More Introduction to Islam's Denial of Christian Truth

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More from my Baldwin presentation on Islam, March 25, 2008, covering material from Surah 5 and the Islamic Jesus.

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All who seek
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His good pleasure, to ways of peace and safety, and lead them out of darkness by His will, unto the light, and guide them to a path that is straight, in blasphemy, blasphemy indeed, are those that say that Allah is
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Christ, the Son of Mary. Say, who then hath the least power against Allah, if His will were to destroy
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Christ, the Son of Mary, His Mother, and all everyone that is on the earth? For to Allah belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between.
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He createth what He pleases, for Allah hath power over all things. Now, this is supposed to be an argument from the
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Islamic perspective, from the perspective of the Quran. Why? Why would this be an argument against the deity of Christ?
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Well, because it's saying Allah has the power to destroy
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Christ, and God can't be destroyed, so if Christ could be destroyed, He couldn't have been God. The idea of incarnation is by definition dismissed within Islam.
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The idea, Allah simply cannot enter into His own creation. Now, they're not going to put it that way, but from their perspective, the idea that He would ever desire to do so, or would ever humble
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Himself to do so, not impossible. Just can't be done. And so, since Allah could destroy
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Christ, then He could not have possibly been God. But you notice who else is mentioned? Allah could also destroy
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Mary, His mother. Now, why would the Quran say that? Keep that in mind.
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Keep that in the back of your mind. Surah 572. They do blaspheme who say
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Allah is Christ's son of Mary, but said, Christ, O children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. I hope you need to understand something.
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Muslims believe Jesus was a Muslim. Muslims believe the apostles were
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Muslims. That they dressed as Muslims, they prayed the five prayers. David was a Muslim, Abraham was a
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Muslim. They were all Muslims. Okay? So, in their mindset, you were born a
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Muslim. Christianity caused you to apostatize in true faith. But everyone is born a
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Muslim. Some of you are looking at me like I'm making this up. I'm not making this up. Okay? So, Jesus was a
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Muslim. And so, that sounds like a Muslim, O children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord, doesn't it?
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That sounds like what a Muslim would say. That's why I said to you, the Jesus of the Quran is an argument for the prophet of Muhammad.
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He's not a person. No one could ever love the Jesus of the Quran. You put everything together in the
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Quran about Jesus, and it's a small amount. And there's no way you could find that person attractive. He's nothing more than a person who keeps repeating the same arguments for Muhammad.
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That's why I thought it was amazing the number of years ago I interviewed a man who was born on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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He never saw a Christian missionary, but before he was ever born, a Christian missionary had come through and left a
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New Testament with his family. His father made a big mistake.
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He forbade him from reading the New Testament. You know what happens when you forbid your kids from doing something? And so he read the
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New Testament, and just by the reading of the Word of God and the Spirit of God, he was converted to Christ.
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His story is amazing. I mean, imprisoned, night escapes, his family trying to find him in London to kill him to honor the family.
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Just an incredible story. But the point is, as I interviewed him, he spoke about the fact that if you have been raised with only what the
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Quran says about Jesus, and you read any one of the Gospels, you are going to be blown away.
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Because the Jesus of the New Testament is not a Muslim. And he says all sorts of things that one who is just a
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Rasul, just an apostle, would never say. And it's an amazing thing.
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So, in other words, never refrain from quoting the real
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Jesus from the New Testament, because you cannot assume they never heard this. Let the Word of God have its impact.
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It's a good thing to do. So, whoever joins other gods with Allah, Allah will forbid him the garden,
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Jannah, that's paradise, that's heaven in our language, and the fire will be his abode.
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There will, for the wrongdoers, be no one to help. They do blaspheme, who say, Allah is one of three in a trinity, for there is no god except one,
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Allah. Remember, this is the Quran. This is their holy book. And in it, they identify our most basic, central, defining doctrines as blasphemy that will send us to the fire, that will keep us out of Jannah, out of the gardens of paradise.
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If they desist not from their word of blasphemy, verily, a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them.
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Why turn they not to Allah and seek his forgiveness? For Allah is oft -forgiving, most merciful. Christ, the son of Mary, was no more than an apostle.
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Many were the apostles that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They both had to eat their daily food.
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See how Allah does make his ayat, his signs, clear to them, yet see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth.
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Now this is considered to be an argument too. How? Notice this. His mother was a woman of truth.
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They had both to eat their daily food before this point. And so Allah, even if Christianity is untrue, would certainly have known what
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Christians believed and could have at least represented it accurately. But think for me with just a moment, just a moment.
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What if you were a young Muhammad and you're in a caravan, you're trading.
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You come into a town that has a Christian church. Now these would have been very small towns.
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This would have been a very small church to us almost a hut. But let's say you just sort of looked inside.
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This is 7th century. What would you have seen in a Christian church in the 7th century in somewhere in what is modern day
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Saudi Arabia or up into Syria and places like that? You would have seen statues.
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You would have seen statues representing God. You would have seen statues representing
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Jesus who is in crucifix. What would you have not seen in a human form in a statue in those days?
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The Holy Spirit. You might have seen a dove, but if you haven't read Matthew, a dove is not going to mean anything to you.
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That's not going to make any sense to you. But who else are you going to see prominently displayed? Mary.
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So you're going to see God. You're going to see Jesus. You're going to see Mary. And lo and behold, we read in the
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Quran, did you say to worship me and my mother as gods and derogations of Allah?
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It seems to me that there's a really good reason to believe that Muhammad's understanding of our faith was that God married
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Mary and that he had a child named Jesus. Now, there's sort of a few folks who actually believe things like that.
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They're called Mormons, but they weren't around in Saudi Arabia in 632. So we can't go there.
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And there are some people who say there were some really weird groups that actually didn't deify
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Mary, but the chances that Muhammad had read to them were almost infinitesimal.
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And so is this what gave rise to this perspective? And I honestly seem to think that it is.
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Now, I have a whole lot more here, but I don't have time to get into it. I really just wanted to,
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I want to start you into a realization of the relationship that exists between Christianity and Islam.
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Our brothers and sisters languish in prisons, separated from their loved ones, their wives, their husbands, their children, because they will not say the
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Shahada, because they will say that Jesus Christ is more than a
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Rasool. What we didn't get into here is Surah 4, 157. I'll do that probably tomorrow evening.
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We'll do it tomorrow evening, because in Surah 4, 157, you have the one place in the
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Quran that denies the crucifixion of Christ. And so they deny the crucifixion, they deny the resurrection, they deny the concept of atonement, they do not believe that there needs to be atonement for the forgiveness of sins.
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And so we have brothers and sisters who, because they believe Jesus has eternally been God, as the
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New Testament so plainly teaches, and because they believe that he was
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God incarnate the one who took on human flesh, Philippians chapter 2, that early hymn of the church, that beautiful hymn, called the
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Karmic Christian, Philippians 2, 6 -11. They languish in prison.
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And yet they stand firm, many stand firm, and we need to pray for them. But this is why.
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And so we have brothers and sisters this evening who are standing firm for doctrines that, let's face it, most of us never spend much time thinking about any of this, though we should.
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And I would submit to you that our worship is often much more centered upon us than it should be because we don't think about these things.
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Because we don't think about what God has revealed in his own word as to his triune nature, who we are worshiping and why.