What Does Islam Teach? | Rapp Report Daily Wrap-up 0012 | Striving for Eternity

Welcome to The Rapid Pull, daily edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of striving for eternity.

Islam’s Authority, the Quran, and the Hadith

As we wrap up this week, we're gonna play for you all of this week's daily episodes on the subject of Islam. We were examining this week the religion of Islam and we looked at what their view is of Scripture, of the Trinity, of Jesus Christ, of their man's sinfulness and salvation, and then where they feel we would spend eternity.

This is just a little taste of Islam, but it is important to study Islam because many people have some wrong views of what Islam actually believes. And it's important to know what they actually believe to engage with them, to dialogue with them.

One of the things that I can encourage you with is I was once in New York City and had a family of Muslims that thought that Christians believed in three gods. They didn't understand the Trinity, they believed the Quran was absolutely correct, and yet they admitted that the Quran teaches that we believe in three gods.

I was able to convince them that we believe in one God. What I was not able to convince them was that the Quran was wrong when it says we believe in three gods. Now, here's the thing. One of the reasons they were willing to continue in talking with me is because they understood that I accurately understood and explained what Islam was.

Now, at the end of our conversation, I pointed out that though I was accurate in understanding Islam, they were not accurate in understanding Christianity. And therefore, my encouragement was they should read the Bible and see what Christianity actually teaches because then they would be convinced that the Quran was wrong.

And so that's one thing you have to do. So get my book, What Do They Believe? at whatdotheybelieve .com so you can learn what some of these other religions believe and be accurate about that. This week, we're going to take a look at Islam, and we're going to first see what is their authority.

Now, they would say that they believe in the book, and when they say that, they're referring to the Jewish Old Testament and Christian New Testament. However, when they say that, they really don't believe it.

Why? Because they believe that the Bible was written down first by Moses, and then men corrupted it, then by David, then men corrupted it, then by Jesus, and men corrupted it, then the Quran by Muhammad, and it can't be corrupted.

This is a real problem because first off, just a little bit of critical thinking, we see that if God couldn't keep his word the first three times he revealed himself to man, what in the world would make us think that he could keep it the fourth time?

This is emphasized even greater because we do know that what the Quran was recited audibly, and then eventually they realized their soldiers were dying, and they needed to start writing this down. And so as they wrote it down, they ended up realizing they had to have one copy.

So the third Caliph, Uthman, had decided that he would write it down. They realized they had different versions, and he put an edict out to burn the abhorrent texts. In other words, there had to have been different versions to have something to burn.

And that means that we don't know whether Uthman actually corrupted what they would say God had given to him. So they can't really trust that. The other thing that we have is Hadiths, and these are going to be the writings of Muhammad that were written down after his death.

Islam’s View of the Trinity

When it comes to the Muslims' view of the Christian trinity, boy, does it get strange. Because one of the things we're going to see is that they will say that they are purely monotheistic, meaning that they believe in one God.

And yet, so do Christians. But they don't believe that. See, the Quran teaches that we believe in three gods. Now what gets really interesting is who are those three gods? What you end up realizing is that they believe that the three gods that we worship as Christians is God the father, Jesus Christ the son, and Mary the mother?

That's right. In the Quran, it teaches and asks the question on whether or not we should worship Mary as God. That's not what the trinity says. The trinity is not defined as the father, the mother, and the son.

It is defined as the father, the son, and the spirit. And this is the one unforgivable sin within Islam is to believe that God is three and not one. And yet the reality is they confuse what the Christian definition of the trinity is.

This is something you can learn more about if you were to get my book, What Do They Believe? at whatdotheybelieve .com. We go into more detail on Islam, which is important for us to understand because we would not know that they have a very different view of the trinity than we do if we didn't study what they actually believe because their Quran gets it wrong.

We saw yesterday that Islam has a very different view of the trinity and that they believe that we worship Mary as God, which, well, that's not true. But we also see that they have a very different view of Jesus Christ.

Islam’s View of Jesus Christ

They believe Jesus Christ was a prophet. However, they do believe that Jesus Christ was virgin-born but not a deity, not of God. This is something that they're very, very clear about. And the issue this becomes important is because of the fact that they're going to say that it is blasphemy to anyone that would say that the Christ is the son of God, that he is the offspring, that he is God in any way.

Now, the reality is what they argue is that he was just a man, but a very special one. It's very interesting because they hold up within Islam Muhammad as a greater prophet than Jesus. And yet Jesus wasn't the one who was virgin-born.

He did miracles throughout his life and his crucifixion even was miraculous. They believe that when Jesus Christ died on the cross that it was not Jesus Christ. In fact, they believe that Allah, their God, deceived his own followers into believing that another person was Jesus.

And that's who they crucified because they would say that Allah would never allow a prophet to suffer a crucifixion. So, they're going to say that what Jesus was, he still lived, but a lookalike was put on the cross and his followers, the followers of Allah, were deceived.

Sin, Works, and the Five Pillars of Islam

When it comes to sin and salvation within Islam, we're going to see some differences again between that and biblical Christianity. They're not going to believe that human beings have a sin nature, that they don't believe in the doctrine of original sin.

Therefore, salvation within Islam is by obedience to God. It is through works. And there are five pillars that must be done for someone to be a faithful Muslim and earn salvation. First is confession of sins.

This is something of how someone becomes a Muslim is to recite in Arabic the confession, quote, there is no true God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger, prophet of Allah, unquote. They do that in front of three witnesses, they become Muslim.

They have to have prayers five times a day. Third is to give alms to the poor. Fourth is fasting. You'll know this as Ramadan if you've heard of that. And then fifth is a trip to Mecca. Now, if they cannot go to Mecca themselves or cannot afford it, they can pay someone else to go on their behalf.

But those are the five pillars they must do to earn salvation. Now, one of the things you see in Islam, it is that there is no forgiveness provided. No one knows if they are going to be forgiven of sin until the day they stand before Allah and just see whether his mercy is weighted upon them.

And yet the reality is then that God is not just because he just gives mercy based on works. He doesn't punish. And therefore, they cannot have a God that is truly merciful and just. As we wrap up our week looking at Islam, we want to look at their view of the end times.

Paradise and Hell in Islam

Now, they will believe in heaven that they call paradise. And they will believe in a place called hellfire. Now, it's very important to see what happens within these two places. First off, I'm going to start with hell.

The reality is they have a very graphic view of hell. Much more graphic than what the Bible has. The Bible will refer to a lake of fire. The Quran is much more descriptive about hell being a place of torment.

Why is that? Well, because much of what you're going to see in the Quran is that people want to be Muslims because of a fear of hell. Because of what they fear. But it's not just a fear of hell that would cause someone to want to be a Muslim if they believe in the Quran.

It is also what they see paradise to be. The interesting thing is things they say are sinful here on earth are what paradise is for them. In other words, they would say that alcohol in any form is wrong, sinful, and should not be done.

And yet in heaven or in paradise, that's what they look forward to. They would argue that sex outside of marriage is wrong. And yet what they're going to have is many wives, many virgins. I don't know how these women remain virgins.

But the reality is when you look at the Islam's view of paradise, it is clearly man-centric. The women aren't in the place of looking at favor. It is everything that the man would want. Now, if you would like to learn more about Islam, I encourage you to get my book, What Do They Believe, at whatdothebelieve .com.

You'll learn a lot more than what we had time to go over.

This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.