Same God 2

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just got hold of. That'll help get me through this section anyways. The insulin won't really kick in for about 20 minutes after that.
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I make no guarantees is the orthodoxy of anything I have to say. But anyway, now let's get back to it.
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We only have a certain amount of time. I do want to get to at least some questions. Hopefully I'll cover a lot of them. Surah 112 is about as close as you're going to get in the
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Qur 'an to a statement of a creed type, a creedal type statement.
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Since most of you have not read the Qur 'an, let me just mention, by the way, it's about 57 % the length of the New Testament. So it's not a long book.
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It was allegedly written between 610 and 632 AD. So it comes over half a millennium after the
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Bible and hence, after the time of Christ anyways.
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It makes reference to both the Old and New Testament and directly addresses you. We are called the al -al -kitab, the people of the book, or al -al -injil, the people of the gospel in the text of the
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Qur 'an. And we will be looking at some of the things the Qur 'an says to you and me here in the next few moments.
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By the way, if you ever choose to read the Qur 'an, which I would recommend that you do if you're going to be talking to Muslims.
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Obviously, if you go to Utah to do missions, you need to read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants before your price. If you go to Brooklyn, you need to know something about Jehovah's Witnesses, read some of their literature.
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If you could talk to Muslims, it is always very helpful to know something about what they believe and to have read some of their materials.
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Obviously, when someone approaches you and they want to talk to you and you go, have you ever read the Bible? And they've never read the
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Bible, their level of credibility of critique of your faith is much lower than it would be otherwise. Same thing in reverse.
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We can't expect them to give us much credit if we haven't taken the time to know what they believe. When I talk to a
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Muslim and I let them know that I've read the Qur 'an multiple times, that I've actually translated portions of the Qur 'an in Arabic, and that I have read
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Sahih Bukhari, almost finished the Sahih Muslim, the Muwatta of Malik, all the Hadith Qudsi, about at that point their jaws drop open because most of them have never done anything close to that.
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Most of their Imams have not done that much reading. And so they're just like, you're kidding me. And that opens tremendous doors because to them, they take that as a sign of respect.
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And it gives me at least some opportunity to say something. So if you ever get a Qur 'an, there are some bad translations of the
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Qur 'an. In fact, I would say the most common translations are generally not the best. It's just because the
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Saudi Arabian government prints them by the millions. But the most common one out there is by Yusuf Ali, not the best one to get.
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Probably the easiest one, the two that you can get that are easiest to get hold of, they're very conservative, are the
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Sahih translation and the Hilal Khan translation.
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You can get others like Piktal and others that are available in most of your bookstores. Just be aware that translations vary in their quality.
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Now, there's only 114 surahs. If you buy one, whatever you do, do not start with Surah 1, then read
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Surah 2, then read Surah 3 because you're going to have no idea what in the world is going on. Because the
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Qur 'an is ordered, the surahs are put in the order of their length. So Surah 1,
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Surah Al -Fatiha is an opening prayer. Then Surah 2, Surah Al -Baqarah is the longest surah.
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Then Surah 3 is a little bit shorter. Surah 4 is a little bit shorter. So it gets shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter as it goes through.
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But the problem was they weren't written in that order. So if you read it that way, you're bouncing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth from different periods in Muhammad's life.
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And even if you know what the background is, you're not going to be able to follow any type of context at all. So if you're going to read it, pick up my book and write toward the front of the book somewhere.
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Well, actually, maybe not toward the front of the book. I only wrote it. I don't know where anything is in it. Yeah, there it is.
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Oh, great. They split into two pages. Lovely. Here on two pages is a chart.
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It is also on my website. If you look up the word chronological on my blog, this will come up. But this gives you the best guess we have of the chronological order of the 114 surahs.
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So at least if you read it following that, you're sort of following Muhammad's life a little bit, and it makes it a little bit easier to understand what's going on in the
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Quran itself at that particular point in time. So Surah 112 is right at the end of the
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Quran, and you're seeing all of it. This is all of Surah 112. Say he is Allah, the one and only,
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Allah, the eternal absolute. Lam yalid wa lam yulid. He begetteth not, nor is he begotten, and there is none like unto him.
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Most Muslims who engage in apologetics, which they call dawah, can quote this in Arabic.
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I'm pretty close to being able to quote it in Arabic myself, but I frequently stumble on it, so I won't bother this morning. But this is really as close as you'll get to a creedal statement.
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And as you're looking at it, you'll notice that we can agree with a lot of what it says.
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God is the one and only. God is the eternal absolute. There is none like unto him. I mean, how many times is that said in Isaiah and Jeremiah and books like that in the
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Bible? It's said very frequently. But you'll notice the third ayah. By the way, the chapters of the
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Quran are called surahs. That's why this is Surah 112, and the verses are called ayah or ayat.
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Ayat is a plural. Look at the third ayah. He begetteth not, nor is he begotten.
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Now, Arabic is a Semitic language, hence it has the same roots as Hebrew. One of the reasons
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I've survived with the minimal amount of Arabic training that I've actually received is because I've taught Hebrew in the past.
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And so my knowledge of Arabic is actually Arabic propped up by Hebrew, since a lot of the grammar and the roots are very similar.
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And when we have in Isaiah chapter 9, for example, a child will be born to us.
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The root there is yalad. A yalad will be yaladed to us. And here you have the same thing in surah 3.
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He begetteth not, nor is he begotten. I took one of my classes to the mosque at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, and we met with the imam after the prayers.
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And I asked him, I said, would you think that the third ayah of surah Ali -Khlas,
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Ali -Khlas, by the way, means purity or sincerity. The third ayah is in reference to the
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Christian belief that Jesus is the son of God. And he said, oh, there's no question about that. That's what it's referring to.
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What's important about this is if this is about as close as you can get to a creedal statement defining Islam, then one quarter of this creedal statement is a denial of what you and I believe.
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Islam comes after us. It interacts with us and specifically identifies our belief in three or the idea that God has a son as a heinous sin.
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And so you need to understand that because it's one of the great barriers that we have in presenting the gospel.
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For example, I mentioned to you earlier the sin of shirk. Shirk is association of anyone or anything with Allah.
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So in surah 31, 13, oh my son, do not associate anything with Allah. Indeed, association with him is great injustice.
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The underlying text there is shirk. In surah 6, 1, all praise is due to Allah who created the heavens and the earth and made the darkness and the light.
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Then those who disbelieve, the khafirs, which is frequently what we're referred to, equate others with their
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Lord, the sin of shirk. And so these are warned against. And one of the great barriers that you and I have in presenting the gospel to Muslims is that they believe that we are, in essence, because of our worship of Jesus Christ, calling them to commit the one sin that if they commit that sin, they can never be forgiven.
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In fact, Muhammad asked Allah for the right to intercede for his parents.
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His parents died before he became a prophet in his youth.
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And so they died as mushrikim, committers of shirk, their idolaters. And so he asked
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Allah if he could pray for his parents. And Allah said, no, you cannot. You cannot pray for someone who dies on the sin of shirk.
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One exception was granted to him in the entirety of his lifetime. His uncle
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Abu Talib protected him while he was a minority prophet in Mecca from 610 to 622.
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He was preaching in Mecca, had a small number of followers, was a really unpopular guy because his family, the
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Quraysh tribe, had control of the Kaaba. And a lot of their money came from the idol trade.
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And so you come along preaching there's only one god. The idols are not true gods. You're not exactly a popular guy.
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And so the story is that there was once when he was bowing in prayer and prostration to Allah, and some of his enemies came along and dropped a she -camel uterus on his back and mocked him.
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And he just stayed in that position until his daughter Fatima came along and removed it from his back. And of course, the story goes on to say that their bodies were all thrown into a well when they died at the
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Battle of Badr. So they all died for what they did. But anyway, there was mistreatment between 610 and 622.
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Then in 622, you have the Hijra where Muhammad leaves Mecca, goes to Medina. And that's where the
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Islamic calendar actually starts is in the Hijra of 622. Anyway, during that first period of time,
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Abu Talib, his uncle, protects him. But he does not become a Muslim. He does not say the Shahada. And on his deathbed,
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Muhammad comes to him and he says, say la ilaha illallah. You know that this is true.
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And at rest of the family is saying, don't you dare abandon the ancestral gods, etc, etc. Well, he dies as a mushrik.
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He does not make profession of faith. But Allah does grant Muhammad the right to intercede for Abu Talib.
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Only exception. The result of Muhammad's intercession for Abu Talib is that Abu Talib has the best spot in hell.
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The best spot in hell. And you're all sitting here going, so what is the best spot in hell?
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Describe the garden spot of hell for us. Well, according to Muhammad's description, he is wearing a pair of sandals that are so hot his brains boil.
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That's the best place in hell. Other versions of that story is he's standing in fire only up to his ankles.
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But it's so hot that his brains boil. And that's the best place. So, all the rest of us, a whole lot worse than that.
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So, that's how bad shirk is. Just to give you an illustration from the life of Abu Talib.
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Surahs 4, 5, and 6. Well, really, surahs 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
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The longest and probably the most relevant to us as Christians, most lengthy conversations about us are found in these particular surahs, especially surahs 4 and 5.
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Surah 4, ayahs 47 and 48. Oh, you who were given the scripture, that is the Al -Kitab, the people of the book, believe in what we have sent down to Muhammad, confirming that which is with you, before we obliterate faces and turn them towards their backs or curse them as we curse the
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Sabbath breakers. And ever is the decree of Allah accomplished. Indeed, Allah does not forgive association with him, but he forgives what is less than that for whom he wills.
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And he who associates others with Allah has certainly fabricated tremendous sin. So, there is the specific statement from the
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Quran, shirk will not be forgiven. Allah does not forgive association with him.
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So, if a Muslim believes that you and I are mushriks, that we are mushrikim, then there is no hope for us, unless we become
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Muslims. If we die as Christians, there is absolutely no hope for us.
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That is what most Muslims believe, but not all. Hamza Yusuf, for example, one of the best known
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Muslim leaders in the United States, does not believe the Christians are mushrikim. His argumentation is that because Muslim men are allowed to marry
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Christian women, and a mushrik is najas, he or she is despicable to God, that would never be allowed to happen.
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So, Christians can't be mushrikim. But the vast majority of Muslims point out, yeah, but the
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Quran specifically teaches that to say three is to engage in shirk, and it is kufr, it is unbelief.
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So, the majority of Muslims do believe that we are committing the sin of shirk, and that, therefore, you are inviting them to commit the sin of shirk when you call them to faith in Jesus Christ.
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Surah 4, verses 171 -172 says, O people of the scripture, again, people of the book, do not commit excess, ta 'alu, in your religion, or say about Allah except the truth.
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So, you need to understand, the Quran says to us that we have committed excess. We have been given the truth.
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The Torah contains light and guidance. The Gospel contains light and guidance.
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It was natsal. It was sent down by Allah. It's divine revelation. But we have committed excess in our deen, in our religion, and we are saying about Allah things other than the truth.
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We've gone beyond what we needed to say. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah.
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He was a razul of Allah. And His word which He directed to Mary, and a soul created a command from Him.
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So, believe in Allah and His messengers. So, Muslims do believe that Jesus was virgin born.
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They believe that Allah simply said, be, and He was. In fact,
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Muslims believe that Jesus performed more miracles than you and I believe He did. Because the
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Quran actually narrates miracles that Jesus did not perform in the canonical Gospels.
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But that He did perform in the later Gnostic Gospels. And so, for example, the
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Quran repeats the story of Jesus forming a little clay birds and then breathing on them and they become living birds and fly away.
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Now, that comes from the infancy Gospel of Thomas, a Gnostic Gospel that is not one of the canonical
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Gospels and does not go to the actual time frame of Jesus' life. But the Quran accepts that as a reality.
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So, they do believe, the vast majority of Muslims believe Jesus is sinless, that He was a prophet, that He committed miracles, and all these things.
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But He was not the Son of God. And He was only the Jewish Messiah. He was not a
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Messiah for anyone outside of the Jewish people themselves. Okay? So, there you have 4 .171.
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It continues on, and do not say 3. Now, one of the ways you can sort of test a translation, if you're looking at a translation of the
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Quran, maybe you're in a bookstore or something like that, write this number down, 4 .171 .172, and then look at it.
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And if it says, do not say Trinity, probably not a good translation. Now, I think it's what the
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Quran is talking about. It's trying to address the Trinity. But the actual Arabic word is 3.
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The specific word for 3 is not found.
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A specific word for Trinity is not found in the Quran. The word for 3 is. Do not say 3.
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Desist, it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God. Now, please note something. Any time the
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Quran says something like 3, within the next sentence, it will then say,
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Allah is but one God. So, if every time it says 3, the next sentence is, there's only one
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God, what is the author thinking the 3 is? Three gods.
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Very clearly. Do not say 3. Desist, it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one
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God. Exalted is He above having a son. Now, most
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Muslims believe that when we talk about Jesus the son of God, we are actually saying that God got married and had a kid. Because that's what, clearly, the
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Quran thinks it was. And that's what the relationship of God and His sons in the pagan religions were.
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To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth, and sufficient is the law as disposer of affairs. Never would the
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Messiah disdain to be a servant of Allah, nor would the angels near to Him. And whoever disdains
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His worship and is arrogant, He will gather them to Himself altogether. So, here you're seeing the
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Quran arguing against what its author thinks is the doctrine of the Trinity. And the doctrine of the
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Trinity means that the Messiah would never have been a servant of Allah. Well, of course, we believe that the Messiah was a servant of Allah.
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He's the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. It's not even an issue. Obviously, to me, one of the greatest evidences that the
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Quran is not the word of God is the author had no earthly idea what he was talking about when he criticized the doctrine of the
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Trinity. And since Muslims believe that the Quran is, the Quran are the very words of Allah.
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One of the really hard things to understand, and I'm going into way too much depth here, but let me just mention this to you in passing.
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One of the things you've got to understand is, from the Islamic perspective, Muhammad has nothing to do with the Quran. What Muhammad understood has nothing to do with the
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Quran. The Quran is as eternal as Allah. It's uncreated.
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It's His very words. And therefore, what Muhammad understood, didn't understand, grew an understanding of irrelevant.
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It's simply dictated by the angel Jibril to Muhammad, and he repeats it, and that's it. His understanding has no place anywhere in the
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Quran. And so, as a result, it's just unquestionable in their mind.
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You can't read it in chronological order and go, wow, it looks like Muhammad was developing this here. No, no, no, no, no. Well, if that's the case,
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I have a simple question to ask of a Muslim. Did Allah know what the Trinity was in 632
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AD? Even if the Trinity is false, Allah knew what it was. He could have criticized it devastatingly, but he doesn't.
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He doesn't understand it, doesn't criticize it. So, very clearly, the Quran cannot be the word of God, because its author clearly does not understand what it is he is addressing, because he misrepresents it.
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And we'll see that even more so in just a moment here in Surah 5.
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Surah 5, Ayahs 72 to 77 say, they have certainly disbelieved. They are coffers who say,
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Allah is the Messiah, the Son of Mary. Now, that's not how we talk, by the way.
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We don't say God is Christ. We talk about the deity of Christ.
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But when you say Allah is Christ, you're sort of saying that all of God is the Messiah. No. The Father didn't become incarnate.
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The Spirit didn't become incarnate. It was the Son who became incarnate. Allah is the Messiah, the
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Son of Mary, while the Messiah has said, O children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Now, before you start going to your concordance, try to find out where Jesus said that.
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The name Jesus appears 25 times in the Quran. Jesus is quoted a number of times in the
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Quran. Ironically, only once in the Quran is Jesus ever quoted in a physical location.
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Other than that, he's just a disembodied voice that just sort of floats around and says he's not
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God and says Muhammad's a prophet, basically. The one place that he speaks from an identifiable location is from his cradle.
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Another instance where you have a story that developed amongst
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Christians long after the Gospels is accepted by the Quran as if it was actually historical. This is from the
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Arabic Infancy Gospel, which really wasn't even written until the 5th century. So, this is a story that was only about 100, 200 years old at the time that the
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Quran picks it up and incorporates it uncritically. So, here you have
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Jesus saying, O children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Indeed, he who associates others with Allah, Shirk, Allah has forbidden him paradise and his refuge is the fire.
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And there are not for the wrongdoers any helpers. They have certainly disbelieved who say Allah is the third of three and there is no
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God except one God. So, notice again, there is the word three and what's the very next sentence? Only one
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God. Only one God. Very clearly, the author thinks that we believe that we are polytheists.
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We believe in multiple gods. And the vast majority of Muslims that I've talked to also believe that. Now, obviously, I talk to some of the best trained
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Muslims in the world who know other than that. But I also have done street ministry in London where we'll go out and we'll go to Leicester Square.
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Beautiful, beautiful place. Anybody ever been to Leicester Square? Just amazing. An amazing place. And somebody will get up and start street preaching.
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The Muslims will flock to us and they send them over to me and we'll have these long conversations. And the vast majority of those
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Muslims believe that we are polytheists. That we believe in three separate gods. But it is said here to be an act of disbelief to say
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Allah is the third of three. Well, does the Quran ever say who the three are? Keep that in mind.
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Surah 5 continues on saying, if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment.
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So will they not repent to Allah and seek his forgiveness? And Allah is forgiving and merciful. The Messiah, son of Mary, was not but a messenger.
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Other messengers have passed on before him. And his mother was a supporter of truth. They both used to eat food.
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Look how we make clear to them the signs, then look how they are deluded. Now, did you catch something? Why did
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Mary end up in there? Well, Mary was, Mary is a supporter of truth. And in fact,
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Mary is the only woman name by name in the Quran. She has an entire chapter named after her. Surah 19,
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Surah Tamarim. She's the only woman named in the Quran. But why say they both used to eat food?
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It should sound familiar. This is the figpidi argument, which we heard earlier and saw briefly once I got the video fixed.
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This is where the guy from the other country got the argument. They both used to eat food.
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If you eat food, you're not a god. But it mentions Mary. Now, I recognize
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Roman Catholicism has exalted Mary a long ways. But even Rome will say, well, she's not God. Keep that in mind, because I think it's important.
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We'll see in a moment. And notice it says that we are deluded. I mean, it's amazing how many times I hear people saying, well, you shouldn't, you shouldn't preach anything that would offend the
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Muslims. Well, have you read the Quran recently? You know, I mean, deluded, going to hell? Okay.
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Say, do you worship besides Allah, that which holds for you no power of harm or benefit, while it is Allah who is the hearing and knowing?
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Say, O people, the scripture, again, that's us, do not exceed limits in your religion, do not commit excess beyond the truth and do not follow the inclinations of a people who had gone astray before and misled many and have strayed from the soundness of the way.
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The opening prayer of the Quran is repeated so often because it's a part of the regular prayers that my
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Arabic tutor could quote it, even though he's always raised as a Christian. And at the end of Surah Al -Fatiha, it says, it's a prayer to God to be led in the path of those who've earned your grace, not those who have earned your anger or those who have gone astray.
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And when Muhammad was asked in the Hadith, who has earned Allah's anger and who has gone astray?
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His consistent answer was, those who've earned God's anger are the Jews. Those who've earned, who have gone astray from God are the
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Christians. So every Muslim, every day, multiple times prays, don't let me be a
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Jew or a Christian. Sort of another barrier of things. Notice here, inclinations of people who had gone astray before and misled many and have strayed from the soundness of the way.
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That's describing us. We have committed excess by exalting Jesus.
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And that is clearly the perspective of the Quran. Now, notice what the
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Quran says in a number of different places. Then we're going to tie this together and I'm going to have to speed up even more. Had Allah wished to take himself a son, he could have chosen whom he pleased out of those whom he created.
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But God be to him, glory be to him, he is above such things. He is Allah, the one, the irresistible. Had Allah wished to take to himself a son?
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What's the relationship here in the mind of the author of the Quran? Well, Surah 6, verse 101 says,
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To him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth. How can he have a son when he hath no consort?
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I asked my Arabic tutor, consort, we looked at the term. He says, well, in modern
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Arabic, that's sort of the woman on the side. But obviously the idea is of some type of a mate, a wife.
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So we go back to Surah 5 and notice what it says in Surah 5, verse 116. And beware of the day, this is the day of judgment, when
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Allah will say, O Jesus, Son of Mary, did you say to the people, Take me and my mother as deities besides Allah?
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He will say, Exalted are you. It was not for me to say that to which I have no right. If I had said it, you would have known it.
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You know what is within myself, and I do not know what is within yourself. Indeed, it is you who is the knower of the unseen.
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This is the only place in the Quran where the three are identified.
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Did you say to the people, Take me, so did you say to people, Take me, there's one, and my mother, two, as deities besides Allah, three.
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There's your three. Allah, Mary's Mary, and they have a kid named
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Jesus. Now that ain't the trinity.
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And God knew that in the 7th century. But Muhammad, how would he know?
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I mean, he's raised in Mecca. There's almost no Christian representation there at all. And he's part of the
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Quraish tribe. And they're in charge of the Kaaba. He may have got, he went on on caravan up into Syria.
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He may have looked into a small Christian church in a village in Syria. What would he have seen around the year 600, 590, in a small church in Syria?
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He would have seen statuary, maybe of God as creator.
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Would have seen crucifixes, Jesus on a cross. He might have seen a dove, but would that have struck him as a sign of deity?
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No. But what else would he have seen? He would have seen a woman. A woman with a baby in her arms.
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So you've got God the creator, you've got a woman with a baby, and then you got Jesus on the cross. Must be what the trinity is.
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Ends up in the Quran. Now, when
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Jesus is forced to say, if I had said it, you would have known it. You know what is within myself, and I do not know what is within yourself.
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That's offensive to me. It's offensive to me. That's not what my
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Jesus said. And I wish at some point in his life, someone had explained to Muhammad, at least earlier in his life, what
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Jesus did say in Matthew 11, 27. All things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, nor does anyone know the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son wills to reveal him.
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Now, that goes back to the first century, not to the sixth century, like Muhammad's views do.
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We need to keep that in mind. Now, very quickly, the three barriers you have to get over in talking to Muslims, we've already seen the first one is shirk.
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The second one we're not going to have time to really get into, but I do spend a lot of time discussing in the book, which we have none of them for you to purchase, is you can get them from Alpha and Omega.
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We actually, Amazon isn't even shipping yet. We actually have them, so Amazon isn't shipping yet. The second one is the fact they believe that our scriptures are corrupted, and the third is this denial of the crucifixion.
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Surah 4, 157. Surah 4, 157. And for they're saying, indeed, we have killed the
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Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah. They did not kill him, nor they crucify him, but it was made to appear to them.
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And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption, and they did not kill him for certain.
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The next ayah says, rather, Allah raised him up, Rafa' who? To himself, and ever is
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Allah exalted in might and wise. So there is the one ayah in all of the
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Quran that denies the crucifixion. If that wasn't in the Quran, there are other references, Surah 3 to 5,
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Surah 1933, that would naturally refer to the death of Jesus. But because of these 40
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Arabic words, anyone seen the video that we co -produced with Ivy?
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It's a spoken word video called 40 Arabic Words. We actually, it's not rap, but it's called spoken word, which is sort of similar to, but a little bit different from.
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We actually produced this. I co -wrote the words called 40
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Arabic Words, where we talk about this section and compare it with Galatians Chapter 2. And maybe we can play that later on or something, and you'll find it rather interesting.
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We've actually done a few music videos like that. Anyway, for the vast majority of Muslims in the world, outside of westernized
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Muslims, this is what they believe this text is saying. They did not kill him.
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This is talking about the Jews, by the way. They did not kill him, or they crucify him, but it was made to appear to him.
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They understand that to mean that someone else was made to look like Jesus, and someone else then was put on the cross.
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Now who would be the most logical culprit? Judas. So most
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Muslims in the world think that Judas was the one who was put on the cross. That Jesus was taken up by Allah to heaven, and Judas was crucified, which was a proper punishment for his betrayal of Jesus.
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I had a Muslim send me a big long article once proving beyond a shadow of a doubt with bold underlined words in blue and red, which proves things, by the way.
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If you ever really want to prove things, you bold words and underline them and put them in blue and red, and that just means you've got the truth.
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There's just no question about it. At least on the internet, that's how it works. But proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Simon the
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Cyrene was the one who was crucified, but Jesus was not. I had a friend who went on a missions trip to Uganda and had people coming out of huts in the jungles of Uganda going,
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I just understand why you Christians believe that Allah would allow one of his greatest messengers and most beloved prophets to die in such an ignoble way.
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That's why you have to emphasize, have to emphasize, the voluntary nature of the sacrifice of Christ when talking to Muslims.
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You just have to do it. Just have to do it. Now, I know, as I said, this is primarily amongst non -westernized
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Muslims. Here in the United States, if Muslims have been here for a little while, frequently they'll go, Allaho alam.
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Allaho alam in Arabic means God knows. The majority believe it was called the substitution theory that someone was substituted for Jesus.
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But here in the United States and in western countries, they're not so quick to assert that. Why? Well, think about it for just a second.
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If Allah substituted somebody for Jesus, then in reality,
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Allah started Christianity by mistake. I mean, he did such a good job that even
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Jesus' followers went out and started proclaiming the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and started Christianity.
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So Christianity then results in all this shirk. And so Allah did such a great job that he started
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Christianity by mistake. And so they'll go, Allaho alam, God knows, rather than actually asserting the concept of substitution.
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Now, Yusuf Ali, in his commentary on the Qur 'an, says, The Orthodox Christian churches make it a cardinal point of their doctrine that his life was taken on the cross, that he died and was buried.
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On the third day, he rose into body with his wounds intact and walked about and conversed and ate with his disciples and was afterwards taken up bodily to heaven.
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This is necessary for the theological doctrine of blood sacrifice and vicarious atonement for sins, which is rejected by Islam.
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You need to understand that the Muslims reject the concept of the necessity of sacrifice as forgiveness of sins.
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Allah can simply say, it's forgiven. That's it. There is no need for vicarious atonement.
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The Qur 'anic teaching is that Christ was not crucified nor killed by the Jews. I love this phraseology. Notwithstanding certain apparent circumstances which produce that illusion in the minds of some of his enemies.
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Yeah, and all of his friends too. I just recently debated, last
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September in London, a Muslim on the subject of Surah 4 and the crucifixion of Jesus.
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It's available on YouTube if you want to take a look at that. Now, let me narrate to you one hadith and then we'll close.
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First of all, just for the ladies in the room, I wanted to show you this hadith. I was shown the hellfire and that the majority of its dwellers are women.
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Just thought I would throw that in there for the fun of it. Always wakes the ladies up. Would any of you ladies like to know why
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I said that? Because I can tell you. And given that I have spent many hours of my life over the past few years learning the hadith,
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I just like telling people about it because otherwise I really wasted all that time. Actually, the reason that he said this was because the women asked him, messenger of Allah, why?
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And he says, well, is it not the case that your testimony is worth only half that of a man in the law court?
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And is it not the case that during your monthly period you cannot pray? Therefore, you have deficiencies that then result in the majority of you being in hellfire.
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And of course, if I were a Muslim woman, I wouldn't last very long. But if I were a Muslim woman, my immediate response would be, but those are your rules.
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I didn't make those rules up. But of course, from their perspective, yes, actually God did. So that's the reason for it.
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Let me tell you a story. Here's just the beginning of it on the screen, but I'll tell it to you and then show you one thing and then we're done and take just a few minutes worth of questions.
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Muhammad told the story. And by the way, I told this story as an example for years before I did a debate with the imam of the largest mosque in New York.
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And we did a radio show before we did the debate. And he told this story before I did. So I'm not cherry picking this story.
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This is one that Muslims themselves tell as an example. He told us an example of the mercifulness of Allah.
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There was a Jewish man who killed 99 people. And he went to a priest and asked, will
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Allah accept my repentance? And the priest said, no, he will not. And so he killed the priest. And now he's murdered 100 people.
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And so he goes to a scholar. And I don't know if the scholar said, go to such and such a city.
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And the people there are very righteous, and they will instruct you as to how to make your repentance so it's acceptable to Allah.
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As he's going to the city, the time of his death comes. Because remember, the date moment of your death is basically stamped on your forehead the day that you are born.
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So he falls over dead and is lying there.
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And when you die, an angel from the hellfire comes, and an angel from paradise comes to argue over your soul. Now you would think in this situation, the angel from the hellfire has got a slam dunk.
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He's killed 100 people. He hasn't repented. He's never said the shahada. He's going to hellfire.
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But the angel from paradise was probably trained at a better legal college, I guess. And he says, but he was going to find out about repentance.
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It sounds like an attorney. And so they end up having to take the case to any attorneys here. I'm not sure. No offense, but you're easy to play with.
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But anyway, which is why my ministry never gets big donations from attorneys,
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I guess. So Allah decrees that if the man is one cubit closer to the city he was going to than the city he came from, that he will go to paradise.
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And then Allah makes the earth to shrink between the man and that city. So when it's measured, he's one cubit closer, and the mass murderer went to paradise.
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Now you think about that, and you go, well, okay.
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If that's in the hadith, then a Muslim who's doing the five daily prayers, and said the shahada, and giving zakat, and doing the fasting during the month of Ramadan, and has gone on hajj, and they got their shoe in, right?
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There is an arbitrariness with Allah that I think is ironically reflected in the life of Muhammad himself.
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And aside from the majority of the dwellers of hellfire are women, here is a video.
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There's no sound, so don't worry about it. June 30th, 2007, Glasgow airport.
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There is a Jeep Cherokee on fire in that door. Two men drove that vehicle into the door.
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These are the gates inside. You can see people start running as they are evacuating from the building.
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They had filled the vehicle with gas cans, and then rigged them to explode.
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Their idea was they're going to press this button, and this massive wall of burning gas would be spewed all over those people, and they would all die.
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Only two people died in the attack, and they were the two people in the vehicle. And they actually died rather slowly from their burns over the next month or so.
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Horrible way to go. Now, one of the reasons that that catches my attention particularly is that I have walked through that door many times.
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I minister in a church, the Reformed Baptist Church of Annie's Land, which is one of the suburbs of Glasgow. Pastor Jim Handyside lives in that area.
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He's picked me up standing outside of that very spot. So when you see places that you've been, you have friends in that area, it sort of strikes you.
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And I was there just a couple of years ago again. It's all fixed obviously now, but it certainly strikes you.
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But the other thing to think about is the fact that when we think about the two men in that vehicle, what motivated them?
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What motivated them? We tend to think they may have been down and outers. We know that Saudi Arabia and other places have paid martyrs to kill themselves on the straight streets of Israel and that kind of thing.
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So maybe they were down and outers trying to get some money for their families or something like that. Take questions later.
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But the reality is that these two men were
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National Health Service physicians. They were doctors, both of them, who planned this, drove that vehicle into that door, and then pressed a button probably screaming
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Allahu Akbar. Why? Because there is only one thing offered in the
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Quran, one way that you can know that you will be accepted by a law and enter into paradise, and that is if you die in the state of jihad.
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Even Muhammad's companions did not have absolute certainty of their relationship to Allah.
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So you have in Islam a holy God, you have a law, you have sin, you have hellfire, and the one thing they need, they have been denied, and that is a mediator.
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The very thing we have in Christianity, and the author of the Quran did not understand.
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By denying who Jesus is, the
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Muslim is left with a holy God, with punishment of sin, and yet it's all left upon the individual as to whether they are going to be right with Allah.
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That is the great tragedy, and that of course is the great message that we have for the
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Muslims, is that there is a mediator, and there is a way of peace with him. Now we've gone past our time.
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Time for just a couple of questions, and then we need to take our our lunch break.