May 15, 2019 Show with Dr. James F. Gauss on “Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the Church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 15th day of May 2019.

And I am thrilled that I received a high recommendation to Tom, or should

I say from Tom Smith at Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Dale City, Virginia, to interview my guest today, who is a first -time guest.

His name is Dr. James F. Gauss, and he is an author and a conference speaker, and he is addressing the theme of his new book,

Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity, and we're also going to be promoting a conference on that theme and for three days it's going to be held at the

Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Dale City, Virginia, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

James F. Gauss. Well, thank you very much, Chris, and thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.

Oh, the pleasure is all mine, brother. And what we do on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when we have a first -time guest is we have them give us a summary of their salvation story, what kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and what providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you. Okay, I appreciate that opportunity.

Well, thanks to my maternal grandmother, I grew up in the Catholic Church, actually, as a youth, and I guess

I considered myself to be a devout Catholic at the time, and that continued when

I got married. My wife was also Catholic, and we were married in the Catholic Church, but then

I'll cut to the chase, and at age 28 or 29, right around there, we came back from Mass one

Sunday. My wife and I had never talked about this. We didn't know anything other than the

Catholic Church, but we looked at ourselves across the kitchen table and said, We can't go back there anymore.

Wow. Not going back to the Church, not going back to Catholicism. And at that point, we had never read the

Bible. We had not prayed about it. It was just the Holy Spirit working on our hearts at the same time.

Wow. The very next Sunday, we were in a Protestant church. In fact, a Mennonite church, which is about the complete opposite as you can get, that through that church, we were led to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and we were baptized as adults on our own professional faith, and it's been a wild ride ever since.

I mean, we're not in a Mennonite church, although they probably consider us members still, but we pretty much consider ourselves non -denominational

Christians that look for biblical teaching. Wow, praise God. And can you pinpoint, even though you really were unlearned, if that's a good phrase, at that time in your early stages of being drawn by God, but can you pinpoint anything that made your hearts troubled over the

Catholic Church that eventually led to your leaving? Yeah, there are a couple of things.

As an adult, we had just moved to a new community after getting out of graduate school, and I had a new job with a top university research position that was really comfortable.

It was a great job with a great future. We loved the community. It was a small farming community where we were living.

But at that time, there were a number of incidents. Right before I got out of graduate school, of course, was the assassination of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and, of course, prior to that,

Jack Kennedy, the president. And that troubled us a lot, just seeing what was happening in America and not knowing quite what to do about the issue.

And then when we got settled in my position, I had a position in agriculture, and I really loved what

I was doing, but I felt kind of disjointed, feeling like I should be doing something more with what

I had learned rather than serving the general population, in other words, reaching out to those less fortunate.

And so I was getting more concerned about that. And so then also right around that time was the

National Guard assassination at Kent State in Ohio. And I remember one of the priests in our church getting up and saying, you know, that it was good that those communist students got shot.

And I thought, what are you saying? Wow. I couldn't believe he was saying that type of thing, you know.

And, of course, since the Pope, the current Pope, is a communist, he would never approve of that.

It was really strange. And there was one other incident, too, that happened back then. I can't remember.

Oh, I know what it was. There was an elderly lady that lived right down from the Catholic church, maybe three or four doors down.

I came across, I introduced myself, and she was a very prominent or used to be a prominent woman in the community.

But somehow her wealthy husband died, and I don't know what happened to her fortune, but apparently disappeared somehow.

And so she was living in this big mansion with no heat, no water, nothing, no electricity.

And it was the middle of winter, and she was freezing. And without food and stuff, she was eating cat food.

And so I approached the head priest at the church and told her the situation, could the church do anything?

His first question to me was, well, is she Catholic? And I said, no, she's not. He said, well, we can't help her then.

I thought, what are you saying? And so anyway, I thought, so that was troubling to us at that time.

And how long ago was that? This would have been in the early or late 1960s, early about 1970 maybe.

Wow, that's surprising, because after Vatican II, there was obviously a lot more ecumenical relations.

And I'm assuming that these individuals saying these things were probably diehard, old -school

Catholics, because just so our listeners know, even though these are facts from your personal history, they're obviously sort of unusual things that have happened.

Because I know also, and believe me, I'm no ecumenist when it comes to the Roman Catholic Church, but I just don't want any of them complaining that I'm giving some kind of a slanted view.

And I know that there are Protestants and fundamentalist Baptists and so on, and I'm not saying all those folks would do this either, but who have said similar things, who have delighted in the death of the wicked and so on.

There's certainly a lot of great Catholics out there that are serving the Lord. We have a lot of Catholic friends still, but it was just troubling for us.

In fact, there were three priests in that church, and two of them were my age bracket, one I went on a short mission trip with.

Anyway, when we decided to leave the Catholic Church, we sat down and shared with each of them what our decision was and why.

And the one priest who claimed to be a progressive, whatever that meant back then, his response was,

God help you, if we're leaving this church, you're going to hell, you know. And we kind of laughed that off.

The other priest we shared it with, his response was, God bless you, if you can find Jesus more meaningful somewhere else, go.

And so it was completely opposite responses. Wow. Well, we praise the

Lord that you have come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and his true gospel, the gospel of the scriptures, the gospel of Jesus Christ, as opposed to the false gospel of the

Church of Rome and the Council of Trent. And so tell us now, how did my friend

Pastor Tom Smith of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Dale City, Virginia, learn of you and invite you to this conference where you'll be speaking starting on the 17th of May, that would be day after tomorrow,

Friday, May 17th, and going through the 20th, which is,

I'm sorry, the 19th, which is this coming Sunday. Right. Tell us about how he learned of you, how you got to know him, and how he came to invite you to do this conference.

Sure. Well, Tom Smith actually goes to the church that's pastored by Pastor Robert Gifford, and Robert and I actually grew up together in New Jersey, and I jokingly say that we played football together, only he played and I watched.

So we haven't seen each other actually since graduation day, so I'm kind of excited for us to actually renew our friendship and see each other.

But Robert told Tom about me, and so I guess he went on to contact you about what

I was doing and what the conference was about. Yeah, I apologize for the mix -up with identifying

Tom as the pastor, but I'm sure Tom isn't going to be too insulted by that. Sorry, I didn't know that.

Maybe Bob Gifford will, but in fact Pastor Gifford is in an ad that is voiced by me that airs every day in the show, an ad for First Love Radio, because they air his sermons on that radio network.

Okay, great. Well, how did you come to, starting off by being a former

Roman Catholic, turned Mennonite, turned Bible church, biblical, non -denominational

Christianity advocate, how did you begin to say to yourself, there needs to be another book on Islam, and how did you get the necessary training to write such a book?

That's a good question. I hope I can keep it a relatively brief answer. Well, since my wife and I, when we left that Catholic church, we were really hungry to seek the things of the

Lord. And we started really diving into the Bible and doing whatever we could to learn as much as we could.

And briefly that led us into volunteer service with a Christian organization down south that was working with poor black families.

And keeping in mind that this was, again, in the early 70s when there was still a lot of racial tension down south, and we experienced it firsthand and saw what it was doing to the black population.

And our heart went out to the people there, and so we tried to do whatever we could to make things better.

But anyway, from there, we just kept seeking the Lord, and I got more and more interested in the things of Scripture.

And I wrote actually a number of books. This is actually my 19th book that I've written, not on Islam, but on a number of different Christian topics.

But anyway, the first book on Islam that I published was in 2009 called

Islam and Christianity, A Revealing Contrast. And how that came about was when 9 -11 happened,

I was working at a company that just happened to have the radio on at that time. And when the first plane hit the

Twin Towers, the response from my coworkers were, oh, what a terrible plane accident.

And I immediately responded and said, no, that was a terrorist attack. And the only reason I knew that in my heart was because growing up in New Jersey, I knew where the

Twin Towers were. I knew where Manhattan was. I've been in there many times. And I knew if any commercial pilot got in trouble, there were many options other than crashing into a building.

And so anyway, then after that happened and we realized what the source of the attack was,

I decided, you know, I really need to know something about this ideology called

Islam. And I need to understand what a mindset is. And because I'm a researcher at heart,

I'm an analytical, and when I question something, I want to go to the nth degree to find out the answers.

So anyway, to make a long story short, I started researching Islam. And as the

Lord would have it, a year later, he gave me the opportunity to manage a large apartment complex that was about 90 %

Muslim. And I, you know, not knowing anything about them individually or their culture,

I met with a lot of them individually in their apartments almost daily. I met with their imams and their religious scholars, their community leaders, you name it.

I just tried questioning and questioning. And the more answers I got, the more questions I had.

And I finally went and bought a Quran, and I started reading that. And I came away after reading that thinking, wow, if they believe what's in this book, we're in trouble.

So anyway, before I knew it, after about a year or two of research, I had a filing cabinet drawer full.

And I thought, I've got to do something with this, because everybody I've talked to on the non -Muslim side has no clue about any of this.

So I wrote a manuscript out, and I approached a couple of Christian publishers that weren't really interested in it.

So I decided maybe I should try to get some endorsements before I send it off again. So I reached out to about a half a dozen people, well -known people, that didn't know me, but I knew a lot about Islam.

Some of them were like Tom White, the former executive director of Voice of the Martyrs, Reverend Peter Marshall, who was the son of Dr.

Peter Marshall, Robert Spencer, who's written a lot of books on Islam, and a number of others.

And to my shock and surprise, after I sent out the manuscript to them, every one of them responded with a very positive response saying, you need to get this published, this is excellent.

I thought, wow, God, you're doing something, because this is not me. So I had no intention of really writing a book.

But after I got a letter back from a former Shia Muslim from Iran, who converted to Islam and is now a

Christian pastor, he wrote back a long letter saying, in essence, for somebody that is not from a

Muslim background, you have an understanding of this situation more than anybody I know, you need to get this out there.

And I just thought, God, this is your work, not mine, I'll do it. Anyway, it did get published in 2009, had moderate success, and I just always felt in my heart that the more

I've studied it, the more I hear what's going on in the country and the world, I realize that the majority of individuals, not only do they not understand anything about Islam, but we are being grossly misled by not only

Muslim leaders, but we're being misled by our politicians, the media, and even our

Christian educators and preachers are being misled and they're misleading their congregations.

So in my heart I wanted to put together a comprehensive, for lack of better terms, a compendium that would bring together all the information that was critical to understanding the ideology in the light of a

Christian perspective, and then provide the Church, the Christian community, Christian educators, and Christian seminaries with the resources to properly train people to reach out to Muslims with the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

So that's what this effort is all about. Great. I am going to give our email address for anybody in our listening audience who wants to submit a question for our guest today.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Whether you agree with our guest, whether you adamantly oppose what he's saying, or whether you just don't know and you want some clarification and you want some knowledge on the subject, feel free to email us at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. If you live outside the

USA, obviously, with a sensitive subject like this, we will permit you to remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, especially if you are a

Muslim writing in. Perhaps you are rethinking your religion, your faith, or perhaps you're just a

Muslim who wants to disagree with our guest and you don't want to identify yourself. I understand that, so feel free to write in anonymously.

But please, if it's just a general question on theology and something of the history of Islam, please at least give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

Well, this is a massive book. It's over 480 pages. Obviously, a lot of research was poured into this.

If you could, tell us something about Pastor Reza Safa, whom is promoting this book and has supported your work that's contained in this book.

Sure. Pastor Reza Safa and I actually have not met face -to -face. We have corresponded through e -mail and we've talked on the phone many times, and he knows what

I'm trying to accomplish. And I should just say one thing real quick, Chris, as a disclosure.

This is not an attempt or a book to demean individual Muslims in any way.

It's a book that wants to educate the Christian community of the challenges and yet the opportunity that Islam presents to the church and the

Christian community to spread the gospel. So that's the main purpose of it. But Reza Safa, he grew up in Iran.

He became a radical Shia Muslim by his own testimony. But the Lord reached out and grabbed his heart, and he converted to Christianity and, of course, had to flee

Iran. He eventually wound up in the United States, took training, and is now a pastor.

But I don't think he passes a church. He has a satellite television ministry that goes out daily to the

Middle East and reaches, I believe, somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 million Muslims in that region.

So it's something that he has a heart for, reaching Muslims, obviously. And his television program is both in English and Farsi, which is the language of many of the

Arabs in that region. Wow. Well, I think it would probably be a good idea to get a little bit of a summary of the origins of Islam.

What century does Muhammad appear on the scene? What was his own background religiously?

And the religious atmosphere surrounding him and so on. Okay. In the book,

I don't spend a lot of time on the history of Islam. I do have a chapter on the origin, though, and understanding its development.

Basically, Muhammad himself was born about 570 A .D. or 571, some sources say, and he died in 632.

So he was born and lived roughly about 500 years after Christ.

And he basically, from all instances from what

I've read, he was a man who was seeking the truth. He was seeking a spiritual revelation.

And as history records it, he was in a cave in Saudi Arabia, and he was visited by a spirit.

He at first thought it was an evil spirit, and he believed he was being possessed by an evil spirit with this revelation.

In fact, so much so that he wanted to commit suicide. He was so fearful of what this revelation was bringing forth to him in this being.

It wasn't until after he went back to his home that his wife

Khadija convinced him, along with another woman, that, no, he did receive a revelation from God, or Allah, that became identified as.

And that's interesting because later Allah revealed to Muhammad that a woman's testimony is only equal to half of that of a man.

But yet, Muhammad readily accepted that as a testimony, that he had been visited by a spiritual being, and then later he identified it as Gabriel, the angel

Gabriel. It's interesting that throughout the Quran and throughout all the sacred literature about Muhammad or attributed to Muhammad, Allah never spoke personally to Muhammad.

It was always the angel Gabriel. So it's kind of an interesting set of affairs that were set up.

Initially there were a couple of different environments in which Muhammad lived in at the time.

In the early days he lived in Mecca, and so when he first started trying to spread his theology of Islam to the neighboring tribes and so forth, which were largely pagans and some

Christians and some Jewish tribes, they basically all rejected his message and rejected him as a false prophet.

There was nothing in literature prior to Muhammad that was presenting that there was a prophet that was going to be coming with a new revelation or anything like that.

So the Jews and Christians in particular rejected him out of hand and refused to accept this new theology of Islam.

After about ten years or so of Muhammad trying to push that, his native tribe actually ran him out of the area and they fled with a small band of followers to Medina and Saudi Arabia.

And then the revelations he started getting supposedly from Allah became much more violent and vengeful, much more radical, which led his followers to be persecutors of all those who refused to accept the

Islamic message. They basically went from being persecuted to being the persecutors, did they not?

Exactly, exactly. If you don't mind me backtracking a little bit, and forgive me if you said this,

I just did not hear a more detailed explanation on this.

Did Muhammad ever explain how he became convinced that it was the angel

Gabriel giving him the information that was to be included in the Quran? And after having already been under the opinion that it was a demonic influence, other than obviously his wife was a catalyst in convincing him that it was not demonic, was it apparitions or voices only?

And how did he switch from thinking it was demonic to specifically the angel Gabriel?

Because that's a very specific source of the information he was getting. Right. Well, there are confusing stories on that.

One of the interesting sides is that his youngest wife, the one that he was betrothed to when she was age six,

Aisha, and he consummated the marriage at her age nine, she later as a young or older teenager, young adult, confessed that when

Muhammad had a vision, he often went into a trance and foaming at the mouth and having what would amount to epileptic fits.

Now, you know, in the Bible, Jesus indicates that that's a sign of demon possession, but that's how he supposedly received his revelations, according to his wife, youngest wife.

But no, he never really disclosed. And most of it is assumed to be apparitions of the angel

Gabriel. But interesting, a lot of the revelations seem to come forth to resolve some issue that he was struggling with as a self -serving answer.

In other words, if somebody was opposing him on some particular revelation that he was putting forth, he would also get another revelation that would go against that person that would indicate that he was right and they were wrong.

So a lot of what I have seen in the Koran, a lot of what I've seen in the Hadith, which is the sacred writings that are supposedly

Muhammad's words, a lot of it is conflicting and it's justified in Islam as being an abrogation, meaning that if Allah has a better word, he can change his other words in order to bring a better word to Muhammad.

So, you know, whereas we're taught in the Bible, God doesn't change his mind, doesn't change his word.

Whatever is said, that's what it is. Okay, we're going to our first station break right now.

Okay. And if anybody would like to join us on the air, and we do have a couple of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered, and if anybody wants to get in line, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. I would really love to hear from Muslims if there are any listening, because I do know that we have on occasion

Muslims in our audience. So I would love to have them especially, but, of course, anybody, whether you are a

Christian, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Mormon, an atheist, an agnostic, or a

Swedenborgianist, we would love to hear from you at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And as always, please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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We are now back with our guest today. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is

Dr. James F. Gauss, and we are addressing his book, Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com. chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Please only remain anonymous if the question involves a personal or private matter.

Before we go to any of our listener questions, Dr. Gauss, if you could tell us specifically the subjects involving

Islam that you intend to address this weekend from Friday the 17th of May through Sunday the 19th of May at the

Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Dale City, Virginia. Okay. Friday night at 7 o 'clock,

I'm going to have a short introduction, but then also it's going to be the differences between the

Koran and the Bible, how we should interpret those differences because they're completely different constructed holy books, so to speak, and so people have to have a good understanding of how the

Koran is different from the Bible in that essence in order to properly interpret it.

Saturday morning from 10 to 12, I'm going to be talking about the deceptions of Islam, how they're being perpetrated on not only the

Christian community, but the American community as a whole and the world community, not only by Muslim leaders, but by, like I said, politicians and the media and even in many instances,

Christian leaders that are not telling us the truth or are being misinformed. Then in the afternoon from 1 to 3,

I'm going to be talking about the different gospel that Islam presents that counter and opposes the gospel of Jesus Christ in the

New Testament. Then Sunday morning at 9 .30, I'm going to be talking about Israel in the

Middle East and why there will never be peace, and at 10 .30, I'll be giving a presentation on Islam in the church, and then evening service from 6 to 7,

I'm going to be talking about what the church needs to do, how the church needs to reach out to Muslims with the unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ without coming alongside in a common ground or common word or interfaith dialogue, which doesn't typically lead anywhere.

Well, we do have a listener in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

We have Susan Margaret who asks, I hope you didn't already say this and forgive me if you did, but what was

Muhammad's personal religion, if any, before he came to begin the

Muslim faith? Well, he came from a Saudi Arabian tribe at the time which was pagan, so it is presumed that his religion was a pagan religion, worshipping idols that his tribe worshipped.

Alrighty, well thank you, Susan Margaret, and guess what, you have won a free copy of the book that we are addressing today, this massive 480 plus page book,

Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity, a comparison of the messenger, message, and mission of the

Koran and the Bible, an invaluable compendium, and give us your full mailing address there in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and we will have that shipped off to you by CVBBS .com,

CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who ships out all of our winners' free books and Bibles that they win as a result of sending in questions via email to our program during live interviews.

So thank you very much for joining us on today's show. Let's see here, we have

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks, was the rapid spread of Islam primarily due to using the sword, and how did it get to the point where he had enough army where he could boldly pursue forcing converts to begin with?

That's a good question, because Islam definitely spread very rapidly, particularly after Muhammad's death, actually, but during Muhammad's latter years, he attracted converts by the sword, but also by the rewards of riches, because to fund their activities, they would raid caravans and steal all the hardware and anything that the caravans were carrying, and appropriated all the wealth for themselves, and Muhammad would divvy it out to all his warriors or followers, and of course that was attractive to a lot of people back then, and so his minions kept growing until he got powerful enough that he could raid even larger and larger caravans and in multiple locations.

So once he had an army that was large enough, then they were able to march into individual towns and basically give them an ultimatum, submit to Islam, face the sword, or pay a poll tax for your survival, or depart, flee, and so town after town that didn't have armies typically like we do today could not withstand his onslaught, and so they kept falling into Muslim hands, and during the first ten years, actually, after Muhammad's death,

Islam spread not only throughout Saudi Arabia and throughout the Middle East, but into Northern Africa, and into Asia Minor, and Turkey, and places like that, very rapidly.

Now, to follow up on that, how do you explain the growth of Islam prior to them having the threat that they posed through strength in numbers and weapons?

There must have been something compelling about Muhammad's message to others that caused a rise in their numbers before the threat of the sword was possible.

Well, actually, there was not. That's why he was run out of his native tribe, the Quraysh, in Saudi Arabia, because they didn't accept his message, and that was getting frustrating for Muhammad because he wasn't getting the converts that he wanted, and so he didn't have a very large band of followers when he was run out of Mecca and fled to Medina.

It wasn't until after he got to Medina and his message started changing to one of oppression and more violence and basically rigid unacceptance of anything but Islam that his numbers started to grow, and that's when he was able to carry out the...he

basically became a warlord, you know, raiding towns and caravans throughout the area.

By the way, I think I failed to let Arnie in Perry County know that he also has won a free copy of Understanding Islam in the

Light of Christianity, so please make sure we have your full mailing address in Perry County, Pennsylvania, so that cvbbs .com

can ship that out to you at no charge to you or to Arnie Sharpe and Zion Radio, and I also want to thank once again our guest,

Dr. Gauss, for providing us with these books that we have been given away. It's very generous of him, and I hope that you appreciate the gifts that you receive.

Let's see here, we have Grady, our old friend

Grady, a long -time listener of Arnie Sharpe and Zion Radio, who has been very generous to us through his benevolence.

Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, says, Another great show, Chris. Our brother, Dr. James R.

White, has been debating Muslims on the differences in Christianity and Islam and has had criticisms from some

Christians for this. I agree with Dr. White that we must show the love of Christ towards Muslims, for our

Lord will use his holy scriptures to convict hearts. Have you found

Muslims receptive to hearing about the Christian faith? And I guess that question is for you, Dr.

Gauss, since you're our guest. Have you found Muslims receptive to hearing about the Christian faith?

Well, I have to admit, personally, I haven't had a lot of opportunities of recent, but one opportunity that I have had here locally is a young Muslim woman that was seeking and very interested in knowing more about Christianity, and she was very receptive, even though there was extreme pressure from her family.

She was very fearful because they were threatening to take away her child from her if she made any more movements toward Christianity, but her fear was alleviated by the fact that she was regularly received by Christian brothers and sisters and prayed with and so forth.

So there's a dichotomy among Muslims. There are those that are really entrenched in their ideology, that are really not very open to the truth of the gospel, and then there are those that are questioning their faith and are seeking a truth that is more comfortable with what they understand to be compatible with peace and freedom.

And there's no savior in Islam, there's no redemption in Islam, there's no forgiveness in Islam.

So there's a real openness to find out where that exists, and of course we have that information in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So every Muslim that I've talked to that's converted to Christianity, and everyone that I've read their testimonies after they've converted, say, don't be afraid to offend a

Muslim with the gospel. They're either going to be ready to inquire more about it, or they'll walk away.

And you can only hope to be a seed planter in most instances, and your job is not to try to convert them, that's the

Holy Spirit's job, your job is to present the truth. Amen, that would obviously go with anybody, even those that profess to be

Christians but are false converts. We're never to be afraid to present the gospel, we are to fear

God much more than man, infinitely more than man. Thank you, Grady, you've also won a free copy of Understanding Islam in the

Light of Christianity. Please send us your full mailing address in Asheboro, North Carolina, so that CBBBS .com

can ship the book out to you. We are now going to our midway break. It's a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires a longer break in the middle of our show because they air their own public service announcements and their own commercials while we air our commercials that are heard globally, because they need to localize

Iron Trip and Zion Radio to the Lake City, Florida area. That's actually an FCC requirement, that there be local attachment to a radio station.

So while they're airing their own public service announcements and commercials, please listen carefully to our commercials that are heard globally, and write down the information provided by our advertisers, because the more frequently and successfully you patronize our advertisers, the more likely we will continue to exist as a radio program, because as I've said before and many times in the past, we depend upon our advertisers to survive.

So please patronize them as often as you can. Also please write down questions for our guest, Dr. Gauss, with chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and as always, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be back after these messages with more of Understanding Islam in the

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Hey, this is Pete Orta, former guitar player for the Grammy Award -winning Christian rock band Petra.

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Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

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That's cvbbs .com. Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And you can also call cvbbs .com at their toll -free number 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231.

They man that phone line typically Monday through Friday between 10 a .m. Eastern time and 4 30 p .m.

Eastern time. And please remember to take advantage of the phenomenal offer that they are currently running.

They are giving away, absolutely free of charge, my favorite biography, my favorite of all biographies that I strongly urged them to give away.

It is a pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn. As I keep repeating, this book should be made into a major motion picture, in my humble opinion, or at least a documentary.

Spencer Cohn is a virtually unknown figure from history today, but he was very well known in his day and age in the 19th century, and was a very influential and prominent preacher in New York and known in other parts of the

United States and the UK, I believe. Of course, it was before the UK. And Spencer Cohn, his life is just utterly remarkable.

He was a school teacher. He was a theater actor on the stage in the 19th century.

He was a lawyer. He became a pastor. And before he was a pastor, he was a war hero in the

War of 1812. He served for many years as pastor of the First Baptist Church of New York City in Manhattan.

And the building still exists there. I had an Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio event in that building, featuring

Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. And he just was a remarkable man.

The affection and dedication to his wife, and the way that he was affected after her passing, is truly a touching and moving portion of the book that I was personally moved by deeply, being a widower myself.

But anyway, you will get this book, this hardcover book, by John Thornberry, a friend of mine who is a well -known

Baptist historian. You'll get it absolutely free if you purchase $50 or more worth of advertising.

Sorry about that. Where the merchandise... There's my 40 -inch slip there. I want people to purchase more advertising from me.

If you purchase a minimum of $50 worth of merchandise from cvbbs .com, you'll receive

A Pastor in New York, The Life and Time of Spencer Cohen, absolutely free of charge. This is what you've got to do.

You've got to put the book, A Pastor in New York, into your shopping cart at cvbbs .com.

And then on top of that, include $50 minimum of other merchandise, books,

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Remember, you can only call that phone line Monday through Friday between 10 a .m. and 4 .30 p .m. Eastern Time.

They do not have a voicemail for that 800 number yet, I don't believe. But please tell them that you heard about cvbbs .com

from Chris Arns and on IRONSHARPENSIREN radio. And now we have just a few events that we want you to know about before we go back to our interview with our guest today,

Dr. Gauss, who's discussing understanding Islam in the light of Christianity. First of all,

Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Dale City, Virginia is having a conference featuring our guest this weekend,

May 17th, which is a Friday through Sunday, May 19th. And it is on the subject of his book,

Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity. For more details on this three -day conference, go to cgbcva .org,

that's S -G for Sovereign Grace, B -C for Baptist Church, V -A for Virginia .org.

And please also tell the folks there that you heard about them from Chris Arns and on IRONSHARPENSIREN radio.

Then we have next week, Thursday, May 23rd, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m., I am having my next IRONSHARPENSIREN radio free pastor's luncheon.

And all men in ministry leadership are welcome, whether you are a pastor, an elder, and those are the same office in my opinion, a deacon, a parachurch leader, whatever position of leadership that you hold, and if you are a man, you are welcome to register.

Absolutely free of charge at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line. My guest speaker will be the aforementioned

Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

He will be speaking on the theme, how the Dead Sea Scrolls vindicate the reliability of the

Bible. And you're not only going to be getting to hear Dr. Costa for free, and getting fed for free from our friends at Firehouse Subs in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who are once again catering this event, but you'll also be getting a heavy sack, perhaps even two heavy sacks, of free brand new books that I have selected that have been donated by major Christian publishers in the

United States and United Kingdom. All absolutely free of charge, no hidden agenda, no ulterior motive.

My precious late wife Julie founded these luncheons in the 1990s, and I have continued them after she has departed from this earth and entered into glory with Christ.

I have continued them in her honor and memory. And she made it clear that she didn't want any hidden agenda, she didn't want anything for sale at these luncheons.

All of the books are free. There's no sale of books, there's no sale of Amway products.

It's all free of charge, intended just to be a blessing to men in the ministry. So if you are a man in ministry leadership, please email me at chrisarnsen at gmail .com

and register. The deadline to register is May 20th, so please email me as soon as possible if you intend to attend.

And then Dr. Costa and I will be heading to New York right after that.

Because Dr. Costa will be speaking at a number of churches from Friday the 24th of May all the way through Sunday the 26th of May.

Those churches include New Hyde Park Baptist Church on Long Island, New York, Waiting River Baptist Church on Long Island, New York, Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, and Missio Church of Ridge, Long Island, New York.

And there are various topics, all different, that Dr. Costa will be speaking on at those churches.

If you want a complete itinerary of those churches, and by the way, everyone is welcome to those speaking engagements, whether you are a man, woman, or child, whether you are a

Christian or not, you are welcome to attend. So send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

and put Dr. Costa's itinerary or something similar in the subject line, and I will get that to you.

Then immediately after that, I am going to be packing up my bags again and heading back to Pennsylvania.

But this time I'm heading to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, to Elizabethtown College to the

Banner of Truth Conference, the East Coast Ministers Conference on the theme, I Believe in the Holy Spirit.

That's going to be held Tuesday, May 28th through Thursday, May 30th. And the speakers include

Jeff Kingswood, Terry Johnson, David Vaughn, Steve Nichols, Michael Morales, and Chad Vegas.

If you would like to register for the Banner of Truth East Coast Ministers Conference, go to banneroftruth .org,

banneroftruth .org. And if you attend, please look for me. I will be there,

God willing. So please ask around. Where's Chris Arnz of Iron Trip and Iron Radio? Hopefully, eventually, you'll find me there.

Then I'm going to be packing up my bags again in December, and I'm heading to New York City, my old stomping grounds, to the

Foundations Conference, a conference of sermonaudio .com. That's going to be Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th in the heart of Manhattan.

And this is always a phenomenal conference. The speakers include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, whose voice you hear every day promoting

New Covenant Church NYC, one of our sponsors. He is a powerful, powerful preacher.

And another powerful preacher is Paul Washer. You will not regret making every effort to attend a conference where Paul Washer is speaking.

Rev. Jeff Thomas, another profound preacher. Rev. Armin Tamasian, a young man, a young pastor with gifts and abilities far beyond his youth.

He is extraordinary, and I believe he's going to be a household name amongst Reformed Christians over the next decade.

He is really, really worth the time to heading out to New York City from wherever you live, even if he was the only speaker there.

Richard Caldwell Jr. and Andrew Quigley are two men I have not yet heard. But I'm assuming, since Sermon Audio has such a high reputation for discernment and biblical soundness, that they are excellent as well.

So if you want to register for the Foundations Conference, go to thefoundationsconference .com, thefoundationsconference .com.

And then the month after that, in January, I am heading back to Atlanta, Georgia.

More specifically, I'm heading to College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, to the

Georgia International Convention Center, to the G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory.

That's Thursday, January 16th, through Saturday, January 18th. And the theme this

January is, I'm sorry, Worship Matters. Worship Matters.

And the speakers include Kosti Hinn, believe it or not, the nephew of notorious charlatan

Benny Hinn. Kosti, Benny Hinn's nephew, has renounced the Word of Faith heresies that he was raised in.

He is a Reformed Baptist pastor in California and a cessationist. And he spends much of his life now exposing the heresies and blasphemies of the

Word of Faith movement, including those promoted by his own uncle. And he is a real humble man of God, a real gifted man of God.

He's been a guest on this program, and I look forward to hearing him speak at the G3 Conference. David Miller is on the roster.

What a fine example of old -style revival meeting preaching

David Miller is, coming from a Calvinist perspective. Derek Thomas. He is certainly not a stranger to those in my audience who are

Reformed, especially those who love the banner of truth. My dear friend Dr. James R. White, who's been a friend of mine since the 1990s, was also author of What Every Christian Needs to Know About the

Quran, a book that every Christian should own. Dr. Joel Beeke, president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, a friend of mine since the 1990s as well.

Josh Bice, who's the founder of the G3 Conference. And once again, Paul Washer and Stephen J. Lawson will be on the lineup at this conference.

Dr. Tom Askell, my dear friend for quite a number of years, who is the executive director of Founders Ministries, the

Calvinistic ministry within the Southern Baptist Convention. And Vodie Baucom, what a phenomenal preacher he is as well.

If you want to register, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. And remember, that's Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th.

I strongly advise you if you are a business owner, or you run a parachurch organization, or have anything that you want to promote as a

Christian that you believe is a blessing to the body of Christ, register for an exhibitor's booth there as well, just like I will be manning there,

God willing. And because of the fact there's going to be over 5 ,000 people there milling around your booth.

So please, not only register to attend, but register for an exhibitor's booth if that is appropriate for you at g3conference .com,

g3conference .com. And now it's time for me to do that uncomfortable thing that is a necessary thing, even though it's uncomfortable for me.

I need to beg you for money. Iron Trip and Zion Radio is in some very scary and serious financial problem right now.

We had a substantial advertiser who, although was gaining good results from our advertising, this is a church that has been advertising with us, they have had a number of people move away from the

New York area, and they have had to cut back on the expenditures because of the huge financial blow they experienced.

So they are going to need, at least for the time being, to stop advertising with us next month, and we really depended upon that money.

So please help us replenish that, and even more so, so that we can continue to exist.

That is, if you love the show and you don't want us to disappear, please help us. Go to ironsharpenzionradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

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Send in that email to chrisarensen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. Also, if you need a church home, if you are not currently a member of a faithful, biblically sound church in your area and you're not prayerfully looking for one, you're living in rebellion against God, so please rectify that.

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I just helped somebody find a church yesterday in England, the

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I need a church or something like that in the subject line. And that is also the email address where you are to send questions for our guest today,

Dr. James F. Gauss on the theme, Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity.

Our email address again is chrisarensen at gmail .com, chrisarensen at gmail .com.

And as always, please give us your first name, city and state and country of residence. If you live outside the

USA, please only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter and we have, let's see here.

We have Mary in Cork, Ireland. And Mary's question is,

Hi, Chris, I am enjoying your show. Please may I ask your guest a question?

As far as I am aware, one of the fundamental values shared regarding Islam is we believe that God created us with all the diversity of race, religion, language, and belief to get to know one another, respect one another, and uphold our collective human dignity.

And she puts that in quotes. I'm not really sure where she found that quote. Firstly, if Islam opposes the gospel of Jesus Christ, how can they say we believe that God created us with all the diversity of religion?

And she has other questions there that will follow up after you answer that. Once again, let me repeat it.

If Islam opposes the gospel of Jesus Christ, how can they say we believe that God created us with all the diversity of religion?

Well, that's a good question. Yeah, Islam proclaims that, that they believe in the same creator and diversity and so forth.

But the truth is, is that the God of Islam is not the God of Judeo -Christianity and definitely not the

God of the Bible. The character of Allah is diverse and counterproductive to that character of Judeo -Christian

God. For example, the God of the Bible is a God of love, a

God of forgiveness, a God of redemption, a God that's a personal

God that desires a personal relationship with his children. Islam presents none of that, offers none of that.

In fact, Allah is a God who does not want a personal relationship. He's not a God that wants to have children or to have anything in association with him.

In fact, Islam teaches that he is so high and mighty that he cannot have any type of relationship like that.

So, yes, they profess that they believe in the God of creation, but it's not the

God of creation of the Bible. It's a completely different God with a completely different character and a completely different synthesis.

And let's see here. Mary had a couple of other questions. And while I'm, I accidentally deleted her email.

While I'm getting that back, remember our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name, city and state and country of residence. If you live outside of the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Okay, her follow -up question is, secondly, if he created diversity of religion, how can

God the Son incarnate say so clearly that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life?

No one comes to the Father except through me. And that's from John chapter 14, verse six.

Well, that's a good question. And I point that out. And in my book very clearly that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

Yes, God allows diversity of thought and religion and the freedom to select what you want to believe in.

But the truth of the matter is as revealed through Jesus Christ, he is the way, the truth and the life.

And no one comes to the Father except through him. And I think that's what we as Christians are afraid to present to Muslims or any non -believer.

If we truly believe that, why aren't we professing that in a clear way without reservations and standing on the truth of the word and presenting that as the way to salvation and redemption and life eternal?

Okay, Mary's final question. Why would he, meaning God, create diverse religions and say specifically

Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father? Are these not contradictions? They are somewhat contradictions.

But like I said, God allows that diversity because if it was forced upon humans to believe one way, then what would be the freedom of choice and what would be the reason to choose one over another?

But God gives us the opportunity to seek out revelation, knowledge and understanding and the truth.

Even from the diversity that we have, we can accept diversity as Christians, but we also need to be firm in stating what the truth is as it has been revealed to us through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Well, thank you, Mary from Cork, Ireland. And we understand that you are visiting the

United States. So please look forward to receiving that free book that we are offering thanks to the generosity of your guest,

Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity. Thanks for contributing such a wonderful series of questions to our discussion.

We have Joey in Clifton, New Jersey. To what degree, if at all, do you think Christians should reference the

Quran's own internal teachings in seeking to show Muslims the fallacy of Islam?

Well, that's a sensitive area. And basically, the bottom line should not really use the

Quran at all to witness to Muslims, other than the possibility that in the Quran, it does say that Muslims are to read the

Bible. That's what Allah revealed to Muhammad. It also says that the Bible is the source of truth.

It also says that Jesus brought that truth. So you might just reference those verses in the

Quran to say that, you know, here Allah is telling you to read the Bible, and particularly the

Quran says to read the Torah, the Psalms of David, and the gospel of Jesus. So if that's true, and Allah is telling them to do that, then why don't they do it?

Well, the truth is what their imams and other Quranic scholars tell them is that the

Bible has been corrupted, and therefore Allah reversed that decision and said that they're not supposed to read the

Bible. And the Bible is banned in most Muslim countries because they're afraid to know what the truth is.

They're afraid to allow people to seek the truth. The reality of it is, in a closed country like Iran, which they're seeing hundreds of thousands of Iranians come into Christ, not because of missionaries there, because they're banned, they can't get in there, not necessarily because the

Bible is there, because that's banned, but because they're seeking the truth and God's revealing himself to them in the presence of a vision or a dream of Jesus Christ and saying

I'm the way, the truth, and the light, follow me. And so they're having house churches all over Iran and it's scaring them all to death.

Let's see. Oh, and Joey in Clifton, New Jersey, send us your email. I'm sorry, send us your mailing address in Clifton, New Jersey, so that we can ship you out a copy of Understanding Islam in the

Light of Christianity. Thanks again for the question. We have Lillian in Brooklyn, New York.

What is the best way to minister to a Muslim and speak to them about the gospel since they are taught that the

Bible is corrupt and they have a low view of Christians and Jews?

That's an interesting question because of something that you just said moments ago. Isn't it true that Muslims contradict the

Quran itself when they say that the Bible has been corrupted because they believe that any gift from God cannot be corrupted, any truth from God, and the

Quran teaches that the Bible is from God. So isn't that a contradiction, a very serious one, that Muslims make when they say the

Bible is corrupted? Yes, that's true. And this is a sensitive area where it's really tempting to get a little bit confrontational with a

Muslim in that situation. And obviously, that doesn't work and not a very good way to go. But the truth of it is that, like I said, in the

Quran, a number of times, Allah reveals to Muhammad that the Bible is the source of truth.

Not only that, that if they want to know the truth, they should make friends with Christians who know the truth.

So that seems very contradictory to the whole message of the Quran and what you hear from Islamic teachers today.

So the question for a Muslim, in reality, without trying to be confrontational, if Allah says to do that in one part of the

Quran, but then he says not to do it in the other part, didn't Allah already know that the

Bible was corrupt when he told you to read it? So, I mean, you don't want to maybe go that direction unless you have a relationship with that particular individual or Muslim, whether it be through work or maybe it's somebody that you've gotten to know in your neighborhood or maybe you go to coffee with periodically or something like that.

I think one of the best ways to draw out a Muslim is to try to approach their rationality by just asking questions.

For example, what does the Quran promise you as far as heaven is concerned?

Well, if they know the Quran and they're honest about it, they'll tell you that the Quran doesn't promise them anything. In fact, in the

Quran and in the Hadith, it says that Allah sends all his believers to hell first and then he judges them in the grave.

Well, that doesn't sound very promising, does it, as a future, as a salvation message for a

Muslim, where it gives the opportunity for the person to say, in our Bible, here's what we're promised and to give them a counter defense of your belief as they believe on one thing or another.

So I think for me, it's not asking questions that are confrontational. It's asking questions for them to defend what they believe because according to statistics, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 % of Muslims don't actually read the

Quran because they're told it has to be read in Arabic and the majority of Muslims don't read or understand

Arabic. Yeah, that is quite an interesting fact about Islam, how the only versions of the

Quran that they believe are authentic are in Arabic and the vast majority, as you just said, don't speak it. And the vast majority of Muslims are not even

Arabic themselves. They're Indonesian, correct? Correct. Okay, we have, oh, by the way,

Lillian, you've received our last free copy of Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity. So please make sure you give us your full mailing address so that we can get this book sent to you by our friends at cvbbs .com.

We'll ship it out to you absolutely free of charge. And once again, we thank our guest, James F.

Gauss, for providing us with these books as his gift to our audience today. Okay, let's see.

We have an anonymous listener who has a question for both me and you.

He says, Chris, I believe I heard Dr. Gauss earlier say that he is opposed to any kind of Christian dialogue with Muslims and I know that you have supported these kinds of interactions between Christians and Muslims.

Can you both speak on this once again? Okay, anonymous, thank you very much.

I believe that I may, if you heard our guest correctly, I may have some polite difference with him that I'd like to bring up.

I believe that as long as you are not posing a public interaction or dialogue with somebody of another religion, as long as you're not promoting it or identifying it or giving anybody the wrong idea that it is an ecumenical event where you believe that the differences are inconsequential or secondary or tertiary, if you're not doing that, if you are not sweeping truths under the rug that one must believe in order to have eternal life, if you are not denying that Jesus Christ is the only way truth in life and no one comes to the

Father but through him, I think that those kinds of events, as long as the

Christian involved in doing an event like this is knowledgeable and is accurately not only defending

Christian teaching, but also correctly refuting

Muslim teaching. And I don't know if our guest heard you correctly, brother, but why would you be opposed to this?

And this is one of the things that I've said to some of my friends who are opposed to these kinds of dialogues, and I do not believe in ecumenical dialogue with unbelievers, got to remember that, folks, is that if you were to have a dialogue, a conversation with someone of the

Muslim faith or any other false religion in your living room over coffee or refreshments of some kind or over a meal, why would that be okay?

And having a public dialogue with a Muslim or another false believer be wrong as long as those requirements

I mentioned earlier are in place in the dialogue? Yes, I mean,

I don't know where they got that impression. I certainly am not opposed to having a conversation with a

Muslim about what they believe versus what I believe. What I would be concerned about, and what

I am concerned about, and I address it in my book, is there are two prominent movements right now in the church, one called the common word or common ground movement, and the other one, the interfaith dialogue, which basically the end result is to try to make friends with Muslims and try to approach them from the standpoint that we worship the same

God or we come from Abrahamic faiths and so forth, which are not true. And I think it dilutes the gospel.

I think we need to speak the truth and speak it in love. We can disagree and we can disagree agreeably, but we also need to stand for the truth and not dilute what we believe in and stand firmly on the truth of the gospel.

Otherwise, what's the point of them coming to Christ if they think that we worship the same

God or Abrahamic faiths together, and we just need to come together in a kumbaya moment and all have a happy time together?

Right. And the dialogues that I promote would never identify

Muslims as believing in and worshiping the same God that Christians do.

And in fact, many Muslims, if they are really faithful to the

Quran and they are not modern, ecumenical, liberal

Muslims who are denying much of the Quran and the Hadith, the ones that are truly faithful to the

Quran would never say that Christians adore and worship and follow the same

God that they do because they believe that Christians are guilty of the worst sin one can imagine, the sin of shirk.

Right. And that is an unforgivable sin. And why they have that accusation against Christians is that we believe that Jesus Christ is

God in the flesh. He is the God -man, and they do not believe that God can have partners, as they put it, and they consider our belief in the deity of Christ to be unforgivably damnable.

So, in fact, I had a Muslim debating David Wood on my old show,

Iron Trip and Zion Radio, out of New York when I was still broadcasting out of WNYG Radio on Long Island.

And Bassam Zawadi, the Muslim debater on the show, I asked him if the Catholic catechism was correct when it states that Catholics and Muslims adore the one same true

God, and he said, absolutely not. Bassam Zawadi said that, because he knows that that is one of the things that Catholics and Bible -believing

Christians agree upon is the deity of Christ and the Trinity, and therefore that is not at all compatible with Islamic teaching on who

God is. But anyway, thank you very much, Anonymous. And now we are going to our final break.

This is going to be much more brief than the last one. If you'd like to join us on the air, please do so now, because we're rapidly running out of time.

chrisarnson at gmail .com is our email address. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And by the way, I don't have a question here, but I have a shout -out from Heidi who says, just want to do a shout -out to our dear friend

Jim and tell him we are praying for him and support his obedience to the Lord. And that's

Heidi. Not sure where Heidi is, but I'm assuming you know who Heidi is. And now we're going to our final break, as I said.

And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous.

If your question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away. We'll be right back. I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, host of A Visit to the

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Spread the word about firstloveradio .org Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, we are almost out of time. Our guest today has been

James F. Gauss, and he has written a book that we have been discussing, Understanding Islam in the

Light of Christianity. If you'd like to join us on the air, please do so immediately because we're going to be off the air before you know it.

That's chrisarnzen at gmail .com chrisarnzen at gmail .com Give us your first name, city, and state and country of residence and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And by the way, Heidi, who gave a shout out to our guest Dr. Gauss is from Minnesota.

She just informed us. So thank you very much for giving that shout out to our guest.

Let's see here. We have a listener John in Bangor, Maine, who has a question.

And John in Bangor, Maine says, even though I am fully convinced that Muslims are taught they can lie to those that are non -Muslims in order to promote something or to gain a foothold somewhere or to achieve a positive result for their own cause.

I think that Christians too often broad brush Muslims and are guilty of bearing false witness against their neighbors when they automatically assume every

Muslim they come in contact with is lying. What would your guest say in response to that?

Thank you, John in Bangor, Maine and Dr. Gauss. Well, before I answer that, can

I make a couple of quick announcements? Oh, yeah, sure. Since the book won't be available on Amazon, the book can be ordered through lakesidecreates .com.

That's lakesidecreates, one word, dot com. And also I'm in the process of developing a web address, a website, which is just the title of the book,

Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity, dot com. So it's a website in process, should be up and running.

Well, it is up and running now, but in development. And then also if people are in the

Dale City, Virginia area, I just encourage them to come out this weekend and listen to what I have to say.

And we'll certainly have a bunch of time for questions and answers at the same time after each presentation.

On the issue of lying, I agree with the person that emailed in that we can't paint with a broad brush, just like any other population base.

Among Muslims, there's as much diversity as there is among Christianity or Jewish people or any other religious thought or ideology.

So one has to be careful, but one also has to be discerning when you're having a conversation with a

Muslim. It may take some time for you to gain some trust or for them to gain your trust.

So it is an issue that in Islam, which is the most distressing part of Islamic teaching, is that it is permissible for Muslims to lie, particularly to individuals when they're in a country that they are not in the majority.

So I've seen this happen even on the minuscule things. I mean, for example, when

I was managing the apartment complex, I would see a Muslim individual do something that was against the rules of the complex and they'd be standing 10 feet away from me and I would confront them about what they did and they'd say, no,

I didn't do that. And I'd say, what do you mean? I just saw you do it. I was only 10 feet away. And that really was frustrating for me, you know, but that does happen.

So, I mean, it does take a long time sometimes to develop the trust in conversation with a

Muslim. But certainly I don't advocate painting every Muslim with a broad brush, just like you would do any other ethnic group or any other group of believers, no matter what their theology is.

And that allowance to lie is called taqiyah, right? Yes.

And it's not to be confused by the powerful Mexican drink that I was once addicted to.

It's a totally different thing. And of course, to be honest, as Christians, not only are there many professing

Christians who lie through their teeth constantly and are involved in dishonest business practices and are horrible employers and employees, there are also many genuinely born -again

Christians who sin. And I do believe in lordship salvation.

I do believe that genuine Christians will have their lives marked with repentance and obedience.

But at the same time, even the best of Christians do sin at times and do lie at times and do things that are unfaithful to their own profession of faith in Christ.

And tragically, I even, as a Christian, after having been sober for 18 years after my conversion,

I fell back into a serious level of drunkenness and alcoholism that brought reproach upon the body of Christ and upon my own profession.

And thankfully, I was restored and brought to true repentance by the mercy of God. But I still was a horrible testimony for a period of time in that regard.

So we can't just say that the Muslims are the only ones that do that. Oh, absolutely. We're all sinners that's saved by grace.

The difference in Islam versus Christianity. In Christianity, we know that lying is a sin.

I mean, the Bible is clear on that. And it's an offense to God. In Islam, it's taught as lying is actually a blessing to the

Muslim in certain circumstances when they need to guard against offense or need to guard their safety or whatever it may be.

They are permitted to lie and it's not seen as a sin. So there's a difference there, you know, in the theology.

Well, I would like you to spend the next two minutes just to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

OK, well, like I said, at the beginning, the purpose of the book is really to reach out to the

Christian community at large, particularly to bring the truth of Islam to Christian leaders, whether they be pastors or teachers or seminary leaders, so that they have a clear understanding, because you have to have a clear understanding of the ideology if you're going to be able to go out and confront it in a loving way that brings the truth to those that believe in that ideology.

Understanding that the majority of Muslims don't even read their own holy book, so they don't know what's in it other than what their imams and religious scholars tell them.

And so they have to have a clear understanding of that. And right now, a lot of our teachers and seminary students are not being taught complete truth about Islam, nor given the tools that they need to go out and preach the gospel with truth and righteousness before a lost generation of Muslim people.

And that's, you know, the same in any group of people. It's not just Muslims, obviously, that are at loss, but it is a big challenge that God is presenting to us in America, but it's a great opportunity for the church to reach out with the truth that will bring salvation.

And folks, if you did not win a book today, or even if you won one, but you want to buy more copies, go to lakesidecreates .com.

Lakesidecreates .com. That's the publisher of Understanding Islam in the Light of Christianity by our guest,

Dr. James F. Gauss. And of course, you could always go to CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com,

and have them order it as well for you. That will also help Iron Sharpens Iron radio remain on the air when you help sponsors like that to further exist themselves.

That's CVBBS .com. And don't forget about the conference this weekend, from Friday the 17th of May through Sunday the 19th of May at the

Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Dale City, Virginia. And that website, again, is sgbcva .org.

S -G for Sovereign Grace, B -C for Baptist Church, V -A the abbreviation for virginia .org.

S -G -B -C -V -A .org. Don't forget to tune in tomorrow because we've got a guest that I'm sure is going to be extraordinary.

Josh Moody, Senior Pastor of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, is going to be discussing his book,

Boasting. When we boast right, we live right, and we bear much fruit to God's honor. I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions for our guest tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.