Islam - Genesis Part 51

Today we're going back to our study in the book of Genesis, verse by verse, and we want to talk today about the one billion Muslims in our world.

It may surprise you to know that not only is Islam the fastest growing religion in the world, it's also the fastest growing religion in the United States of America. So what about all this? We hear about jihad and Sharia law and ISIS and the Sunnis and the Shiites. I mean, what in the world is going on with all of this? And how does Islam differ from Biblical Christianity?

And why is it so hard to reach a Muslim for Christ? And what is this whole ISIS thing that's going on over there? Those are the questions we're going to try to answer today. We've got a lot of ground to cover.

So you ready to go? Okay, here we go. Now you might start off by saying, Lon, how does Islam relate to the book of Genesis?

Well, much in every way. Because, friends, Islam originated with the Arab peoples and many of the Muslims in the world today, a large percentage, are Arab peoples. And the Bible tells us where the Arab peoples originated. Genesis 21, verse 1. Now the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised and Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age.

At the very time God had promised him. And Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore to him. Now remember, Abraham had already fathered a son with Sarah's handmaiden, a boy named Ishmael, right?

Okay, verse 9 of chapter 21. But Sarah saw Ishmael mocking Isaac. So Sarah said to Abraham, throw this handmaid and her son out. For the son of this handmaid shall never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.

And this matter distressed Abraham greatly, but God said to Abraham, do not be distressed because of the boy and the maid. Listen to what Sarah tells you and I will make the son of the maid, Ishmael, into a great nation too because he also is your offspring. And this man Ishmael became the father of the hundreds of millions of Arab peoples in the earth today. Now that's where the Arab people came from, but where did Islam come from? Well, Islam came from a gentleman named Muhammad, one of these Arab descendants of Ishmael. He was born somewhere around 570 AD in the city of Mecca in modern day Saudi Arabia.

And at age 40 he began to have visions that he understood to be from God and he recorded them in the Quran. Now Islam is actually an Arabic word that means submission because the word is meant to describe the relationship that Allah expects every human being to have with him, namely that they submit to Allah's will. There are two big branches, there are smaller ones, but the two largest branches of Islam are the Sunnis and the Shiites, which all of us have heard a lot about over the last decade. Now, let's talk for a minute about where Islam and the Bible differ theologically.

I've got four areas, there are many more, but I've got four key areas I want to tell you about very quickly. Number one, when it comes to God. Biblical Christianity teaches that there is one God who exists eternally in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity as we like to say.

And there are a lot of verses in the Bible that back this up, let me just give you one. Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, and God said, let us, okay, make man in our own image according to our likeness. Now, God uses the first person plural here, let us, in our, and so who's he talking to? You say, well, I know who he's talking to, Lon. He's talking to the angels, and the cherubim, and the seraphim.

No, he's not. We're not made in the image of angels, the Bible never says that. We're not made in the image of cherubim, I don't have six wings, with two I cover my feet, with two I cover my face, and with two I fly around.

Isaiah chapter 6, that's not how I'm made. We're made in the image of God. So who's he talking to if it's not the angels or the heavenly host? Well, friends, God is talking within the Godhead to himself.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are having a conversation. Now, you say, Lon, how do you explain that? I don't explain it. I don't understand it. Nobody understands this, but the Bible says God is one essence in three persons.

I don't understand it, but I believe it. Islam teaches that there is one single God, Allah, but when Muslims say single, they mean single. To a Muslim, the doctrine of the Trinity is the ultimate heresy. The Quran says it is blasphemy of the worst sort to believe that Jesus is God's Son.

It is an offense worthy of hell. Now, second of all, how does Islam and the Bible disagree about God's character? Well, the Bible, biblical Christianity teaches that God is a personal God who created you and me to have a personal relationship with him, who wants to be personally involved in our lives, and Jesus died on the cross to make that possible.

Islam teaches that Allah is far too high above man for this kind of personal contact to occur, that Allah is unknowable. What's more, Islam teaches that above all else, Allah is a God of judgment. This is in direct contrast to biblical Christianity, which teaches that above all else, God is a God of mercy. Psalm 145 verse 8 says the Lord is full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy.

Exactly. And it's very important for us to understand, friends, that because grace and mercy and forgiveness is not part of Allah's basic character, therefore these values of grace and mercy and forgiveness and compassion, they have little to do with the practice of Islam. This is why a mother can go on television and plead in front of the whole world for her captive journalist son and ask for mercy and ask for compassion and beg for kindness and beg for forgiveness, and they cut their head off anyway. Because these values, they don't ring in Islam. They're not part of Islam.

They fall on deaf ears. Number three, let's talk about Islam and the Bible when it comes to Jesus. Biblical Christianity teaches that Jesus is the second person of the Godhead, co-equal, co-eternal, and co-substantial with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, which is why Jesus said, John 10 verse 30, I and the Father are one. Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet, but not as great a prophet as Mohammed, and that he was certainly not the Son of God.

The Qur'an says, and I quote, Jesus was only a messenger of Allah, far be it removed from Allah's transcendent majesty that he should have a son, end of quote. Finally, how about their beliefs, Islam and the Bible, about the plan of salvation, about how people get to heaven. Well, folks, I should tell you that there are two places where every ism, every ology, every cult, every false religion, I don't care what else they believe, but they're guaranteed to disagree with the Bible on two things. The first is the deity of Christ, that he is God in the flesh.

We already covered that. Islam doesn't believe that. And the second area where they all disagree with the Bible is on the plan of salvation. The Bible's plan of salvation is based on four cardinal truths. Number one, the holiness of God. Number two, the sinfulness of man, not just in his actions, but in his intrinsic nature.

Number three, the inability of man to save himself. And number four, the undeserved grace of God in salvation. And when we say that salvation is by the undeserved grace of God, what we mean is that salvation is completely a work accomplished by Jesus on the cross, and it becomes ours not by working, but by trusting. Look what Romans 4 verse 5 says, To the one who does not try to work for his salvation, but simply trusts God who justifies the ungodly to that person, his faith, his trusting in what Jesus did for him on the cross is credited to him as righteousness.

All right, look here a second. If you're going to get into heaven, then next to your name in God's book needs to be written the word righteousness. And God only writes that word next to a person's name. This is what this verse says. Only does that as an act of grace.

He only does that as a gift. He credits righteousness to us even though we are not righteous. But folks, notice he only does that for people who are willing to trust what Christ did for them on the cross and not try to work for their salvation. The plan of salvation in the Bible is a Christ plus nothing salvation. And let me say if you're here today and you're on a Christ plus something salvation plan, Christ plus confession, Christ plus communion, Christ plus the rosary, Christ plus confession, Christ plus church membership, Christ plus baptism, Christ plus being bar mitzvahed, Christ plus being a good person, Christ plus trying to keep the Ten Commandments. I don't care what the plus is. Friend, it ain't gonna work.

And I'll tell you why. Because God is not gonna credit righteousness to you if you had anything to do with it. He's not gonna honor human works. He only is gonna honor human humility where we confess we can't save ourselves and we're willing to trust what Jesus did 100% to save us. And then God says, okay, you do that, Christ plus nothing, here you go. I'll erase unrighteous from next to your name and I'm writing in righteous and it's there for eternity. Everybody understand how it works? Yeah?

You got it? If you're here on a Christ plus something plan, man, I want to urge you, I want to beg you, I want to plead with you. You've got to jettison the something and make it a Christ plus nothing plan or folks, it's gonna be a very unhappy day when you meet God in eternity. Righteousness is not gonna be credited to your name.

So I beg you to do that. Well, Islam knows nothing of this kind of grace of God. In Islam, man is not sinful in his nature, he's sinful in his actions. Meaning the only thing that makes a person a sinner is when they break the laws of Allah. And so they have five laws you have to keep in order to work your way into heaven.

Remember I told you, this is where every ism and ology disagrees with the Bible. Islam believes you can work your way into heaven. Here are the five laws very quickly. Number one, recite the Shahada.

There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. Number two, prayer. Five times a day, every Muslim has to get on their knees facing Mecca and say prescribed prayers to Allah. Number three, almsgiving. Every Muslim is expected to give one fortieth of his or her income to the poor.

You can give more but that's the minimum. Law number four, fasting for the month of Ramadan. Every Muslim during that month must refrain from food, drink, smoking and sexual activity during the daylight hours. And finally, the Hajj or the pilgrimage to Mecca which every Muslim is expected to make at least once in their life unless extreme poverty prevents them. And if you do these five things, Islam says that you have a chance of getting in heaven. You say, what do you mean a chance?

Well, it is. There's no guarantee. People who get into heaven are the people Allah wants to get into heaven. He can make the decision whether you keep these five things or not. You say, well that's no assurance. Precisely.

Precisely. You can do them all and if Allah doesn't want to let you in, too bad. Now, there's one other word we should know here and that's the word jihad or holy war. The Quran says that any man who dies in a jihad guaranteed automatically goes immediately to paradise. So can you understand why rulers in Islamic countries are so quick to declare jihad because then they get people who believe they're going right to heaven if they die in one of these things and that's how they get people to be willing to blow themselves up and do all these other things. It's the only way to be sure you're getting into paradise. You can keep the five laws and still miss it. But man, you die in a jihad, you're in.

So that's why they use it. Okay, have I got all that? Have I lost you?

No, you're there? Okay, alright. Now, let's talk about why it's so hard to reach a Muslim for Christ. Well, the answer is because in Islamic countries, Islam is woven into the very fabric of society at every level.

People are indoctrinated into it from birth. No one is permitted to leave Islam. Those who do are considered traitors to their faith, to their country, and to their family.

They face imprisonment, disinheritance, the loss of their family, the loss of their children, economic boycott, and even death. Now, that's as far as we're going to go in talking about Islam because we're going to stop now and we're going to ask our most important question. So, we haven't done this in two months.

So you guys should be starving to do this. Yeah? Alright, are you ready? Come on now, here we go.

One, two, three. Awesome. You say, Lon. I mean, this is interesting, yeah, but I don't really know if any of this has much to do with me. Oh, my friend.

My friend, it sure does. I don't know if you've noticed, but fundamentalist Islam has a huge political agenda. Fundamentalist Islam teaches that it is the world's primal religion that Adam was a Muslim, Noah was a Muslim, Abraham was a Muslim, and that all non-Muslims are infidels and all non-Islamic states are infidel states that must either be converted or conquered. So Islam has a global mission politically and religiously and that is the establishment of Islam across the globe, everywhere. This is where this word caliphate is coming from that you're hearing now about from ISIS. A caliphate is an Islamic state that transcends the borders of the Middle East that were drawn up by Western leaders after World War I.

It's led by a supreme ruler, political ruler, called a caliph, which literally means a successor, that is, to Muhammad, and it operates on strict Islamic law, Sharia law. I hope you understand that the countries you see today, the borders of these countries, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, none of these borders existed before 1918. The French and the British, after World War I, got together and carved up the Middle East and drew all these artificial borders.

Before that, it was just all part of the Ottoman Empire and one big massive territory. And ISIS, one of the things that they are so upset about is all these artificial borders drawn by Western infidel leaders. They don't respect any of those borders.

They don't care about any of those borders. And friends, they are trying to establish on June 29th of this year, 2014, they established their own caliphate called the Islamic State with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in charge. And they want to go back to the glory days of Islam. Now, the largest caliphate that ever existed on earth was in 750 A.D.

It was a caliphate that covered from Spain and southern France in the west all the way to China, just about, in the east. And this is their dream, to reestablish this caliphate and then to expand it. And friends, even Muslims who don't agree with them, they kill them. They don't care if they're Muslims. And certainly Christians who don't agree with them, they kill. And once they unify all existing Muslims into their caliphate, their next goal is to destroy or convert every other nation on earth.

Don't say this has nothing to do with you. You know, it's really scary to see what's happening right now over in the Middle East with this caliphate. Many of us have heard of the radical Islamic group in Nigeria, Boko Haram, that kidnapped all these young women. You've heard of them.

Well, they just recently captured the city of Guoza just a month or so ago. And here's what the leader of Boko Haram said when he took the city. Listen to this. He said, and I quote, the area, this city, is now part of the Islamic caliphate and no longer has anything to do with Nigeria, end of quote. Amazing. Now, you say, Lon, how does all this relate to Bible prophecy at all?

Oh my gosh, you bet it does. In the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter 2, Daniel chapter 7, the prophecies there make it clear. If I understand them right, and I believe I do, that the central kingdom at the end of this age is going to be a Middle Eastern kingdom. It's going to have its power center at Babylon in modern-day Iraq. Not in Rome. This is not a rebuilt Roman Empire. When the book of Revelation was written by the Apostle John, Rome existed. And God knew how to say Rome. And God said Babylon. A hundred years ago we would have all looked at that and said that's crazy. Nothing's ever coming out of that desert.

Well, today people aren't saying that. And it'll be an Islamic kingdom and the Antichrist will be a Muslim. Daniel chapter 7 verse 23. And it, this kingdom, will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. Friends, you want a caliphate? Right here in the book of Daniel, you got one. And then it goes on to say, in verse 25, he, the ruler of this caliphate, the Antichrist, will speak out against the Most High God and, what's the next three words? Oppress his saints. That make sense what's going on?

Yeah. Now listen, I've got these two messages for you. I don't have time to go through the prophecies today. But you can either do one of two things. You can go online to McLeanBible.org and you can listen to the message and we've also got all the notes written out from the message so that you can follow right along.

Or you can go out in our lobby. We have CDs of these two messages, Daniel 2, Daniel 7. And if we run out, we'll get some more for next week. But one way or the other, I want you to listen to Daniel chapter 2 and Daniel chapter 7 to those prophecies so you'll really have a grasp on what is going on in our world today. The Bible tells us that geopolitically things are going to get a lot worse before they get any better. That ISIS or some Muslim force like it is going to sweep out of the Middle East and nothing on this earth is going to be able to stop it. Nothing that is except Titus 2.13 the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who will slay the lawless one, the antichrist with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by the splendor of his, the Lord's coming. In the end, Jesus wins, folks.

Yeah. And this is why Titus chapter 2.13 says this is the blessed hope. Folks, there's no hope in this world.

There's no hope in this world. But I'm so glad those of us who know Christ, we in Christ and in his gospel and in his return, we have hope magnificent hope, victorious hope, eternal hope and I don't care how bad it gets here on earth there is no reason for us to ever lose hope if we know Christ. In the end, Jesus wins.

Hey, love it. And so we say with the great apostle John even so come quickly, Lord Jesus. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for teaching us today about what's going on in our world and for showing us that it fits with everything you've said in the word of God for centuries and centuries. That you've got this whole thing under control that you are sovereign and there is not one single thing happening in this world that surprises you, not one single thing happening in this world that is out of your control but rather, Lord, everything in this world is happening precisely on schedule. And so even though it looks bad in our world and even though it's going to get worse Lord, help us as your people never lose hope because we know that our sovereign God is in control of all of this and in the end, Jesus wins. And we who stand with him, win with him. So Lord Jesus, give us hope. It's hard to have hope when we look at the world but Lord, when we look at you, your gospel, your return we have the blessed hope that the Bible gives us in Christ and we thank you for that. Lift our hearts and our spirits today because we learned the word of God and it brings hope and we pray this in Jesus' name and God's people said Amen. you