Sermon for 10/28/2001
Submission to Whom?
Colossians 2:8
Adapted from an outline on Pastor’s Pastor
Introduction:
A. David Brown- What’s going on? The sidewalks are swarming with excited children masquerading as every imaginable creature and character. There is Batman and the Joker, Wonder Woman, witches, devils, ghosts, skeletons and even razor fingered mass murderer, Freddy Krueger. These children are going door to door shouting, "Trick or Treat," hoping to collect a ton of candy before the night is over.
B. Take a look at the houses the children are going up to. They are strange, too! Eerie grinning Jack-O-Lanterns watch as the children approach. Skeletons, scarecrows, witches, black cats, and more decorate the doors and windows.
C. Haunted houses.
D. Halloween is not too far off. Wednesday night.
E. Halloween brings up images of horror and fright. Hollywood movies. Nightmares.
WBTU:
A. I want to tell you about a true nightmare that happens every day!
B. A person dies and is taken up to the Great Throne Room to be judged.
C. God looks for their name in the Lamb’s Book of Life and does not find it.
D. This person starts to get nervous and says, "I don’t understand, I thought that you were going to bring out a scale and measure my good deeds and my bad deeds and whichever measured the most would be the destination of my soul. If I was good I would go to Paradise and if I was bad then I would go to Hell."
E. God says, "If I did it that way everyone would go to Hell."
F. "I don’t understand," the man says. " I was told that if I was faithful in confessing You before others, if I was faithful in saying my prayers 5 times a day, if I was faithful in giving my alms to You, if I was faithful in fasting for a whole month every year, if I went to the Holy City one time in my life, that you would usher me into Paradise."
G. "Who told you that?" God asks.
H. "Oh, it is plainly laid out in the Koran, the book that you wrote through your Great Prophet Mohammed," the man says getting more agitated.
I. "I have only written one book and it was not the Koran," says God. "Who is this Mohammed, I do not know him?"
J. The man says, "Well, Mohammed is the last and greatest prophet you sent to the earth."
K. God says, "I did not send any Mohammed. I sent my Son Jesus Christ and he is the last and greatest prophet. What do you think of Jesus Christ?"
L. "Well, he was a prophet and I followed some of his teachings," said the man. "But he is nothing compared to Mohammed."
M. God says, "I sent my Son Jesus Christ and you did not listen to him. Jesus Christ died for you on a cross and was resurrected from the dead so that you could have the victory over sin."
N. The man, beginning to become confused and very nervous, says, "I was taught that Jesus did not die on a cross. He was transported into heaven like Elijah and never faced death. The Christians just made up that story."
O. "No, they did not," says God. "And because you did not accept the gift of salvation through my Son, you will be cast into the lake of fire."
P. "No, No, It’s not fair! I was told lies! How could this happen? I was told lies ever since I was a child! You can’t do this; it’s not fair! I was faithful and sincere to my faith," shouts the man.
Q. "Yes, you were," says God, "but you were sincerely wrong. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and you chose to believe lies instead of the truth. Now depart from me!" And with a tear God punishes this man eternally.
R. What a terrible nightmare! However, it is true. It happens every day in the Middle East and Muslim countries.
S. Colossians 2:8.
T. These past several weeks we have been exposed to a religion called Islam.
1. The word Islam means "submission." The question is "Submission to whom?"
2. The word Muslim means "one who submits" to the teachings of Islam.
U. Many people are saying that Islam is just one of the ways to get to God. How naïve! The husband of Sharon Stone (An actress) almost lost his foot recently, when he entered a Monitor Lizard’s cage. He had been told it was safe; he had been told he needed no special protection. In the end, he learned that he was extremely naïve and that his advisors didn’t know what they were talking about. The moral: Don’t believe all that is being said about Islam; it’s intended to cause us to let down our guard. Remember that Jesus said; "Be on the alert."
V. We need to be submissive to Jesus Christ; the followers of Islam are submissive to the teachings of Mohammed.
Thesis: How do we know the Islam being presented to the world is a fake and a danger to everyone?
For instances:
1. Because underneath, it categorically denies the Son of God!
A. They deny His deity!
1. Colossians 2:9
2. They deny Jesus is God; they call him a prophet! One of the many prophets of Allah!
3. The confession of a convert is what Peter said…
4. Confession of faith for a Muslim is, "There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah."
5. Jesus Christ was the prophet for His people in His day.
6. The Muslim God is unapproachable by sinful man. He is so perfect and holy He can only communicate with mankind through a progression of angels and prophets.
7. Jesus Christ could not be God because He was a man and man is sinful. God cannot associate among men.
B. They deny God’s Promises were fulfilled in Jesus!
1. They trace their system back to Ishmael not Isaac. Ishmael was firstborn of Abraham through Hagar. They say that Mohammed being a descendent of Ishmael is the fulfiller of God’s Promises!
2. It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.
3. Mohammed: greater than Jesus, because he’s out of Ishmael, and Ishmael was greater than Isaac was because he was firstborn. Not what Scripture says!
C. They deny His purpose!
1. What was Jesus purpose? To seek and to save the Lost!
2. Muslims deny this. His purpose was to teach the ways of God, to be a spokesman for God. Nothing else!
3. His purpose was to save people so they could go to heaven when they die.
4. Jesus purpose wasn’t to save people so that could go to an earthly paradise of gluttony and sexual gratification. This is the purpose of Muslim teachings.
5. Their paradise is a place where a great number of sensual women have been created for the pleasure of each man; they will drink delicious liquors and wines.
6. Jesus said that (Mat 22:30 NIV) At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
D. They deny He came in the flesh!
1. God can not come in the flesh1
2. (1 John 4:1 NIV) Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.(1 John 4:2 NIV) This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
3. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us- John 1:14
E. They deny He is the final revelation of God.
1. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega; the First and the Last.
2. Abu Bakr declared Mohammed to be the "Seal" of prophecy, which means both the final prophet and the validation of earlier prophets from Adam to Jesus.
3. Mohammed was a prophet after Jesus Christ, 600 years after Christ. Even though the book of Revelation says do not add or take away from this book, meaning the Bible.
4. Mount of Transfiguration. (Luke 9:35 NIV) A voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him."
2. This Islam is a fake and a danger because underneath it categorically denies the blood of Christ!
A. They reject the charge of sin!
1. They teach that mankind is not prone to sin. Basically good!
2. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
3. They say we don’t sin until after puberty!
4. Every Muslim who hopes to escape the judgment of Allah must fulfill the works of the Five Pillars of the Faith.
a) Repetition of confession of faith
b) Five daily prescribed prayers
c) Almsgiving
d) Fasting during one month
e) A pilgrimage to Mecca, the Holy City.
5. Bible says, "without blood there is no forgiveness."
B. They deny the atonement!
1. Muslims must fulfill the Five Pillars to attain Allah’s forgiveness.
2. Salvation is by works.
3. Blood is not used in Muslim faith. Only one time during pilgrimage to Mecca and it is not for forgiveness. Old Testament says everything must be covered with blood.
4. At Communion Time, This is the blood of the covenant.
C. They deny the resurrection!
1. Deny that he died on a cross, so it is not difficult to say that he was never resurrected.
2. (1 Cor 15:14 NIV) And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.
III. This Islam is a fake and a danger because underneath it categorically denies the Word of God!
A. This goes almost without saying!
B. David Elliot- The Koran to me in many ways, thrusts us back to the Old Testament and to pre and sub Old Testament levels. Some concepts may sound good but then others contradict these.
C. The Bible and the Koran agree through the first 16 chapter of Genesis and then there are profound differences. Muslims believe in the Law of Moses, the Psalms of David, and the gospels of Jesus Christ.
D. However, they believe that the scripture given through Mohammed superseded those scriptures, and that the Bible used by Christians and Jews is a distorted version of those other scriptures. Wherever the bible contradicts Islam, the Muslim says the Bible is incorrect.
E. Scripture cannot be broken.
Conclusion:
A. Many of us have been hearing that Islam is a religion of peace and that not all Muslims are our enemies.
B. This is false!
1. Islam is not a peaceful theology! It advocates global domination and the subjugation of all non-Muslims.
2. Their history has been one of conversion by the sword!
3. Islam is an enemy of God and an enemy of the church.
4. Whereas the God of the Bible gains converts by conversions from among His enemies through love; Allah, on the other hand, gains them by coercion, deception and fear.
C. How to share with these people?
1. Share true nature of God. He is perfect in every way, even in the way of love.
2. Deity of Jesus Christ.
3. Salvation is by grace through faith.
4. John 3:16.
D. Acts 4:12
E. The Muslims base their lives on the Koran and on Mohammed. Christians base their lives on the Bible and Jesus Christ.
F. Who and what do you base your life on? It is a serious question. My father believed this, and my grandfather believed that. You better research it yourself. Find out the truth before it is too late.
G. The truth will stand!
H. (Luke 11:9 NIV) "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.(Luke 11:10 NIV) For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
