James White Adnan Rashid Debate Bible or the Qur'an at University College Dublin

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Hello everybody and a very warm welcome. I'd like to introduce James Rensselaer who is the Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a

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Christian apologist, apologetics organisation based in New York's Arizona. He's the author of more than 20 books, a professor and an accomplished debater, and an elder of the

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Catholic Baptist Church. This evening will run where each speaker will have a 20 minute opportunity to present on the issue of the

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Bible and the Quran. And then each speaker will have a 10 minute rebuttal and then there will be a 5 minute crossfire.

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After that there will be a question and answer session where people will be invited to ask questions. Questions will be alternated between each speaker and there will be a limit on the questions as well.

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We ask that all questions will be short and brief and to the point as well. Thank you all so much for coming.

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Alright well good evening. Thank you for being here this evening and making the effort to come out. It is my honour to be here at UCD and obviously my honour to once again dialogue with Adnan Rashid on a very important topic.

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Now the topic that was delivered to me was the Bible and the Quran. Where is the solution?

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Where is the solution? Well if you're asking about a solution, obviously you have a problem.

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And hence the discussion this evening will really be determined by what we determine that problem to be and what the parameters of that problem would be.

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We live in a very secular society, all of us do, whether Christians, Muslims or maybe we even have some secularists with us this evening.

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And a secularist sees the problem as purely political, as social, maybe economic problems, maybe psychological problems.

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But they're looking at it from a non -divine perspective. Christians and Muslims recognize the problem is related to man as a creature's relationship to God, the creator.

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So we at least have that in common with one another. We recognize that man is the creature of God, that God is the creator.

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And that the problem, whatever you're saying that problem to be, is going to be related to that relationship.

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But while Muslims and Christians agree the problem has to do with man and his creator, we fundamentally disagree as to the specifics as well as the solutions to the issues.

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For example, we have to ask the question, who is God? Who are we to worship?

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What is his nature and what are his purposes? We differ on each one of these issues.

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Certainly within Islam, having the proper object of worship is important, just as it is to us.

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But there is an even stronger emphasis with the concept of Tawhid upon the idea that the proper worship of God is central to not only to one's relationship to God, but to one's salvation, if we can use that terminology in our discussion this evening.

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What is God's nature? What are his purposes in our world? We have fundamental differences as to we understand how

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God is acting in the world, what his purposes are. We also have differences as to who is man?

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Is he created in the Imago Dei, the image of God? Is he a fallen creature?

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Or is each man a new Adam with the possibility of being perfectly upright? Why does man sin?

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What is the nature of sin? What does it do to the nature of man? Can a man save himself?

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Can we, in essence, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps so that we might be right with God?

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These are questions that we must discuss. Is the problem solved by moral reformation?

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Is it solved by true worship? Can you have true worship without the moral reformation? Can man simply choose to undertake moral and religious form unaided?

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What of society? Will God bless a society that is bent upon the constant and flagrant rejection of his revealed will?

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And what should we, as believers in God, how should we respond when we live in a society where it seems that the majority of our fellows are absolutely intent upon rebelling against anything

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God has said concerning morality or ethics or anything like that? How do we respond to that?

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These are all issues that go back to what we believe about God, His purposes. Who is man?

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What is sin? What is God's grace? Is it necessary? These are all questions that we must think about when we want to answer the question, how can we move forward?

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What is the solution to our issues? What about creaturely freedom? How do those who seek to follow

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God relate to those who seek to hinder following Him or even mock His existence?

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And can law be used to force moral transformation? Or does the change of a man's heart require a supernatural act of grace?

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These are all very, very important questions. How do our responses to these questions relate to the political identities of different cultures?

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How can religious answers to these questions be worked out in the context of a secular world and who ultimately changes hearts?

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As you can see, the topic this evening could go on for a very, very long time.

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And these are all vitally important questions. They're questions that you and I every day have to deal with. Many of you here this evening are younger folks.

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I am a brand new grandfather, and so I think a lot about the future and the world that my little granddaughter is going to face.

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What kind of freedoms will she have? How will she be able to interact with this world?

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These are important issues to all of us no matter where we are in the stages of life, and we need to think about them with God's help this evening.

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Now, the biblical solutions to these questions, I will suggest them to you. I'll leave them to Adnan to address the

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Islamic perspective on these things. But the biblical solutions are focused upon what we believe

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God has revealed in His Scripture. And we start with the fact that God is triune.

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You might say, is that relevant to the things you said? Very much so. Because you see, since God is triune, then

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God is personal. God has always been love. God has revealed Himself eternally to have existed in this state.

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And it is because of the triune nature of God that we can understand how we are to relate to others.

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We can understand how we're made in the image of God, and therefore we can understand the greatest commandment. What is the greatest commandment as Jesus defined it?

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You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. We are to love God. God has eternally been loving.

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Even before there was anything else within the Godhead itself, love existed. God is triune.

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That's the foundation of the Christian understanding of how we can view ourselves. God's character as providential

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Creator, intimately involved in His creation freely, not of necessity.

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In other words, we believe that God is actively involved with His creation. He does so not because He has to be.

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He's not limited to His creation. But He has chosen to enter into relationship freely to condescend to have relationship with us.

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He is as far above us as the heavens are above our heads. And yet He has chosen to freely enter into relationship with you and with me.

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God as incarnate. Yes, obviously from the Christian perspective. From the Christian worldview.

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The reality that God has entered into His own creation. One of the primary differences between us.

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I understand that. And I've debated that subject a number of times before. But you see, from our perspective, the fact that God has chosen to enter into this world is the greatest proof that He cares about this world.

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And that He cares about us. We believe that God is so powerful that without changing His eternal nature, without ceasing to be

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God, He can take a perfect human nature to Himself. Not making it into a demigod.

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Jesus was the God -man. 100 % God, 100 % man. And because He has entered into this world,

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He has demonstrated the character of the Father to us in a way that could never have been known in any other fashion.

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That was the message of the early disciples of Jesus. What that means is,

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God is also self -giving. Self -giving in the incarnation.

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Self -giving in the cross itself. God has demonstrated that He gives of Himself and that becomes the basis upon which we are exhorted to give of ourselves and to serve other people.

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We also need to look at what the Bible says about man. Man is the image -bearer. Human life is given by God and therefore it is of immense value.

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It cannot be destroyed without God taking great interest in the person who does the destroying.

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Human life is extremely important. Human law therefore must recognize that value of the human life.

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But we also recognize man as the fallen son or daughter of Adam. I recognize that that little child, my little grandchild,

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I am not going to have to teach her and her mom is not going to have to teach her how to be selfish. None of us are going to have to teach her how to say no as soon as she can say no.

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That's natural. That's going to happen naturally because we are the fallen sons and daughters of Adam.

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What I'm going to have to teach her is to do what's right. I'm going to have to teach her how to share. I'm going to have to teach her how to engage in activity in helping others because it's so, so natural for us to focus solely upon ourselves rather than looking to others.

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We need to recognize that man is an idol -maker. The greatest sin in Islam is, sure, the association of anything or anyone with Allah.

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In Christianity, idolatry is the description of the person who gives to anything in the creation that which is due to God alone.

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Man makes idols. We live in a land filled with idols. You say, I haven't seen any.

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Have you been to a sporting event recently? Have you watched how people adore people from the

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United States, the NBA over here? It might be football or rugby or whatever else it might be. You see the idolatry of the heart.

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We make our cars, our homes, our bodies, our clothes, our games, our computers.

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We have idols all around us. Man is an idol factory and the Bible says man is a truth suppressor.

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Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 1 that man knows the truth, but man is suppressing that truth.

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He's literally holding that truth down. He knows that God exists, but he is suppressing that truth.

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Now when that's the case, we need to recognize man is a rebel. Man has rebelled against his creator.

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That's why we need to have law, because we need to restrain man. Man has to have restraints put upon the expression of his rebellion against God and against one another.

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That's why we see the taking of human life. We see people stealing from others.

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We need to have these restraints upon man and we must recognize what man is to properly engage in these things.

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If man is a rebel, then what is God's solution? You see from the Christian perspective, the solution is not establishing one particular societal form all around the world.

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That's not the Christian message. The Christian message transcends any concept of borders or language.

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You can be a perfectly good Christian in Ghana, in South Africa, in Australia, in China, in Canada, or right here in Ireland, and you don't have to dress in the same way, and you don't have to pray in the same way.

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It's not taking a societal norm and forcing it upon people. From the Christian perspective, we are changed by an act of grace.

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Our hearts are changed, and that's how God changes societies. Yes, there is a standard of justice.

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Yes, there is a recognition of the value of human life. All those things are true, but those are going to be played out in different ways in different societies.

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The ultimate of the biblical solutions is quite simply the cross. The cross as the ultimate solution.

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The cross is what transcends all of these barriers, not a symbol. There are so many

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Muslims I've heard that, well, the Christians worship the cross. No, I don't. I worship the God that made the cross possible, and I worship the

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God who Himself took on human flesh and came down involuntarily. No one put

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Him there. No one put Him there outside of His will. He said, I give my life voluntarily.

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It was the purpose of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that the cross take place. And you see, the cross is the central point of human history.

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In fact, as the Apostle Paul expressed in Ephesians chapter 1, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose which

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He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.

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Christ is the means by which the triune God is glorifying Himself in the redemption of a particular people.

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And it was at the cross where Jesus, the God -man, fully God and fully man, could, in the voluntary giving of Himself on the cross, provide the single, sole way of displaying all

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God's attributes, His power, His justice, His holiness, and His wrath, as well as His mercy,

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His grace, His forgiveness, and love. When Christians look at the cross, they see the entirety of God's character displayed there.

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His deep antipathy and hatred towards sin, His great holiness,

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His wrath against sin. That is the background. And yet, looking at the

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One who is giving His life there, we see God's mercy, His love, His grace.

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And it's in that one place, and that's why Jesus had to be the God -man, so that He could bear that wrath and be the

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One who brings together all those who have faith in Christ, unites them to Himself, so that His death can become their death.

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And those people, the book of Revelation talks about at the end times, you have all these people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation brought together as a kingdom of priests, and they have been made kings and priests unto

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God by His grace and by His power, and it's all through what happens at the cross.

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That one place, that one focal point, that really is the center of the biblical solution for all these things.

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In Christ, God has united Himself with people by grace, conforming them to the image of Christ, and in so doing, establishing

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His kingdom on earth. The kingdom that is established by changing hearts by the

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Holy Spirit. You see, law cannot change a heart. It can influence behavior.

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It can provide a restraint, but it cannot change hearts. No amount of force can change a heart except that force that is the

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Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God can change the heart. The Bible uses a beautiful illustration that we, outside of the grace of God, have a heart of stone, but God, by His Spirit, gives us a heart of flesh.

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And you see, His kingdom is here this evening. You may not have seen anyone with guns and swords outside, because that's not the nature of His kingdom.

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But you see, there are people in this room that I am united with in a supernatural way, because we're both involved by the

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Holy Spirit of God. We have both been caused by that Spirit to bow the knee to the

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Lordship of Jesus Christ. We confess together that Jesus Christ is Lord, that He was crucified, buried, and rose again the third day.

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And you see, God has been building His kingdom, and it's a kingdom that the world despises. It's a kingdom that the world hates.

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It's a kingdom that the world has been persecuting for many, many years but cannot silence.

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Christ has been building His church, and He continues to build His church, which is

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His kingdom, even in this evening in this room. And it's done by the work of the

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Holy Spirit of God. This kingdom is not delimited by political systems, by economic systems, by dress or code, but by love, mercy, and true worship of God in every different language.

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Those who are poor, those who are rich, are all brought to the same place. The ground is level at the cross.

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There is none better than anyone else. That kingdom is the kingdom of God. That is what we proclaim.

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Christianity transcends geographical and political borders. In Acts chapter 15, the church experienced something where this is how the gospel went to the whole world.

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There was a danger in Acts chapter 15 of there becoming a Jewish Christian church and then a non -Jewish

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Christian church, and you had to bring society along, and all these norms. No, in Acts chapter 15, there is a gathering, and the

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Holy Spirit led the apostles to understand that the only way of having a right relationship with God was by faith in Jesus Christ.

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You didn't have to become a Jew first. You didn't have to join this ethnic group or that ethnic group or wear these kinds of clothes or say these kinds of prayers.

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The kingdom transcends all of these boundaries. It speaks to all of human life.

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So you see, we need the Creator to make Himself known personally and directly to us.

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There are so many different religions. I'm not sure if Adnan has engaged other religious groups in debates.

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Hindus? Buddhists? Anything like that? But I'm engaged in a lot of that kind of interaction with others, with atheists especially.

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And one of the great arguments is, well, there's all these different religions. How can we know which one is right?

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We need the Creator to make Himself known personally and directly. And that's why Christians say the

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Incarnation of Jesus Christ, His death barrel, and His resurrection is the greatest evidence, not only of the

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Christian faith, but the fact that if you ever ask yourself the question, How can I know God loves me?

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Look what He did at the cross. Even for me to this day, after many years of serving

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Jesus, the Messiah, that to me is the fundamental proof of the fact that God loves me, is look what

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He did at the cross. We need the Creator to find the way out of our fallen state while at the same time remaining just and holy.

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I am so thankful that the salvation that is mine, God didn't just wink at my sin.

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I'm a sinful man. I've told untruths. I've had lustful thoughts.

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I've been angry with my wife. I'm a sinful man.

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How can I stand before a holy God? I do not stand before Him clothed in my own righteousness. I stand before Him clothed in the righteousness of another.

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And my friends, you see, because of the cross, God can be just in bringing me into His presence.

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He didn't just simply laugh at my sin. He didn't just simply let it destroy

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His holiness and violate His law. Because of what Jesus Christ did in my place,

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I can come before a holy God and I can confess His holiness. His law has been fulfilled in my substitute,

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Jesus Christ. And so what we need, my friends, this evening, is we need the

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Jesus of Holy Scripture. We need the one who is described in those words.

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For truly, if He was the one sent by the Father, if the testimony of the early church is true as we find it, that He was the one who was crucified, buried, and risen again the third day.

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If He made the claims that He made, then my friends, we cannot be neutral about Him. And we cannot view

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Him as a mere apostle or one sent by God in that way. We must hear

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His own words. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest.

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Not my teachings. I. Those are the words. The true prophet of God.

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That's the one I speak to you about this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you,

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James. This is like the Quran. All praises are due to God.

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The God Almighty. The God of Moses. The God of Abraham. The God of David. The God of Jesus. As well as the

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God of Muhammad. All of whom preached exactly the same God. Exactly the same message.

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To different people in different times, in different places. The solution for our problems. And to put it in a nutshell,

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James has put the crucifixion of Christ as the solution.

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And that is the solution in his view. That God Himself comes down a cross. Takes on flesh.

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And voluntarily gives His life away. For you to be forgiven. And that is the solution.

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But, in my view, even that point in itself is highly contentious.

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According to the Biblical text. If that's where the solution of the Christian solution is. Then Christians are in big trouble.

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Let me explain what I mean by that. When we go to the Bible and actually pick up this particular event or this incident.

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Which took place according to the Christian history. Sometime in the past, in the first century.

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That a man called Jesus emerged in Palestine. And He was eventually crucified.

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And His crucifixion had a big meaning for mankind. And that meaning was salvation. Freedom from sin.

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That sin which we all inherited from Adam. And because of His sacrifice, that sin has been taken away from us.

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And that's the solution. But we have bigger problems, ladies and gentlemen. Guess what? We have a problem in this day and age of rape.

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We have a problem with crime. We have a problem with war and famine. We have a problem with economic issues in the world.

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We have a problem with foreign policies. We have a problem with internal policies. What does Christianity have to offer?

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That is the question. Crucifixion? Is crucifixion going to solve the problem? If a rapist is about to rape a woman.

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Is she going to tell her or tell him? If it's a man raping her. Nowadays we have women raping men in some cases, unfortunately.

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There was an incident in Zimbabwe where some woman was picking up men, raping them.

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And this doesn't actually happen usually, does it? So, if a woman was to tell this man who was about to rape her, that Jesus died for your sins on the cross.

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Stop! If you, or one of the poorest countries on the planet was to go to IMF, or to the

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World Bank, and tell them, Jesus died for our sins on the cross. Stop! Or if one of you was to go to George W.

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Bush or Obama, or one of the biggest oppressors on the planet, and tell them, God died for our sins on the cross.

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Stop! Is this going to solve the problem? No. We have proper solutions given to us from God Almighty.

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James and I, we both agreed on one point. That solution is with God.

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With capital G. Solution is with God. Solution is not with man.

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And anything that man makes is part of the problem. Not the solution. So all those man -made solutions proposed for our problems, or to solve our problems, are not actually solutions.

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They are the problem. What we call today as secularism. And Christianity eventually leads to secularism.

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Why? Because historically speaking, ladies and gentlemen, the reason why we are experiencing and witnessing all these problems on the planet are because of secularism.

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And secularism came about as an accident, or as a reaction to Christian persecution in Europe.

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Here. You don't believe me? Go and study some history, and see why during the Enlightenment period, all of these philosophers were writing against the oppression of the church.

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And they were proposing this theory of separation of the church from the state. The state has nothing to do with the church, and the church has nothing to do with the state.

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We need individual freedom. And this is why liberalism and individualism came about, which is what we face today, not only in Western Europe, in the world.

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Which, of course, came about due to what the Christian church was doing at the time.

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And of course this started in the 4th century when the Christians came to power. After Constantine allegedly converted, and then we had

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Theodosius, who came to power in the year 380 CE, and then Theodosian came, a

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Theodosian code came to life, and this code simply dictated that anyone who disagrees with the

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Trinitarian church will be pursued and persecuted and prosecuted. And anyone possessing any other books than the ones which have already been accepted by the church, the church will be pursued and persecuted and prosecuted again.

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So that pattern continued up to the 15th and the 16th century. And in the 16th century we had

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Reformation, of course, and we know the history of Reformation, I don't want to go into that. That's another topic in itself.

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So it was the church oppression which forced people to reform, move away from this oppression and this tyranny, and eventually

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Reformation didn't solve the problem. The problem was solved for the Europeans by secularism, which was an inevitable outcome of what the church was doing.

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So the crucifixion of the Christ somehow didn't solve the problem for the

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Europeans. They had to break away from the church to live their lives according to secular values, secular laws made by men.

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Made by men. So if we both agree that God has solutions for our problems, why do we follow and run after laws made by men?

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And if men make laws, they make laws which have mistakes, which have problems.

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And if they have problems, then those problems will manifest themselves in the society, which is what we're facing today.

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So our Islamic solution is to turn to God. God tells you how to live. God tells you what to be done and what's not to be done.

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Those adults come from God, not from men. So one of the biggest problems Christians did face was to turn to men to find solutions.

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So all these real problems cannot be solved by the crucifixion of Christ. Before I go into the problems and solutions, let me quickly deal with this problem of crucifixion.

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If you were to put all your weight on one solution, if you were to rely on one solution, which is the crucifixion, then you are in serious trouble, because even according to the

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Bible, there are major problems in this particular incident or event, which is known to have taken place in the past.

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For example, we have major problems according to the biblical text. There are major variations within the four

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Gospels about the details of this particular event known as the crucifixion. Now we are told that these four

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Gospels all originate from one God, inspired by one God.

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Four different authors writing in different places at different times, for different audiences, were writing, inspired by the same

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God. And if that is the case, then why do we find these problems? Did Jesus die before the curtain of the temple was torn?

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This is a question. And look at the answers. Yes, according to Matthew 27 .51

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and Mark 5 .37

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-38. No, according to Luke 23 .45

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-46. Where was Jesus at the sixth hour on the day of the crucifixion? On the cross, according to Mark 15 .23.

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According to John 19 .14 in Pilate's court, did

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Jesus ascend to paradise the same day of the crucifixion? Yes, according to Luke 23 .43.

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No, according to John 20 .17. Was Jesus' body wrapped in spices before burial in accordance with Jewish burial customs?

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Yes, according to John 19 .39 -40. No, according to Mark 16 .1.

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When did the woman buy the spices? After the Sabbath was passed, according to Mark 16 .1.

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Before the Sabbath, according to Luke 23 .55. At what time of day did the woman visit the tomb?

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Towards the dawn, according to Matthew 28 .1. According to Mark 16 .2,

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when the sun had risen. What was the purpose for which the woman went to the tomb?

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To anoint Jesus' body with spices, according to Mark 16 .1 and Luke 23 .55. And according to Matthew 28, to see the tomb.

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There is nothing about spices there. And then we have many more problems and I can go on and on and on in Pilate's talk.

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So this incident or this event of crucifixion is highly problematic. Even textually looking at the

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Bible as it stands today. So you cannot simply put your faith in crucifixion on such shaky ground and say this is where the solution is.

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Solution has to be robust. It has to be practical. It has to be something you can see working in your own day and age.

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Something which has worked in the past. So if crucifixion was the solution, or the

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Bible was the solution, which is entirely man -made in my view. The biblical canon and the way it was written is entirely man -made.

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Who told you it was inspired in the first place? Why? When? Where?

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How? Who? These are the questions I ask about the Bible. Who wrote the Bible? Number one.

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When were they written, these documents? Who told you that they were inspired by God? Who chose them for you to be read as, for you to be reading these documents as the

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Word of God? These are the questions I ask. When were they first time, for the first time mentioned together?

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In the year 200. Did you know that, ladies and gentlemen, by a man called Irenaeus? It was in the year 200.

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Chester Beatty is around the corner. I went there today. When you look at the manuscripts, biblical manuscripts, a lot of them emerged as collections.

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And even those papyri manuscripts, most of them are from mid -third century.

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Because that's when they were put together as a canon and the canon was still developing.

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It wasn't even finalised up to the year 367 CE. And of course, taking

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Athanasius' festal letter to be the final point when the canon was sealed. So this document, the

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Bible, is man -made. Especially the New Testament. Who told you that's the solution?

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The solution is with God. And the solution is not with anything man -made. It is with God. And if that is the case, then

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I believe the Quran is definitely from God. Because there were no such debates about the Quran as we find for the

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Bible. The Bible was being debated. Documents, initially, some essential documents which are to be found in the

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Bible today were being debated. Is the book of Revelation from God? Or is it even from John?

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Was the book of Titus written by Paul? Was the book of 2

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Peter written by Peter? Who is the author of the Gospel of John? And then we have other debates taking place in the first few centuries.

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So the Quran, we never had these debates. A book was revealed to a man called Muhammad in the middle of the 7th century

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Arabian desert. And then this man comes along and he says, I am from God. I am a messenger of God.

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And I am not a liar. And I received this revelation day and night. You follow this revelation, you will prosper.

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You will be successful. You will have peace and harmony and progress. And if you put this book aside, put it behind you, which is from God, you will suffer.

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And that is where the law is. Law is absolutely essential. From James' presentation,

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I gathered that he doesn't actually like the idea of the law. Or following the law for Christians at least.

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But here we have Jesus Christ in the Bible, in the New Testament, according to Jewish law. In the book of Matthew chapter 15, he rebukes the

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Pharisees for not following the Jewish law. In the book of Matthew again, chapter 5, verse 17, he tells the

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Jews to uphold the law. I have come to fulfill the law.

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I haven't come to abolish the law and prophets. I've come to fulfill it. And if anyone teaches you anything against this law, even a quiet will be considered least in the kingdom of heaven.

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And what if Paul comes along all of a sudden and emerges as a prophet and he tells the

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Christians, I saw Jesus in a vision. I saw him when I was on my way to Damascus, on the road to Damascus.

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I saw him and he came. And now I have this message for you. Even though Jesus was telling you to follow the commandments, when a

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Jewish man comes to him, Matthew, what do I do? Follow the commandments. Follow the commandments.

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And what are the commandments? Law, the Jewish law. And then you will prosper. You will have eternal life.

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What is eternal life? Eternal life is salvation. Follow the law. There was nothing about crucifixion there.

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Paul comes along and says, law for Gentiles, for non -Jewish Christians, it is not valid or it's not applicable or it's not necessary anymore.

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Jesus died for the sins of the cross and that sacrifice on its own is good enough.

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And that's where the destruction began. The destruction of mankind to a large extent.

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That's when it began because a man -made idea, made by Paul, was initiated, was promoted, and people followed that idea and they faced destruction for the next 15 centuries.

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For the next 15 centuries. You don't believe me studying Christian history. My question is, if the

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Christians had the solution with them for all those centuries, why did they live such a miserable life?

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Governed by the church. In different places in different times. Governed by different people.

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Why were the heretics being burnt on an industrial scale? Why were hundreds of thousands of women, why were they burnt?

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Within three centuries, from the year 1450 to 1750, almost 100 ,000 women were burnt here in Europe.

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Alive. Alive. Burnt alive.

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Why? Why were they burnt alive? They were burnt alive because the church at the time found a biblical precedence.

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In the book of Leviticus we are simply told, if a woman, if a girl, by having relations with a man and if she belongs to a priest, he is the daughter of a priest, she is to be burnt alive.

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Book of Leviticus, chapter 21, verse 9. It's there. This burning business came from the

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Bible. And people adopted these ideas. Why was Calvin killing people?

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James is a Calvinist, I don't know what form of Calvinism he follows today, but he's a Calvinist. Calvin himself was responsible for burning people alive.

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Michael Servito, a Spanish Christian who wrote against the doctrine of the

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Trinity, was burnt alive in Geneva by Calvin and his entourage.

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So the point, ladies and gentlemen, is that Christianity or crucifixion or the church or the biblical text which is entirely man -made cannot have solution to your problems.

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Solution is with God. So a text has to be from God for you to have solutions.

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And that's what the Qur 'an is. And that's what the Qur 'an constitutes. Solutions for your problems.

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Now how do we know this? When we look at our history, the Muslim history, we come to realize that we lived in peace.

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And we are Calvin. We are people living in convivencia, what we know today as convivencia.

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And very quickly I will share some of these details with you, the results of the Qur 'an.

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Is it this picture?

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So these are the results of the Qur 'an, what we know as convivencia.

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The Qur 'an comes along, the people of the world, you follow the book of God, which is from God.

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I'm not a liar. This is from God. And once we establish the Qur 'an, every single word, and this is a challenge

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I have posed again and again. James and I had a debate on this very topic. It's going to come very soon on YouTube, I promise.

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Although I've been promising this to James for a long time, but I do promise it's going to come up very soon. In this debate we argued that the

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Qur 'an, every single word of the Qur 'an can be traced back to Muhammad. There is not a word, not a word in the

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Qur 'an which comes from another source. And if it goes back to Muhammad, then when you read the

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Qur 'an you know for a fact that this book cannot come from a man from the middle of the 7th century

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AD. It contains far too much information and far too many sophisticated statements of scientific, historical and archaeological nature.

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And this knowledge couldn't have been available to a man living in that desert at that time. And if that is the case, then it must be divine.

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There is not a source. And when we see it work in history, we see results. We see peace and harmony.

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So when the Qur 'anic principles were implemented, the justice of the Qur 'an, the Qur 'an puts a lot of stress and emphasis on the principle of justice.

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So there is a golden chain of events in our history. What we call the golden chain of events.

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The Qur 'an, the revelation of the Qur 'an, number one in the 7th century. Then from the Qur 'an comes this unique concept of Islamic justice.

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From that Islamic justice comes peace. From that peace comes progress. So we have the Qur 'an, justice, peace and progress.

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No peace, no progress. No justice, no peace. No Qur 'an, no justice.

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As we will see in due course very quickly in this presentation. Again, Prophet Muhammad, when

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Christians of Najran came to him in the year 9, just before his death, a year before his death. They said, we are

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Christians. He said, believe in Islam. And they said, no, we do not believe in Islam. Now what? He says to them, go and live in peace.

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And the treaty is right there on the screen. You can see that they were allowed to live in peace. They were given the churches and the bishop.

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And nothing was touched as far as their status as Christians was concerned.

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So we can see the treaty up on the screen. And it is there. It is a historical document. Well preserved.

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Then we move on to the second caliph of Islam, Umar bin Khattab. Who again followed the principle of justice coming from the

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Qur 'an. Qur 'an in chapter 5, verse 8. This principle is clearly put down in the

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Qur 'an. Chapter 5, verse 8 of the Qur 'an. And chapter 4, verse 135 of the

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Qur 'an. Now Umar, the second caliph of Islam, comes to Jerusalem again. Christians.

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And the patriarch of the city comes forward. And he states that I want to give the keys of the city only to the king.

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And king himself comes forward, Umar. And these were the terms offered to the Christians of Palestine.

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That you may live in peace. Have your peace and tranquility. And have your churches and your bishops.

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No one is going to touch you in religious affairs so long as you live in peace. That same thing happened in Spain.

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When Muslims landed in Spain in the year 711 CE. Two years later, this treaty was agreed upon.

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And it states exactly the same contents. That you may live in peace, all the Christians of Spain. You are in peace and harmony.

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And what was the result? The outcome was Christian testimonies to testify that the peace which was given by the

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Muslims was very effective. And we live in harmony. And a lot more will be coming in my report.

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Thank you very much for listening. Okay, let me begin by saying that Amnon says, that's the way

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James likes the law. Amnon misunderstood my presentation. Paul says in Romans chapter 3, we thereby do away with the law, may we establish law.

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I just recognize what the law is for. You see, you can tell someone that what they're doing is wrong. But you cannot change their hearts.

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The law shows us our sin. God can use the law to circumscribe our actions. That's very true.

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The law is just and good and holy. But it shows us our need for something more.

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Because you know to do what's right. And how many times this very day did you not do what was right?

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You knew what was right. It wasn't because you were confused. The law cannot change hearts.

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Now Amnon said, Jesus taught rich young rulers, you just need to keep the law. Read the whole story, please.

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If you've never read it. Go home and read it and you'll discover that's not what Jesus did. He knew this man was an idolater.

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And he pointed to the commandments. The man thought, oh, I've kept all those things. So Jesus exposed his heart and said, really?

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Go home and sell everything you've got and follow me. And the man went away very sad. Because you see, he had a

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God before God. He had broken the first commandment. He hadn't kept all ten. He thought he had. But Jesus was exposing the fact that this man was not, in fact, doing what he thought he was doing.

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Now, I want you to contrast the two presentations. I explained to you what the solution is.

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The solution is not some kind of external governmental system.

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We are the problem. We have to be changed. The Bible describes our hearts as hard as stone.

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They need to be taken out. We need to be given a heart of flesh. You see, it's not just simply saying, oh, crucifixion, crucifixion.

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It's recognizing what the crucifixion means and what it calls each one of us to do.

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And when that message is embraced by people in all sorts of different cultures and different political realities, it changes how they relate to other people.

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You see that there are people on the other side who are your brothers and sisters in Christ. It creates a unity that transcends any type of external governmental system.

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So he said, well, the church is doing this. The church is doing that. Where does the Bible ever give the authority to the church to do any of the things he was complaining about?

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The people, he was talking about people getting, there were all these women who were being burned. You know who a lot of people being burned were?

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My predecessors. People who believe, as I did, that the scriptures is the sole infallible rule of faith.

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Don't try to hang that on my neck. Now, I don't have time, ten minutes. It would be very easy to do.

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To go through the list, but I'm not a geek. Because we've gone through these lists many, many times before. Not necessarily he and I.

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But there are numerous works. Any work of Christian scholarship goes through this. But just a few simple examples.

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He asks where Jesus was in the third hour. John and Mark use different timing methods. One uses the

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Roman. One uses the Jewish. And they're different from one another. When you put them together, they will say the exact same thing.

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He thinks that's contradiction. It's because he's ignorant of the backgrounds of the New Testament studies involved therein. Luke does not give a chronological explanation of those things.

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He just simply mentions the tarry or the veil. The others give the chronological one. He said, well, what time was it?

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Was the sun up or was it just rising? I think that's the same time of day. We're talking about dawn at that time.

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And then, did they come to see the tomb or anoint the body? Well, to anoint the body, you've got to find the tomb. I mean, all of these things.

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I just simply ask you all, those of you who are Muslims. Please read the varying stories in the

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Koran about the fall of Iblis and what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. Put them in parallels next to each other, and you'll discover in your own

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Koran, which allegedly only has one author, contradicts itself. I don't think it contradicts itself.

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Because that's not a contradiction. He didn't show us contradiction. He showed us things where we have the synoptic

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Gospels giving us a story and using different words, as you'd expect them to, unless they're just meant to be photocopies of each other.

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But how do you explain in the Koran? Why do you explain different uses of words and different orders of things and variations in the

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Koran that allegedly only has one author? Use the same standard to examine the New Testament that you do to defend the

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Koran, and you'll discover the vast majority of objections that Adnan raised would simply disappear.

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We were asked, who wrote the Bible? The interesting thing is, Jesus said the Holy Spirit did.

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For example, when he quoted from David, he said, David spoke by the Holy Spirit. Was Jesus a prophet?

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Do you have any evidence that when Jesus said that, that somehow was altered or changed? If you don't, then you need to listen to what

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Jesus said, and Jesus said God was behind those things. Who said it was inspired? The funny thing is, if we're trying to use equal scales, and the

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Koran says we should use equal scales, we should be just. In fact, we're told in the Koran that when you argue with the people of the book, you are to use beautiful arguments.

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That is, use good arguments, sound arguments. Well, if you use arguments that would refute the Koran, that means you're not using good and beautiful arguments, are you?

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And so I would simply point out to you that according to the Koran, the Torah and the Injil were tazal.

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They were sent down. They contained light and guidance, and they were words spoken to the Christians of Muhammad's day.

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And we know exactly what they possessed in the day that Muhammad said those words, if you believe

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Muhammad wrote those things. And so who said it was inspired? Interestingly enough, Muhammad did. Now, we're then told that there was a canon process.

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In other words, the Bible did not come down with a golden index attached to it. There had been a canon process in the

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Old Testament. There was a canon process in the New Testament as well. But there was a canon process for the Koran, too.

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Have you heard of Ibrahim Khan? Have you heard of Abdullah ibn Masud? Have you heard of the fact that they had different readings in their

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Koran? Listen to the debate. I'm looking forward to when it comes out. Listen to the debate that we have, and we can go into these things more fully.

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I simply say to you, if you use the same standards, these arguments will not carry any weight.

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I would also ask all of you to consider the difference between the Koran, which is written at one time with one author, and a multi -authored book that is written over decades, or even over centuries, as you have in the

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Old Testament, and the fact that the Koran is considerably smaller. It's only about 57 % the size of the

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New Testament, even less that of the Old Testament. So you have much less material to deal with, and it's much younger. It's easy to say, oh, look, we can know exactly who did this, that, and the other thing.

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It's a much younger and smaller work. I would say it's much more interesting to recognize the unity that you find in a book like the

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New Testament, which is written by multiple authors over multiple years, from multiple locations, in multiple different situations.

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You better have unity in a book that's written by one guy at one time. You better have unity in a situation like that.

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Now, we even had a shot taken at poor John Cowley. Let me just, for a moment, point out the fact that John Calvin, and I don't know if Adnan is aware of this, but John Calvin did prosecute

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Miguel Cervantes. Cervantes had been condemned by the Inquisition, escaped the night before he was to be burned, and went straight to Geneva, trying to get

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Calvin in trouble in Geneva, trying to get Calvin in prison and burned. And that didn't work out too well for him, obviously.

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And Calvin, as the chief pastor of the church, under the governmental situation at that time, had to prosecute

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Cervantes. He did, and then he and the ministers asked that he not be burned alive.

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That he be executed first, and then burned, if that was what they had to do, because that's what the law said. But you might want to sort of figure that in.

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Now, do I think that the church should have been involved in government? No, I do not, not in that sense.

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And in fact, I would have been in danger in Geneva, because I am a

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Baptist. And the Baptists, the Anabaptists especially, were driven out of Geneva. But that means that I have to look at him and analyze him in the context he was in.

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And let me tell you something. It was just pointed out how gracious, for example, very often

51:45

I hear people say, well, remember that the Christians of Najran came and had a dialogue with Muhammad.

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Now, we don't know if that really happened or not, it's only Islamic sources. The Christian sources don't verify that. But let's say it happened, and they were allowed to leave in peace.

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Yes, they were. Within a few decades, they were removed from their homes and kicked out of their homes and driven into exile.

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That little part sort of gets skipped over, because folks, we can have this debate here. This debate could not happen in that.

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Keep that in mind when you consider these types of things. But I simply, you know, there are things in the

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Bible you may not like, he points to Leviticus. I don't like Surah 98 -6, which says Jews and Christians are the worst of all creatures.

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The worst of all creatures. I don't like that. But you have to believe it as a Muslim. What do you think that means?

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I have many brothers and sisters being persecuted by Islamic majorities around the world today. I don't find

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Christians who take seriously the Bible imprisoning Muslims around the world today. I'm sorry?

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The reference again? Surah 98 -6. Jews and Christians are the worst of all creatures.

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Yeah, Surah 98 -6. 98 -6. Yes. Now, let me just summarize after giving that.

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Let me have five extra seconds. Who gave you, what were you given?

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From my perspective, Adnan said, Islam establishes law and that leads to prosperity.

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The mere existence of law, my friends, cannot change your heart. You know that.

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Everyone in this room knows that. What I'm saying to you is what God has done in Jesus Christ provides the means of changing the hearts of people in any societal situation.

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And that's what can bring peace and harmony amongst men and women. Thank you very much.

53:55

Thank you, James. Okay, the verse quoted by James is chapter 98, verse 6.

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And it reads, Indeed, they who disbelieved among the people of the scripture and the polytheists will be in the fire of hell, abiding eternally therein.

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Those are the worst of creatures. So, where does the Quran say that the

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Christians and Jews are the worst of creatures? It simply states, those who disbelieved among the people of scriptures.

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Wait, wait, wait. Those who disbelieved among the people of scriptures and polytheists. Those who disbelieved.

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The ones who disbelieved are the ones being addressed here.

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Those who believe, there's no problem. So, the Christians believe in hellfire and paradise, don't they?

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They do. So, I'm a disbeliever. I don't believe in the crucifixion. I don't believe in the Bible. I don't believe in Christian religion.

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Am I a disbeliever? Yes, I am. And if I die in this state, where do I go? To hellfire.

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So, where's the difference? Where's the difference? So, please, when you do make points about the Quran and our religion, try your best to be accurate.

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Mistakes can be made, of course. I do appreciate that. And I can make mistakes. But did I make mistakes when

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I talked about contradictions in the Bible and all those problems? No, I didn't.

55:37

Let me give you some contradictions in the Bible. Now, James has brought this topic up. Let's see what contradictions actually mean.

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Contradictions mean this. Who incited David to count the fighting men of Israel? God did, according to 2

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Samuel 24 1. According to 1 Chronicles, chapter 21, verse 1, it was

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Satan who did that. In that count, how many fighting men were found in Israel?

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According to 2 Samuel 24, verse 9, 800 ,000 men. According to 1

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Chronicles 21, verse 5, 1 ,100 ,000 men. This is what you call contradiction.

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How many fighting men were found in Judah? 500 ,000 according to 2 Samuel 24, verse 9.

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According to 1 Chronicles 21, verse 5, 470 ,000. God sent his prophet to threaten

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David with how many years of famine? 7 according to 2 Samuel 24, verse 13.

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3 according to 1 Chronicles 21, verse 12. And there are 101 contradictions I have in front of me.

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Mathematical contradictions. This cannot be from God. There are many more. I'll simply need an hour to go through all of them.

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There are many more in the Bible. Quite a contradiction like that in the Quran. Quran doesn't have any contradictions.

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Just like James quoted from chapter 19, verse 6 to suggest that Christians and Jews are the worst of preachers.

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Just like that, maybe we'll find some contradictions similar to that point. So, ladies and gentlemen, the point is that crucifixion doesn't have solutions to your problems.

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God's religion, God's revealed word does. The Bible, as I was telling you earlier, is not from God.

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The biblical canon has no history or it doesn't share any history to the history of the

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Quran. It has no similarity whatsoever. The Quran was established to be the word of God and when it was uttered from the mouth of the prophet, those who were hearing the

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Quran knew this is the Quran. There were no debates between Ubayy ibn Ka 'b and Abdullah ibn

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Mas 'ud and Abu Musa al -Achari and other narrators of the Quran about the contents of the

57:57

Quran. There was no dispute. I challenge James to point one report which suggests that there was a debate about the contents of the

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Quran that a certain verse, a companion came and he said that a certain verse was added later on by someone else.

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I make it simple for James today. I challenge all the

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Christian scholarship on the planet to produce one verse, one word from this book which doesn't come from Muhammad, which cannot be traced back to Muhammad.

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Listen to my challenge carefully and pay attention to it. One word from this book, the

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Quran in Arabic language, which doesn't come from Muhammad peace be upon him. I ask

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James to put the same challenge to me about the Bible. I dare him. Note, ladies and gentlemen, note, when he comes back, he will never put that challenge to me.

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He won't. I know that. And if he does, he loses the debate.

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He loses the debate. Because I will find so many passages in the Bible, in the

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New Testament, which don't actually come even from the authors, let alone from God.

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There are passages in the Gospel of John, an entire chunk which was added later on.

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The Gospel of John chapter 7 verse 53 to 8 -11, the entire chunk was added later on by someone else and James knows about it.

59:31

The Gospel of Mark chapter 20 verse 9 -20, the entire chunk added later on.

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1 John 5 -7 added later on and now thrown away from the Bible. But you still find the

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Gospel of John chapter 7 -53 -8 -11 in the Bible today as the Word of God.

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The Christians are still reading it as the Word of God. Why? Why are the Christians still reading the

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Gospel of Mark chapter 20 verse 9 -20? Why are they still reading this passage or this chunk as the

01:00:03

Word of God while they know it is not from Mark, let alone from God Himself? These things cannot be ignored, ladies and gentlemen.

01:00:11

I'm not here to spread hatred or express hatred. I love Christians. Believe you me, ladies and gentlemen,

01:00:17

I have nothing against Christians. This is not my hatred speaking, this is my concern and my compassion and my love for Christians speaking.

01:00:26

I really care about the people. I want you to know the truth so that you can see from your own eyes that the solution we are proposing is indeed from God.

01:00:36

The Qur 'an is not corrupted. The Qur 'an was never changed. The Qur 'an we have today, every single word of it comes from Muhammad.

01:00:44

Listen to my words very carefully. Every single word of the Qur 'an can be traced back to the Prophet Muhammad, confirmed by non -Muslim scholars.

01:00:51

Non -Muslim authorities such as Angelika Neuwirth, Montgomery Watt who was a

01:00:57

Christian from the University of Edinburgh. And many more, many more. So the point is, if the book is from God and it definitely contains information which couldn't have been known by a man living in the middle of the 7th century

01:01:13

Arabian desert, then it cannot be from him. It is divine revelation.

01:01:20

And if that is the case, that's what the solution is. And when we do apply these solutions to our problems, we come to realise that we have harmony and peace which we don't find in the

01:01:31

Christian history unfortunately. So, when we go back to our presentation, we will see that this is what the

01:01:43

Christians had to say. A Christian who went to Jerusalem in the 9th century and he saw peace there which he had never seen before.

01:01:50

He said that if you were to leave your luggage in one place and depart and come back, you would find your luggage unmolested.

01:01:58

Because of the law of Islam. Then Patriarch Theodosius, the

01:02:04

Christian Patriarch of the city of Jerusalem. This is what he had to say in the year 869

01:02:09

CE. The Saracens, i .e. the Muslims, show us great goodwill. They allow us to build our churches and to observe our own customs without hindrance.

01:02:18

James asks me, can we have this debate in Mecca? No, you can't. You know why?

01:02:23

Because Mecca is a place of worship. You can have this debate in Jeddah if you want. You can have this debate in Dubai.

01:02:30

Did you know there were debates in Dubai? Why don't we talk about Dubai, Egypt, Marrakesh or Pakistan?

01:02:37

I just had debates in Pakistan. I know people who had debates in Dubai. Mecca is a place of worship.

01:02:44

And only the Muslims are allowed there. You know why? Even some Muslims are not allowed there. Every year, millions of Muslims apply in order for them to go to Mecca for pilgrimage.

01:02:54

Their visas get refused. You know why? Because there's not enough space in Mecca to take all of them.

01:02:59

So imagine if we allowed Christians and Jews with their cameras and their holiday luggage to go to Mecca and enjoy a holiday in Mecca.

01:03:09

No, it's not going to be possible. In the Muslim world, ladies and gentlemen, in our history, we had debates taking place in the 9th century in Baghdad where Christians, Jews and atheists and agnostics and all kinds of people were debating each other.

01:03:21

We have testimonies written by Christians. Sidney H. Griffith is a scholar.

01:03:28

And he has written a book titled Church Under the Mosque. In this book, an article written by him for Cambridge History of Christianity, he states that there were debates taking place in Baghdad in the 9th century.

01:03:45

There were debates in the Prophet's mosque. There were debates all over the Muslim world in the

01:03:51

Muslim history. You show me a place apart from Mecca, because Mecca is a place of worship.

01:03:57

You simply can't go there and have debates in the mosque while people are trying to worship. So Mecca is an exception.

01:04:04

The rest of the Muslim world is open to you to go and debate and do what you like. Thank you very much for listening.

01:04:10

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, now we will have a crossfire between myself and James.

01:04:50

And this is probably one of the most important parts of the debate where we both get to ask questions.

01:04:57

So James, do you want to go first or should I go first? For five minutes, James will ask you questions and I will respond.

01:05:04

We can keep the same order we can do it. Okay, you go first. Okay, real quickly.

01:05:13

In Jannah Eternity, Hadith number 3104, it reads, O you Muslim people, avoid copying the Mus 'haq and recitations of this man.

01:05:19

By Allah, when I accepted Islam, he was but the loins of a disbelieving man, meaning Zayd bin Thabit. And it was regarding this that Abdullah bin

01:05:25

Mas 'ud said, O people of Al -Araq, keep the Mus 'haq that you have with you and conceal them. How would that not fit the challenge that you gave me where you said that there was no disagreement amongst these men concerning the text?

01:05:39

Show me one authentic report where Abdullah bin Mas 'ud, the man you are referring to, actually contested the contents of the

01:05:47

Quran. So would you accept this as a sahih hadith? I don't know.

01:05:52

But here, even in this report, he is not contesting the contents. Okay, so why would you think that he would be telling people to keep the

01:06:02

Mus 'haq that he has given them and conceal them in light of Uthman's burning of the other

01:06:08

Quran? Very quickly, when Uthman gathered all the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and he discussed this point, this issue of people reciting the

01:06:18

Quran in a different fashion. Not the contents of the Quran, the way they were reciting the Quran. There were tribal differences in the language which were facilitated just before the standardization of the text.

01:06:29

And Uthman brought his companions together and he asked them for their opinion. And they said, okay, let's put the

01:06:35

Quran in one dialect, the Qurayshi dialect, which is very clear in Sahih al -Bukhari, I'm sure you're aware of the report.

01:06:40

And he told Zayd bin Thabit, who was a young man at the time, who learned the

01:06:46

Quran directly from the Prophet, in the final year of the Prophet, to put down the

01:06:51

Quran in the Qurayshi dialect. And it was done in that fashion. Now, Abdullah bin

01:06:56

Masud was one of the elders and he had learned 17 chapters of the Quran out of the 114 we know today.

01:07:04

He had learned 70 of those from the Prophet directly. And his contention was purely about position.

01:07:11

His view was that he should have been consulted before that young man, Zayd. And when

01:07:17

Zayd was in the womb or maybe in the loins of his disbelieving father,

01:07:23

I was learning the Quran from the Prophet. So there's nothing about the contents of the Quran. There is a dispute about his status and his position.

01:07:31

So his view was that he should have been chosen over Zayd. Very, very quickly, are you familiar with the early

01:07:39

Tafsir literature that actually lists numerous razan differences attributable to bin

01:07:46

Masud? Because you seem to be saying none of that information actually exists. Are you familiar with those sources?

01:07:51

Just like you have apocryphal English, I am familiar with those sources. You have a lot of apocryphal documents attributed to Jesus Christ, for example.

01:08:02

There are so many different Gospels which are very late. There is no doubt about that. The earliest

01:08:07

Gospels we do find are the four Gospels. And then we have another document called the

01:08:14

Gospel of Thomas, which some scholars assert is as early as the Gospel of Mark. Well, it's a point debated and James doesn't agree with that.

01:08:24

But likewise, we have documents or we have reports attributed to the Prophet and his companions which are simple lies and fabrications.

01:08:32

People fabricated information on a massive scale, just like they did about Jesus Christ in the first three centuries.

01:08:39

So we have a system of determining what may be true and what may not be true.

01:08:46

And those reports, most of those reports are known to be fabricated. Do you think that Ezekiel was a prophet? I don't know.

01:08:53

I can't say. I don't know who the prophet is and who is not. Okay. How about Jeremiah?

01:09:01

As I said, I can't. I can't. I mean, when we look at their writings, if anything that conforms to the

01:09:07

Qur 'an and is not observed, for example, what we find in the Book of Samuel, is it 2

01:09:14

Samuel? You're familiar with the narration of when the

01:09:20

Torah was brought into Muhammad's presence and he got up and he had the Torah placed upon a cushion and he said, I believe in this book.

01:09:27

Do you find that to be something relevant to the defining of your faith? Absolutely. And he never said that I believe in every single word.

01:09:33

Because the Qur 'an, very clearly chapter 79 verse 2 states that the books of the Jews have been tempered with.

01:09:40

They have been changed. They have been altered. So this is a very clearly established point in our literature.

01:09:47

So when he says I believe in what's there in the book, that doesn't mean that he believes in all of it.

01:09:53

Okay. In Arabic language, you don't actually consider exceptions. You consider the mass, the norm.

01:10:01

For example, we have an example like this in the Qur 'an where Iblis is considered to be one of the malaik.

01:10:07

For example, it's that we asked angels to bow to Adam and all of them bowed except Iblis.

01:10:20

Now we know for a fact that Iblis was not one of the angels, but he was addressed as one of the angels because he was part of the crowd.

01:10:26

Likewise, we have this issue in Arabic language when people talk about general things, they ignore the exceptions.

01:10:36

Okay. It's my time now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that.

01:10:42

So, James, my question stands. Again, that if the book of the

01:10:48

Qur 'an is man -made, which in my view it is, then how can you have solutions for it?

01:10:54

Well, obviously we can completely differently and I honestly would recommend numerous works of biblical scholarship to you to help you to understand the actual process.

01:11:02

But I think you're comparing apples and oranges. You're comparing a single authored book that is very small and relatively late with works that were written by multiple authors at multiple times.

01:11:15

And the Lord Jesus himself recognized the canon process in the Old Testament and verified that God had been a part of it.

01:11:21

How can that not be the paradigm that I should use in the New Testament? Okay. I don't see where Jesus actually said that every single word in the

01:11:30

Old Testament is accurate and must be followed. He simply referred to the law. Well, I have to respond.

01:11:35

Where did he ever correct the Old Testament text? There are misquotes in the

01:11:42

New Testament. Well, where did Jesus ever say, you have heard it read, but that is incorrect. He shouldn't have read this.

01:11:47

Is the Old Testament misquoted in the New Testament? Not only is it misquoted, you have quotations from the

01:11:52

Greek Septuagint. How can one word of God misquote another word of God? I just said it's not a misquotation.

01:11:59

You have multiple streams of transmission of the Old Testament text. Some of the Masoretic text, some of the

01:12:04

Greek Septuagint, some of the Aramaic. And every time you have a citation, we've been able to find.

01:12:11

It was common to make that accusation before we discovered these other sources. But there was a source that was being used.

01:12:17

How can it be otherwise if these people are trying to reach the Jews? If I was trying to reach you, and I came up to you with some completely fabricated translation of the

01:12:27

Koran that I expect you to read, would you find that impressive? No. So how could the Christians, I'm rhetorically answering the question, how could the

01:12:36

Christians misquote the Old Testament while they're trying to reach the Jews? When the Jews know that they're going to be doing it.

01:12:41

Well, this is a big debate. There are misquotes in the New Testament. Of course, it's another debate altogether, which we can have another time.

01:12:49

The point here is, again, James, when was the first time when these four gospels were mentioned together by a

01:12:56

Christian writer? Well, that depends on how you understand the four gospels and how they're identified.

01:13:02

I mean, there are sources before Tertullian that quote from all four gospels. Right. But the idea of the collation of them, that took time.

01:13:11

But they all took quote from other sources, right? They can. Yes. So that doesn't actually imply that the gospels were all taken to be one canon.

01:13:19

Well, my point is, it was in the year – So remember, there weren't any fax machines back then. Yes. I mean, things had to be transmitted over time.

01:13:27

You might have a church that only has one gospel and three letters of Paul. Sure. Because they're in Spain.

01:13:32

And then you have a church in Egypt that doesn't have those but has something different because it takes time.

01:13:38

We live in a digital age. That was not a digital age. You had to get on a boat and go across oceans. That's a fair point.

01:13:44

Now, we have two situations. We have one community which has one book, which you call a smaller book.

01:13:51

It is. You would admit that, right? Yes, absolutely. It's a far smaller book than the

01:13:56

Bible. And that's not a good point. That actually goes against the Bible. Because the way the Bible has been preserved, the reason why the history is so messy and there are so many varied readings and so many canon debates is because of the size of the

01:14:10

Bible. Because it's so huge. The reason why God chose the Quran to be so concise and so small is to be preserved effectively, and which it was, in my opinion.

01:14:20

So the point – I want to come back to that. Okay, sure. We may not have time. Sure. But you can come back.

01:14:26

No, no, no. Well, it just seems to me – it just seems to me in Surah 5. Let's talk about the

01:14:32

Quran here. In Surah 5, 44 through 47, Allah sends down the

01:14:38

Torah to Moses. Yes. He sends – and then he sends Jesus, who confirms the

01:14:43

Torah. Yes. And he gives him the Injeel. Yes. And then Muhammad comes, and he's given the

01:14:49

Quran, which is a guardian over the preceding revelations.

01:14:56

So you have a chain. Moses' Torah, Jesus' Gospel. So in light of what you just said, you were just saying, man, the problem with the

01:15:05

Bible is it's so big. But certainly in the days of Muhammad, he knew that it was big.

01:15:11

That's a very good point. At the same time, when the Quran mentions Torah, it doesn't say the

01:15:16

Old Testament. And when the Quran mentions Injeel, it doesn't mean the New Testament. The Quran doesn't even acknowledge the fact that there are four

01:15:22

Gospels. It simply says Injeel, one Gospel, one good news, which was given to Jesus, which

01:15:27

Jesus preached. Okay? And the time is up. So the Quran, when it says it's a Muhammad or it's a guardian, it's a corrector.

01:15:35

Okay? It's a confirmer of what was authentic. I would challenge you to show me behind having that meeting back then, but that's another issue.

01:15:42

Okay. So one of the things we forgot, I'm sorry, was we'd like to have some kind of closing statement, summary statement at some point.

01:15:51

So we need to know exactly how long we're going to have – okay, two minutes. We need to know exactly how long we're going to go with the

01:15:56

Q &A so that we can have a closing statement at the end. So we assert that we got it right. Thank you.

01:16:10

Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for listening. We'll come to the

01:16:15

Q &A session. We'll take three questions. We'll go alternate speakers, obviously.

01:16:21

So please keep your questions specific, as brief as possible. And obviously, if you'll address to either of our speakers, just please do mention in that question.

01:16:34

So we'll start with the first round of questions. We are running short of time, so we will not take too many questions.

01:16:41

So please keep them short. So we'll take – What is our timeframe? Do you want to finish the

01:16:46

Q &A with answers at the end? Is that good? Yes. Three questions, three minutes each answer, please.

01:16:55

So one hand up there, two, three. We'll take three questions first. So one hand.

01:17:01

Yes. Hi. My name is Dr. Sakim, and I'm a Muslim. I'm working in Ireland. Thanks for coming here.

01:17:07

I know from my knowledge that one solution that the Quran doesn't offer and Bible does offer is in Gospel of Mark, Chapter 16.

01:17:14

All right? I'm a doctor working on oncology. There are lots of sick people. And it's mentioned there, a sign of the real believers, that when they will lay their hand on the sick, they'll be healed.

01:17:23

So my question from you is, what I'm doing in a Christian country, all right, and a single person is good enough to lay their hand on the sick, they'll be healed.

01:17:31

So I invite any of the real believers to come and do this and speak a part for us.

01:17:37

And we Muslim will leave the country. OK. I'm not sure we've heard you in Mark, Chapter 16.

01:17:43

You're probably aware of the fact. I'm sorry? Chapter 16, verse 18. Well, you're probably aware of the fact that verses 9 through 20 are a later edition.

01:17:49

And I've written entire books on this subject. I've not mentioned John 7 through 8, 11. Well aware of that.

01:17:55

Discuss these things. I'm very glad that the modern editions of the New Testament discuss these things.

01:18:01

I wish there was a similar type of Koran that would discuss the variances in the Sa 'ana

01:18:06

Palimpsest and Surah 2 or the Fawz Palimpsest. There is not yet a critical edition of the

01:18:11

Koran. I think it's important for us to know what our texts were. But outside of Mark, Chapter 16, there are texts that talk about God healing people in accordance with his will.

01:18:21

And we pray that God would heal people. We pray that God would do it even supernaturally. But there are times, in the

01:18:27

Apostle Paul's life, for example, there is a man very dear to him named Paphroditus. And he said,

01:18:33

I am so thankful that God did not allow Paphroditus to die or I would have had such grief. Well, here's an apostle.

01:18:39

He had actually miraculously healed people. But he couldn't heal Paphroditus. Why? Because when we talk about the power of God, it's always according to the will of God.

01:18:49

And you see, when I pray for someone, if I as a Christian am not aligned with the will of God, if I am only concerned about my well -being, if I'm not concerned about others, if I'm not concerned about being like Jesus, then

01:19:01

I am self -willed. When I suffer, when I'm changed to conform to the image of Christ, my will is conformed to the image of God.

01:19:09

And so when I pray, there is really a coalescence between God's will and my will. So I pray,

01:19:14

God, your will be done. I do pray that God would heal people supernaturally. We have people in our church that I have seen, but you know what?

01:19:22

It wasn't an easy thing. We had a lady in our church, she had an autoimmune disease. For years, we did not see her in our fellowship.

01:19:29

She's there regularly now. Now, the medicines, God has used that. I think God uses means.

01:19:36

But the fact of the matter is, God has not said to us, all you have to do is command me and I will do what you tell me to do.

01:19:43

That's not what praying according to the will of God means. When we say, when Jesus said, speak to this mountain and it will be cast into the sea, what does he also say?

01:19:52

In accordance with the will of God. And so it's not some blanket thing that says, well, there's going to be this type of thing.

01:19:58

Maybe in Mark chapter 16, if it's the one that's included with drinking poisons and so on and so forth, they need to realize that verses 9 to 20 are a later edition.

01:20:10

And that's not something that's new to Christian scholarship. It's very frequently presented as evidence. And it's not.

01:20:16

And we didn't get into that in London, that particular chapter. I think we may have mentioned it.

01:20:21

But if you want more information on that, I've written an entire book on that particular subject. If you want to go more in depth.

01:20:27

It's not published anymore. This chapter is not published anymore in the books. Oh, no. But it's published in The Note. Is there anybody with an

01:20:35

NASV, ESV, any modern translation, beginning at verse 9, there will be a note that says, these verses are not found in the oldest manuscripts of the

01:20:43

New Testament. And my Greek New Testament has them double -bracketed off and gives you the evidence.

01:20:50

Same thing with 753 through 811. That one isn't even found until Codex D, Beze Kenbergensis, in the 5th century.

01:20:57

So we have many copies of the New Testament that predate its first appearance. Sorry. We need to get you a bell or something.

01:21:04

Sorry. Is it just to Mr.

01:21:10

White? I'm encouraged as a follower of Jesus to read all of the prophets and to take them seriously.

01:21:21

And I was delighted to find when I read the Koran that it seemed to tell me the same thing.

01:21:28

Should we not, as all peoples, be reading these prophets as found in the

01:21:35

Scriptures, guarded by even the Jews, those things that the followers of Jesus and Christians couldn't have altered because they were across a larger span and guarded by the

01:21:51

Jews? Should we be reading them also? No, I don't think so. We can read them.

01:21:56

They are interesting documents. But the reason why we cannot read them for belief or take belief from them is because they are corrupted.

01:22:04

I have given you a few examples. There are clear contradictions in the Bible, mathematical contradictions.

01:22:10

That means they have been changed somehow, somewhere, by someone. And there are details we simply cannot accept.

01:22:18

For example, Lot was drunk and he had sex with his daughters.

01:22:25

Noah's nakedness was seen by his sons. And then we have

01:22:31

David trying to deceive someone in order to get his wife. And he saw her having a bath and then he was aroused by that.

01:22:38

Details like this we simply cannot accept about people who are supposed to be representing

01:22:43

God. And if these are the people who represent God, then what's going to happen to you and I? You know, you and I, this is going to be a big problem.

01:22:51

Okay, if David can do it, I can go and open someone's bathroom and look at him having a bath. If Lot can get drunk and sleep with his daughters, what's the problem with me having incest?

01:23:01

So, these are the things we cannot... God resting on the seventh day, God rests. Is God so fragile and gets tired?

01:23:10

God rests with Jacob. Okay, God comes on the cross and dies?

01:23:16

Come on. God dies? God dies and what happens then? If I die, okay, you know, what happens to my family?

01:23:25

So, these are the things. Of course, if I die, God takes care of my family.

01:23:30

If God dies, who takes care of the world? The universe. So, these are the things we simply cannot accept.

01:23:36

Yes, we can accept those passages from the Bible which conform to the Quran. Because with Quran, we can definitely establish it to be the word of God.

01:23:47

There is no doubt in my mind that the Quran is definitely divine and Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was not a liar. So, I invite all of you to study his life carefully and with an open heart and open mind and you will see exactly what

01:23:58

I am talking about. Yes, if you have a closed mind and you don't want to know what the man has to say or what the Quran has to say, then good luck.

01:24:04

Thank you. I'm so thankful you asked that.

01:24:44

There is such a massive amount of misunderstanding amongst my Muslim friends about that beautiful text. Jesus is quoting the 22nd

01:24:51

Psalm. Look up Psalm 22 .1. Read all of the 22nd Psalm. I challenge every

01:24:57

Muslim in this room. Find the Bible. You're in college. You can find one. Find the

01:25:02

Bible. Read Psalm 22. It's a prophecy of the Messiah and His crucifixion.

01:25:08

And Jesus, that's the song book of the early Jews. And so, he is quoting it. It would be like me saying, amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

01:25:15

I don't have to finish the rest of it for my fellow Christians because they all know the hymn. And every Jew knew that by Jesus saying,

01:25:22

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, that He was quoting the 22nd Psalm. And when you read it, it talks about His suffering and His eventual vindication.

01:25:32

But you ask the question, who is He referring to? Well, who is He speaking to on the cross when

01:25:38

He says, Father, in my hands I commit my spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is not that Jesus is the

01:25:44

Father. The doctrine of the Trinity is that there is one God, Yahweh, who is eternally existent in three divine persons.

01:25:52

The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. It was the Son who became flesh, not the Father and not the Spirit. And so when Jesus dies, it's the

01:25:58

God -Man who gives His life. But I'm not interested. So who's running the universe? You all, even you don't believe death means extinction.

01:26:06

And we don't believe that either. The God -Man gave His perfect life as an atonement for sin.

01:26:13

He didn't cease to exist. That's the reason that the hypostatic union takes place between God and man, so that that perfect life can be given as a sacrifice for sins.

01:26:23

But God doesn't cease to exist. The Father wasn't on the cross. The Spirit wasn't on the cross.

01:26:28

It was only the Son. And obviously, the Son did not cease to exist or anything like that. Instead, to have the great condescension of God in that union of God and man, that perfect life.

01:26:41

Jesus had obeyed every commandment. He had loved God perfectly every moment of the day for all those 33 years, if that's how long

01:26:50

He lived. You see, my friends, we need something more than just having our sins forgiven. Because you and I have all been commanded to love

01:26:57

God perfectly. How many people here today have loved God perfectly in everything you did and said? So if that's the commandment, how are we supposed to fulfill that?

01:27:08

I need to have that perfect righteousness to stand before a holy God. And it is because of what Jesus Christ does on the cross of Calvary that I can have that righteousness.

01:27:16

Not by purchasing it, but because by faith it is imputed to me as my present gift.

01:27:22

That's why I have peace with God. Shalom. The basis of Romans 5 .1, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

01:27:29

So who is he addressing? The Father. He's quoting Psalm 22. It's a Messianic Psalm. Beautiful. Thank you for asking that question.

01:27:37

I think the gentleman in the brown shirt. Do you have your hand first? Me? Yes, me.

01:27:44

Oh, sorry. As a

01:27:50

Christian, we are believing if we die, we will be with God. And we will spend the time with Him.

01:27:57

Why? Not because we are good. Because God is good and He takes our sins away.

01:28:04

And He washes it with the blood. What is that in the view of Islam? We know that for the man, if they go to, if they die, is in a paradise awaiting the woman, virgin woman with the swollen breast.

01:28:20

What is waiting for the woman in a paradise of Islam? A man with big breasts.

01:28:27

Yes. Because what you have to understand is this is again a very beautiful question.

01:28:38

Thank you very much for asking. There are so many misconceptions about this. The Muslims will have an orgy in paradise.

01:28:46

But your response is not to. Yes. There's no orgy in paradise.

01:28:53

This is a misconception. Paradise is a place of pleasure. Because the test is over.

01:29:00

The test is over. So, paradise will be a different place altogether. Here we are being tested.

01:29:07

We believe, we the believers and humans in general are being tested.

01:29:12

This is a test. And I know Christians also believe that this is a test. Now, when we die and we go to paradise,

01:29:19

In Sha Allah, I hope I do. Even though I don't believe in the description, I hope I do. We will have a good time.

01:29:26

Because there is no test period. No big, no menstruation, no hijab, no niqab.

01:29:31

Nothing. Happy palaces. Enjoy your life. Okay. But that enjoyment won't constitute the enjoyment we have here.

01:29:40

Cocaine sniffing, drinking and getting drunk and having hangovers. And having sex with a lot of women or a lot of men for that matter.

01:29:48

Okay. So, there is enjoyment in paradise. But it is pure enjoyment. It won't bring harm to you.

01:29:55

There is no cocaine in paradise, to my knowledge. Okay. There is no hashish or there is no cannabis in paradise.

01:30:02

Okay. So, the sexual relations we will have in paradise will be pure. What's wrong with that?

01:30:09

What's the problem? If Solomon can have 100 wives and he can be a man of God, and if Abraham can have 3 wives and be a man of God, why can

01:30:17

I not have few more wives in paradise and be a man of God? Okay. So, in paradise, reward from men and women is exactly the same and they will get what they desire.

01:30:30

They will get what they desire in a pure form. In a pure form. Pay attention. But why is it not written for the women?

01:30:38

It is written in the Quran. Every time the Quran talks about reward and punishment, both men and women are addressed equally.

01:30:45

Did you know that? It is there in many verses in the Quran. Okay. We haven't read the

01:30:52

Quran. You've asked your question. Let him answer. You haven't read the Quran. Seriously. Okay. Next question for Daniel. Yes.

01:31:02

Hi, Dr. White. How are you? I enjoyed your speech. Just one question. At the beginning of the talk, you have a very nice PowerPoint listing all these negative attributes of man, that man is rebellious, that man is an idolater, etc.,

01:31:16

etc. Do you remember that? Yes. Okay. Now, you claim that Jesus, peace be upon him, is fully man and fully

01:31:23

God. To be fully man, he would have to be a rebel. He would have to be an idolater. Then he's not a man.

01:31:29

Because the attributes of a man are those things. And the man has to have the sin of Adam, according to you guys.

01:31:36

Okay? Jesus didn't have that. Therefore, he cannot be fully man. All right. Well, that's why

01:31:42

Jesus is a virgin boy. And that's why the comparison is between Adam and Jesus.

01:31:47

Adam is the first Adam. Jesus is the second Adam. The New Testament is explicitly clear that while he is fully man, that he is utterly untouched by sin, he is not a rebel.

01:32:00

The Qur 'an says the same thing. The Qur 'an does not accuse Jesus of any sin. In fact, in a very famous hadith, and I'm sure

01:32:07

Adnan will verify I'm accurately stating it, in a very famous hadith, in the end times, when people come on the

01:32:14

Judgment Day, they go to Adam, then to Moses, and to Abraham, and finally they come to Jesus.

01:32:21

And all these other people have said, don't come to us, we did this thing, we did that thing. When they come to Jesus, no accusation of sin in any version of the hadith is ever made against Jesus.

01:32:29

Exactly. And so, even from the Islamic perspective, there's no accusation of sin against Jesus. So the

01:32:35

New Testament doesn't say that. Nowhere did I indicate that those descriptions of man are the way

01:32:40

God made Adam. Adam fell, and therefore in his fall, his progeny, since we fell in him, we can only inherit from him what he can give to us, which is a corrupt nature.

01:32:53

But when we are in Christ, we can receive from him the new creation and his nature, which is not a fallen or corrupted nature.

01:33:02

And that's why we need to be in him, that's why the centrality of the cross, etc., etc. But when

01:33:07

I listed those things, I was not saying that's how God made Adam. That's what has happened with all of Adam's progeny.

01:33:14

We're talking about what's the way forward from today. There are no Adams today. There is no one who has not fallen in Adam.

01:33:22

So that's the difference between us. And of course, that's one of the reasons for the virgin birth, is that Jesus doesn't have that fallen, corrupted nature.

01:33:30

Which again, is something to be aggrieved on. I'm sorry, it's a virgin birth? Does it have to be like you and I have desires?

01:33:36

You and I fall into sin? Actually, well, I'm not going to... You said a couple of times that the biblical canon is entirely man -made.

01:33:53

You went on to say the biblical canon is not from God. And then you went on to quote a number of times the

01:33:59

Lord Jesus Christ, and you said, as Jesus said. Well, how can you say on one hand it's entirely man -made, it's not from God, and then on the other side of your mouth say, as Jesus said?

01:34:14

Or do you really believe Jesus said that? Or how do you know he even said that, if it's entirely man -made?

01:34:20

Thank you very much for that question. I said the canon is man -made. Canon means the choice of books, or the list of books is man -made.

01:34:30

Not the text in its entirety is man -made. I've never said that. The text, I believe, definitely contains the word of God in meaning, not in word.

01:34:39

Please pay attention to my words. The text of the Bible definitely contains the word of God in meaning, not in word.

01:34:47

And definitely contains falsifications and lies and fabrications. But how do you know which one that is the word of God?

01:34:53

That's a good question. I was coming to that point now. The yardstick we have is the Quran. The Quran, we know for a fact, as a

01:35:00

Muslim I believe, to be from God. It is definitely the word of God in word as well as meaning.

01:35:06

So, the Quran is the yardstick. Because it is the word of God, that is the only yardstick we can use to determine what may be truth and what may not be truth in the

01:35:16

Bible. Now, there are statements in the Bible, for example, in the Old Testament. For example, in the book of Isaiah, chapter 44, verse 6, we are told,

01:35:25

God Almighty speaks to the Israelites that I am the first, I am the last, there is no one else beside me.

01:35:31

This is exactly from God. I believe this is definitely from God. Then, James made a point that Yahweh is the

01:35:39

God of the Israelites. And that Yahweh consists of three persons. The Father, the

01:35:44

Son and the Spirit. But that Yahweh didn't actually reveal himself as three persons in the Old Testament.

01:35:50

When we go to the Old Testament, we read in the book of Isaiah again, chapter 63, verse 16, that Father with capital

01:35:57

F is the God of the Israelites. If that is true, that Father, the

01:36:02

Israelites, as far as they are concerned, they are reading that scripture and thinking that Father is the only God.

01:36:09

And the only person, why? Because in 44, verse 6, that same Father, same God, tells them,

01:36:14

I am the first, I am the last, there is no one else beside me. Why must these Jews then believe in a message which tells them, which teaches them that there are two more now, the

01:36:26

Son and the Spirit? It doesn't make sense. And I just come back very quickly. Let me finish my point.

01:36:32

You're going on a bit longer. I think it's important that if this man believes, let me just finish his point.

01:36:38

If this man believes that some of the Bible, let me just finish his point. If this man believes that some of the

01:36:45

Bible, that some of the Bible is the Word of God. Okay, can I finish my point please? Why does man take what is the

01:36:52

Word of God and get rid of the rest? Okay, I'll finish my point very quickly. My point is, again, in the

01:36:58

Gospel of Mark, chapter 12, verse 29, a Jew comes to Jesus Christ. A Jew comes to Jesus Christ, asking

01:37:05

Him, Master, what is the first commandment? He tells them, hear O Israel, the Lord our

01:37:11

God is one Lord. Okay, now he's speaking to a Jew. And this Jew doesn't believe in a triune

01:37:17

God. He doesn't believe in a Trinity. This Jew believes in a Unitarian God. A God who is one, in person and in being.

01:37:26

How do we know this? The Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 54. Jesus acknowledges that fact that I do not glorify myself, it is my

01:37:35

Father who glorifies me, of whom you say is your God. Okay, now I believe that passage is definitely from God, because it's a strictly monotheistic...

01:37:43

Why don't you take what is the Word of God and put it together? Because you give lip service to the

01:37:50

Word of God. You only give lip service to the Word of God. That's all. You can definitely meet up.

01:37:56

There's a reception organized by the Christian Union. Definitely, you can meet up there.

01:38:02

And, you know, stay there all night, no problem. At the end of the session,

01:38:08

I'll ask Chris what to give his final statements, and I'll call it right now. Well, two minutes is very long.

01:38:21

Let me just say, there's so much more that could be said. Let me just piggyback off a couple of what was just said.

01:38:28

Isaiah 44, 6, one of my most favorite texts in all the Bible, of course, is a defense back, there's only one true

01:38:33

God. The wonderful thing is, those same New Testament writers took those very texts about Yahweh and applied them to Jesus.

01:38:40

I'm first and last, as Jesus described that in the book of Revelation. First and last. Jesus used that phrase,

01:38:46

I am of himself, which was used of Jehovah God in Isaiah 43, 10. He quoted

01:38:51

Isaiah 43, 10 from the very same set of chapters that Adonais quoted. Jesus quoted that of himself in John 13, 19.

01:38:59

And when Jesus used those words, I am, in John 18, 5 through 6, what happened to the soldiers who were coming to arrest him?

01:39:04

They fell back on the ground. You see, the problem is, Adonai will hear, he says,

01:39:11

I believe that's part of the word of God. I believe John 8, 54 is part of the word of God. Four verses later, Jesus says, before Abraham was,

01:39:17

I am. And the Jews pick up stones to stone. You see, it's easy to pick and choose.

01:39:23

The problem is, what Adonai has not proven, is that the author of the Quran understood what was in the

01:39:28

New Testament. How can the Quran be a guard and guide over previous revelations that it does not even understand?

01:39:35

And you can't even give direct reference to the fact that it even quotes those texts. The author of the

01:39:41

Quran didn't know the Old and New Testaments. And therefore, the Quran cannot correct those things. That's the problem.

01:39:48

What is the way forward? In this dialogue, it's using the same standards in analyzing the

01:39:55

Quran and the New Testament. But what is the way forward for mankind? I said at the beginning. We need new hearts.

01:40:02

We need to change. And the only message that changes, as the Apostle Paul said, the

01:40:09

Gospel is the power of God. It's not found in societies or cultures.

01:40:16

It's found in Jesus Christ. Thank you for being here. Thank you very much for being patient, ladies and gentlemen.

01:40:30

It's been a very exciting debate. And I thank James for attending, coming to Ireland from the

01:40:38

U .S. and participating in this debate. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, James. Now, the point, ladies and gentlemen, where are solutions to our problems?

01:40:47

Our problems are many, and solutions are few. Our problems are poverty, for example.

01:40:54

Our problems are rape, crime, drug abuse.

01:41:00

We have problems like flawed foreign policy. When we look at the Quran and Islamic system, it gives solutions to all these problems.

01:41:09

What is the solution to rape? Islamic penalties are very, very easy to be harsh.

01:41:15

And any rapist wouldn't be allowed to go free, unless the woman herself forgives him.

01:41:22

How do we eradicate poverty? Islam makes it mandatory for every single

01:41:27

Muslim to pay 2 .5 % of his or her wealth to the state for the eradication of poverty.

01:41:35

There is a systematic attempt to eradicate poverty, and it works.

01:41:41

There was an estimate recently that if all Saudis alone were to give 2 .5

01:41:47

% of their wealth every single year, there would be no poverty in the world. It's not happening because Islam, unfortunately, is missing from the main scene.

01:41:57

So, there are many more problems. Foreign policy. The Islamic foreign policy is not as hypocritical as what we see in the

01:42:04

West, or the U .S. foreign policy, or the British foreign policy. When it comes to our benefit, we do what we want, we can commit any crimes and get away with it.

01:42:11

But Islamic policy is not like that. We cannot commit atrocities, we cannot even use nuclear bombs,

01:42:17

Islamically speaking. We cannot even use nuclear bombs. You know why? Because innocent people die.

01:42:24

The only power to have used the nuclear bombs in the history of mankind is the

01:42:30

United States of America, a very predominantly Christian country. The Senate is full of Christians, by the way.

01:42:36

Thank you. I just wanted to thank you for being here.

01:42:44

This is not a book on Islam. It's a book on the holiness of God. I think you would find it very, very interesting.

01:42:50

Thank you so much. We just asked the two speakers to come up to the stage again.

01:43:17

I'm trying to lose weight as well. I can guarantee you, if you continue debating, you will definitely lose weight.

01:43:30

The Christian Union has opened up some calories for you. G005. The Christian Union would like to invite you all to a reception.

01:43:40

Hopefully we can continue some of these conversations. G005 is right at the door and continues straight down the corridor.

01:43:47

Take a right, there's a wheelchair ramp. It's just inside there. It's the chaplaincy's room. That's G005.