The Fundamentals of Islam (Part 3)

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Marks of a Cult (Part 4)

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All right, we will begin tonight with a word of prayer and then we'll go into our lessons.
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Let's bow our heads and go to the Lord together.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you for the opportunity to be in your house.
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We praise you, Father, for calling us out of darkness and into light, taking us out of our sinful condition, granting us the gift of regeneration.
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And now, O Lord, sanctifying us day by day as you do the work of conforming us to the image of your son, Jesus Christ.
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We thank you for this body that you've brought together to minister to one another and to reach out to the community and to the world with the gospel.
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For we know the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.
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And we pray, O God, that we would be vocal about the gospel, not afraid to preach the gospel and share the gospel with everyone with whom we may come in contact with.
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And, Lord God, we pray as we continue this study of comparative religion that we would understand that it is through looking through the glasses of error that we can more clearly see the truth at times and we can understand how we are looked upon by various religions and our teachings so that when we are able to share the gospel with those who have been brought up or who are convinced of other faiths, that we might, O Lord, be able to demonstrate to them an understanding of what they believe so that we might share our faith more effectively.
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In all these things, O God, we say thank you and we bless you, Father, for granting us this time together.
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And, Lord God, we ask that you be with us now, that you keep me from error as I am a fallible man.
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I pray that you'll keep me from error in this lesson.
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I pray that as we are engaged in this study together, that you would also put a hedge of protection around the congregation and, Lord, that the truth would be exalted and again, that you would keep us from untruth.
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And all this we pray in Jesus' precious name and for his sake, Amen.
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Last week, we ended by discussing the idea that we call or not the idea, rather, but the study which we call textual criticism.
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Textual criticism is a very important study.
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And we engage the subject of comparative religion, because one of the things that you have to understand is that when you are discussing your faith with people who are not necessarily believing in what you believe or have been brought up to believe something different or have been caught up in a religion or system that teaches something different, is that oftentimes one of the first things that they will attack is the scripture itself.
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They will say either that the Bible is insufficient, as in like the Mormon cult, which says that you need the Book of Mormon or that you need the Pearl of Great Price or you need the Book of Abraham or these other books to go along with the Book of Mormon or the Bible.
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Or like in Islam, where Islam makes the claim that the Bible is corrupt and they say that's why the Koran came.
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The Koran came because the scriptures have been corrupted by Jews and Christians and because it has been corrupted by Jews and Christians, that the book of the Koran comes as a divine guide to guide us out of corruption.
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And I mentioned a few moments ago that this week from Saturday up until yesterday, I have been engaging in an online dialogue.
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I like to call it a debate because the debate is formal.
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If you're not if you're not in a formal setting, it's not debate.
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It's dialogue because debate has a set of rules and there are things that you do in a debate such as having a defined thesis and things like that which are important.
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But when you're in dialogue, this simply means you're going back and forth asking questions and answering questions.
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And I was in a dialogue for four days with a professor from the University of North Florida on the subject of homosexual marriage.
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That was the discussion and that's what it started out discussing.
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But it only took a couple of exchanges before the subject came back to textual criticism because he immediately said, well, no, I don't believe the Bible is inerrant.
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He was a Presbyterian, he was with the PCUSA, that is the liberal wing of the Presbyterian Church.
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He was a minister ordained in that movement.
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He called himself reformed, which to me I felt was somewhat of a slap in the face because we, of course, call ourselves reformed.
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And when he called himself reformed, I thought that was a bit of a bit of a stretch and I told him so.
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But the point I'm trying to make is no matter what the subject is you're dealing with, it will often come back to the issue that if somebody has a problem with the Bible, they will often just say, well, that part of the Bible isn't correct or that part of the Bible is misunderstood or that part of the Bible is corrupt or that part of the Bible wasn't part of the original or Jesus never said that or Paul never really said that.
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And beloved, if you have not studied textual criticism, as we try to do in this church and understand the history of the text of Scripture and understand what it means when we say that we believe that the Bible is inerrant and infallible in its original manuscripts.
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And what we have today is not an original manuscript, but is, in fact, a combination of over 5700 textual copies.
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And what we have is a textual critical edition of the Bible.
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We do not have the original copies.
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And if you don't understand those concepts, then whenever you engage in a conversation with somebody on that level, they're going to body slam you real hard, because if I were not ready to deal with that person, it would have been a massacre.
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Nathan read it.
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He followed right along with everything we were saying.
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He engaged a few times, which I thought was funny.
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But my point is, that's why we study at the level that we study, because those people who oppose the faith, they spend time studying how to oppose the faith.
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We need to study how to defend the faith.
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We need to know why we believe what we believe.
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It is it is no longer enough to simply stand in a circle and strum a guitar and sing kumbaya.
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Those days have passed.
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We must stand for what we believe and know why we believe it.
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Because if we do not, we will be left in a pile of irrelevance when we have to face those who oppose our faith.
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So that being said, this is why we do what we do.
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This is why we study what we study.
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And last week, we spent a lot of time on textual critical issues in the in the month of September.
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We will be doing a full week on the study of textual criticism.
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Myself and Pastor Shane Waters from Sovereign Grace Baptist Church will be teaming up to preach an entire week on that subject.
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I encourage you to be there for that.
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So if you have your outline, I will give you the blanks for those who have not been here.
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We're looking at Islam, understanding Islam.
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Anyone? The first thing that we looked at was the history of the Arab people.
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What did we say about the history of the Arab people, that the Arab people trace their lineage back to Ishmael? That is who they say is their ancestor and their connection to Abraham.
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They say Ishmael was the one who Abraham offered up on the mountain.
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They say Ishmael was the beloved son, and as such, they believe they are the ones who are descendants of the promises given to Abraham.
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Then we said part two, the second part was the history of Muhammad.
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Muhammad lived in the 600s and he was the originator of the system which we now know as Islam.
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And we went over the history of Muhammad and all the things that he did.
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I guess two weeks ago it was.
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Now, we moved on to what are the major differences between the religion of Islam and Christianity, number one, we said the doctrine of God.
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That was the first thing that we said, the doctrine of God, what is different in the doctrine of God and Islam from Christianity, what is the major the major demarcation between Christianity and Islam? Do you want to remember Islam is Unitarian, Islam is Unitarian, Christianity is what? Trinitarian.
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We believe that God is one in essence or being and that he is three in person.
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And those three persons are the father, the son and the Holy Spirit.
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And Islam would say that God is one in being and one in person.
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Allah is Allah.
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He began, if not, nor is he begotten, says the Koran.
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And as such, that language indicates a Unitarian view of God.
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What else did we say about their view of God? Not only is it Unitarian, but what else did we say about their view of God? Does anyone remember? There was Unitarianism versus Trinitarianism and Islam or in Christianity, there were other points that we made.
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And let me just make sure that you guys understand this.
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In fact, did I go over the difference in the view of sovereignty? Oh, yes.
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Go ahead.
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Well, they do.
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Well, they believe in salvation based upon a meritorious system.
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But but I'm talking about specifically in the view of God.
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Did I talk about the view of sovereignty? I may not have, because some of these things I will it'll I'm sorry.
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Well, that's the key is that the idea of when we talk about Trinity, we talk about the Trinity is God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit are co-equal, co-eternal and distinct.
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Those are the three keys that are important to remember in the Trinity.
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But the one thing about you talk about sovereignty, right? That's a big deal for us.
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It's part of the church's name.
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We believe in sovereign grace.
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We're sovereign grace family church.
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And we talk about God's sovereignty.
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That's a big deal.
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Do we believe that God is sovereign over all things? Yes.
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Islam also believes that God is sovereign over all things.
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However, we are not what are called fatalists.
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There is a difference between believing in the sovereignty of God and believing in what is called fatalism.
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We and this is kind of a big word and I'll make sure I can spell it correctly.
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I always get confused as well.
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That should be an irony.
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We are what are called compatibilists.
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I didn't go over this today.
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OK, I forget my brain.
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Sometimes sometimes I miss certain things.
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I forget what I went over and what I didn't go over.
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In Islam, there is a view of the will of God and the will of man that is very fatalistic.
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And that is that all things are determined before the foundation of the world.
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You might say, wait a minute, we believe something similar to that.
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We do believe that God has a plan, that he is working out from the foundation of the world.
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But yet we are still active participants in his plan.
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Has he ordained all things from the foundation of the world? Yes.
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But are we still active and responsible for what we do? Yes, we are active and responsible for what we do.
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And as such, we talk about being compatible.
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That which I do is compatible with the will of God in the sense that God will always ensure that his will is worked out in the end and that all things will work together for the good of those who believe in him and are called according to his purpose.
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So we know that the compatibilist view is not the same as the fatalistic view, and that is somewhat difficult for people to understand.
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It was very important to understand because there are those who will say that reform theology is the same as Islamic theology on the issue of the solemnity of God, and that is not true.
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Hear me again, there are those who will argue, particularly from the Armenian perspective, they will say reformed people or that dirty C word, those dirty Calvinists, they'll say those dirty Calvinists will say that they'll have the same view of God that Islamic people have.
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That is not true.
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And it is not the same perspective of the solemnity of God.
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We believe, for instance, when you tell the story of Joseph and his brothers, the Joseph and his brothers, that his brothers act according to their will.
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Absolutely, they did exactly what they wanted to do, right, they were mad at their brother, they hated their brother, they threw their brother into a pit, they pulled their brother out, they sold him into slavery.
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They did exactly what they wanted to do.
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Yet that will was incompatible.
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It was not incompatible.
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That will was compatible with God's will because God had already willed from the foundation of the world that Joseph go to Egypt and be brought up to be the second in the position of Pharaoh.
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Yes, we're talking about primary and secondary causation, and that's very important.
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And the concept of primary and secondary causation is very important in our view of how God works, but not so much in Islamic theology and fatalism.
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It is it is it is beyond the scope of man to have any influence at all or to have any work at all to have any responsibility at all.
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God is going to do everything in every way.
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And that is what we would call fatalism.
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There is no sin for them.
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I'm sorry.
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Then in the way that the question was, well, they have an entirely different view of sin than we do.
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They have an entirely different view of holiness and God and all these things are important.
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But I just wanted to bring this up in case you were ever in a conversation and somebody said, hey, you're reformed, you believe, just like those Islamic people do.
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You can say no, no.
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There is a difference, there is a distinction that must be made and we need to be able to make it.
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All right.
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I'm getting way behind.
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There's a lot to talk about on what else we have to do today.
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So we talked about God, the doctrine of God, and we talked about the doctrine of scripture.
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They believe that the Koran, that's number two, the doctrine of scripture.
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They believe that the Koran, its purpose is to satisfy what they consider to be the corruptions in scripture.
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Number three, this is where we haven't gotten to and this is where we are today.
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Number three is the doctrine or the understanding, rather, of the prophets, the prophets.
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Islam believes that the prophets of old, including Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and even Jesus, are all considered Muslim prophets.
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They would consider them to have been Muslim.
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They would say and argue that the way that Noah worshipped, the way that Abraham worshipped and even the way that David and Jesus worshipped would be the same way that they worship today, that they would have had the five prayers a day, that they would have done these different things every day, that they would have done it the exact same way because they would believe that they, too, practiced the religion of Islam.
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And their view about the prophets is that Mohammed is the greatest of these.
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Every Muslim to become a Muslim must publicly recite the Shahada.
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Now, what is that? The Shahada is the statement of faith in the Islamic movement.
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The Shahada is this.
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There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.
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All right.
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They have to say that, but they also have to say it in Arabic.
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There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.
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They have to say that in Arabic.
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Why? Do you remember why? According to the Islamic perspective, that is why the Koran is written in Arabic, is because that is the language that Allah speaks.
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That is Allah's language.
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And because of that, when you recite the Shahada, you cannot recite it in English.
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So what I just said, there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.
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That's not enough.
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I'm not a Muslim.
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However, if I were taken and it can be by force, if you are taken even by force and forced to say in Arabic, which I cannot say in Arabic, I don't speak Arabic, but forced to recite the Shahada, which is there is no God but Allah, Mohammed is his messenger.
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In doing such, you are making a Islamic statement of faith.
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It is very similar and I wish I had the video, but I cannot find it.
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I've seen it.
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I know it exists.
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My eyes have seen the video, but I cannot find it.
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There is a video of an Islamic teacher in, I believe it was Australia, and he was giving what appeared to be, if you watched it, the first part of it, you would think it was a Christian altar call, because you've all seen a Christian altar call, right? Where the guy stands at the front, they dim the lights, they start playing Just As I Am, because that's a Christian altar call song.
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And everybody starts funneling down who want to receive Jesus.
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Now, what do we do? Not we, but what is supposed to, you know, what what do many people do when that happens? They say, OK, close your eyes, repeat after me.
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Dear Jesus, I want you to come into my life.
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I want you to make me a better person.
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I want you to forgive my sins.
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I want you to, you know, it's what we call the sinner's prayer.
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Right.
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The ABC's, admit you're a sinner, believe in Jesus Christ, confess your sins.
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Right.
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That's ABC's, becoming a Christian.
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We all know this.
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We've seen it a thousand times, right? Not much about repentance, not much about the gospel, but all about an emotional appeal.
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Well, interestingly enough, this has seemed to have made its way into the Islamic movement because they're doing those type of calls and this is what they do.
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They have this altar called and these people come down.
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It was about eight or nine people and they stood there and everybody's cheering for them.
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And you say, oh, that's horrible.
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Now, people do the same thing in the Christian church.
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It looks so akin to a modern evangelical scene that all you would have had to have done is change the words have been the same thing.
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But the guy at the front, he says, OK, you want to become Muslims? People say, yes.
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He said, OK, we're going to take you through the Shahada and he prays in Arabic.
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Now, none of these people, I don't believe they spoke about as much Arabic as I do, but they repeated his words and upon the repetition of the words in Arabic, they became Muslims, having said there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.
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And after that, they were accepted into the fold.
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And, you know, as I said, it almost it was you could have taken that guy out, replaced him with a Christian evangelist, taken out his words, replaced him with the Christian words that looked almost exactly the same.
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They do not do baptism no more.
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So this statement of faith is required in the statement of faith is twofold.
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The statement of faith versus Allah is God.
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And the second part is Muhammad is his messenger.
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That is required belief in the Islamic religion.
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Now, we talk about prophets in Islam, something that's important to think about among the prophets is Isa, who is Isa, Jesus.
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So if you have a discussion with Islamic people or an Islamic person and you're talking to them about belief in Jesus or if you if you went as far as to say belief in Isa, you try to appeal to their linguistic situation.
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If you said, do you believe in Isa? They would say, yes.
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Do you venerate Isa? Yes.
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What do you believe about Isa? They would say, well, we believe he was born of a virgin.
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They would say, we believe he never sinned and we believe he, by the power of Allah, did many miracles.
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And by that point, you might be excited because you'd say, hey, man, we agree Jesus was sinless.
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We believe Jesus was born of a virgin and we believe Jesus did many miracles.
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So we're on the same team.
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Wrong.
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It is not in what they accept about Jesus that matters, it is in what they reject.
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Because what they reject about Jesus, they say he is a prophet, but they deny that he is divine.
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For in the Islamic system and in the Koran, it says that Allah beget, if not, who is he begotten? And that short sentence is a statement particularly written to deny John 316, that says God sent forth his only begotten son, is a statement in direct rebuttal to that.
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And as such, if you said, do you believe Jesus is the son of God? They would say no, because that language is blasphemous.
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That's what they would say to say that God has begotten the son is blasphemous.
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And you say, well, how then was he born of a virgin? And they would say that Esau was implanted within the Virgin Mary by God, but that he was not, by extension, his father.
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It's a very interesting view how they can believe in the virgin birth and yet deny that Christ is the son of God.
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Furthermore, they deny, of course, that Jesus is eternal, they deny that he is the word of God incarnate, they deny his co equality, co eternality and his distinction with the father in the sense that we believe in the Trinity.
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It's very important for when they say they honor Esau, they do not.
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Well, that's another point.
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They do not believe he was crucified.
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They say that Jesus was not crucified, but it was made to appear that he was and that I had that passage we'll look at in a minute.
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All right, so when they say we honor Esau as a prophet.
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That is.
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It is true in the sense that they do say he was a prophet, but they do not honor him for to deny his deity, to deny his death, burial and resurrection and to deny him by calling him a prophet like and to other prophets, not the God man is, in fact, to dishonor him.
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Fully all right, moving on now, let's look at number four, the doctrine of angels.
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So we've seen prophets.
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Let's look now at the angels.
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Now, why would I make an issue about the doctrine of angels? Because it is through an angel that Muhammad says he received his revelation.
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Muhammad said that he received his revelation from an angel of God whose name was Gabriel.
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Where does that name come from? Obviously, that is a biblical name for the angel who appeared unto Mary to make the proclamation of Jesus's of her own virgin conception and of Jesus's birth.
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So they use the name Gabriel to say that that is the name given to the angel that spoke to Muhammad.
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I want to show you something in scripture that is very important because there's a lot of people who claim to have talked to angels and a lot of those people come up with some very wild ideas about God and about other things.
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I want to just show you one important verse on this, and it is Galatians 1 8 Galatians chapter one and verse eight.
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Galatians chapter one and verse eight says this, But even if we Paul is designating himself and his the others who are with him in the ministry and what they are doing and sharing the gospel, he says, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, indicating there that he had already defined the gospel in their presence.
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He had already brought to them the trueness of the gospel.
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And he said at this point from now on, if somebody comes to you and they preach something that is contrary to what we've already given to you, whether it be us because we can go astray or whether it be an angel from heaven, because it may not be a glorified angel, it may be a fallen angel.
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Who cares who it is? Nobody is to come and change the gospel.
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And if they do, let him be accursed.
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Anathema.
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This is important because we can concede if somebody wanted to press the issue.
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I believe Muhammad saw an angel.
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I'll concede and say if he did, it doesn't matter.
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I don't concede that he did.
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But my point is, even if I did concede that he did, if his gospel is different than the gospel that is preached in Holy Scripture by the Apostle Paul, by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
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Then we know it doesn't matter what it is he taught, it is anathema, it is accursed and is to be put out of the church.
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It's false.
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So we see that.
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Even if an angel were to preach to you a gospel contrary to what we preach, let him be accursed.
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Now, that's one thing to say about angels, but there's something else that I wanted to bring up tonight that I think is interesting is that within the economy of spiritual beings and what we call, have you ever heard the phrase sentient beings? What is a sentient being? Does that mean willful, willful, sentient to have a will, intellect, emotion, will, a willful being sentient, a being that makes decisions.
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And within the realm of Islamic belief, there are three levels of sentient beings.
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First, we have angels.
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Third, we have human beings.
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Would you agree that humans are sentient beings, willful, thoughtful, intellect, emotion, will? Absolutely.
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But there is a second category in Islamic theology and they are called the jinn, J-I-N, jinn are not angel, not jinn like Jennifer, they are J-I-N, these are not angels, neither are they humans.
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This is a third and different class of sentient being what they would refer to as supernatural beings, and they occupy a parallel world.
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They occupy a different dimension.
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They have, there are two creations that have free will, humans and jinn, so both of these are defined as having a certain type of free will, humans and jinn have that.
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And the Quran says in Surah 51 verse, or Surah 51, Ayah 56, I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship me.
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So in Islamic theology, the jinn and mankind have both been created to worship Allah.
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Surah 15, Ayah 27, the jinn we created, remember the we there is the divine plural, it's not saying Allah as many, it's just saying Allah is too fantastic, too magnificent to be referred to in the personal pronoun of I.
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So it's always in the we, that needs to be understood if you're reading the Quran and you see God define himself with a personal pronoun of we, that is that is not saying he's plural, it's called a majestic plural.
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The jinn are in a parallel universe, parallel world, they are influencing ours, but they are not necessarily a part of ours in the sense of being able, we having interaction with them.
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Have you ever heard of a genie? What's a genie? A genie comes from Arabic folklore, you rub the lamp, the genie pops out and Aladdin gets his three wishes.
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Well, the phrase genie is actually from the term genie, which is multiple jinn, jinn is singular, genie is plural.
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So, yes, genies are genie, jinn, jinn are sentient beings.
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Yes.
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So we have the concept that the genie comes, it's an extension of that belief.
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It's a supernatural being that exists in a parallel creation.
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And they are creations of Allah, they were created to worship him.
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They are mentioned in the Koran in five verses, actually they are mentioned in three specific verses, but also if you look up the word Iblis in the Koran, Iblis is the devil.
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That's the word we would call Satan or the devil.
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They call him Iblis and Iblis is considered to be a jinn, not an angel.
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You know, in Christian theology, we say that Satan is what? Satan is a fallen angel.
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We believe that Satan fell and that the demons are actually what according to Christian theology, what are demons, fallen angels, that when Satan fell, he took a third of the angels with him.
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This is in accord with most of traditional what we would call demonology or Satanology or angelology.
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It's all pretty much the same sphere of systematic theology.
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When we study angels, we have to study demons because we're looking at the same type of being a spiritual being.
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The difference is one glorifies God and the other is in opposition to God because of all same way mankind, mankind mirrors that because we fell into sin.
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And now there are two types of men.
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There are men and women.
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There are people who are born again and glorify God and there are people who are not.
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And as such, they rebel against God.
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And we see the same thing in the angelic realm.
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Well, in Islamic theology, there are three rather than just two in Christian theology.
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It's people and angels and God and Islamic theology.
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You have people, angels, jinn and then Allah.
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OK, and again, this the folklore of the genie, I mean, we can't really you know, I'm not saying this to fault them because honestly, in there just as much faulty folklore that sprung out of the Christian view of angels in there, just as much faulty folklore that sprung out of the Christian view of angels.
36:13
How many of you have ever seen an angel that looks like a beautiful woman with a halo and two wings on her back? You've seen that in every cartoon that ever had an angel in it.
36:22
How many of you ever read that in the Bible, that number one, angels are women and number two, the angels only had two wings? You haven't because it ain't there.
36:30
You like a little cherubim, a little fat thing, too.
36:33
Yeah.
36:35
What a cherubim really look like, according to Scripture.
36:40
Actually, seraphim have six wings, with two they cover their face, with two they cover their feet, with two they flew, Isaiah six.
36:46
But the cherubs have two wings on the front with which they cover their chest and two wings on the back for which they fly because cherubs are warrior angels and the two on the front are armor.
36:57
It's important you look up in the book of Ezekiel, you will see cherubs described different than seraphim and Isaiah, seraphim and cherubim are two different distinct types of angels.
37:06
The cherubim had the heads that way.
37:08
Each side had a different face.
37:11
I remember telling that story one night, I read it from the Scripture and a lady said, I don't like to think of angels like that.
37:15
I like to think of them as beautiful women with two big wings.
37:18
And I said, well, you're making it up.
37:21
You're getting your theology from Walt Disney.
37:25
Don't do that.
37:27
That's bad news.
37:29
So that's my point, though, is before we go looking at Islamic people say, hey, they got this whole this whole folklore about genies.
37:35
So do we.
37:37
There is a folklore that surrounds supernatural beings such as angels.
37:42
And we shouldn't fault them simply to say, oh, well, you have a folklore.
37:45
So do we.
37:48
We really do.
37:49
The study of angels is one of the most difficult in Christian theology, because as much as the Bible says about them, it still doesn't say much.
37:57
They understand their messengers of God, they serve a purpose in God's kingdom.
38:03
But one of the most dangerous things about Islam and their view of angels is this, according to the Islamic view of angels, each person has two recording angels.
38:14
And this is what is most important about the doctrine of angels.
38:17
Excuse me.
38:19
Is that each person has two recording angels? Let me make sure that's correct, because in my notes here.
38:27
Yes, each with that.
38:31
Yeah, OK.
38:32
Yeah, well, I was pretty sure I would have said it, but before I want to reaffirm here, each human being has two recording angels that keep track of every good and every bad thing done in his or her life.
38:45
Why is that important? It is important because of the Islamic view of judgment, that's the fifth thing on your list.
38:55
The reason why that is so important is because of their view of judgment, a view of judgment.
39:11
That is number five.
39:14
Time will know.
39:15
Yeah, we're going to finish tonight.
39:22
Because there is no bigger contrast between Islam and Christianity, there is no bigger contrast than the view of how man is made right with God.
39:34
The religion of Islam, like all man made religions, teaches a salvation based on merit, what we would say works.
39:48
It teaches that as long as our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds, we will go to heaven and be with Allah.
39:59
So if you think about the view of judgment within Islamic theology, it is the view of the great scales.
40:09
Your good works must outweigh your bad deeds.
40:18
And if so, you will go and be with Allah.
40:24
As such, in Islamic theology, there is no certainty of eternal life.
40:32
Except in one extreme case, the only case in which a person in Islamic theology can be assured is what is what is called Jihad.
40:47
Jihad is holy war.
40:52
It is believed that if a person goes and gives him or herself.
40:59
In the battle for Jihad, they forego judgment and go then directly into heaven.
41:10
This is why suicide bombers find a place within their community because they receive a promise of heaven as a result of their actions.
41:17
This is why people will strap bombs to themselves or to their children or that they will board a plane armed with box cutters and a mission and take an entire nation cut straight to the heart because they're willing for there is no other way to know for certain.
41:46
Now, the reason why.
41:49
And this is not unique to Islam, but the reason why anyone believes in salvation by works.
41:56
Is because they do not they do not have an appropriate view of mankind's sin, the only people who believe that you can be saved by works are the people who do not understand the nature of sin and the nature of God, because if you understand how holy God is and you understand how sinful you are, you will automatically understand that God can never accept you in your sinful condition, no matter how good you try to be.
42:34
I've talked about this before.
42:37
If I came up here and I said, OK, we're going to take Jesus Christ and we're going to put Jesus Christ over here and we're going to stand him right here.
42:47
And I said, OK, now we're going to take somebody bad in history.
42:51
People always say Hitler.
42:52
Who else is real bad? Stalin, somebody else, somebody real bad.
42:58
Nero.
42:58
Hey, here we go.
43:00
Somebody who burned Christians, poured them, covered them in pitch and lit them on fire.
43:04
All right.
43:04
Here we go.
43:05
Right here is Nero, despicable human being.
43:09
Jesus Christ is at the other end of the line.
43:11
Now, if I brought somebody up here, that's a pretty good guy.
43:15
Let's say I brought Jack Bunning up here.
43:20
Jack Bunning is one of our elders.
43:21
He's a good man.
43:23
He's a good friend.
43:23
Let's say I brought him right here and I said, Jack, on a scale of Jesus and Nero, where do you belong? I would hope that we would understand that even as good as we are, we don't deserve to be down there.
43:44
You see, that's understanding holiness, though.
43:47
That's understanding who God is and that's understanding that Jesus Christ is holy.
43:51
This is why when the rich young ruler ran to Jesus and he said, good teacher, what must I do to be saved? And Jesus said, hey, why do you call me good? He wasn't denying his own goodness.
44:02
He was just saying, why are you being so presumptuous as to say anyone is good? Only one is good and that is God.
44:08
Why would you be so presumptuous as to assume anyone has any speck of goodness within them? Doesn't Isaiah tell us that even our best and most meritorious works are filthy rags? As such, what is the only thing that can bring about our salvation? It is but by the grace of God and any system which would put works.
44:35
As being that which merits salvation, number one, forgoes and forsakes the grace of God, and number two, applies to man much more in his dead condition than he could ever actually achieve.
44:53
The Bible says, for without faith, it is impossible to please God.
44:57
So I ask people all the time, how can you judge meritorious works if these works are done outside of faith and nothing done outside of faith can please God? The Bible says, unless we be born again, we shall not see the kingdom of heaven.
45:11
How can we say we are going to see the kingdom of heaven by our works as we be born again? We shall not see the kingdom of heaven.
45:19
It's very obvious that this whole idea of justification by works, salvation by good works and the idea of a meritorious system by which we can be saved is foolish, for it does not understand the grace of God.
45:36
But you see, in Islamic theology, sin is not the problem.
45:44
In Islamic theology, the problem is lack of faith in Allah.
45:54
Sin is not the issue.
45:56
The issue is believing in Allah.
46:00
And you see that problem, you see the problem with that is that has that has melted its way into Christianity.
46:07
You see, because used to Christianity, if we said, what's man's most major problem, we would have said sin.
46:12
But now if you ask people, what's man's most major problem? They'll say, well, don't believe in Jesus.
46:18
Not believing in Jesus is not mankind's most major problem, mankind's most major problem is sin.
46:23
And the only way to get out of that is believing in Jesus Christ.
46:26
But beloved, the problem is not that they don't believe because most people have never heard of Jesus Christ overseas, and yet they're still in their sin.
46:38
That's an important situation to consider.
46:42
You see, we have come to the point, I've heard people say this before, people say people don't go to hell because of sin.
46:47
People go to hell because they don't believe in Jesus.
46:50
Ask them the question, then what then of those who have not believed in Jesus, either they don't go to hell in your theology.
47:01
That's important.
47:03
Because sin is the problem.
47:08
Jesus came and died on the cross because of sin.
47:13
The reason why we need a savior is because of sin.
47:18
Nobody wants to hear how bad we truly are.
47:23
Nowadays, nobody believes we're that bad anyway.
47:27
We've had so many people that have left who said, I don't want to get told I'm a sinner every week.
47:36
As soon as you forget it, as soon as you forget it is when you'll start thinking like that, because you'll forget the grace of God.
47:45
John Newton, when he penned those words, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
47:51
Those words have been changed.
47:53
Amazing grace.
47:54
It sounds real good because I'm an all right guy.
47:59
That's what we changed.
48:01
We sing that song.
48:03
Great God, how infinite art thou? What worthless worms are we? And people get offended because they don't want to consider themselves to be worms in the face of the holy God, because we don't understand sin.
48:17
And we've gone the way of the Islamic people by saying God's concern is not so much sin, his concern is about belief.
48:24
Oh, yes, faith is important.
48:27
The beloved, our problem is not that we don't believe our problem is that we sin.
48:32
And the only solution.
48:35
Is the work of Jesus Christ.
48:38
And the way in which we procure that work, the way in which we become a part of that work is through faith.
48:44
And that is how faith is important.
48:48
I hope that what I've said makes sense and demonstrates the distinction.
48:54
Because in Islamic theology, sin is not as grievous as it truly is, and that's the problem.
49:07
Because if God is holy.
49:10
And he hates sin, as the Bible says, he does.
49:14
And the only salvation is Jesus Christ, which the Bible says it is, then we know the answer and the answer is not good works.
49:26
All right, we're probably close to the end now.
49:29
Oh, we had a few little thoughts here.
49:37
Yes.
49:37
Now.
49:39
Oh, I didn't get the five pillars.
49:42
Yeah.
49:49
Yeah.
50:00
They have leaders in the Islamic movement.
50:02
And yes, they give to the leadership.
50:04
And I do not know how the money is spent.
50:06
I don't know.
50:09
I would have to look that information up.
50:11
I've never I've never looked into how they're giving is done.
50:14
You are correct.
50:15
Only two and a half percent.
50:19
But I don't know how it is dispersed or how it's given.
50:22
So I wouldn't.
50:24
Yeah, it would be interesting.
50:26
I forgot to mention the five pillars.
50:28
Very important, isn't it? I get to go and I have to look at my notes more.
50:35
What's that? Oh, it's not anything like the tulip, but I like you.
50:39
I like the way you do.
50:42
Yeah, but it's much different.
50:44
Let me make a clear distinction there.
50:48
OK, there are five pillars.
50:51
What does it mean when we say five pillars? They believe these are the actions which you must undergo to become a Muslim and to be considered a practicing Muslim, a good Muslim.
51:09
Number one, recite the creed or the Shahada, the Shahada, S-H-A-H-A-D-A-H.
51:24
You have to recite that that is your entrance into being a Muslim.
51:29
S-H-A-H-A-D-A-H.
51:38
The second one is the praying of the prayers.
51:42
Five times a day facing Mecca.
51:47
So you have to recite the Shahada.
51:55
You must pray five times daily and you must face Mecca.
52:06
Number three is the giving of alms.
52:15
That is two and a half percent of a person's income.
52:24
I heard a person make a joke one time.
52:26
Well, that's how they're stealing all the Christians is they're giving them a better deal.
52:32
Better than 10 percent, I think is silly, but it was a joke nonetheless.
52:40
So the giving of alms, two and a half percent of a person's income.
52:43
Number four is fasting.
52:47
And this happens during the month of Ramadan, fasting during the month of Ramadan.
52:57
They fast from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan.
53:06
The fifth one is the pilgrimage.
53:15
Pilgrimage, if I'm doing this correctly, to Mecca.
53:33
The problem, or not the problem, but the exception is that if you cannot make a pilgrimage to Mecca, you can opt out if you are physically or financially unable or if you can send someone in your stead.
53:55
So as such, the pilgrimage is not a necessity, but it is a necessity if you're physically or financially able.
54:02
Yes, once in your life.
54:05
Yeah, it's not it wouldn't be a yearly or or biannual or anything like that.
54:09
It's a once in a lifetime thing.
54:11
You will go and you will visit the the building, which is called the the Kaaba or the Kaaba.
54:21
And you would go there and there is a stone, a black stone.
54:26
And that stone has supposed to have been there since the time of Abraham and Ishmael, because they believe Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaaba there.
54:35
And of course, that's been torn down and rebuilt many, many times since then.
54:38
But the stone itself is still there.
54:40
Very foolish man recently said this.
54:44
Very foolish man, a professor, which you can be a foolish professor, but it was a professor nonetheless.
54:53
And he said, he said, here's how we take care of Islam.
54:57
He said, we'll just ruin the whole religion as we destroy.
55:00
And this guy is a professor and teaches Islamic studies.
55:05
He said, all we got to do is nuke the Kaaba.
55:10
He said, all we got to do is nuke the Kaaba.
55:13
He says, once it's gone, they won't have anything to pray to.
55:16
The whole religion will fall apart.
55:21
And I'm just sitting down thinking, how dumb do you have to be that that's your best answer? Well, no, I'm not.
55:34
I'm not saying that you are.
55:35
My point is, yeah, it's supposed to be sacred.
55:41
And that's the point is the idea of this person was, well, we'll just bomb it into a blithering and that would end the religion.
55:51
Do any of you believe that a group of people that got angry because Mohammed was drawn on a cartoon would give up just because their place of prayer was obliterated? It would light a fire on this world like we've never seen.
56:12
It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life.
56:15
You do not fight this battle with that type of thinking.
56:24
When the temple was destroyed, the Jews fought back.
56:26
That's right.
56:27
That's right.
56:28
Good example.
56:29
Very good example.
56:31
You can't be.
56:34
Oh, yeah, yeah.
56:39
And that's true.
56:40
It's blasphemous.
56:42
Yeah, but I hope that over the last four weeks we have a little bit of a better understanding of Islamic theology.
56:51
Hopefully you understand a little bit more about what they believe.
56:53
Obviously, there are things that we have not dug into.
56:56
We have not gone into things like Sunni and Shiite and the difference there.
57:02
It is important to remember that when we talk about Sunni and Shiite, we're talking about two different sects of Islam.
57:12
And the argument between the Sunnis and the Shiites are who are supposed to be the recognized leaders of Islam.
57:21
And that's and how they interpret Islamic history and Islamic documents.
57:25
That's important.
57:27
Didn't really want to go into that much of it, only to help you understand more of the religious differences between Christian and Islam.
57:35
There isn't something that you can think about.
57:38
Oftentimes, Islam in its attempts to degrade Christianity will say, well, Christianity has many divisions.
57:50
You have Catholics and Protestants and you have Lutherans and Calvinists and Presbyterians and Baptists and you have all these divisions.
58:01
And thus you are divided and you can't be God's people.
58:06
We are unified as Muslims and as such, we are truly God's people.
58:11
They're no more unified than we are.
58:15
The very fact that they battle between Sunni and Shiite is a demonstration of that.
58:20
They kill interdenominationally.
58:24
They attack interdenominationally.
58:28
The nation of Islam, which is made up of mostly black people in America, the nation of Islam, which rose out of Malcolm X, people like that.
58:36
The large black movement is much different in their view and theology and the way they behave than a Palestinian Muslim.
58:46
See, that's another division.
58:58
Yeah, that's what that's the point is there's interdenomination, if you want to call them denomination, there's interreligious terrorism that happens even among their own people.
59:07
One of the things that we talk about, how bad it is against our people, they're worse against their own.
59:13
Muslim upon Muslim violence is is horrible.
59:18
And so we mustn't we mustn't listen to those type of things and allow it to have credence in our minds, because those type of arguments are just demonstrations of they're attempting to make a case that isn't there.
59:33
Well, we're unified.
59:34
No, you're not.
59:35
Yes, sir.
59:39
No.
59:41
Oh, wait, no.
59:42
I mean, from our perspective, no, from our perspective, Mohammed would be a false prophet.
59:50
From their perspective, Mohammed would be the greatest of prophets, but still not divine.
59:55
No, he still wouldn't be divine.
59:58
Yeah.
59:59
And because of the Unitarian view of God.
01:00:05
Yes, ma'am.
01:00:41
It is a it would be like asking, do all Jehovah's Witnesses go out witnessing on Saturday morning? But there's a dedication there, too, isn't it? Huh? Or do all Christians go to church? But but now I want to make the correlation between Jehovah's Witnesses and Islam, because Jehovah's Witnesses movement, you know, the Jehovah's Witnesses movement, it the Jehovah's Witnesses movement is very much similar in the sense of there's a belief in these things that I do are increasing my status as a believer.
01:01:21
It's increasing my status as a as a as a faithful person and as such, adding to my belief in the fact that I'm going to heaven.
01:01:30
Anytime you have a workspace salvation or what we call a meritorious view of salvation, that salvation is based on merits, then we must achieve a certain level of merit to go.
01:01:41
This is why at eight o'clock on Saturday morning, they're roaming my neighborhood with their New World translation talking about Jehovah.
01:01:52
It's the same reason why they're they're they're praying five times a day when you interconnect salvation with what you do.
01:02:02
You might say, wait a minute, Christianity does that, not really.
01:02:06
Christianity says we do what we do because we want to.
01:02:08
We do what we do because the grace of God has so changed us that we will want to do these things.
01:02:16
But that our salvation is still not based on what we do.
01:02:20
But when you say that salvation is based on what you do, your behavior will respond to that and you will do these things as such to become safe.
01:02:28
So I'm getting close to trying to get you sick.
01:02:55
Saint sanctification, our sanctification is not what saves us.
01:03:01
Our sanctification will never be what saves our sanctification as a result and not a cause of salvation.
01:03:11
In fact, when you look at God's view of salvation, Romans chapter eight, you'll notice sanctification isn't even there.
01:03:21
It says for whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.
01:03:26
That's sanctification.
01:03:27
But he goes on to say for whom he predestined, he called whom he called, he justified and he justified.
01:03:32
He glorified nowhere in that statement.
01:03:34
Is there a statement of sanctification? The statement of sanctification is being conformed to the image of his son.
01:03:39
We are being conformed to the image of his son.
01:03:42
But what saves us? We're saved because he called us, he justified us and he glorified us in the sun.
01:03:50
We're saved by the work of Christ alone and not of the work of ourselves.
01:03:55
As such, when I do work, I do work because God is conforming me to the image of his son, not because I'm attempting to meet some standard by which God has set for me to get saved.
01:04:08
And when there is a standard like that, people often try to conform to the standard, pray five times a day, give two and a half percent of your income, recite the Shaddah fast during Ramadan and take that pilgrimage because all these things are going to be added up and weighed at the end of your life.
01:04:31
I have no idea.
01:04:33
I have no idea.
01:04:34
I met a lot of Southern Baptists that would disagree.
01:04:43
Yeah, they have a very they have a they they see Westernization as demonization and gambling would be a form of, you know, the different things that that that would be called distinctly Western.
01:05:20
That's what they don't like, but you but every one of their wives is covered up and the husband is the only one ever sees their hair and you understand why is it the head covering is so important is because according to the Islamic belief and I tell you, it's true, they say that the hair of a woman is her most feminine of features and that that should be reserved for her husband only so her hair is to be covered.
01:05:48
So that the only person who ever enjoys her femininity is her husband.
01:05:53
That's their belief.
01:05:54
So even though he's got four wives, no, nobody see him, but him.
01:06:10
And that's a that's a whole other aspect I did not get into.
01:06:13
And that is that there are things that that are.
01:06:17
There are things that are allowed if it is in the if it is in the promotion of Islam, if this must be done to promote Islam.
01:06:28
If this is something that must be done to to further the cause, we can do it, but it's but it's not to be enjoyed.
01:06:35
It's for the purpose.
01:06:43
Well, let me let me let's let me just say this about that, because we mustn't we mustn't we mustn't forget.
01:06:52
Huh? Yeah.
01:06:58
Thanks for spelling it.
01:07:05
Oh, absolutely.
01:07:07
But again, I go back to the issue of, you know, when we talk about conversion, there is a desire to convert among Islamic people.
01:07:19
But what but what do they really believe, though, about conversion? They believe that you were born a Muslim and that you, through your cultural upbringing, have left your Islamic beliefs and your understanding because we are all born Muslim.
01:07:39
And that you must be brought back.
01:07:44
You see, it's much different than the Christian theology of conversion, because we believe that all people are born sinful and that they must be brought out of spiritual deadness into life.
01:07:52
And the only way to do that, on our perspective, is to preach the gospel and the gospel is the power of God and salvation for everyone who believes in the gospel converts the heart and the Holy Spirit changes the heart, opens the heart to believe that the person can believe and become saved.
01:08:04
This is what we believe.
01:08:06
They believe that you were born a Muslim, you were born.
01:08:10
Effectively, a child of God, and because of culture and because of the decay of the world and particularly Westernization, you've been brought away from that and that their job is to bring you back.
01:08:20
So it is much different than how we view conversion.
01:08:23
And that sort of needs to be understood and how they would guess I haven't heard that I have heard that Jesus will have a place in the end and I don't know enough about it to give a full answer, but there is a there is a doctrine of end times that includes Jesus and Mohammed and other prophets having a part.
01:09:04
But I'm not familiar enough to say exactly.
01:09:07
I hadn't heard about the Antichrist part, but I'll look that up and see if that's interesting, because Antichrist obviously is a big part of Christian theology, that there will come a person who will be opposed to Christ and that he will gather a massive following behind him.
01:09:20
So that's interesting.
01:09:24
Yeah, I do.
01:09:25
They do have a belief in Christ having a place in the end time.
01:09:29
All right.
01:09:30
Next week, we are going to begin.
01:09:35
Our study of the four marks of a cult, we've looked at the major world religion that is in the world now, and that is Islam.
01:09:44
We spent four weeks on it.
01:09:46
If you want more information on it, I'll be happy to point you to some books.
01:09:51
But I've gone as far as I really want to go with this.
01:09:53
I want to move on because we've only got three months.
01:09:55
And I said I was going to do Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah Witness and a few others.
01:10:02
Because honestly, let me tell you something, if you think Islam is the biggest issue that we're facing right now, it's big.
01:10:10
But Mormonism, Mormonism is huge right now.
01:10:15
You might say, well, Mormonism is just Christianity, but with a different name.
01:10:18
No, it is not.
01:10:21
They have a much different view of God than even the Islamic people do.
01:10:25
Mormonism is polytheistic.
01:10:28
They're not even monotheists.
01:10:32
Mormonism has a much different Jesus Christ, yet they will say, we worship Jesus just like you do.
01:10:37
Hogwash.
01:10:40
So next week we're going to start a video series.
01:10:42
It's going to take half the time.
01:10:44
We're going to watch half, we're going to watch the video for half the time, and then we're going to do a study half the time.
01:10:48
And the video is called The Marks of Occult, five parts.
01:10:51
We'll watch half, talk half, watch half, talk half.
01:10:54
Very professionally done video, and it uses the mathematical signs of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to describe how cults start, how cults maintain themselves and how cults perpetuate or propagate themselves in the world.
01:11:09
It's very, very enlightening.
01:11:12
And it's put out by a Christian group.
01:11:15
Dr.
01:11:15
James White is in the video and a few other very intelligent, good teachers are in the video as well.
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So we'll start that next week.
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Let's have a word of prayer.
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Father, we thank you for this time to study.
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Thank you for giving me strength to maintain this time.
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I pray that everything has been done in accordance with your will.
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And I do pray, oh, Lord, that as we look into the world and we see all these things happening, that we not be afraid to stand up and speak the truth of the gospel, that we not be afraid to stand up and speak out against error.
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For, oh, Lord, our culture is going the way of Sodom.
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It is going the way of Gomorrah.
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It is rejecting the sound principles of basic rationality that you put in the heart of each one of us.
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The law of God, which you have put in our hearts, is being suppressed.
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And it is a frightening thing to watch at times.
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But yet at the same time, oh, Lord, we know.
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That you are not out of control.
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That you still sit upon your throne.
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You're bringing all things together to work for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purpose.
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And even though, Lord, we submit to the fact that we may one day.
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Have to suffer for our faith that we may have to suffer for what we believe in.
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We trust, oh, God, that you will never allow that to be in vain.
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So we just pray for strength to always speak the truth, strength to stand up against error and strength to proclaim your word in all things, in all times and in all places.
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In Jesus name we pray and thank you.
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Amen.