Then Came Islam

Then Came Islam

In the book, The Blood of the Moon, by George Grant, he suggests that there are two basic ambitions of the religion called Islam. Their first ambition is that they are the oldest religion and their second ambition is that, according to tradition, Allah has mandated that they control the entire earth. Mohammed taught that the top most part to the meaning of life is Ji’had - “holy war.” One of the primary targets of the Ji’had are Jews and Christians. Islam teaches that believers must fight against those to whom the Scripture was given if they believe not in Allah. They must be subdued because they worship their rabbis and their monks as gods. The nations of Islam are very militant and they claim the past success of Babylon, Assyria, and Persia as their historical foundation of support to wage Ji’had. All other religions, to Islam, are seen as satanic expressions.

Islam believes that Allah is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, merciful, compassionate, to be feared and to be strictly obeyed. But the problem with Allah is that He is not to be personally experienced in man's heart. Christians are indwelled by God's Spirit giving them power to overcome the World. Allah's spirit does not. They have no certain hope of salvation, but instead must hope that on the day of judgment a man's works and sincerity, not God's grace, will determine his destination in the next life. The Koran makes direct attempts to undermine what the Bible teaches. And the Sufism sect of Islam ignores the question of sin and redemption and they mystically interpret truth.

A historical view of Mohammed begins when he was born in A.D. 570, in the city of Mecca. The wandering tribes he lived among, practiced idolatry, the worship of demons, and worshiped a supreme god known as Allah. At forty years of age he entered a cave and over a twenty year period he perfected through memorization, the Koran, and taught it orally, all because he was illiterate. Mohammed had a strange health disorder which caused him to foam at the mouth and fall into unconsciousness. These seizures he questioned to be either divine or devilish. A Christian would say that he might have been demon possessed. He believed in sharing wealth with the poor and proclaimed a day of judgment for unbelievers. And with this warning he contrasted a belief in a heaven where green meadows, rivers of wine, and beautiful virgins awaited the faithful. At first his followers were stoned and beaten because of their preaching. But eventually Mohammed ruled as a king and prophet and taught his military that if they died in battle they would immediately be in paradise. Mohammed destroyed the idols in the pagan temples, but he kept the name of the chief idol, Allah, as the name of his god. He also kept the black stone that the pagans worshiped and it still, today, is viewed as having strong powers and they still make pilgrimages to Mecca to kiss the idolatrous, black stone. After his death in A.D. 632, his successor established a system of religious leaders known as Caliphs. Muslim armies then spread the message of Islam to India, North Africa, and Spain. They established their capital in Baghdad. The Caliph of Baghdad ruled an Islamic empire of three continents that lasted for a thousand years.

Other beliefs and practices are: forbidding statues and music in mosques; circumcision; polygamy; they believe that Christ did not die, but was taken up to heaven; and they have other beliefs and practices that vary among their Muslim sects. Today, most Arab nations desire the complete destruction of the nation of Israel. In the middle east there are many militant groups that intend to bring Islamic law to Palestine (Israel) and they prefer terror in their attempt to accomplish this goal. This Arab-Jewish conflict began with a division between Abraham's sons - Isaac, who was the son God promised Abraham, and Ishmael, who was the son born out of Abraham's impatience with waiting for God to fulfill His promise.

After the destruction of Jerusalem, in A.D. 70, most of the Jews joined others in exile but a few stayed in Palestine. During the period of Roman and Byzantine rule Palestine was neglected. These Jews were legally protected and could work and worship in relative peace and security because the Arab and gentile population converted to Christianity. Palestine then became a tiny Jewish island in the vast sea of a Christian Middle East.

But then came Islam.

Mohammed launched Ji’had against the Jews and had Jewish men scourged and decapitated in public and he divided the Jewish women, children, and property among his followers. And taught that “true believers, take not the Jews and Christians for your friends. They cannot be trusted. They are defiled - filth.” Thus for the first time in centuries the old feud between Ishmael and Isaac had been revived by Mohammed and his followers of Islam.

In refutation of Islam we should note that the Roman Historian, Cornelius Tacitus, said in A.D. 114, that “Jesus Christ, was put to death by Pontius Pilate.” This verifies that Jesus was not only a historical character, but that He did die and was not taken directly to heaven before death as Islam teaches. The Jewish Historian, Josephus, told about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection on the third day and His appearances to many. And more recently, Napoleon Bonaparte, after an ungodly life, at the end, when he read each day the Scriptures, came to this conclusion: “I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. There is between Christianity and other religions the distance of infinity. We can say to the authors of every other religion, you are neither gods or the agents of deity. You are but the agents of falsehood molded from the same clay as the rest of mortals. Your temples and priests proclaim your origin. But Jesus Christ astounds me and fills me with awe!”

The basic message to the Muslim is the same as it would be to other unsaved people of the world, which would be John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.” They could also be taught that there is a certainty of salvation, which is known by a Christian as seen in John 3:36 and 5:24.

A born again man can not accept the authority of the Koran, because it seeks to undermine the doctrines of the Bible. Christians believe that Christ was not only a prophet, as the Muslims teach, but was the divine Son of God as seen in Acts 4:12. Christianity teaches that all men are sinners, Romans 3:23 and 6:23, and are in need of God's saving grace. Islam teaches that Christ will return in the last days to show the world that Islam is right and the only way to enter Heaven. Those of us who are Christians know that Christ will one day return to vanquish evil and set up His Kingdom, not Allah's.

The Bible teaches, in Galatians 4:29, that Ishmael was “born according to the flesh” and that Isaac was “born according to the Spirit.” Thus, from Isaac came the Jews and from Ishmael came the Arabs and they have been at enmity with one another ever since. Where the Muslim teaches war, II Corinthians 10:3-5 teaches that we deal with our conflicts in spiritual terms and to approach the Middle East conflicts in any other way would invite disaster.

While many Christians believe that the present events in the Middle East are a countdown to Armageddon, and understandably so, faithful believers remember Christ's teaching in Matthew 24, that these signs of the times are only the beginning of sorrows and that we still need to direct our attention to the great task of preaching the gospel to all nations, including Islam (Matthew 24:14).

Bibliography

Overton, Fred, Jr. Is the Bible Reliable?. Fred Overton Seminars, Inc., Sugar Hill, GA 1999.

Larson, Bob. Larson New Book of Cults. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL. 1989.

Ankerberg, John, et all. One World: Bible Prophecy and The New World Order. Moody Press, Chicago, IL. 1991.

Grant, George. The Blood of the Moon. Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., Brentwood, TN. 1991.

__________________________________________