Christianity and Islam, Session 1

It is good to be with you this morning. Despite the fact I haven't seen the sun once again since I got here, that is one thing that seems to happen. Down where I live in Phoenix, Arizona, we have this very bright ball in the sky.

It goes across and you get tan if you stand out in it and things like that. I understand you all have not ever seen that thing before, but it does seem when I come up here I run into lots of clouds. But that's probably why everything is green here rather than brown where I live.

I guess that's the color of life or something like that. I'm not sure how that works. It is good to be with you again. It's been a few years since I was up here in this general neck of the woods. In fact, this has been the busiest travel month of my life over the past 30 days.

I have spent so far 56 hours inside of an airplane and have traveled about 40 ,000 miles, something like that. I forgot what it is, but it's a ridiculous amount. Part of that took me to Johannesburg, South Africa, where I engaged in six debates with Muslim apologists there in Johannesburg.

I'll show you some pictures in the next section of our discussion. But I had the opportunity of engaging in numerous topics with Muslim apologists there. I think after that particular trip, I have now engaged in this topic at least as often as any of the other topics that I've engaged in over the past 30 years of ministry at Alpha Omega Ministries.

This is our 30th anniversary month. We were founded in 1983. I started debating, actually, in August of 1990. But I did not start addressing Islam until 2006 with my first major debate at Biola University with Shabir Ali, who is considered to be really the leading Islamic apologist in the world today.

Shabir and I debated twice in South Africa, once at the University of Pretoria. And one, as I'll show you, as I said a little bit later on, a historic event, we actually debated in the masjid in Erasmus, South Africa.

Now, there have been debates at mosques. One week after the attack on the Benghazi consulate, I was debating in the East London Mosque in London, England. But we are never, in our knowledge anyways, has any of these debates ever taken place in the actual masjid, the place where the prayers are offered.

They're always in a room associated with it or something like that. When I debated Shabir in Toronto, it was in a large room that was associated with the mosque, but it wasn't where the prayers were being actually said.

This time, it was actually in the masjid. I stood right in front of the Qibla. My table was in front of the mimbar, where the imam stands to give the sermons. And so most of the audience was seated upon the ground for almost three hours.

I think the Muslims had the advantage at that point. Most Christians are not accustomed to sitting on the ground without a pew to sit in for that amount of time. But I actually got to debate sin and salvation, standing in front of the Qibla of a major mosque there in South Africa.

It was a tremendous, tremendous opportunity. And we're hoping next year to actually arrange the similar kind of encounter at the mosque in Durban, South Africa, which until recently was the largest mosque in the southern hemisphere anywhere in the world.

So you might pray that we were able to actually have that happen. So I've had the opportunity now of engaging Muslims all across the world, University of New South Wales in Sydney, in Toronto, in the United States, in England, and now in South Africa.

Guarding Our Hearts and Avoiding Fear of Muslims

And so I want to actually, the published schedule has me introducing you to Muhammad and the Quran first. I want to reverse that a little bit, do that in the second session. I hope no one will throw anything at me.

Because I want to talk to you as fellow believers from my heart, first and foremost. We as followers of Jesus Christ must guard our hearts as we consider this particular subject. It has been my experience that Muslims in general throw us all into one big pile and speak of Christianity.

Now I don't like it, and I'm sure you don't like it either, when the actions of others are attributed to you without making the proper distinctions between what you believe and what others believe. There have been many times when I've been asked by Muslims to be accountable for things the popes have said and done.

And I have said, I'm not accountable for the pope. I do not believe the pope is the vicar of Christ. I do not believe the pope is the head of all Christians, etc., etc. There have been other times I've been held accountable for the Westboro Baptist Church and their kinds of activities.

And especially due to the fact that I have addressed that subject in written form and in debates and things like that. And it is unfair to attribute to me the actions and attitudes of individuals like that.

And we are very sensitive to that. We want to be taken for what we believe, and we want to be held accountable only for what we claim and what we teach. And yet, it is my experience that most of us, most evangelical Christians, to use a term that I'm not sure we can even define any longer in a meaningful sense, most of us, we do, in fact, in essence, do the same thing to Muslims that people do to us.

We throw them all into one big pile. And while we may make a distinction between Sunni and Shia, because, well, we see on the television that the Sunni blow up the Shiites, and the Shiites blow up the Sunnis, and so there must be some division, but we don't really know what it is.

Most of us don't have a clue of the distinction between a Sunni Muslim, which represents about 90 of the world's Muslims, and a Shiite, which represents about 10 of the world's Muslims, what their differences are, things like that.

But the reality is, most of us are afraid of them. We're afraid of them because we don't make proper distinctions. We're afraid of them because we have not focused upon what the real issues are. And when there is fear in our hearts, we all know that when witnessing opportunities come up, there's that brief moment in time when you have to make a decision as to whether you're going to pursue this conversation or whether you're not.

And if you have fear in your heart, the chances are you're not going to pursue that opportunity. The chances are you're going to find an excuse. Now, sometimes that fear is due to the fact, well, you know, I don't want to offend somebody.

It's very unfashionable to offend anybody in Western society today. And since I don't really know what they believe, I might say something that's wrong. There's all sorts of sources of fear, but let's be honest.

Part of the fear is what we see on television, and we see people with AK -47s running around, and we see buildings collapsing and bombs going off, and we don't make the proper distinctions to recognize the difference between an Islamist, an unthinking ideologue who is primarily politically motivated, though he has a religious aspect about getting 70 virgins and going to heaven, and the vast majority of the Muslims in the world who do not want to kill me.

And they don't want to die themselves. They don't want to blow themselves up. And many of them, interestingly enough, want to talk about religion. Now, in Western society today, and especially in your own society, we will do handstands.

We will stand on our heads. We will break our backs to try to get secularists to even talk with us about, quote-unquote, religious topics, worldview topics, eternity, or anything of the kind. They don't even want to address it.

They don't even want to think about it. We have to come up with wild and zany ways of even getting them interested in talking about the subject. And yet when it comes to the Muslims, they want to talk to us.

They would welcome a discussion of the Bible, of Jesus, of things like that, and yet very often we're the ones who are passing by those opportunities because of fear in our hearts, because we don't know what they believe, or because we have failed to recognize that often what we see in the media...

Let's face it. If most of your knowledge about Islam comes from Fox News, that's a bad thing. Or you don't even have Fox News. Maybe you get it online. I don't know. But if most of what you know about Islam comes from the CBC, then you're in real trouble, okay?

That's really, really a bad thing. Again, we as Christians should want to know the truth. We should also bend over backwards to be as fair as possible because we demand that for ourselves. And therefore, if we're going to point the finger that direction, we have three pointing back at us, we need to be consistent.

And so we need to recognize that there are different views out there, there are different understandings, and we have to be people who pray that the Lord would make us passionate about speaking to these folks because, as we'll see at the end, we have the message that they need.

We have the message that they desperately need to hear because they've been given a God, a God who has a law, a God who is holy, who punishes sin. They have been given a message of eternal judgment. There are more pictures in the Hadith literature of the nature of eternal judgment than anything Dante ever dreamed of coming up with.

And yet the one thing that they need to have, a mediator, they have been denied. And we know who that mediator is. And so we have to pray that the Lord would get us over our biases and our bigotries outside of our nice, comfy walls and be able to show the love of Christ to a billion people who have been given a false hope.

And so I want to, in this first session, try to help you to understand some of the foundational issues and the different viewpoints that exist amongst Muslims so that you, when you do engage with them, will have the ability to understand where they're coming from.

The Five Pillars of Islam and the Shahada

So in this session, I want you to understand the five pillars of Islam, the five pillars of Islam. The first is the shahada, the shahada. The shahada is the mechanism by which you become a Muslim. And the shahada is a, these words that are said must be said.

To become a Muslim, you must say the shahada in Arabic. Now, how many people here made your profession of faith in either biblical Greek or biblical Hebrew? Still looking for the first ones. I've been asking this for a while now.

I think it's sometimes just the light. I can't see all the people out there. But the reality is I've never met anyone other than a few seminary students who are being a little bit cagey who have ever made a claim to have made their profession of faith in that way.

And yet to make your profession of faith in Islam, you have to say la ilaha illallah wa muhammadan abduhu lillah. You have to say that in Arabic, and you have to say it in front of witnesses. Now, I have been showing this first clip, and we haven't even tested this, so I'm hoping this is going to work.

And Mr. Soundman, wherever you are, there you are, these clips are of different levels, so you will have to ride them a little bit so that we can hear them appropriately. I love showing this first clip.

I've been showing it for years because it discomforts, it makes uncomfortable Christians. You say, well, that's a weird thing to say. You want to make us uncomfortable. Well, in a sense, I do. I want to get you out of your comfort zone.

This is a clip from a number of years, well, not a number of years ago, a few years ago, from Sydney, Australia. A man by the name of Khalid Yassin gave a multi-day seminar. I've listened to the entirety of the seminar, purchased the seminar, it was rather expensive.

It was mainly anti-Christian, and it contained many errors concerning Christian history and things like that. But basically, this is, at the end, his altar call. This is an Islamic altar call. You are watching people in a Western society coming forward to become Muslims, including women.

You will see that the first ones who come forward are women. And what I want you to watch are what things are similar and what things are dissimilar to things you have seen and experienced within Christianity.

These are people who are becoming Muslims. Hopefully, this will work. It wasn't tested, but here we go anyways. Let's see what happens. Can you stand for me, quickly? Just stand for me. Come right here, please.

I want to make this transition, or this transaction, because this is what it is. These are human beings making a transaction with God. They're not making a transaction for us. They're making a transaction with God and a transition in their lives.

So I want to make this easy for them. We have a gift for them, and we're going to give them this gift. Now, the gift that we're giving to them is something that will help them on their way. One, it's a copy of the Quran with the transliteration of the meanings.

Secondly, it's a short, easy-to-read, authentic biography of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Thirdly, it is a set of seven books. It is a set of seven books that have in it lessons for new Muslims.

Now, your acceptance of Islam is your acceptance of God, not your acceptance of me, or not your acceptance of these people, nor your acceptance of the political dynamics in the world, because it has nothing to do with that.

It's just your acceptance of God. And this gift is to help you make that transition. I want you to say with me the simple words, and these words are nothing more than what I have explained. There's no trick, no curve, and we don't have a pool in the back for you to dip in.

But let's say the words. Let's just go over the words called the Shahada, the bearing of witness. And I'll tell you what it is. Essentially, it is the saying of that there's none to be worshipped except Almighty God, and that Muhammad is the messenger of God.

Saying that word, and then adding to it, I testify, or I declare, or I announce that there's none to be worshipped except Almighty God, and that I testify, or I declare, or I announce that Muhammad is the messenger of God, brings you all into the transition of Islam.

From that point, it's your sincerity, it's your acts of worship, it is your commitment that will make the difference. Now whatever you owe God of something you did that only you know and God knows, after tonight, your board is clear.

Because God is the forgiver of those that come back to Him. But whatever you owe somebody, money, rent, a loan, you still owe that. Is that fair? Okay, please, just say after me, the words, There's none to be worshipped except God, Muhammad is the messenger of God.

I testify that there's none to be worshipped except God, and I testify that Muhammad is His servant and His messenger. Peace be upon him. Amen.

So that's how you become a Muslim. That's how you become a Muslim. And I always watch the audiences. You all stop looking at me eventually, and I start watching you all. And when he says we don't have a pool to dip in, a pool in the back to dip in, I see who smiles, who goes frowns, it's interesting to watch.

But first let's talk about the similarities. You have people coming forward, you have the audience encouraging people, you have the giving of gifts, very often in an evangelistic setting, you'll give new converts a Bible, some discipleship materials, whatever else it might be, that type of a thing.

You have the public setting and the profession of faith and all those things. But then there are some really important differences as well. The first I've already pointed out to you, you have to make your profession of faith a particular language.

When you look at what the men were wearing, when you look at what Khalid Yassin himself was wearing, he was wearing garb very similar to what would have been worn by Muhammad in the 7th century, in a completely different culture, in a completely different time.

That is due to the fact that Islam never had Acts 15. Acts chapter 15, the Jerusalem Council, very, very important history of Christianity. That is where we avoided the idea of having to become a Jew before you become a Christian.

And as a result, the gospel transcends every language, every boundary, every culture. It is a message for all times and all peoples because of Acts chapter 15. Islam never had it. And that's what's causing many of the problems in the world today is because Islam is a religio-political system or a political-religious system depending on the number of Muslims in a culture.

And as the number increases, the emphasis moves toward the political. And so Islam has a law, Sharia, and that Sharia cannot be separated from Islam and still have historic Islam. And so when Islam becomes more predominant, it has to bring its cultural norms with it into a culture because of those intimate connections that define the religion itself, which are not a part of the Christian faith.

Certainly, we believe that the Christian faith changes cultures, but it changes cultures by changing hearts first and foremost. It is not the external emphasis upon a certain kind of dress or certain cultural norms that it brings with it.

Tawhid, Shirk, and the Nature of Islamic Monotheism

Now, the Shahada is central and important because it is the enunciation of absolute monotheism. The central theological assertion of Islam is a word you need to understand, Tawhid. Tawhid, though in itself, interestingly enough, does not appear in the Quran in that form.

The term Wahad, to make one, does, but Tawhid does not interestingly appear in the Quran. How many times have you heard a Muslim say, well, the Trinity is not even in the Bible. Well, Tawhid is not in the Quran.

That's sort of a similar thing. But Tawhid is the assertion in modern Islamic understanding of the unitarian oneness of Allah. This comes, of course, in the period of time when Muhammad was a minority prophet in Mecca.

He was preaching monotheism versus the polytheism of his day. And so the central affirmation of Islamic theology, Tawhid, Allah is one, he is the only God worthy of being worshipped. Hence, the worst sin you can commit in Islam is to deny Tawhid, and that is the sin of shirk.

S-H-I-R-K, shirk. We'll look at it a little bit more fully a little bit later on. It is the one sin, according to the Quran, that if you die as a mushrik, one who has committed shirk, Allah cannot forgive you.

You can die as a mass murderer who has never even repented and still go to heaven. But if you die as a mushrik, you cannot be forgiven. And the big question will be, does Islam view our faith? Are we mushrikun?

Are we those who commit the sin of shirk? For the majority of Muslims in the world, the answer to that is yes. Now there are some who do not view it that way, but the majority of Muslims in the world do view us as mushrikun, as mushriks.

Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving, and Pilgrimage

Now, the second point, really quickly, because the clock back there is moving way, way, way too fast, is salat, the prayers. In some countries in the world, you do not ask someone if they're a Muslim, you say, do you do the prayers?

There are five daily prayers during the summer. They become very, very, very early in the morning. But if you've ever lived in an Islamic country, you've heard the call to prayer going out from the minaret, and you know that the entire society comes grinding to a halt for that period of time during the prayers.

I certainly have frequently encountered the prayers in my debates. There have been many times the time of prayer came up while in the middle of my statements, and everyone just got up and walked out. And so, it sort of damages your presentation.

But anyways, I'm going to, I have a whole video on prayer, but I'm going to skip it really quickly here, because just time won't allow for it. We will look at some others a little bit later on. Number three is thawm.

It is fasting, primarily during the month of Ramadan. Ramadan this last year was in July. It moves forward 11 to 12 days per year in our calendar, due to the fact that Muslims follow a lunar calendar, and we follow a solar calendar.

The lunar calendar is about 11 days per year, shorter than ours, 12 on leap years, and so it moves forward in our calendar. During the month of Ramadan, the observant Muslim will not eat or drink from before sunrise to after sunset.

That includes drinking water. Can you imagine what that is like in Saudi Arabia this coming June, when it will be at the end of June, the beginning of July, where it reaches 120 degrees in the shade during the day, and you cannot drink water from before sunrise until after sunset at night.

However, studies have shown, and Muslims will admit, that observant Muslims take in more calories during Ramadan than any other month of the year. Because when you're deprived of something, boy, I'll tell you, when it's time to eat, boy, do they eat, they really go for it.

And, of course, during Ramadan, Ramadan is the month during which, in Islamic lore anyways, the Quran came down from heaven. It was revealed on the night of Laylat al-Qadr. Laylat al-Qadr means the night of power.

It was revealed as a whole to the angel Jibril, and then over the course of about 22 years, he then piecemealed that out to Muhammad, and that becomes the Quran as we know it today. Now, it either was on the 21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th, or 29th night of the month.

Muhammad knew which night it was. He was going to come out and tell the people which night it was, and they were fighting, and so he was caused to forget which night it is. And so, Muslims will stay up all night on those odd-numbered nights, praying because, according to the Hadith, which I'll explain a little bit later on, the stories and actions of Muhammad and his companions.

According to the Hadith literature, prayers said on that night are significantly more efficacious, have much more value than any other prayers any other night of the year. And so, since they don't know which of those nights it is, they'll stay up every single one of them and pray during those nights in hope of gaining that benefit.

So, that is fasting during the month of Ramadan. Zakat is the giving of alms. Very quickly, it's normally 2 .5 of anything you possess for over a year. Won't get into that discussion right now. And finally, the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.

I will show you a video on that, but I will mention to you, as you look at this video, you will see the Kaaba, which is the black building in the middle of the Grand Mosque in Mecca. You will see thousands of people circumambulating the Kaaba.

When Muslims bow in prayer, they face toward Mecca. What they are facing toward is not just the Kaaba, but specifically the black stone, which is in the corner of the Kaaba. The Kaaba itself is not sacred.

It's been torn down and rebuilt a number of times since the days of Muhammad. And in fact, I'll skip over it, but I have a little video of what it looks like inside. It's just a very short little thing.

But, interestingly enough, people have run the numbers. And given the number of Muslims in the world today, and the number of people that Saudi Arabia allows in to do Hajj, this fifth pillar could no longer be accomplished by a certain number of Muslims, even if they wanted to.

There are more Muslims in the world than could possibly fulfill the fifth pillar of Islam today, which some people find interesting. But very quickly, here is a description of Hajj.

Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca is compulsory for all Muslims in good health and with sufficient funds to make the journey. The Hajj is the foremost of all Muslim rituals, even if less than 10 of all Muslims ever manage to complete it.

The Hajj's importance lies in its allowing the believer to approach the center of the world, as well as the place where the Quran's divine revelations began and continued for about 12 years. The performer of Hajj does not only reenact Muhammad's ritual, he or she also recalls acts of important people in Muslim history.

The rituals performed around the Kaaba reenact when Prophet Abraham and Ishmael transformed the Kaaba into the sacred place of worship and peace. In spite of some physical hardships, pilgrims who complete the Hajj consider it one of the greatest spiritual experiences of their lives.

Many Muslims regard the Hajj as one of the great achievements of civilization because it brings together people from around the world and focuses them upon a single goal. A believer is required to make the pilgrimage at least once in his or her lifetime.

Not a huge place, that's all it is right there. That's the entirety of the inside of the Kaaba. Like I said, what makes the Kaaba important is this, the black stone. Here you can see the black stone in this outer container.

You can see people looking in at the black stone here. Here's Muhammad Ali, years and years ago, looking at the black stone there in the corner of the Kaaba. That stone allegedly was white when it fell down from heaven.

It's become black because of the sins of men. But that is really what people are bowing toward in prayer, is that black stone in the corner of the Kaaba. Now, six articles of belief of Sunni Islam. This is different than the five pillars.

The six articles, just to very briefly summarize them for you, is belief in Allah, belief in all the prophets and messengers. Muslims believe that there have been many prophets and messengers, that every people group has received a prophet and messenger from Allah, and they've all been united by one message.

That one message is la ilaha illallah, not wa muhammadan mazoolallah. It's the, there is only one God worthy of worship, not that Muhammad is the messenger of God, that's only, he's the final prophet from their perspective.

But the message that has bound all of the prophets together is monotheism, that there is only one true God. Hence, from the Islamic perspective, Jesus was a prophet of Allah, the disciples, Moses, Abraham, these, they were all, they're all Muslims.

From the Islamic perspective, theirs is the original religion, all of us are departures therefrom. In fact, in most Muslims' minds, we are born as Muslims, and then we, in essence, apostatize from that.

There is a concept in Islam called the fitrah, and the fitrah is, has amazing parallels to our understanding of the Imago Dei, the image of God. But basically, in Islamic theology, according to both the Quran and the Hadith, Allah caused Adam, he rubbed Adam's back, and out of Adam came all of his progeny, all of us who would ever live, and we stood upon this great plain.

And a mithak, a covenant was taken from us, and Allah said, am I not your Lord? We said, yes, you are our Lord. And as a result of that, we have made that commitment, and the remembrance of that is the fitrah, that we know that God exists.

Like, as Paul said, we know, but we suppress. It's that suppression part that isn't quite the same between the two, but they do have that concept, that we are all born as Muslims. Belief in the angels, and in fact, in the jinn as well, the jinn, from which you get genies, are a race of beings that sort of parallel the human race.

They are made of smokeless fire, and they, from what I understand, from at least conservative Muslims, obviously more liberal Muslims will spiritualize many of these things, but for the majority of the Muslims in the world, the jinn are faster than us, stronger than us, but not as smart as us, which I've often said sounds like a teenager in a Camaro.

Very dangerous combination. You put them together. And so those are the jinn. Belief in the books, plural, sent by God, not one book. The Quran specifically says, the Torah and the Injil, the law and the gospel, were Natsal.

They were sent down by Allah. They contain light and guidance. And there are other books that were sent down by Allah as well. Belief in the day of judgment. There will be a judgment of all men and women.

And belief in destiny, Qadr. The Hadith very clearly says that 40 days into the development of a child, an angel comes and writes for it, whether it will go to heaven or hell, whether it will have a successful life or an unsuccessful life, male or female, poor or rich, and the very date of its death are all determined, 40 days after conception.

Now we know, actually, that a lot of that stuff, especially in regards to male and female, is determined before that, but that's the perspective. And so the concept of Qadr has parallels to the concept of predestination, but there is a major difference.

And that is the Christian concept. You have a God who, while transcendent over his creation, is also intimately involved in his creation. The most obvious example of this being the incarnation itself.

And the absolute transcendence of Allah frequently leads to a form of fatalism, especially in many Islamic countries, where you have many people who don't really work real hard and just simply say, Inshallah, if God wills, it's gonna be done.

It's a fatalistic concept for many, many people. But these are the six articles of belief of Sunni Islam. Now, what I want to try to do, and I'm gonna have to cram it into these last 20 minutes here, is to help you to understand the breadth of the mindset of the Muslim people that you will encounter.

There are just as many different Muslims and Muslim understandings as there are Christians. And so, even amongst the Sunni, you can have a Sunni who has Sufi influence. More of almost a charismatic kind of understanding.

Experiential, spiritualistic type. You can have the Salafi Muslims, the Wahhabi Muslims, who are extremely fundamentalistic, very focused, out of which many of the Islamists and the radicals come. You, of course, have the Shiites, which are a completely different realm.

Certainly many of the same beliefs, but a lot of different understandings, especially in regards to atonement and sacrifice because of what happened in their history and how the split took place between the two groups and so on and so forth.

And so, there's a lot of different understandings. These are all clips from debates that I've done. I'm really looking forward to being able to include some from what just took place in South Africa that will expand my repertoire here a little bit.

The Fig Tree Objection and the Deity of Christ

But this first clip is actually from a debate that I don't consider one of my Islamic debates. This was from 1999. I had not begun studying Islam yet. I was simply defending the deity of Christ and the Trinity against a man by the name of Hamza Abdel-Malik.

At the beginning of the clip, you will see my wife sitting down front, and you'll see a little girl about nine years of age. That's my daughter, Summer, who now has a little girl of her own, my granddaughter, Clementine, who might just pop up in some of these presentations accidentally.

I don't know. It's possible. But I'm a new grandfather, so you're going to have to like it anyways. Amen. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I just have to put up with it. That's how it is. But anyways.

But here is a man. Let's just put it this way. He's not from around here. Obviously, his background is a majority Muslim country. I want you to listen to his objection and ask yourself the question before I start responding.

And I've only got a brief moment to respond. My response isn't nearly as full as I would like to have been. But before I start responding, ask yourself the question. How would you have answered this man's objection to the deity of Christ as he presents it from this debate in 1999?

Yes. My question to the doctor. I heard you repeating many times, saying he's a creator about Jesus. Peace and blessing be upon him. Because we Muslims believe in Jesus, the mighty prophet of God. I heard you many times saying he's the creator of everything and all things.

So I want you to explain to me if it's possible. If he's the creator of everything, when Jesus, peace and blessing be upon him, was walking by, the fig tree was his companion. The fig tree was his companion.

And he wants to eat some fig. And they told him, Master, the fig is not in season. So if he was God, how he don't know, if he created the tree, how he doesn't know if what's in season or what's not in season.

If he created everything. And if the fig was not in season and he's God, first of all, we don't accept God to be hungry. He wants to eat. But you Christians, you said God choose to do so. So that's your faith.

But I'm saying, even if he was God and fig is not in season, why he couldn't order the tree to bring fig? Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you. Dr. White. He did so because the fig tree represented the people of Israel and he made the application. The people of Israel look like they have fruit, but they do not. It was a clear application that he made.

Secondly, he did eat food because the word became flesh. He became hungry. He became tired. Because as the New Testament, as it was written, clearly indicates, Jesus Christ was the God man. And the eternal Logos became flesh and dwelt among us.

He was a true man. He ate food. He became tired. He slept. He grew, etc., etc. Christians have always believed that. Why? Because we believe all the New Testament teaches. Now, of course, he wants to argue that.

But did you understand the argument? The argument was, how could Jesus not know when the season of figs was if he created fig trees because he's God? And if he was God, why couldn't he just say the fig tree, bring forth figs?

Because God can say to a fig tree, bring forth figs. And guess what the tree will do? It'll bring forth figs. Because that's what God does. So, now, you and I are sitting there going, he's going into Jerusalem.

The fig tree represents the nation of Israel. It had all the leaves because it looked like it was very religious but didn't have any fruit because that's the same thing as the people of Israel. He's just about to give the king the, just yuck him, the Olivet Discourse.

And he's about to talk about the destruction of Jerusalem. And, therefore, he's giving an illustration in the fig tree, which represents Israel. I mean, hello, but how's he supposed to know that? I mean, he's lived in an Islamic country his entire life.

He's probably never talked to a Christian who knew the Bible very well. This is what he's been taught by his imams, so on and so forth. And, in fact, as we're going to find out later, his argument is an argument from the Quran.

Now, the Quran doesn't mention the fig tree specifically, but I cannot tell you how many times I've had the fig tree argument presented to me. And, in fact, I've had the fig tree argument presented to me by some of the best read and most advanced Islamic apologists.