Presenting the Gospel to People of the Muslim Faith, Part 1

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Presenting the Gospel to People of the Muslim Faith, Part 2

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be with you here in California. I get a chance to come over here every once in a while.
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I lose a few liberties each time I do and then I go back to Phoenix and I get them back. We have this thing called the
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Constitution over there. You've got to try it sometime. It's really neat. It's really, really fun. I was just in Boston and it's even worse there than it is here.
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But it's good to be with you and I hopefully will be able to present to you a number of things that maybe you've heard of before, maybe you haven't.
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My goal, of course, over the course of this weekend is to seek to prepare you and really to try to remove from you some of the fear that I'm afraid most of us have when it comes to the subject of presenting the
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Gospel of Jesus Christ to those of the Muslim faith. Now, despite some of the inflated numbers that are sometimes thrown around, there's only three to four million
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Muslims in the United States right now. The number is, of course, increasing. But we certainly hear much about Islam every single day.
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If you turn on the television, if you listen to the news, you cannot help but hear about Islam.
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You hear about Iran today and you hear about some concerns concerning nuclear weapons and Shiites and Twelvers and Seveners and Fivers and the different kinds of Shiite Muslim theology there is and their belief in Ahmadi.
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People are very concerned that there are certain people in Iran that think that it would be very good to release nuclear weapons in the world because that will hasten the revelation of the
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Mahdi. And we sort of wonder what's going on, especially when we hear about Muslims blowing up Muslims and Sunnis disliking
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Shiites. And most of us, if we're really, really honest, don't know what's going on in the
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Islamic world. And as a result, many of us, this is the face of Islam to us.
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We look over in Europe and we see what's going on there and we know that in over 700 places in France, in essence,
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Sharia law already exists in those areas. And police call them no -go areas.
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You don't go into those areas. The police don't go into those areas unless there's some major, major reason, a murder or something like that.
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Other than that, they've just given up attempting to enforce Western law in those areas and they realize it's just too dangerous.
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They can only go in there in force with armored vehicles and things like that. And we see in the
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United Kingdom the kinds of riots that take place. And we see people like this gentleman right here.
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Islam will dominate the world. And we see the Al -Qaeda and people with AK -47s and unfortunately, if most of your information about Islam comes from Fox News, and it's not going to come from MSNBC, but if it comes from Fox News, you see a
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Muslim and you're automatically going to have in your mind certain reservations that are not exactly going to make you want to open your heart and soul to explain to this person the relationship you have with Jesus Christ, let alone do most of us feel overly confident in responding to the objections that are a part of the inter -religious dialogue that is ours.
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On the flight over, I was reading a book about the earliest encounters between Christians and Muslims in regards to their debates and the issues that they brought up.
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And I couldn't help but smile as I looked at a list of the questions that the
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Muslims put to the Christians in those early centuries. And really not much has changed.
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Drew was talking about having watched one of my most recent debates. I just did a debate at a mosque in Toronto, Canada with one of the better known
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Islamic apologists by the name of Shabbir Ali. And much of the very same argumentation that was going on over a thousand years ago continues to go on today.
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Each generation having to become convinced of these truths and know how to communicate them to others.
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But let's face it, that's something a lot of us are just a little bit hesitant to do.
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And if there is, very often you know that in witnessing situations it's that brief hesitation that allows that one opportunity to pass.
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And so my hope is that over the next number of hours that we have together, not just this evening, but over the course of the whole weekend, don't worry
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I can see the clock, my vision isn't that bad, that I'll be able to help you to understand what the issues are, to have more confidence.
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Obviously, when it comes to the specific responses of the Christian faith, that's something that your church needs to be providing to you in the sense of your understanding of the doctrine of the
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Trinity, the deity of Christ, things like that. But I will help you to understand what issues you need to be looking at in regards to the reliability of Scripture, why we have the books in the
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Bible that we do, what about the accusation that our Bible has been changed. There's all sorts of these things that come up in these conversations.
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And let's face it, my grandparents did not have to deal with many of the issues that you and I have to deal with today.
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They just didn't. There wasn't the thing called the internet. I mean, how many of you this evening are sitting here with an internet -enabled phone?
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Okay? Those didn't exist just a few years ago, remember? And that means that every kind of attack upon our faith is now as close as our smartphone.
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We cannot insulate people from these things any longer, and especially you young people, you know.
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If you're in the local high school, if you're in the local community college, the local university, I won't mention any universities by name.
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I don't want to get into trouble. You'll notice I'm wearing a shirt with my ministry thing on it.
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I didn't bring an ASU shirt with me for some odd reason. I'm not sure why, but I'm glad I didn't. Anyway, if you're in one of those institutions of higher learning, you know that it is just the common experience of every day to have your faith not just questioned, but let's face it, mocked and ridiculed and attacked.
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You just know that that's the case, and you know that you need to be ready to give an answer, and you want to know how to give an answer.
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A few years ago, I had the opportunity of recording a bunch of videos, and the whole reason we were doing it, we were sort of doing it in secret.
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We were doing it at a secret location, and the reason was these were videos where I was doing the lecturing, and then it was being live translated into Farsi, which is the language of Iran.
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What we were doing is those videos were then satellite beamed into Iran for the persecuted church there in Iran, because when you talk to those folks and you ask them, what can we in the
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West do for you? They don't ask us to remove them from there. They don't ask us to do anything other than to help them defend their own faith.
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Come up with answers to the predominant culture that constantly tells them that their faith is wrong, to educate their young people, to give them.
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They're willing to suffer the results if we will but give them the answers, and so that's what
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I want to be able to do over the course of the number of hours that we have together.
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So I want to start off really helping you to understand we're the ones that have to build the bridges.
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The Muslims are not going to build the bridges to us. We have to build the bridges to them. It has been my experience.
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I understand, I very highly commend you that you folks do missions work up in Utah.
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Starting in 1983, we did that for 18 years. Every April, every October for the
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General Conference, we were up there in Salt Lake City witnessing to people passing out tracts and in that process doing debates up there in Salt Lake City and all that kind of stuff.
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You have to understand what other people believe to be able to speak their language.
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Very frequently we have a language barrier. If you all have done any work with Mormons, you know there's a huge language barrier.
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They use our words but they have completely different meanings attached to them. We're the ones that have to make the effort to do the translation.
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It's very much the same thing in dealing with Islam, not just in regards to Arabic either. But there is a different language.
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By the way, I hope you realize that only between 16 and 19 percent of the world's Muslims are
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Arabic. In fact, the largest Muslim country in the world is what?
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Indonesia. We have this idea of Islam as being a primarily
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Arabic religion and you see Arabic people, that must be a Muslim. No, that's not the case.
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But we're the ones who have to make the effort to bridge the gap and to speak the language and to enter into the mindset of other people.
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I frequently spend time, I'm afraid I didn't play football in high school.
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I'm very sorry. I realize I really disappointed Drew and certain other people that I won't mention at that point. But what
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I do do, I am an avid athlete. I am a cyclist. I'm one of those guys you see going by on the street in the cotton spandex.
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There is a reason for that. Some of you wonder why do you wear that?
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Two weeks ago, I got on my bike at four o 'clock in the morning and I actually got off my bike for about two hours and did a debate with a scholar from Oxford via phone in London and then
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I got back on my bike. But on that day I rode 186 .74 miles, which is 300 kilometers, 10 hours and 37 minutes on the bike.
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And let me tell you something, after 10 hours and 37 minutes on a bike, you want cotton spandex.
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You really do. Anything else and you're going to be in absolute agony. But one of the things
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I do when I do that is I listen to what other people are saying. I listen to lectures,
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Muslims lecturing other Muslims. I try to enter into their mindset, understand what they're saying to their own people.
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Listen to their theological lectures as well as debates and things like that as well. Do a lot of sermon preparation, book writing and everything else while on the back of a bike.
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It's a fascinating way of doing things. But you have to be able to enter into the mindset and understand where they're coming from.
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And so we need to spend most of our time doing what you won't get in a normal church service where you are getting what the
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Bible teaches. What we need to do here is understand where the Muslims are coming from. Tomorrow morning we will spend some time obviously in the scriptures on particular issues because especially in what would normally be a worship service context,
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I would feel more comfortable doing that. But we start off with where they come from.
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And every Muslim will know the five pillars of Islam. The five pillars of Islam beginning with the shahada.
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The shahada is the means by which you become a Muslim. And you become a
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Muslim only by repeating a statement of faith in Arabic. You cannot simply say there is only one true
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God, Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger in English and become a Muslim. You have to say la ilaha illallah wa muhammadan wazoolallah.
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There is only one God that is worthy of worship, Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.
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And even if you don't know what you're saying, they will lead you through it syllable by syllable to become a
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Muslim. Now how many of you have ever seen someone become a Muslim? Anybody ever seen someone become a
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Muslim? Alright, I hope this video clip I'm going to show you bothers you.
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It's supposed to. This is a video clip from just a few years ago down in Sydney, Australia.
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The primary reason I chose this video clip is because you can understand what the speaker is saying.
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I have a wonderful wife. Next month we will have been married for 30 years, which means she was 7 when we got married.
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And at least that's what she wants me to say. I don't know what that's all about. But we will be married for 30 years and she works very, very hard so that I can be involved in the ministry.
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Our health insurance comes through her and all the rest of that kind of stuff. But I started studying
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Islam very seriously in 2005 in preparation for my debate with Shabir Ali in 2006 at Biola.
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Anybody catch that debate here? Anybody at the Biola debate in 2006? Okay, I guess not. We had 2 ,500 people there, but I guess you have more than 2 ,500 people in LA.
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You have more than 2 ,500 people on one small stretch of freeway in LA most of the time.
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Anyway, I was listening to all these people and I would find video clips and say, hey
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Kelly, come over here, listen to what this guy says. And I'd play something for her and she'd listen for about the first 10 seconds and she'd just go, I can't understand what he's saying because she couldn't understand like Achmed Ddot's accent or Zakir Naik's accent or something like that.
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Well, I picked this one especially because the speaker, Khalid Yassin, is from Brooklyn.
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And so he's nice and easy to understand. And I've listened to the entirety of the multi -hour presentation that he did here over the couple days in Sydney, Australia.
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It was really an anti -Christian lecture about all the errors in Christianity filled with errors that I could identify very easily, wrong dates for when things happened and a tremendous amount of misunderstanding.
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But be that as it may, what is interesting is this is in a Western culture. And you are seeing people coming forward to become
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Muslims in a Western culture. I had the opportunity, I've debated a number of times down now in Sydney.
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In fact, last October I debated Abdullah Kundat at the University of New South Wales down in Sydney. And I've had the opportunity of lecturing at Moore College in Sydney, which is a wonderful Christian school there.
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And the first time I lectured there, some of the students in the missions class I was teaching had actually attended this particular thing, which we're going to see.
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But I'd like you to listen very carefully as Khalid Yassin leads these people, both men and women, in becoming
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Muslims. And then we'll discuss it a little bit right afterwards. I want to make this transition, or this transaction, because this is what it is.
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These are human beings that's making a transaction with God. They're not making a transaction for us.
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They're making a transaction with God and a transition in their lives. So I want to make this easy for them.
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We have a gift for them, and we're going to give them this gift. Now the gift that we're giving to them is something that will help them on their way.
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One, it's a copy of the Quran with the transliteration of the meanings.
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Secondly, it's a short, easy -to -read, authentic biography of the
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Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Thirdly, it is a set of seven books.
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It is a set of seven books that have in it lessons for new
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Muslims. Now, your acceptance of Islam is your acceptance of God, not your acceptance of me, or not your acceptance of these people, nor your acceptance of the political dynamics in the world, because it has nothing to do with that.
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It's just your acceptance of God. And this gift is to help you make that transition.
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I want you to say with me the simple words, and these words are nothing more than what
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I have explained. There's no trick, no curve, and we don't have a pool in the back for you to dip in.
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But let's say the words. Let's just go over the words called the
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Shahada, the bearing of witness. And I'll tell you what it is.
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Essentially, it is the saying of that there's none to be worshipped except Almighty God, and that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
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Saying that word and then adding to it, I testify, or I declare, or I announce that there's none to be worshipped except Almighty God, and that I testify, or I declare, or I announce that Muhammad is the messenger of God, brings you all into the transition of Islam.
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From that point, it's your sincerity. It's your acts of worship. It is your commitment that will make the difference.
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Now, whatever you owe God of something you did that only you know and God knows, after tonight, your board is clear.
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Because God is the forgiver of those that come back to him. But whatever you owe somebody, money, rent, a loan, you still owe that.
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Is that fair? Okay, please just say after me, the words, la ilaha illallah
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Muhammad rasulullah, ashhadu an la ilaha illallah, wa ashhadu anna muhammadan abduhu abduhu wa rasuluh.
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Sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
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Ameen. So that's how it works.
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That's how you become a Muslim. Now, some of that looked somewhat familiar, and some of it was quite different.
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I always watch, I always look out over the audience. I don't know how many times I've played that now. And when he says, we don't have a pool in the back for you to dip in,
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I see who smiles or frowns or makes some facial.
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And your board is clean. Sort of watch that. And as people are coming forward, it looks like an evangelical church service.
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And the people are encouraging him on, they're shouting Allahu Akbar, which is basically their version of hallelujah.
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And yet, the similarities bother us because, well, that's ours.
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But at the same time, there are differences, some rather major differences. How many people here made your profession of faith in Christ in either
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Koine Greek or Biblical Hebrew? Do you do that here,
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Pastor? Do you lead them all? And yet, to become a
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Muslim, that's what you have to do. You have to make your profession of faith in the
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Arabic language. And did you notice how the men were dressed? They were dressed like Muhammad was dressed in the 7th century in Arabia.
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And so, it illustrates something, something that's very, very important. We don't really have time to unpack it this evening, but what this really goes back to is
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Acts chapter 15. In Acts chapter 15, Christianity was saved from being like that.
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In other words, the Christian gospel is not limited to a particular language. It's not limited to a particular time period.
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It's not wedded to a type of culture. And that is what is causing so many of the stresses in the world today, is that Islam is a religio -political system or a politico -religious system, depending on the percentage of Muslims in a population.
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When the percentage of Muslims is very small, the emphasis is upon the religious aspects.
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As that percentage increases, the percentage, the emphasis begins to become much more upon the political aspects.
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And we see this happening all across the world today, and that is what is causing so much of the turmoil and difficulty.
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And that is one of the major differences between the Christian faith and the Muslim faith. You cannot separate out
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Sharia, the law, from Islam and still have Islam. It's not possible.
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And that Sharia touches every aspect of human life. Every aspect of human life.
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So much so that I remember I did a debate in Norfolk, Virginia a couple years ago, back in, I think it was 2008 if I recall correctly, and I was observing another debate that was taking place.
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And the Muslim debater was a, called himself a former Christian. And one of the things that he emphasized as one of the things that drew him into Islam was the fact that Islam gave him guidance for all of life and Christianity did not and could not do so.
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Now whether that's true or not is another issue, but the nature of that guidance, the specific nature of that guidance down to the point of how you wear your clothes and how you wash yourself and how you bathe and everything you do during the course of the day is an integral part of the
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Islamic faith. And so you see that and you see that in the dress and everything else that takes place.
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It's one of the major issues to think about. The Gospel transcends all those cultural linguistic boundaries.
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Islam requires you to bring an entire cultural concept along with it and that's where much of the problem is coming in.
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So that first, that first issue, the Shahada, la ilaha illallah wa muhammadan rasoolallah, there is only one
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God. I'm going to be doing a book, Lord willing, if I get the one I'm supposed to have done, had done six months ago, done soon, a second book with a
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Muslim author. And our co -authored book will be on the Trinity versus Tawhid.
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Tawhid means the oneness of Allah. And this is the central issue, and we will spend much more time on this, but the central issue in regards to Christianity and Islam in our dialogues.
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Fundamentally what a Muslim will identify as the error of Christianity. We have gone into excess.
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We've gone beyond the bounds in that we have fundamentally denied Tawhid, the oneness of Allah in the doctrine of the
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Trinity. Now I obviously reject that and believe it's based upon a fundamental misunderstanding even of the
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Quran itself. It's one of the main reasons I cannot possibly believe the Quran is a revelation from God because even if the
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Trinity was wrong in 632 AD when Muhammad died, Allah knew what the
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Trinity was. The author of the Quran did not. And so even if the
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Trinity is wrong, Allah could accurately represent it, but the Quran does not. Therefore, I do not believe it can come from God.
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We will develop that as time goes on. But that Shahada is what unites all of the
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Shiites and Sunnis together in their confession of faith, the fact there is but one
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God. They are not only monotheists, but they are Unitarians. We are Trinitarians.
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We believe there's one God, three persons. They believe there is one God and one person. So they're Unitarians in their profession of faith.
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So that's the first of five pillars. The second is the Salat, the prayers. In fact, in Indonesia, you don't even, you don't ask someone if they're
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Muslim. You say, do you do the prayers? Have any of you ever lived in a Muslim country? Any, maybe some military folks there?
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Okay. And what would happen during the time of prayer?
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The society comes to a screeching halt. If it's a truly Islamic society,
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I mean, there are, there are, there are countries that call themselves Muslim that honestly, it's, it's, it's very deeply nominally
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Muslim. It's just a cultural thing. But in many of those countries, society will just come to a halt during the five daily prayers.
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And of course, you know, during that time, they face toward the Qibla, the mosque in Mecca, toward the black stone in the
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Kaaba. And so to give you a taste of this, I have a couple minutes of a video clip from an
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Islamic video where they're explaining the concept of Salat. And they're talking first about how you face toward Mecca, how you find the direction toward Mecca.
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You will see some video, we'll see a little bit more a little bit later on, of the Kaaba in the
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Grand Mosque in Mecca in Saudi Arabia. You'll see this black building in the midst of normally surrounded by tens of thousands of people.
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That is the Kaaba. The Kaaba itself is not a holy thing. The Kaaba has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times.
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In the corner of the Kaaba is the black stone, which Muslims believe fell down from heaven. And that is what they're really bowing toward when they pray.
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So here's just a brief clip of a much longer video on the subject of prayer.
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Facing towards the Qibla, the Kaaba in Mecca is a necessary precondition of performance of prayer.
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Muslims believe that the Kaaba is the first house built to glorify and worship the one
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God by the Prophet Abraham. Muslims from all over the world, whether they are in the east or west, north or south, turn their faces toward the
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Kaaba at the prayer time. If a person is in a place such as a desert, jungle, a strange town, or a place where he is unable to find out the direction from others, then he is allowed to use his own judgment and offers his prayers facing in any direction that he thinks the
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Qibla could be. Nowadays, a compass is available which gives the direction of the
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Qibla from anywhere in the world. The person now makes the
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Niyah, or intention in his mind, more specific relative to whatever prayer he is ready to perform.
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Again, the Niyah does not have to be expressed aloud. Now that we have gone through the preliminaries for offering the prayer or Salat, we are about to commence the act by declaring the
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Niyah, the required number of Raqats or units in each prayer.
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Fajr is from dawn to sunrise. The number of Raqats are two
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Sunnah, two Fardh. Notice the translation will be given so you will see.
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Notice the woman is behind the man. What is the language of the prayer?
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It has to be in Arabic. It is called
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Surah Al -Fatiha, the first Surah of the Qur 'an. Notice, show us the straight path, the path of those whom thou hast favoured, listen to the next two, not the path of those who are in thine anger nor of those who go astray, keep that in mind.
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Notice the hands have to be in a particular position. I took a class from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary about a year and a half ago to the mosque near ASU and we observed the prayers at that particular point in time.
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The women were nowhere near the men. They were actually behind a screen at the back of the room while the men were up front toward the
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Qibla which faces toward Mecca. I mentioned that prayer which all
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Muslims know. It is the first of the chapters in the Qur 'an. We will be talking a lot more about the Qur 'an later on.
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But it said, lead us in the path of those who have earned thy favour, not in the path of those who have earned thy wrath and those who have been led astray.
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Every Muslim says that every day, at least five times a day. What you need to understand is that in Muslim theology and in Muslim tradition, what that prayer is, is lead us in the path of the
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Muslims, not in the path of the Jews and the Christians. Because Muhammad very clearly explained that those who have earned thy wrath, those are the
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Jews. Those who have been led astray, specifically in our belief in the deity of Christ and the
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Trinity, are the Christians. And so each and every day the Muslim is praying, don't let me be a
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Jew or a Christian. That needs to be understood because that's part and parcel of the everyday experience of the faithful Muslim person.
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So those are the prayers. The times of the prayers change depending on the time of the year.
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I know in Phoenix, in just a few weeks, the Fajr prayer in the morning will be as early,
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I think it gets as early as 3 .55am if I recall correctly. And to engage in the prayers, you have to undergo what's called wadu, the ritual cleansing.
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You've heard about all the controversies going on at universities, airports and things like that, where they've been trying to make available special bathrooms for the
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Muslims to be able to do wadu, the cleansings they need to do, before they engage in the prayers, etc.
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So that again is a part of bringing in of the culture and the things related to that.
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Then we have Saum, fasting, the month of Ramadan. Ramadan is the ninth month of the lunar year.
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Islam will always use a lunar year. So their year moves forward through our year, 11 -12 days per year.
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So the month of Ramadan, the month of fasting, moves forward 11 -12 days in our year each year because they use a lunar calendar rather than a solar calendar.
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And so right now, Ramadan is moving toward July. Now think about that for just a moment, because in the month of Ramadan, the
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Muslim, the faithful Muslim, fasts from the time in the morning when you can hold a white thread and a black thread up and differentiate between them, until the evening when you can no longer differentiate between them.
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The Muslim will not eat and the Muslim will not drink, as in even water.
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Now imagine what that's like in Saudi Arabia in July, to go from sunrise to sunset, actually it's beyond that, without drinking water.
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Now there are exceptions for people in hospitals and things like that, but it is an incredibly difficult task.
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It's a whole lot easier when that's January, but because of the lunar calendar, that moves through the course of the year.
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And I remember the first time I was introduced to Ramadan, that I remember it clicking in my memory, was back when the
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Houston Rockets and Hakeem Olajuwon were in the NBA Finals and Ramadan hit. And some of the games were during the day.
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And the question was, could Hakeem play a whole game without drinking water? Because he was an observant Muslim, and so he would not drink water during Ramadan.
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And so that's an interesting aspect of it. Then we have Zakat, the giving of alms,
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I'll be very brief here. Basically what it boils down to is, anything that you possess for more than a year, you give 2 .5
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% of it in alms giving. If you're under an Islamic nation, which there really aren't any today in the fullest sense, that would be the tax in essence.
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But many Muslims would give that to the local mosque, to organizations like that, that would help to promote
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Islam. And that is the giving of Zakat. And then you have the
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Hajj. Now I'm old enough to remember, remember the Johnny Quest?
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Anybody remember the cartoon Johnny Quest on Saturday mornings? A couple of you are nodding your heads.
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And remember Hajji? They had Hajji. And that was a person who went on Hajj.
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And Hajj, every Muslim, if they are capable of doing so, if their health allows, is required to go on Hajj at least once in their lifetime.
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Now this is interesting, because Islam is now so large that that technically is not a possibility.
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Saudi Arabia limits the number of people who can go on Hajj. And given that there are over a billion
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Muslims in the world, given how many million can do it in any one year, it would be absolutely impossible for Muslims to actually fulfill the fifth pillar.
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But it's still something that many of them desire to do. And so they travel to Mecca and Medina to engage in Hajj.
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And here's a quick description of Hajj for you. Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca is compulsory for all
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Muslims in good health and with sufficient funds to make the journey. The Hajj is the foremost of all
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Muslim rituals, even if less than 10 % of all Muslims ever manage to complete it.
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The Hajj's importance lies in its allowing the believer to approach the center of the world, as well as the place where the
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Quran's divine revelations began and continued for about 12 years. The performer of Hajj does not only reenact
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Muhammad's ritual, he or she also recalls acts of important people in Muslim history.
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The rituals performed around the Kaaba reenacts when Prophet Abraham and Ishmael transformed the
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Kaaba into the sacred place of worship and peace. In spite of some physical hardships, pilgrims who complete the
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Hajj consider it one of the greatest spiritual experiences of their lives. Many Muslims regard the
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Hajj as one of the great achievements of civilization because it brings together people from around the world and focuses them upon a single goal.
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A believer is required to make the pilgrimage at least once in his or her lifetime. So there's
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Hajj. Now you saw the Kaaba there. I've only found one video.
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It may be the only one that exists, I don't know. But I've only found one video that allows you to actually see inside the
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Kaaba. Again, the building itself is not specifically sacred.
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It's been torn down and rebuilt a number of times since the days of Muhammad. It's the black stone that is the real issue.
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But here is a video of what the Kaaba looks like from the inside.
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Obviously from someone's cell phone. I'm not sure if they were supposed to be taking this, but they did.
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And it's on YouTube. So this is the inside of that building.
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But there's really nothing in there that is specifically sacred. It is the black stone which is embedded on the outside of all the corners that is really the object to which they are facing.
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That's the inside of the Kaaba. It's the only video I've ever seen of what the inside of the current
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Kaaba looks like. That really, I guess you could say, is the center of the
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Islamic world, is what you're looking at right there. So that is the inside of the
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Kaaba. Now there's the black stone.
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In fact, there's Muhammad Ali looking at the black stone right there. But this is a more recent picture.
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There's the black stone. It is a meteorite, basically. Muslims feel that it was sent down from heaven.
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It was originally white but turned black because of the sins of man. But it is a meteorite, which of course was venerated before Muhammad came along.
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In fact, the Kaaba was a house of worship. It had, by tradition, 360 idols in it before Muhammad came along.
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The Muslims would do the seven times around the Thulaf, around the Kaaba, as a part of their worship.
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Much of that has remained in Islam, though given a different basis is what is claimed by the
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Muslims. So that gives you an idea. You've probably seen the Kaaba a number of times on television. It gives you some idea of what it is you're looking at there.
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Now, aside from the five pillars, you have six articles of Sunni Islam.
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Now, Sunni Islam is the majority. About 85 % of the world's
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Muslims are Sunni. Shia are about 10%. And then you've got a mixture of other perspectives making up the rest of that.
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The vast majority of those that you'd be running into will probably be Sunni, but you might encounter a
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Shiite as well. Iran, of course, is Shiite. And it's interesting, even though Shiism is a small minority in worldwide
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Islam, Shiites sit on 50 % of the oil reserves in the Middle East.
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So there you have where some of the political issues enter in at that particular point in time.
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But most of the comments that I'll be making will be about Sunni Islam rather than Shiite Islam, because you're going to have a much better opportunity or probability of running into a
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Sunni than a Shiite. Belief in Allah. Belief in all the prophets and messengers of Allah.
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So there have been many, many prophets and messengers. Allah has sent prophets and messengers to all the people of the world.
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And they were all bound together, according to the Quran, by one common belief, and that is, there is but one
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God. That was what binds all the prophets together, is that they all repeated that same message.
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Belief in the angels and the jinn. And the jinn. The jinn are a part of Islamic belief.
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Jinn is where we get genies. The jinn are made of smokeless flame, smokeless fire.
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That's where you get the stuff from genies in a bottle, and so on and so forth. But the jinn, according to Muslims, really, it's a parallel world.
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They are much stronger than human beings, they're much faster than human beings, but they're not as smart as human beings. That's a real dangerous combination.
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Stronger, faster, dumber. That's not a good thing, from my perspective. But there are
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Muslim jinn, and Christian jinn, and Jewish jinn.
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I'm not sure how there could be atheist jinn, but it's sort of a parallel world.
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It's a very, very interesting belief. Belief in the books. Ketuvim, a plural, sent by Allah.
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And so, it is very clearly stated in the Quran that the Torah and the
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Injil, the Gospel, were sent down by Allah. That they were originally, anyways, inspired.
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We'll talk a little bit about what modern belief is about that. But you must believe that God has sent down books, plural.
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And belief in the day of judgment. There will be a day of judgment, and there will be those who enter into paradise, and those who enter into the fire.
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And, in fact, the descriptions of hell in the Quran, and then in the traditions associated with Muhammad, called the
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Hadith, are significantly more graphic than anything you have in the
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Bible. In fact, well, I'll... Will I be able to explain this immediately?
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No. Let me just tell you the story. One of the stories that is told.
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The Hadith are... Could someone pull the battery out of the clock in the back?
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It's moving way, way, way too quickly. And I've got to get to some other things. I'll tell you about the Hadith tomorrow.
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That's where we'll go there. And then a belief in destiny, in Qadr. Qadr literally means power.
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It can also mean predestination. There are many forms of Islam that are extremely fatalistic in the sense that the day...
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And the day of your... Well, again, in the Hadith, these stories from Muhammad, he taught that on the 40th day of pregnancy, an angel comes and writes for every child the date of their death, whether they will be a
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Muslim or a non -Muslim, whether they'll be successful or not. Everything is fixed at that point. And if you're familiar with the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, what is different in the
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Islamic perspective is that Allah is so transcendent, so removed from His creation, that it really does become a form of fatalism.
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And that's why so many Muslims will say, you know, Inshallah, you know, if God wills.
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And it's very different than our belief that God is actively involved in His own creation and in the fulfillment of His own decree.
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But those are the six articles of Sunni Islam. Now, what I want to try to do... When do
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I... It is eight. Okay. Let me at least get through these examples of a
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Muslim mindset, and that's a good place that we can take a break. I have some clips here I want to share with you. Islam is not a monolith.
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And unfortunately, many of us do have the idea that every Muslim, even though we've seen these common beliefs, look, there are common
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Christian beliefs and that there's all sorts of expressions, some of which we would not even find to be valid.
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I mean, there are many Sunnis that don't believe that certain forms of Shiism are
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Islam. Many of the Shiites don't believe that the Sunnis are truly Muslims. And the Shiites and the
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Sunnis both kill the Akhmadis. And so there's many, many divisions.
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And so there's all sorts of different kinds of Muslims and all sorts of different kinds of mindsets that you're going to be encountering when you talk to a
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Muslim. I want to give you a contrast in the time that we have left. This first is from the first debate that I did on Islam, which was in 1999.
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I had not started studying Islam as a religion at this point in time. I was simply defending the deity of Christ in a debate on Long Island with a
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Muslim by the name of Hamza Abdul Malik. And at the end, we had audience questions.
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And the audience questions were extremely educational. And here's one of them.
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And just I'll let you, I'll warn you. I'm going to be watching you during this man's question.
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The reason being, I'd want you to be thinking, how would you respond if this individual raised this objection to the deity of Christ to you?
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Okay? Yes, my question to the doctor. I heard you repeating many times saying he's a creator about Jesus.
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Peace and blessing be upon him. Because we Muslims believe in Jesus, the mighty prophet of God.
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I heard you many times saying he's the creator of everything and all things. So I want you to explain to me if it's possible, if he's a creator of everything.
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When Jesus, peace and blessing be upon him, was walking by the fig tree with his companion.
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The fig tree with his companion. And he wants to eat some fig.
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And they told him, Master, the fig is not in season. So if he was
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God, how he don't know, if he created the tree, how he doesn't know if what's in season or what's not in season.
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If he created everything. And if the fig was not in season, and he's
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God. First of all, we don't accept God to be hungry. He wants to eat. But you Christians, you said
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God choose to do so. So that's your faith. But I'm saying, even if he was
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God and fig is not in season, why he couldn't order the tree to bring fig? Isn't that God the one who created everything?
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Okay, thank you. He did so because the fig tree represented the people of Israel and he made the application the people of Israel look like they have fruit but they do not.
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It was a clear application that he made. Secondly, he did eat food because the word became flesh.
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He became hungry. He became tired. Because as the New Testament, as it was written, clearly indicates
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Jesus Christ was the God -man. The eternal Logos became flesh and dwelt among us.
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He was a true man. He ate food. He became tired. He slept. He grew, etc.,
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etc. Christians have always believed that. Why? Because we believe all the New Testament teaches.
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Now, I was watching you and some of you had somewhat of a bemused smile upon your face.
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How many of you have heard the fig tree argument before? Okay. I mean, let's be honest.
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Some of you have been woken up on a Saturday morning by those bright smiley people at your door with the nice suit and tie on and they're carrying their little book bag and they want to talk to you about Armageddon.
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You know, Jehovah's Witnesses. And we know about their kinds of argumentation and some of those
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Jehovah's Witnesses are very good at arguing their case. They spend five hours a week preparing to debate with you. How many hours a week do you prepare to debate with them?
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And you've probably never heard someone going, well, Jesus can't be God because first of all,
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God doesn't eat. And secondly, Jesus was ignorant of when figs were in season.
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And third, if he's God, why couldn't he just tell the fig tree, bring forth figs. If you're God, you can do things like that.
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If you create the fig tree, you can also tell it to bring forth figs, right? That's not how
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Jehovah's Witnesses argue at the door. And so for some of us, we're sort of like, really?
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Come on. The problem is, come on, is not a response. You know, it doesn't help him out because in reality, what he is giving there, that's a
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Quranic argument. As we're going to see, we're going to read the section of the Quran later on, where that specific argument is presented.
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So he's repeating the author of the Quran's understanding of what the doctrine of the Trinity is, and one of the
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Quran's arguments is, Jesus ate food. So he couldn't possibly be
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God because he could have been destroyed. Anything that eats food can be destroyed by God, and therefore he can't be God.
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So how do you respond to that? Now, the specific incident, it's actually not all that difficult to respond to in the sense of what the fig tree was actually representing, but sometimes it's just because it's such an unusual objection that it throws us off as to how to actually respond to it.
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But that's one example of the Muslim mindset, very much coming from, obviously, he's not, don't think he was born in the
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United States, okay? He's coming from another land, and that's all he's ever heard. And unfortunately, he probably hasn't run into too many
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Christians that could give him much of a response to that particular issue. Now, here's another.
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This is only the father. You remember my opponent, he said that Christians don't consider Jesus the father.
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Well, then he doesn't know about the last hour because he's not divine. Oh, but he is in complete harmony with the father.
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Really? One of them died, and the Holy Ghost and God had no idea what's going on.
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One of them died. No, the one who died is an addition, not a subtraction. Come on, people.
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Offer the creed the same way Abraham gave it to his people. Did he ever say anything like this? We're angry here.
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I was insulted twice here. The terrible stuff my opponent said about Muhammad, taking stuff out of context, and put, you know, using fabricated words.
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And secondly, calling a son to God is the greatest offense to us
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Muslims. So don't think that you can come here and act angry, because we are angry. Because Allah doesn't have a son.
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He told you so. Jesus never said, I am Lord, I am divine, I am the God, the Creator.
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Worship me as you worship God. The Holy Ghost is God. Adam didn't say it, Abraham didn't say it,
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Noah didn't say it. They must have known another God, the new one, the one you know. I ask
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Allah subhanahu wa ta 'ala to open your hearts and minds. Because Jesus said it in so many ways that he's not
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God. You just want to stick it to him no matter what. Oh, there you go.
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You just want to stick it to him no matter what. Now, when he said the terrible things his opponent said, this was the second debate he had done that day.
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He had debated my friend David Wood on whether Muhammad was a prophet. So he was talking about that. But no, he says, we are offended.
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And what offends the Muslim? You're ascribing a son to God. In fact, the Quran says that when they ascribe a son to God, the mountains quake and fall down, the heavens are destroyed.
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I mean, it's just, the worst thing you can do is ascribe a son to God. And that's what they think
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Christians are doing. Now, what the nature of that is, that's one of the key issues that we're going to be looking at.
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What does it mean to ascribe a son to God? What did the Quran understand that to mean? What have Christians always understood that to mean?
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Again, it goes back to the accuracy of the Quran at that point. But that's the kind of thinking that you get from Jalal Abu Alrub.
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Neither of the first two I've shown you are individuals who have really taken much time to listen to what we have to say.
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And unfortunately, that's the vast majority of Muslims you're going to encounter. But, but, don't stop there.
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There are other Muslims out there. Here is the next two Muslims would call me a friend.
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That's unusual. That is unusual. But they would call me, they would use the term friend of me.
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The next is from the first debate that I had with Shabir Ali. He and I have debated five times now.
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This was at Biola. We did one in Seattle, two in London, and then we just did one at a mosque in Toronto, which is where he lives.
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And here is a part of the cross -examination period from our first encounter, Biola 2006.
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Is there any way that you can give to us this evening to explain to us how we can determine what is still inspired in the
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New Testament and what is not? Well, I believe that Muslims have a simple answer to this in saying that whatever is in the
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Quran that would be a judge of whatever is there in the Bible. So whatever of the
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Bible agrees with the Quran that obviously is inspired. What is contradictory is obviously not from God.
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And that which is neutral and neither in agreement nor in disagreement may be treated with some bit of silence.
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Usually the classical scholars have recommended silence, but I believe that Muslims who are quite familiar with the
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Gospels and familiar with the development of the text over time can make some judgments, though these judgments will be tentative.
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So everything about the cross, resurrection, atonement, deity of Christ, Jesus is the son of God, the
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Holy Spirit is a divine person, not an angel, Gabriel. All of that stuff is uninspired and a corruption of the original intention of the
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New Testament in light of the Quran. A Muslim would say that the Quranic revelation is here now as the pristine word of God.
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That teaches us that there is only one God, that Jesus is his Messiah, but nevertheless a servant, a messenger of the one true
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God. And so anything that is contrary to that, something that teaches, for example, that human responsibility as described in the
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Quran is to be somehow evaded, that would be contrary and would be thought to be a later development.
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Now, of course, that could be studied from another angle. One can look at the history and development of Christian teaching over time, one can look at the
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Gospels even without Islamic presuppositions, and it seems to me that many biblical scholars are coming to conclusions which are very close to the main conclusions which
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Muslims insist on, that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet like the prophets of the
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Old Testament. He preached the belief in God, similar to the belief that was known from the
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Jewish prophets since he himself was Jewish. He lived in a Jewish milieu. And people like the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Cross and Marcus Borg.
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It doesn't have to be them. The scholars are so numerous, it would be hard for us to list them and to name them now.
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So is there any New Testament book that Mark, for example, which you've referred to many times, clearly identifies
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Jesus as the Son of God, puts words in his mouth that you would never be able to accept as a Muslim. Isn't that correct? Well, it is clear that even
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Mark must have suffered from a similar sort of phenomenon that we described in the case of Matthew.
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And John Bowdoin has made specifically that point in his book, Jesus, the Unanswered Questions. If we look at Mark chapter 1, verse 1, which in many
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Bibles begins the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, it is noted in the NIV, for example, that the title, the
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Son of God, in this particular verse is not found in some of the most ancient and reliable manuscripts.
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So I'm not saying that the Gospel according to Mark does not present Jesus as the Son of God, but we have to be aware of scribal changes that have affected the
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Gospel according to Mark in places as well. And, in fact, we are working with the Gospel according to Mark only as it has come down to us.
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Knowing the history of scribal changes, we would not be out of our grounds to wonder if, in fact, we do really have the original
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Markan Gospel. Would you admit that you do not have any hard manuscript evidence from the first or second centuries that gives to us a
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New Testament that looks like a Muslim would expect it to look like? We do not have such a document. A little different.
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Shabir reads all of our liberals. He utilizes them as the main aspect of his apologetic, actually, is to use our liberals against us.
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That's really something that started in the middle of the 19th century in India when the Muslims grabbed hold of Enlightenment, especially
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German liberalism, and began to use it, even though I find that to be amazingly inconsistent because they won't apply the same standards to the
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Quran, but they apply to the New Testament. That's one of my primary arguments against Shabir and his use of that.
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The last one I want to show you to help give you the range of perspectives is from a debate that took place just a number of months ago at the
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University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, between myself and young Abdullah Kundap.
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Abdullah and I debated a topic that I had never heard debated between Christians and Muslims before.
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The debate topic was, can God become a man, the incarnation? Fundamentally, Islamic argumentation is that Jesus can't be
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God because God would never do that. There is a fundamental rejection of the concept of incarnation.
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Allah is so transcendent, the idea of his entering into his own creation is just simply not a possibility from the
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Islamic perspective. And so we had a debate in front of a pretty packed house in a lecture room there at the
59:19
University of New South Wales. Again, unfortunately, the Christians seem to be predominant in the audience.
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In fact, ironically, in my debate with Shabir just a few months ago in Toronto, in the mosque, it was about 70 %
59:34
Christian and 30 % Muslim, which I found very odd. I did not expect that, but that's pretty much how it turned out there.
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But we had a good group here in the University of New South Wales. Here's a part, just a brief part of our discussion.
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This entire debate, I would highly recommend to you if you just search on YouTube for James White Abdullah Kundap, it'll be one of the first ones that will come up.
59:56
So I would recommend to you if you want to do a little homework, shall we say, it would sort of help listen to the entirety of this debate.
01:00:02
But here's just a portion of the cross -examination. Mr. Kundap, I think we have to really focus when
01:00:14
I say the central question is this, and your response is that I have diminished capacity. I think we're talking past each other somehow at this point.
01:00:22
So let's look at that question again. I ask the question, does God as creator have the power, ability, or capacity to join a human nature to himself if he pleases to do so?
01:00:34
Now, did I understand in your rebuttal that you likened that to can God create another
01:00:40
God? That's correct. That's what I'm linking it to, or any of the other illogical fallacies that I mentioned.
01:00:49
Okay, could you explain how that question involves a logical fallacy?
01:00:56
Well, from a Muslim perspective, obviously not from a Christian perspective, but from a Muslim perspective, as I said,
01:01:02
God has certain attributes which we consider are essential and which only apply to him.
01:01:09
So, for example, without a beginning and without an end are two of these attributes. Now, these are not possessed by anything else in creation.
01:01:17
They're only possessed by God. So we say that for God, or even if we were to entertain the argument that there's three persons of God, that for one of those persons who is apparently co -eternal and co -equal with the other two, to then give up one of these essential attributes for us would be an illogical fallacy.
01:01:37
Because for us, by definition, if God doesn't have one of these attributes, he's not God. What essential attribute do you see the question assuming when it says, does
01:01:48
God as creator have the power or ability or capacity to join a human nature to himself if he pleases to do so?
01:01:56
What essential element is being abandoned? Well, all of them. Because human nature, by definition, we're dependent upon things.
01:02:04
I'm dependent upon three dimensions of space that I exist in. I'm dependent upon time. I'm dependent upon sustenance.
01:02:10
So it immediately removes him from being self -subsistent. I do not have independent knowledge.
01:02:17
I acquire my knowledge from other people or from books, etc. So it denies him having knowledge. I cannot see beyond the walls of this building.
01:02:25
So it denies him having universal sight, so on and so on. Now, it was, as I said, a very interesting conversation.
01:02:33
I think it all boiled back down to Abdullah saying God couldn't do that because God couldn't do that.
01:02:40
But it was a little bit more complex argument than you normally would encounter. But hopefully what this has illustrated for you is that there is a wide range of expression of Islamic belief.
01:02:53
And one of the reasons I do this is to try to help my fellow believers to understand that just as there are wide expressions in Christianity, some valid, some invalid, think about what it's like to be a
01:03:09
Muslim and look at Christianity in the United States. How confusing is it?
01:03:15
I mean, I've had many a Muslim think that the Pope speaks for me. Well, he doesn't. But how do you explain that?
01:03:22
And we have the same thing looking their direction. I mean, you know, I'll ask Abdullah questions and Abdullah will ask me questions and Sheikh Yasir Qadhi has actually written to me a couple of times and said, what's the difference between this denomination and that denomination?
01:03:35
Where is this denomination coming from? It's difficult. And you need to understand that there are certain things that cause the radicalization of some
01:03:46
Muslims, Salafi, Wahhabi, Islam, its understanding of the Hadith and certain concepts and things like that.
01:03:54
But the majority of the world's Muslims do not hold those perspectives. And they're not hiding an
01:04:00
AK -47 behind their back. And so we need to recognize, you know,
01:04:06
I pray for this young man very regularly. I really do. We've had two debates now.
01:04:13
He's open to doing further ones down there. We have conversations outside of just the debate context.
01:04:20
And it's really been good for me to know someone and to really have a passionate desire to see that person come to know the truth of Jesus Christ.
01:04:30
And yet to have the kinds of conversations that we have. And it's very interesting that we can have them. Because there are major differences between us.
01:04:38
No question about it. But I want you to understand that range so that as we look at the central issues, you'll recognize that, yes, there are some people, you know,
01:04:52
I listened to a debate just, I think it was the day before yesterday. A debate took place on the
01:04:58
Aramaic Broadcasting Network between David Wood and, what's the guy,
01:05:03
Spencer. Robert Spencer. And these two Muslims, Anjum Chowdhury and a fellow from Lebanon, on whether Muhammad existed.
01:05:12
There are certain scholars who don't believe Muhammad existed. And listening to the
01:05:17
Muslims, you know what the entire Muslim argument was? Of course Muhammad existed. The Quran says he did.
01:05:25
Now you and I go, how is that an argument?
01:05:31
I mean, of course, from the Islamic perspective, Muhammad didn't write the Quran. The Quran is a divine revelation.
01:05:39
Muhammad is just the one through whom it came. He didn't write it. He just recited it. He has nothing to do with it. None of it represents his thinking or anything else.
01:05:46
But from their perspective, that's all they needed to do. The Christians are going, well, here's this evidence, and there's this evidence, and there's this evidence.
01:05:52
And they're like, it doesn't matter. The Quran says it. It must be true. And you'd never see any kind of rational thought going on these two
01:06:01
Islamic apologists. And it can be very frustrating.
01:06:06
It can make you go, there's just no use in even doing this. No, there is a use in doing it.
01:06:12
Because it's for anybody. I don't care if they're a professor at a big -time university here in Southern California, or a
01:06:24
Muslim. What's the only thing that can convert anyone? The work of the Holy Spirit of God. And so sometimes,
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I'll confess, it's a little frustrating. But I have to be patient and recognize, doing this kind of work, especially amongst the
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Muslim people, they've been given a false hope. It's a very strong tradition. If I believed that it was up to me and my arguments,
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I wouldn't have gone up to Salt Lake City for 18 years and witnessed the Mormons. When we first started doing that, there were plenty of people in the church
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I was in at that time that really tried to discourage us from doing that. The Mormons are tough.
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Why go up and talk to them? There's plenty of other pagans around that are a lot easier to talk to. If I didn't believe that the
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Spirit of God can bring that divine act of regeneration into the life of His people,
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I wouldn't bother doing what I'm doing. And so there is a wide range that is expressed out there.
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We need to be aware of that and then make application from there. So, what's the next step?
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What we're going to do, I'm not sure how I'm going to fit all this in tomorrow, because I know what the next step in the presentation is, but I don't want on a
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Sunday morning to start off with a discussion of the history of Muhammad. We'll be looking more at what the
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Bible says about Jesus and the cross and things like that. But when we dive specifically back into this, you need to understand something about Muhammad.
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You need to know something about the prophet of Islam. You need to know something about why Muslims believe that he is the greatest man who's ever lived.
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Why when Muhammad took his night journey to Jerusalem and he was literally ushered through the levels of heaven,
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Jesus was only on the second level. Why is it that he is viewed as the example of what a man should be in all things?
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And yet, most Muslims, some, Abdullah does not believe that Muhammad sinned, interestingly enough.
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Most Muslims recognize he did. The Quran talks about the forgiveness of the sins, so I'm not really quite sure how you can think he never sinned, but they do not accuse
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Jesus of sin. I'll tell you one of the interesting Hadith stories on that. But we need to understand who
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Muhammad was, and therefore we can look more at where the Quran comes from at that point. And then we'll be looking specifically at the text of the
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Quran and looking at what it teaches about Jesus, about the cross, about Christians. Because remember,
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Islam comes 600 years after Christ. And so Islam interacts with the
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Al -Kitab, the people of the book, and the Al -Anjil, the people of the
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Gospel. Us. So we're mentioned. How accurate is the representation of our beliefs?
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And how does the Quran interact with the Bible? What does it say about the
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Bible? We'll be looking at all of that and then trying to sort of tie it all up on Monday night. And who knows?
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If I go really, really, really fast, maybe we'll have time on Monday night to do a little role -playing.
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Maybe. Where I can play the Muslim, and if you looked like you were falling asleep during my last lecture, you can play the
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Christian. You know, something along those lines. Maybe that'll help to keep you awake so I'm watching and taking notes, okay?
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There'll be nobody here on Monday night but you. But that's what we'll be doing, okay?
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So thank you very much for your attention. Let's close with a word of prayer. Father, we do thank you for the freedom that we continue to have in this land to be able to speak about these things.
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And we do pray for the more than one billion Muslims on this planet. They, so many, all they know is what they've been taught and what they've read.
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And, Lord, we know the revelation of God and Jesus Christ. And we know that they need to know that Savior.
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So make us to be bold. Make us to do the work that is necessary to learn and to understand and then to be good communicators of that gospel, both in word as well as in deed and in life.
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Again, we thank you for the freedom we have to do this. We ask that you would bless the entirety of this conference this weekend so that we might be a people better prepared to testify that Jesus Christ is
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Lord and He is risen in deed. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. We want to thank you for coming this evening and trusting with us for the rest of the session.
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Just for this reason, we went out to lunch this afternoon and we realized that we were hosting an
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Islam conference by a man whose initials are JW at a church whose pastor's initials are
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LDS. So that's pretty interesting. I don't think you can get that anywhere else. Two of the biggest cult initials here in this building talking about Islam.
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So hopefully that's enough to bring you back. The ushers in the back have a piece of paper with some information on it about Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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You can also pick that up at the information booth in the back. So we trust you have a wonderful evening.