Presenting the Gospel to People of the Muslim Faith, Part 6

Presenting the Gospel to People of the Muslim Faith, Part 6

I'd like to say I taught him everything he knows, but that would be a bald-faced lie, so we won't go there. Well, it's good to be with you this last evening together. I'm sure some of you are going, yes, it is the last evening together, yay.

We'll be able to have a night to ourselves. You got something going on tomorrow night? No. No, that's good. That's a good thing for everyone involved, I'm sure. I know it takes a lot of work, and we're finally getting down to the last portion of time we have together, and finally getting to the normal material that I normally present when I only have an hour or maybe an hour and a half to talk with folks.

You've gotten a lot of information. In fact, sadly, if you've listened carefully, taken notes, and maybe even pick up the recordings and maybe listen to them again, you're now amongst some of the best educated evangelicals in the world on the subject of Mormonism.

Isn't that a frightening thought? It really is a frightening thought when you think about it, because there is such a huge gap that exists between our two communities, and it makes it very, very difficult for there to be really good communication between those two groups.

And the results, I think, we see in the world around us today. Now, I've been mentioning, I keep saying over and over again, we're eventually going to get to looking at what the Quran says about this.

We're eventually going to get to that. Well, now is the eventual part. This is what we've been working toward, and so we have just really, literally only a few specific texts, but I want to look at them very carefully to look at about what the Quran teaches about Jesus in specific, but we need to start with a sort of wider topic.

Surah 112 and the Quran’s Confession of God’s Oneness

And here in Surah 112, and I've mentioned Surah 112 a couple of times, hopefully you remember that in the Quran there are 114 surahs, and they get progressively shorter in essence. So if you're at Surah 112, this isn't a very long chapter, and you see the entirety of it on the screen in front of you right now.

It's called Al-Iklas, and the titles of the surahs in the Quran are normally derived from a word or incident or story in the chapter itself. So for example, Surah Al-Baqarah, the cow, there is a mention in that long surah of an incident regarding a cow, so that's why it's called the cow.

Surah Al-Iklas is one of the very few surahs in the Quran that is named by a means other than a word that actually appears in its text, and it means the purity or the sincerity. Surah 112 is about as close as you're going to get to a creedal statement in the Quran.

It's about as close as you're going to get to sort of a summary statement of what is believed about God in Islam, but most Muslims know Surah 112 very, very well. It says, Say, He is Allah the One and Only, Allah the Eternal Absolute.

He begetteth not, nor is He begotten, and there is none like unto Him. Pretty short, pretty straightforward, and three of the four statements we wouldn't have really any disagreement with at all. In fact, if you have considered, again, this church in specific does missions work up in Utah, and therefore there's a whole list of verses that you probably have become rather familiar with, because if you're going to talk to Mormons, you have to defend the fact there's only one true God, that He's unique, that He's not a man, the gospel is not that men can become gods, but God became a man, the person of Jesus Christ.

And there are verses that just, anybody who's ever gone up to Salt Lake City, you just sort of memorize them, you have to. Isaiah 43 .10, Before me there was no God formed, and there shall be none after me.

Isaiah 44 .6 and 8, 45, there's just so many in between 40 and 48, the trial of the false gods, but over in Jeremiah chapter 10, Any God that is not created of the heavens and the earth shall perish from under the heavens and the earth.

There's just all these texts that we go to, God is not a man that he shall lie to, God is not a man that he shall repent, and Hosea 11 .9, Numbers 23 .19, all these texts we go to that demonstrate there's only one true God.

And in all of those texts, we have the emphasis upon the fact of the uniqueness of God, that there are certain things that set God apart from all the gods of the peoples. One of the key elements of biblical revelation is that God is the creator of all things.

And that unlike the gods of the people around Israel, who came out of the creation, God actually made everything, He is independent from His creation, He is the eternal creator of all things. And so, we look at this, and there is only one and only God, He is the eternal absolute, there's none like unto Him.

These are phrases that are very similar to what we would have in the Old Testament text. And we need to emphasize to our Muslim friends, we believe these things, we believe them implicitly, explicitly, and firmly, and we confess them, and unfortunately, they frequently don't believe us, because they've been taught that we're polytheists, they've been taught that we believe in three gods, and that we've compromised on this one particular issue.

The central aspect, if you were to ask, for example, if you were to ask a Mormon what the central aspect of their theological system is, most well-trained Mormons would say it is the concept of exaltation to Godhood.

For Joseph Smith himself said in the King Follett funeral discourse, we have imagined, supposed, that God was God from all eternity, I'll refute that idea and take away the veil so that you might see.

In fact, he said, it is the first principle of the gospel to know for certainty the character of God, that we may converse with Him as one man converses with another, yea, that God Himself, the Father of us all, was once a man who dwelt on another planet.

And so, that's the essence of Mormonism. If you were to talk to a Roman Catholic, what is the heart and soul of the Roman Catholic affirmation, but it's that of the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass.

It is the central sacramental affirmation of Christ's presence with His people through the sacramental presence that is brought about by the miracle of transubstantiation in the Mass. And if you talk to the Muslim, the central thing they will identify as the thing that defines everything else is a word called Tawheed, Tawheed.

And Tawheed means oneness. And so, from their perspective, it's oneness of, certainly, one God over against all the pagan idols of the days of Muhammad. And of course, this is imprinted upon the religion by those first 12 years when Muhammad is a persecuted minority prophet in Mecca.

And much of the Quran that comes at that time is focused upon this idea of Tawheed and the fact that there's only one true God. And there's many of the things, many of the arguments that Muhammad would make at this time that we would agree with because we believe that there is only one true God.

And he is amongst polytheists and he is persecuted. There would be times that he would be bowing in prayer and they would come along and they would dump the entrails of an animal upon him while he's praying and mock him and spit upon him and so on and so forth.

And this has left its mark upon the later development of Islamic theology, obviously. And so, when you listen to the best Islamic scholars and speakers, they will start with Tawheed, one God. Unfortunately, in most Muslim thinking, we reject that.

And so, what do you need to do if you're going to have a conversation? I mean, people keep saying, well, how can I open up the door? And I've suggested some ways you can open up the door of conversation.

One way that will really get a lot of people's interest is to start off with quoting. You already know some of the verses. I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen it, but on my website, I have a hundred-verse memorization system for dealing with Mormons.

So, you've seen it. Start off with Isaiah 4310 or 44. You know, I understand that we agree in believing that God said, before me there was no God formed and there shall be none after me. Really? Yeah, isn't that a really important thing to recognize that there's only one true God?

He's the creator of all things. It's a foundation of law and morality, and it really helps us to see who we are as his creatures. And you're talking about something, you're speaking their language at that point, but you're speaking your language at that point.

And you believe in that truth of monotheism. Now, you might want to then be prepared to recognize that Isaiah 4310, Jesus quotes of himself in John 13, 19, and identifies, in fact, you all know that Isaiah 4310 is where Jehovah's Witnesses get their name.

You are my servants, saith Jehovah, whom I have chosen, says Jehovah. So they're Jehovah's Witnesses, that's where the name comes from. But then Jesus quotes those words of himself and identifies himself as Yahweh.

It's rather intriguing that that's the case. But be that as it may, you can start from that, and you need to affirm to the Muslim, we believe there's only one true God. We agree with three of the four, about 75 of Surah Tali Klaus.

But then there's that one ayah, the third ayah, lem yeled wa lem yuled. Now the term yeled, as I've mentioned to you before, Arabic is a Semitic language, just like Hebrew. And the root for child or birth is the same in Arabic as it is in Hebrew.

And so it occurs twice in the third ayah there, he begetteth not nor is he begotten, lem yeled wa lem yuled. You can hear the term that is used there. That's also found in the Old Testament. In fact, it's found in Isaiah 9 .6, unto us a child, a yeled, is born.

Unto us a son is given. Exact same root, just in a different language, but it comes from the same source. And as I mentioned to you before, when I took my class to the mosque at ASU just a few years ago, I asked the imam, I said, would you agree that the third ayah of Surah Tali Klaus is specifically written to refute Christian belief in the doctrine of the trinity?

He said, oh yes, certainly. There's no question that that's the background. And that certainly has been the opinion of the vast majority, not all, but the vast majority of Muslims with whom I have spoken.

He begetteth not, he has no son. Now what does the author of the Quran understand that to mean? I think we need to be fair here. There are Muslims that say that this doesn't have anything to do with Christianity.

They're in the minority, but they're there, and I think we need to be fair with the text. Just because I can give you example after example after example when Muslims are not fair with my text, doesn't mean I can then turn around and be unfair with theirs.

We don't get to do that. We have to bend over backwards. If we're going to demand that they handle our text right, well we need to do the same thing. So keep in mind this idea, he begetteth not, nor is he begotten.

Because we're going to be able to sort of flesh that out a little bit as we move along. Now you may recall that yesterday morning in our time together, I introduced you to the concept of shirk. And it is the concept of idolatry.

Shirk, Al-Kitab, and the Quran’s Charges Against Christians

Now we get to look at a couple of verses that actually define that for us. Surah 31, 13 says, Oh my son, do not associate anything with Allah. Indeed, association with him is great injustice. That's shirk.

The association of any created thing. Allah is so transcendent, he is so other, that to associate him with anything is to drag him down from his lofty height and to make him like his own creation. And so you can imagine, for example, that the Muslims found and continue to find today in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy a tremendous amount of reason to find those faiths to cause them to stumble because of their use of icons and images.

And certainly the veneration of saints and Mary and things like that. And you need to realize, for most Muslims, we're all just one group. They don't make a differentiation. Just like, to be honest, most of us don't differentiate between Muslims either.

And so they hold us accountable for prayers to Mary and saints and everything else, even if we don't believe in any of that. And in fact, would identify that as idolatry ourselves, but that still is what happens and you have to make those differentiations.

Surah 6, 1, all praise is due to Allah who created the heavens and the earth and made the darkness and the light. Then those who disbelieve equate others with their Lord. So there's the concept of shirk.

And to be a disbeliever is a kaffir, a kaffir. Again, it's the same root. What's the great Jewish holiday? Yom Kippur. Kippur, kaffir, means to cover over. And so in Arabic, a disbeliever is a kaffir, a person who's covering over the truth.

And so very frequently, Muslims will just refer to us in just a bland, rather insulting, well, they're just kaffirs. They're just kaffirs. They don't believe. And technically, it's they don't believe in Allah, but much more specifically, it's normally in their mind, they don't believe in the claims of Muhammad.

That becomes the real object of what the disbelief is aimed at. But there you have the concept of shirk, equation of others with their Lord. Now, if you're, let's say you didn't, just didn't feel like you had time to read all of the Quran.

But you asked me what sections should I read that would really be the most helpful to me? I would suggest you surahs four and five. Surahs four and five. Because as you're going to see, we're going to be primarily focused in those two surahs.

Because these really contain most of, not all, but most of the key texts that are relevant to our understanding of what the Quran says to us and where the Quran gives testimony that quite simply, it is not from God.

Because it does not understand what it's saying. So here in surah four, O you who were given the scripture, specifically it's Al-Kitab, the people of the book. Which again, like I said before, is Jews or Christians.

Sometimes the context will differentiate, sometimes it does not. But this is going to be more specifically about Christians here because it says, O you who were given the scripture, believe in what we have sent down to Muhammad, that is, believe in the Quran, confirming that which is with you.

Just stop right there. That which is with you? Yeah, the Torah and the Injil. The Quran, the author of the Quran really believes that the Quran confirms what's in the Torah and the Injil, even though the Quran only once quotes from the Bible, and we mentioned that yesterday.

Remember it was the Lex Talionis, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Before we obliterate faces and turn them toward their backs or curse them as we curse the Sabbath breakers, and ever is the decree of Allah accomplished, indeed Allah does not forgive association with him, that's the sin of Shirk once again, but he forgives what is less than that for whom he wills.

And he who associates others with Allah has certainly fabricated a tremendous sin. Then the same surah, surah four, O people of the scripture, do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah except the truth.

This really I think is one of the key phrases in the Quran directed at you and I. The idea, the Quran at places says some rather positive things about Christians, and in fact there is a text in the Quran that says the ones who are closest to you in faith are Christians because there are sincere Christians according to the Quran.

And there is argument amongst Muslims. Your Salafi or Wahhabi Muslims which are the ones you see in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia, these are what some people might call fundamentalist Muslims, most of the radicals come from their ranks though to be a Salafi or Wahhabi does not necessarily mean that you believe it's appropriate to engage in Jihad today.

One of the men that I respect a lot, that I've learned a lot from in Islam is Sheikh Abu Amr Yasir Qadhi, and he is a Salafi Muslim, that means he's very very conservative, and yet he speaks out against Jihad.

Now what scares me to be honest with you just a little bit is that in listening to him talk about Jihad, he says it's wrong to engage in Jihad, but there's only one reason why it's wrong to engage in Jihad, and that's because there is not a caliph today, a leader of the entire Islamic world that can declare a state of Jihad.

If there was, I'm toast. It seems to me to be a rather thin line of, you know, that's why so many from that perspective cross over, because the people on the other side are saying, there's clearly a state of Jihad, these people have invaded our lands, they've enslaved our people, blah blah blah blah, and it's very easy for them to get people across that line.

So it's something to be concerned about. But there are Salafi, Wahhabi type Muslims that argue against Jihad, because there is no caliph to say that, to make those types of a perspective. But they will be very, they're the ones that can be very straightforward, they're going to say, your coffers, your worship of Jesus is an act of shirk, therefore hellfire is where you're going to go.

But then there are people like Hamza Yusuf, who was in the White House on the 13th of September, 2001, a very intelligent, well-spoken, American-born Islamic scholar, who will say Christians can't be mushriks, we cannot convict Christians of shirk.

They might be forgiven in the afterlife, but why? Interestingly enough, his argument is that the reason that we can't be convicted as idolaters is because the Quran allows Muslim men to marry Christian women.

And a mushrik is negas, an abomination, unclean, defiled in Allah's sight. So if a Christian woman is a mushrik, she would be negas, and therefore could not be married to a Muslim man, therefore Christians must not be negas, and hence must not be mushriks.

That doesn't really answer the question that the Salafis raise, and that is, but what about what Christians believe? Now Hamza Yusuf recognizes that we believe in monotheism, that we confess there's only one true God.

He would disagree that we are consistent at that point, but he at least recognizes that it's first and foremost a part of our very definition of our faith that we believe there's only one true and eternal God.

And so there are those that understand that. Unfortunately, they primarily tend to be all in the West. It's very rare to encounter a Muslim in an Islamic country that is aware of those types of things, and that's where a lot of the problems come from.

But here you have, I think, a very important statement. Do not commit excess, ta 'alu is the Arabic word, to go beyond the bounds, to transgress a border, to step over the line. And so the idea is we've been given the truth.

We have been given the Gospel. If we had just, a lot of the early Muslims believed, if we had just believed everything we had been given, then we wouldn't believe that Jesus was God, we wouldn't believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, and it's other people who have led us beyond these things.

Some of them, like today, they like to blame Paul for this. Paul is the one who's led us astray. But of course, Paul wrote 13 books of the New Testament, maybe 14, depending on what you do with Hebrews, and so it's sort of hard to come up with exactly how that works.

But the early generations weren't aware of that, they didn't know anything about the New Testament. It wasn't until after that Islamic expansion stops and they start establishing schools of higher learning and they have to start interacting with Christians and doing debates and things like that, which has, there's a long line, a long history of doing debates between Christians and early Muslims.

That's when they start having to deal with these things. And so we're told, do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah except the truth. So what the Quran really is saying is, when we confess what we confessed in our music this evening, in our statement of faith, the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, whatever else it might be, we are not speaking the truth about Allah because we are engaging in excess.

The Messiah, and that's Mashiach, it's the same word, the Messiah, Jesus, Riza ibn Maryam, the son of Mary, was but a messenger, a razul of Allah, means he was sent by Allah with a message. And what unites, let me test you all because I've mentioned this a number of times now, and if you all don't come up with the right answer, then I will, I'll ask Drew, who of course listens very carefully and has all of this down, and he's said that if that doesn't work then we go back to the pastor.

So what unites all the messengers? What's the one message that they bring? What's the one message that unites all the messengers according to Islam? Because Islam says God has sent many prophets, many messengers, to many different people in many different languages, but they always had one message, which was, what's that?

One God, specifically la ilaha illallah. That is what has bound all of them together. That was Jesus' main message. If you're going to be a razul, a messenger of Allah, that is the message that you have delivered.

And so he was a messenger of Allah, and then you have this very interesting phraseology, and his word which he directed to Mary, and a soul created a command from him, so believe in Allah and his messengers.

That's not, I'm going to change this slide, I'm going to change the translation of this slide, because literally what the Arabic says is that he, that Jesus was his word and spirit. And a lot of folks detect some influence possibly of the New Testament at that point, in this particular description, but I'm not really certain.

The way that Muslims interpret this text is that his word, which he directed to Mary, and a soul created a command from him, was that elsewhere in the Quran, what is said was that Allah simply said, be, and Jesus came into existence.

So they believe in the virgin birth. Jesus did not have a human father. Allah said, be, and he came into existence. They don't do all the Holy Spirit overshadowing and things like that. They find that to be unnecessary.

Allah just simply said, come into existence, and Jesus came into existence, and there's nothing too hard for Allah, et cetera, et cetera, is the phraseology that's used. So believe in Allah and his messengers, which would be Jesus, but messengers is plural, and also Muhammad, who is the final messenger, and his message really overrules anything else at that point in time.

It continues on, and do not say three, desist, it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God. Exalted is he above having a son. Now, here's where the Quran is specifically beginning to try to deal with what you and I believe, and like I said, and now hopefully you've got a little more background to understand this, but I said the very first evening.

I said, even if the Trinity was wrong, didn't Allah know what it was by 632 AD? I mean, even if it was a wrong concept, God would know it well enough to refute it, right? And so when I look to the Quran, and I've done two debates on this now.

I've done one with the Adnan Rashid and one with Bassam Zawadi, both at different places in London, England. This has been the subject. Does the Quran misrepresent the Trinity? Does the Quran even show an even semi-accurate knowledge of the doctrine of the Trinity?

Well, let's ask ourselves the question. Do not say three. Now, some translations will say, do not say Trinity. The most popular English translation of the Quran that is distributed in the United States today is by Yusuf Ali.

The Saudi Arabians just crank these things out and pass them out all over the place. And it says Trinity. Do not say Trinity. Now, I would agree that the Quran is trying to address the Trinity here. But there's an Arabic word for Trinity, and this isn't it.

The Arabic word in the Quran is the word for three, not for Trinity. So this is an accurate translation. And so the Quran is saying, do not say three, desist, stop, it will be better for you. But then notice what the very next phrase is.

Indeed, Allah is but one God. Now, reason with me for just a moment. If I say, okay, oh, this could be easy. I was asking Drew about family dress amongst he and his siblings and parents. And I was asking, do you have regular shirts without markings on them, without embroidery, things like that?

And it's like, why? So as I understand it, there are three teams represented amongst the boys, right? Nebraska, USC, and Oregon, right? Who is the Oregon one? I mean, come on. What's this all about? But anyway, talk about breaking at least the color trend.

At least you had a red thing going for a while. And then, whoa, green and yellow or something. What happened there? But anyways, if I said, do not say three, there is only one team.

And dad, it would be, didn't even say it out loud.

Doesn't even need to be said, does it? It's imprinted on every man's heart, isn't it? Just sort of the Imago Dei just witnesses the truth of this, isn't it? Yeah, sure. Okay. If I say, do not say three, there is only one team.

Do you understand what I meant when I said three? Three what? Teams. Do not say three. Allah is but one God. What is the Quran thinking we're saying? Three gods. Polytheism, more than one God. We don't believe in more than one God.

The Council of Nicaea was 300 years before this. And how did it start off? We believe in one God. And so every, just sort of track as we read these over and over again. It's the same thing over and over again.

Do not say three, one God. God doesn't have a son, one God. It's just constant repetition over and over and over again. What does that tell you about the author of the Quran? Exalted is he above having a son.

Now, the most popular Islamic speaker in the past 40 years is the man who died back in 19, no, 2005. And this man from South Africa did a number of debates. In fact, he did one debate that he lost rather badly that almost no one's ever seen against Josh McDowell.

And this particular man, his videotapes go all over the place. And if you ever want to listen to a horrible, horrible, horrible, a debate that is as enjoyable as chewing on aluminum foil, listen to the debate that he did with Jimmy Swaggart.

Oh, it's on YouTube. It's on YouTube. It is, it's really, really bad. But he would always, he would repeat over and over and over again that the Christian view of God cannot be true because to have a son refers to the lower animal sexual instincts.

And most Muslims around the world, they take what he has to say at face value and they take the idea that the Quran is saying that we believe that God had a son, that he took a wife and had a son. There are many, many people who believe that that is the case.

So, to him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth and sufficient as the law is disposed of affairs. Never would the Messiah disdain to be a servant of a law, nor would the angels near to him and whoever disdains his worship and is arrogant, he will gather them to himself altogether.

Then we go to Surah 5. And we could have gone to earlier. This is the brief version because even as it is, I'm running up against time. They have certainly disbelieved, kafirs, they're disbelievers, who say Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary.

Now, that's really not how we speak. We don't say God is the Messiah. We say the Messiah is God. But when we say that, we're not saying the Messiah is all of God. We're not excluding the father. We're not excluding the spirit.

So, it's an unusual way of putting it. But leave that aside for the moment. Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary. While the Messiah has said, oh, children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord.

Before you go looking in your concordance to find those particular words of Jesus, don't bother, they're not there. This is one of those times where the Quran inserts into the mouth of Jesus words that historically, there is absolutely no basis for believing that Jesus ever uttered any of these words.

And that's what's just so amazing to me when Muslims will come along and they'll start quoting the Jesus seminar in questioning the reality of the book of John and yet they'll accept this kind of thing as if it is relevant to historically what is actually going on.

What is it about this time?

I just want you all to know.

That I know you can hear me out there in the foyer and that I'm really hurt. I'm saddened and we're gonna have a little meeting with all of you afterwards and I'm gonna finish what I was saying. But they must be hungry.

They must, it's those young folks. They need those brownies before all the rest of us do, I guess. So anyways, I have no idea what I was saying. We were at the Battle of Yamama, right? Okay, so we're at the Battle of Yamama and it's always a good place to go back to is the Battle of Yamama.

What were we saying? All right. They have certainly disbelieved who has said, Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary, while the Messiah has said, okay, I was saying you'll not find that anywhere in the Bible.

Indeed, he who associates others with Allah, Allah has forbidden him paradise and his refuge is the fire. You hear about halal and haram. You hear about halal meat in a lot of cities now, like in prisons, especially in Europe, and stuff like that.

They'll only serve halal meat. It's basically the Muslim version of kosher. Well, interestingly enough, here it says, Allah has forbidden him paradise. He's made paradise haram to him. Haram is forbidden, and so paradise is now haram to the person who says, who basically makes confession of faith in the deity of Christ.

Allah has forbidden him paradise and his refuge is the fire, and there are not for the wrongdoers any helpers. They have certainly disbelieved who say, Allah is the third of three. Now, that's a good literal translation.

Not the first of three, the third of three. Three what? Hmm, look at the next phrase. And there is no God except one God. Every time you find the word three, what's the next phrase gonna be? There's only one God.

So what does three mean? Accusation of polytheism. Not a recognition that we believe there's one God exists in three persons or anything along those lines. There is only one God. And if they do not desist from what they are saying, so if you will not stop being a Christian, they will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment.

So will they not repent to Allah and seek his forgiveness? You need to seek forgiveness for being an idolater. And Allah is forgiving and merciful. The Messiah, son of Mary, was not but a messenger. Other messengers have passed on before him, and his mother was a supporter of truth.

They both used to eat food. Look how we make clear to them the signs. Then look how they are deluded. So hellfire, deluded, led astray. And people say we're the ones that attack Islam. I'm not really sure that's the case.

But you've heard this argument before. You heard this argument before. Well, of course, you might be sitting here going, this is the first night I've been here. I have no idea what you're talking about.

But if you've been here all along, you've heard this argument before. Where'd you hear it? Figtree. Jesus is walking by the fig tree, and he wants to eat fig. They both used to eat food. The argument of the Quran is Jesus can't be God because he ate food.

And God doesn't eat food. He doesn't get hungry. Assuming there can be no such thing as the incarnation, assuming that the God who made man cannot enter into his own creation, cannot join to himself a perfect human nature.

But there's where it comes from. They used to eat food. But you notice something else there? It doesn't say he, it says they. Who's the they? His mother was a supporter of the truth. They both used to eat.

Why say they? Why not just say he? Well, keep that in mind. Because it goes on. Say, do you worship besides Allah, that which holds for you no power of harm or benefit? While it is Allah who is the hearing, the knowing.

Say, O people of the scripture, do not exceed limits in your religion beyond the truth. That's just like surah five. You're committing excess. You're going beyond the limits. Say only the truth of Allah.

O people of scripture, do not exceed limits in your religion beyond the truth, and do not follow the inclinations of a people who had gone astray before and misled many and have strayed from the soundness of the way.

Remember what I told you about surah al-Fatiha, the opening prayer that they have in all, it's the opening prayer of the Quran. They say it in all of their prayers. And it says, lead us in the path of those who've earned thy favor, Muslims, not of those who've earned thy wrath, the Jews, or of those who, what?

Go astray, Christians. If you ever hear them, they will lengthen the vowel, walad dhalim, dhalim, led astray. That's you and me. That's you and me. We have been led astray, misled many, gone astray before, and have strayed from the soundness of the way.

We have been given the truth, but we've gone beyond the limits. And the limits are Unitarianism, not monotheism, we're monotheists, but Unitarianism, the being of God can only be shared by one person.

That is what they're saying. That's what they're emphasizing here. Now, let me go one or two more minutes. We got a little late start. Had Allah wished, this is, now let me jump out of here and mention just a couple of sections about the issue of sonship in the Quran.

Then we'll take our break. Don't forget what I'm saying. Then come back and we'll make the application to, I think, the key text, which I've mentioned to you a number of times before already, Surah 5, verse 116.

Had Allah wished to take to himself a son, he could have chosen whom he pleased out of those whom he doth create. But glory be to him, he is above such things. He is Allah, the one, the irresistible. Now, some Muslims will argue that some of these texts about sons only has to do with the fact that in the Kaaba, you had all these gods and they would be married and they'd have kids and there were a lot of family relationships between the various pagan idols and things like that.