. No, he was not.
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He was not the son of an Imam. That's just, I'm sorry, leading in the prayers once in a while does not make you an
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Imam. And so, raised in the mosque, so to speak, just like preacher's kids are raised in the church.
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No. And like every good Muslim, I followed the five pillars of Islam. There are two things, there's actually three things that I say to people when
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I speak in churches and conventions and such about Islam. Three things that I want to make a point on and then
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I'm going to move right into the testimony part. Number one, you heard it on just about every talk show,
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Allah, Jehovah, they're basically the same God. Now you're talking about divine nicknames.
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Please listen to me on this. No Orthodox Muslim in the world would ever say that Jehovah and Allah are the same
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God. Well, you know, I can agree with the overarching sentiment here.
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There are many things that Ernie Cantor says about Islam that are true. The problem is when you join in with a bunch of lies, then you're painting all of us as being untruthful.
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But when it comes to this particular issue, I have met Orthodox Muslims that would say that actually.
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But they also will clearly recognize the distinction between how we worship
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God and how they worship God and the differences that exist in our understanding of God.
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But the general point is is true from the Islamic side. They recognize how different our conception of God is from theirs.
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And so in general, I would agree. But again, already having poisoned the context with all the fraud, it's just wrong to be hearing these these discussions within this context.
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No Muslim in the world, and I hope no honest, authentic and intelligent
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Christian would ever make that statement as well. We are taught in Islam that Allah is creator and he is judge.
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But we have a verse in the Quran that says, I have no idea what that was.
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I tried to look it up. He gives what he thinks he was saying.
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Allah has no son. Allah has no son. Now, again, I am a student of Arabic.
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I didn't take the time. I was going to talk to my Arabic tutor. But I have no idea what he just said.
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And since he has now admitted that Arabic is not his mother tongue, maybe it's some other language.
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It's a translation of the Quran. I don't know, even though it uses the term Allah. But I did not if I would never hear that as a as an appropriate translation.
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But I want to check that out a bit more, because I couldn't even find the specific verse he was talking about.
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And I really don't think that Ergen would probably answer an email where I was asking for specific references either.
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Allah and Jehovah are not the same, not by Muslim standards and certainly not by the word of God.
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The second thing I keep hearing is that don't you get tired of them saying jihad is a struggle, jihad is a struggle.
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This is not the understanding of jihad. Do you know that most of the people, most of the
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Muslims who were here on the bombing day were shocked and horrified by what took place?
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Most Muslims were shocked by the bombing. Do you know why? Because here in America, jihad is theory.
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But from where I come from and from Europe and from the Middle East, jihad is sadly a fact of life.
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I was raised in it. It's one thing to say that most Muslims don't believe in jihad.
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That's fine. You can talk about that all you want. But to say that Islam doesn't teach it is wrong. And now
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I'll tell you why. As a good Muslim, I followed the five pillars of Islam until I was 17 years old.
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The first pillar of Islam is the Kalima, the creed. It is what every Muslim says at the beginning of every day.
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That's not the Kalima. Sorry, he's confusing the shahada with the beginning of Surah al -Fatiha.
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Now, you do say that in the prayers. But that's not the words, the
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Kalima, the shahada, the bearing of testimony. They're not the same thing.
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And I just I mean, I know what the difference is. And I don't claim to have been raised in the
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Islamic jihad. It is our credo that we say beginning and ending of every day at the beginning and ending of every meal.
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Salat, zakat and swan are. It's not swan. It's salm. I mean,
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I'm sorry, but at least I pronounce it correctly. If you if you and this is not the only time that he's made this error.
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Now, again, people say, well, you know, he's just you know, you stand in front of a bunch of people, you mispronounce things over and over again in many different contexts.
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I'm sorry, if that was the only mistake, then it would be picky you to pick on it.
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There's no question about that. But when you start adding all these things up, it creates this mountain of evidence that absolutely precludes you giving the man the benefit of the doubt.
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It's prayer and fasting and almsgiving. And five times a day, even even when
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I was in high school, even in Brooklyn, New York, he wasn't in high school in Brooklyn, New York. He went to high school in Ohio.
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Doesn't he think someone might look this up? I mean, there are there are yearbooks.
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There is classmates dot com. You know, I mean, I would get my prayer rug out of my closet, out of my locker and roll it out in the bathroom.
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Well, we've talked about that. And according to Jake Yasir Khadi, that would be really, really unusual.
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But, hey, you know, we've discussed it and do my prayer. You would fast during the month of Ramadan, which in at least one instance is described as being 40 days long.
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And let me tell you something. There is one thing that all Muslims know. And that's how long the month of Ramadan is, especially especially.
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And we chuckle about that because, you know, the fastings of like that, but especially because of something called
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Laylat al -Qadr, Laylat al -Qadr, the night of power and the night of power is on one of the odd numbered nights, the last 10 days of Ramadan.
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And it's on the night of power that your prayers will have far more efficacy than in any other time of prayer.
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And so seeking Laylat al -Qadr is extremely important amongst all
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Muslims, Sunni or Shiite. So there's no way you would think because if you think
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Ramadan is 40 days long, then you would be looking for Laylat al -Qadr on the wrong night. Sorry, and again, they even have retreats in mosques where you actually stay up all night in the mosque on the night you believe is going to be
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Laylat al -Qadr. And so I'm sorry, but again, the devout jihadi knows these things.
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The guy living with his mother, who's become a hippie, doesn't know these things. And that's what's going on.
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I did everything that a Muslim should do, except for Hajj. I never made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
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And now I'm about to tell you why. We talk about who Jesus is to the
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Muslim. You understand that you really have to come face to face with a simple philosophical point. And I know not everybody here is a
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Christian. And I know just about every place I've spoken since September 11th, there have been
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Muslims there. And I am going to operate under the assumption that there are
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Muslims here. And I want you to hear me very well. Surah 4 -4 says that Mary gave birth to Jesus as pure born, not virgin born, but pure born.
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And the Quran teaches that Jesus is a prophet. You know,
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I hadn't caught that before. I'm wondering if he's asserting they don't actually believe in the virgin birth, which they do.
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That sounded like what he was saying there when he differentiated between virgin born and pure born. But they do believe in the virgin birth.
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So I'm not making a big deal out of that. But is that what he's saying? Because it's just an honest question.
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The way that he put it, it sounded like he was emphasizing something. And Jesus, as a prophet, was a good man.
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But in the Kalima, you say there is only one God, Allah, and Muhammad is his final prophet.
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He is the seal of the prophets. Please hear this. There's no way
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Jesus could have been a prophet. I just stopped that for a moment because he just rightly defined the
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Kalima. And yeah, we just brought up Surah 4 -4.
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It has nothing to do with that at all, does it? The discussion of Mary and the virgin birth is
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Surah 19. But Surah 4 -4 has absolutely nothing to do with Mary at all.
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That's interesting. I hadn't even looked at that. He did say Surah 4 -4, didn't he? Did I mishear that?
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No, you heard it the same, 4 -4. Oops, we got another one.
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Anyway, interesting. Very, very interesting. We press on. No way at all. You see, even according to extra biblical sources,
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Jesus Christ was condemned and was tried and was indicted for claiming blasphemy.
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He claimed that he was God. If Jesus Christ claimed he was God and was subsequently crucified for claiming that he was
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God, there's no way he could have been a prophet. You see, if he claimed he was
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God and knew that he wasn't, that Jesus was actually a fraud, a fraud can't be a prophet.
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The other opportunity or the other option is that perhaps Jesus thought he was God, but in fact wasn't.
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He was under a delusion. And if Jesus was insane, he couldn't be a prophet.
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The only other option is that Jesus is who he said he is. That Jesus was who he said he was.
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And you have to at least accept that simple philosophical statement.
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He was either deluded or deceptive or he was divine. I came face to face with that when
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I was 17 years old. It wasn't the elocution of a pastor. It was a high school friend.
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You understand, he didn't care that I was a preacher's son, a Moisin's son. He, again, exaltation of a position that didn't exist and is simply an embellishment.
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He invited me to revival and I thought he had said revival. Remember, I want to go back to the question of assumption.
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I assumed you hated me and everything I had been taught about Christians, everything
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I've been taught about you didn't play out. I mean, you didn't come across as hateful or hate -filled or vengeful.
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You actually seemed kind of nice, seemed kind of loving, gracious, certainly.
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Hadn't any of the Christians that he had been around in school for so many years likewise seemed that way?
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Oh, but he was in Turkey. And so this friend of mine invited me to church.
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He said, I want you to come to revival. I thought he said revival. And I'd never owned a
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Bible, never held a Bible. Um, again, that sounds great, revival.
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But could anyone really imagine that that's true since he was here, since he was two and a half? Um, has anyone in, in the
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Ohio school district there, could they really say this kind of, how do you say this with a straight face?
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Now, he may not have had a Bible. That's fine. I'm not saying that he had a Bible. But this kind of, would, would anyone in Ergenkanner's graduating class have been confused by the word revival?
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How could you pass an English class that having read certain English classics that talk about revival? How could you have gotten through U .S.
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history without having heard about the first awakening and the second awakening and the revivalism of that time?
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Sorry, you couldn't do it. Um, so again, it's just being made up. And so I wanted a
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Bible. And I walked into that little church. My English was very poor.
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There was a great and glorious time where my hair was long. His English was very poor.
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Again, the whole thing is, oh, my English is very poor because I just hadn't been here very long. 78, 82.
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You can understand that if he came here in 78. And this is 1982. Then, yeah, you could understand his
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English might not be all that great. But he's been here since 1969. All made up.
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They didn't make fun of my accent. They didn't make fun of the clothes that I wore. They didn't make fun of the fact that I wore a turban.
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A turban? Really? A turban? I'd love to see a picture of this because that is
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Arabic dress, not Turkish dress. That's not Turkish dress. I'm sorry.
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But again, because of all of the falsehoods we've seen, we have to challenge everything now.
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You can't accept anything at face value. And so I would love to find some people who knew
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Ergen Kanner in high school and ask them, so did Ergen Kanner wear a turban? Did he wear, you know, not speak good
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English? Be fascinating to hear the results of interviews like that.
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They didn't call me a towel head. I got a lot of that outside of the church.
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But in that church, he had gotten a lot of that outside the church. That's interesting. That's interesting.
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They loved me. Monday night, I came. Tuesday night, I came. Wednesday night, I came.
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Thursday night, I came. They continued to love me. You see, a
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Muslim can be a good Muslim and still go to hell. Even in Islamic teaching, you understand that a
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Muslim believes that there is an angel, an angel on his right shoulder. He just said angel.
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Angel means gospel, doesn't mean angel. That's a completely different word.
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And an angel on his left shoulder. The one on the right shoulder writes down all the good that he does.
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The one on the left shoulder writes down all the bad that he does. Even if a Muslim does his rakat, his prayers every day, even though he abstains from that which he must abstain and does that which he must do, even if a
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Muslim follows all the teachings but has more bad than good, he still goes to hell.
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Now, if you hear this point, you understand much more now than perhaps you did when you walked in. You see, only one thing erases the bad on the scale.
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Death, martyrdom and jihad. Now, it is true that the only promise that is provided by Allah of direct entrance into the gardens is if a person dies in jihad in defense of the
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Muslim state. No question about that. However, we need to accurately understand that the only sin that Allah cannot forgive if a person dies upon that sin, in that sin, is shirk.
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Shirk is idolatry. Shirk is association of anything with Allah. And they do believe that we as Christians are
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Mushrikim. We commit the sin of shirk. But that doesn't mean that the only people getting to heaven are people who die in jihad.
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It is possible to be forgiven by Allah. The issue is you have no assurance of it unless you die in jihad.
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That is a more accurate way of expressing it. I lived in fear of those scales. And day after day at this church,
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Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, at this church, I constantly thought about those scales.
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And then somebody explained to me that I don't need to spill my own blood to purchase my forgiveness.
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That it was the shed blood on Calvary's cross that Jesus Christ purchased my forgiveness. And that all
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I had to do was accept Him as Lord. When I found out about mercy and grace, it was revolutionary to me.
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That mercy that God would not do to me what I deserved and grace that God would give to me that which
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I did not deserve. Very true. Very true.
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Wonderfully true. But it would have been 100 % true if Ergin Kanner simply hadn't embellished his story.
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Is there something less wonderful about God's grace when it saves someone who isn't a jihadi?
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Sort of a secular Muslim, a kid who has a
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Muslim dad that he sees every other weekend and five weeks during the summer. But has been sort of raised in a religious no man's land in the home where he lives.
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How is that less gracious? How is that grace somehow less important?
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Because when you embellish your story and you make stuff up, that's what you're saying. You're saying that the grace that would save someone with this really neat testimony is somehow better than the grace that saves, well, plain old folks like me,
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I guess. Because I don't have a, you know, I was saved when
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I was very young, raised in a Christian family. My earliest memories are of church and Sunday school and the
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Bible and Jesus. And I really do believe I was converted at a very young age.
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I remember that night clearly. And I never got into stuff in high school.
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I didn't drink or smoke or do drugs and never ran afoul of the law for crying out loud.
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I was never even late for a class in high school. I never got a demerit. Some people are saying, wow, what a freak you are.
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Maybe that takes more grace. I was never even late for a class. I didn't even get to be in high school.
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That's the worst part. And yet, does that somehow make the grace less meaningful?
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That's what bothers me about this celebrity cult that really has been exposed in the Southern Maps Convention and amongst many other people.
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We foreign folks have our celebrity cults too. But the idea is celebrity is more important.
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Celebrity somehow says something about God's grace. Well, it doesn't. It is a miracle when any sinner is saved.
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And it's a shame we think we have to embellish our stories to magnify God's grace.
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On Thursday night, I tackled that preacher. Man, I grabbed a hold of him.
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I grabbed a hold of him and said, I want this Jesus. I want saved. That night, we went to a thing called
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Afterglow. That's where all the youth go to Denny's or IHOP or Waffle House and hang out.
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My first act as a new believer in Jesus Christ was I got the biggest piece of ham they had.
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And for those wondering, obviously, pork is haram. It is forbidden.
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And hence, everyone is going ha ha ha ha about that. That's oh, well, someone really needs to.
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That's here we go. I've never had it.
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Now, I'm a ham eating man, baby. As a matter of fact, the greatest ham of all time,
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I am addicted to. I'll even tell you the secret, but you can't buy it. It's called spam. On Friday night, after I'd been to revival four days, after I'd gotten saved, after Jesus had forgiven me of my sin and released me from fear of the scales, when
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Jesus did for me what I could not do for myself, I figured everybody in the mosque wanted to hear about this too.
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Oh, does that ring true to you? I really have a hard time with that.
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And I have a hard time with the with the timing here, because in some of his stories, he talks about this happening as far as his brothers are concerned, like a year later.
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And there's some timing issues. But honestly, do you really think that anyone who was raised in the
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Islamic jihad would think that the folks in the mosque would want to hear about salvation in Jesus, especially in light of Surah 4, 157, which denies
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Jesus died on the cross in the first place? I mean, he claims in other talks he was beaten as a result of doing this.
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That's a pretty serious allegation. But does that really strike you as, ah,
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I was just so naive as a 17 year old? Really? You want to go from being this serious jihadi to being that naive that you, hey, guys,
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I've accepted Jesus. Something rings really hollow there.
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That was not the case. That night,
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November the 4th, 1982, my father faced Mecca as was his custom and began his prayer time.
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And my father disowned me, my hero, my father. A year later, still young in Christ, still with very bad
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English. I came forward in my little country church. It's just bad English. It loved me and I surrendered to preach.
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Came forward and said, God's calling me to preach. I don't know how they do it here at Preston World, but. But in our church, which was very mixed, very mixed, bless
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God. My pastor stood up there and I came down the aisle and surrendered to the gospel ministry. And he said, well, bless
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God. He'll be preaching his first sermon tonight.
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You guys ever heard a first sermon? I went up there with about that many notes, four hours of preparation.
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It lasted seven minutes. You know, it's like Jesus, the devil. Let's sing 842 verses of just as I am.
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But you see, at the invitation, both of my younger brothers stepped out.
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And both my younger brothers got saved. My youngest brother is also in the full -time gospel ministry.
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He teaches at Southeastern Seminary. My middle brother is a Christian father and lay deacon in his church.
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God's not done. 1991, I was pastoring in Vincennes, Indiana.
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I'm doing that Easter Sunday thing where you've got 50 ,000 Easter Sunday things going on. And in between the services,
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I picked up the phone, like that one ringing. And it was my mom.
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And my mother said, I'm tired of fighting. I got to leave my mother to Christ on the phone.
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My little church, that little church had no money, flew me to Columbus, Ohio. And I got to baptize my mother, not just as my mom, but as a sister in Jesus.
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Listen, it's not done. Now, what's interesting is in later versions, that gets embellished too.
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Because he says that she had continued wearing the Islamic garb. And that she took it off in the baptistry.
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While Ymir says that she had given up the Islamic stuff long before this.
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And pictures that have been found of her, she's always in standard Western dress. But it makes it, see, it just makes it so much more exciting.
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If she takes off that Islamic garb in the baptistry. Now, maybe that happened.
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I don't know. But again, after a while, you start going,
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I see a pattern here. And it wouldn't make one bit of difference if she did.
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That's the problem. When we think that somehow means something, that's where the problem exists.
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It's not done. And you better hold your applause because we got to get out of here. It's not done. In 1995, at almost the age of 100, my grandmother accepted
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Christ. My brother had enlarged with Xerox the print on a Swedish Bible. And enlarged it large enough so she could read it.
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And stood up with her walker in the church he was pastoring. She got saved. And my brother got to baptize my grandmother in the name of the
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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, listen. God is good. God is good. God is good all the time.
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And all the time, God is good. God's not done. In 1999, my phone rang.
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And it was my sister who I never met, my half -sister, who said, your father is dying. And she said,
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I don't know if you'll even see any one of you. We hadn't seen him since 82. And now he was 99. And I said,
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I don't know if you'll see us. But we all flew in from all over the country to see our father who was dying of cancer.
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We showed up. And like King Henry IV at Canossa with the Pope, I'm standing outside in the snow barefoot, just hoping he'll let us in.
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And he lets us in. My father was surrounded by muezzin, and mullahs, and caliphates, and imam.
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And they were all just, they didn't want us to get to our dad. But for three days, we got to witness to our father.
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My dad never got saved. But God was true to his promise. 17 years earlier,
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I had asked God, at least let me witness to my dad before he goes. God will never force anybody to be saved.
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But he always keeps his word. And I got to lay my son, who was four months old, in my father's arms.
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I got to introduce my wife to my father. I got to kneel in front of my father, as is our custom, and share
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Jesus with my father. You see, our God is astonishing. Our God did for us what works will never be able to achieve.
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Our God on Golgotha purchased for me what I couldn't afford to buy. And I don't know where you're at spiritually.
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I don't know. But I'll tell you this, a good dose of seeing family members saved and lives changed.
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September the 11th, ethnically, that was my people. But spiritually, spiritually.
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Wait a minute, ethnically? It's Turkish, not Arabic. I guess he means religiously, but he wasn't even a
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Muslim at that time. I want to tell you this. Corporately, we must act as a country to defend our borders.
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If not, the next waves of jihad will be much worse. But individually, the
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Muslims around which you and I live, around whom you and I work, those
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Muslims expect revenge. They expect you and I to respond with hatred.
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They expect you and I to be angry and mean and hard -hearted. They expect you and I to be hateful and perhaps even justifiably so.
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What they don't expect is for you and I to love them the way that Jesus Christ loved us.
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But while I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me. While I was at war with him, he loved me.
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It's the way that church loved me to the cross. And if it wasn't for that one little friend inviting me to read
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Bible, my whole family would be on its way to a devil's hell. If it wasn't for one little friend and one little church and one little pastor and one body that loved me to the cross,
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I couldn't stand before you today. Well, there you go.
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And, you know, you pull out the emotions and you get prepared to do the invitation at that point.
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And I can only sit here and think of Mohammed Khan, who was probably listening live right now, or at least will by webcast, who back in 2009 started collecting quotes and audio files and claims and video of Erdogan -Kanner.
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And I have more than once mentioned in my emails to Mohammed Khan that I hope someday
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I'll have the opportunity of talking to him about our differences.
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I invited him to the debate there in London. He lives in London. And I'll be,
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Lord willing, back there in February of next year. And so I would like to have that opportunity. I recognize, however, that he has heard what
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Erdogan -Kanner has said. And just for a moment, if you can, put yourself in the position of a faithful Muslim who knows his faith and then listens to Erdogan basically pretending to be what he himself is.
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I was once what you are. Now I'm a Christian. But then you start going, well, wait a minute, that didn't fit and that didn't fit.
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And you're confused about that. And you think Ramadan's 40 days long and you start going, wait a minute, this call you're making to me to become a
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Christian seems to be based on lies, falsehoods.
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That's the real damage here, folks. That's the problem. And there are a lot of Muslims out there.
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They're looking at us and they're asking the question, are you going to do the right thing? Are you going to stand firm or are you all going to collapse on this and give in to pressure and protect this guy?
54:00
That's what's going on. Let's quickly talk with Stephen up in Toronto. Hi, Stephen. Hello, Dr.
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White. How are you? I'm doing good. Listen, I wanted to phone first of all to thank you for what you've been doing regarding the
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Irving Kanner stuff. It is really wonderful that you're taking the stand and willing to take the hits.
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First of all, I don't think we should just give him a pass because he's a former Muslim. That's something that I really feel strongly about.
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The other thing, too, is that because of the work that we're doing here, we have, you know, we do get to hear
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Muslim testimonies. Are you there? Yes, I'm here. Okay. And the one
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I heard recently was a fellow who came from a very ordinary background. He was born here.
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His parents were Pakistani. He came to Christ as an adult. He was about 20, 19 or 20, something like that.
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I can't remember exactly how old he was. And actually, he's being discipled by Tony Costa.
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But he was a nominal Muslim. And, you know, the students that were with us and heard it were very impressed just because of the general struggles that he was going through.
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But he never claimed to be a jihadi. And his parents only became good Muslims after he became a
55:22
Christian. That's interesting. Yeah, and so it was, but I mean, he just was a very ordinary guy who was in some ways probably more
55:32
Canadian than he was Pakistani. I'm sure that, you know, he wouldn't, you know, that he would keep the dietary laws.
55:41
But that was his testimony. And as you said earlier, you know, it doesn't diminish the grace of God in his life.
55:48
No, not at all. The other thing, too, is I think I sent you an email regarding, from Hussain, who actually spoke with you before regarding another issue.
55:59
And, you know, some of these guys, some of these Muslims think that because he's a former Muslim, he should get a pass, and he can't.
56:06
No. On this. But... No, and I think, and as the word gets out more and more, and it is, the lid is off of this.
56:17
Jason mentioned that he got a call from another secular paper just today. And it's not only across the
56:25
Christian blogosphere, but the folks at Liberty need to realize that it's not gonna be long before 2020 and NBC and CBS are camped on their front doorstep.
56:35
And that's, it's too late to do something about them. Then you're being forced by the world to do what you should have done from the very beginning.
56:43
Well, I'll tell you one thing, too, is that because I've been involved in this work for so long, it's not easy work, and you don't see a lot of results.
56:53
And you get, I mean, I was 21 once, and very impressionable on you that, you know, you get sort of jacked up for about all these
57:01
Muslims that are going to beat down the doors to hear the Gospel, but it doesn't happen.
57:07
And I just wonder what happens to young people who are at that age and in college are impressionable. And they find out it's a tough time.
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And I mean, you know, I mean, of course, it's determined by his Armenian theology, isn't it?
57:23
Unfortunately, that does play into it. But I do, I do, I do have concern for the
57:28
Liberty students. But you know what? Most of the Liberty grads, we've had a number of Liberty grads who've come in, many of whom have talked about problems they had and concerns they had about Erdogan -Kanner.
57:38
But most of them have recognized they've got really good professors there, aside from Erdogan -Kanner.
57:44
And they've shown an ability to have discernment. And I think they're going to be fine.
57:50
I'm certain that there are some who are there only because of him, who will never, ever forgive someone like myself, even if they agree that eventually he did something wrong.
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But that's just the nature of things. And God's going to hold on to his people, and he's going to sustain his people.
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Hey, thanks, Stephen, for your call. Thanks for calling in today. All right, thank you, God bless. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you, thank you,
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God bless. All right, so there you go. We went through the whole thing. And once again, we hope that the
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Lord's going to bring a conclusion to all of this, one that is glorifying to himself and that promotes the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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That's the whole purpose we do it. Heading for Denver. Don't think
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I'm going to be—well, I might be able to do the program. We'll see. We'll find out. We'll let you know on the blog if we can do it via Skype or something like that.
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If not, be praying for the Robert Price debate a week from this Friday.