WHOSE SERMON IS IT ANYWAY?
“The Truth About Islam”
Acts 9:1-8 - ©Dr. Larry L. Thompson (2005)
Introduction:
On September 11, 2001 our nation and our world was rocked as Islamic fundamentalism found it’s way inside our borders and attacked at the very heart of our economy. On Thursday, July 7, 2005 and again on Thursday, July 22, 2005 our world received another wake up call regarding the Islamic fundamentalist who become homicide bombers blowing themselves up along with innocent men, women and children in Great Britain. The Cable News Networks ran a statement made by the father of the ringleader who lead the 911 attacks, Mohammad Atta, who lived right here in South Florida during his flight training school. This man who just four years denounced what his son had done and continually denied that it could be his son was now saying, “My son is a living hero in the eyes of the great prophet Mohammad. History will record that it was my son that lit the fire that started the destruction of the infidels, the Jews and the Christians.” One U.S. Senator said, “For centuries we believed the two great oceans of the world secured our safety from our enemies but that is no longer the case. Our enemies now live in our own neighborhoods, waiting for the order to strike.”
The headlines were already filled with stories about another young man whose heart was so filled with hate that he felt compelled by his god to go on a mission to destroy people whose faith was different than his. Like so many, his mind had also been filled with hatred; he had learned to acquire the heart of hate from watching those older shout obscenities while they would rally a mob into a frenzy. His heart’s desire was to become a leader of this angry mass of hatred. He had witnessed the taste of blood, seen a man brutally tortured to death and even went to the leaders of his religion and asked to be given an assignment with the authority to take the lives of others. Permission was granted, the hatred in his heart secure, and his course established. How tragic, this young man actually believes he is going to kill someone who dares to contradict his religion and in the process of this murder he will be highly esteemed as a religious hero. He had taken so much hatred into his heart that he was now compelled to act…even if it cost him his own life in the process.
Today, you gave me the assignment to share a topical message from the book of Acts. My focal passage is Acts 9:1-9; the exact same story I just shared with you:
“Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" 5 "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. 6 "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do." 7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.”
Just as Saul allowed an extremist religion to keep him from a relationship with the Jesus, six hundred years later Islam’s prophet Muhammed counterfeited the Judeo-Christian tradition to create a new religious system, a new cult which by passed a relationship with the Savior. It is interesting that Paul and Muhammed were both confronted with Christianity at an early age and both, while on the road to Syria in route to Damascus, were directed to a new path. Paul responded to a relationship with Christ while Muhammed’s path led him to a counterfeit cult. Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”
Explanation of Cult:
We tend to think of Islam as a completely different religious system, like Hinduism, Buddhism or Shintoism. However, Islam is nothing more than an aberration of eight thousand years of history of God’s work among Jews and Christians. Six centuries after the resurrection of Christ, Muhammed re-interpreted Biblical facts – the life story of Abraham, the battle between Isaac and Ishmael, the promise of the Gospel of Jesus -- to make a religion based on his own way of seeing things.
As a child, Muhammed traveled with his uncle along the trading routes of the Middle East. Many of the other traders had become Christians, but not very adept in the fine points of the Gospel story. Muhammed picked up a belief in monotheism, but only picked up parts of the story of Jesus. Later, Muhammed imagined himself being appointed a prophet by Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Scholar James Beverly notes: “Muhammed’s ideology is largely framed in terms of Jewish and Christian concepts and practices. He considered himself the heir to both traditions....” But Muhammed’s understanding of Jesus contradicted six hundred years of church history and the experiences of men and women who had walked with Jesus and witnessed His resurrection. That’s why, while the Muslim holy book mentions Jesus, it’s not accurate about the life of our Savior.
Example:
“Muhammed’s unfamiliarity with orthodox Christians or with biblical Scriptures is evident throughout the Qur’an. The text refutes Christian claims that Jesus died on the cross, that He was the son of God, and that God is a triune being. It also refutes claims Christians have never made, including that Mary was a sister of Aaron and Moses (Sura 19:28) and that Mary was part of the Trinity.”
It is obvious why the seventh-century Christians did not accept Muhammed’s claim to be a prophet. When he sensed their refusal to accept his counterfeit of Christianity, Muhammed began to become impatient with the believers in Christ. His followers still claim the Qur’an permitted them to defeat and destroy Christians and Jews at all costs.
MOBILE ILLUSTRATION-Ms. B.: Several years ago while pastoring in Mobile, Alabama I walked out of my office ready to walk into the worship center for the Sunday service. As I stepped out of my office a very proper, Southern lady exited the women’s restroom. She smiled and walked by and as she passed I noticed she had inadvertently tucked a portion of her dress into her panty house. I panicked with indecision. I could either look away and act as if saw nothing. I could laugh and make fun of her ignorance of the situation; or I could find a way to confront the truth in love and save her from a terrible disaster.
Our globe is obviously shrinking due to the advancements in technology and travel. We now find ourselves rubbing shoulders with a lot of people from different religions. This has ushered in global doubt and global confusion. While Christianity is the world’s largest religion, Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion. Basically, as we look around our globe or better yet, around our neighborhoods, we have the same options that I had years ago in Mobile. We can either do nothing. We can roll our eyes with disdain and ridicule; or we can speak the truth in love and be ready to show the difference between life and death through faith in Jesus Christ.
What troubles me is this attitude: I find it’s politically correct in a postmodern culture to say there are many different paths that lead to the same destination. Today we will discover why there is vast difference between Christianity and Islam and the chasm is as wide as life and death!
BACKGROUND REGARDING ISLAM:
Islam began in 610 A.D. when Muhammed came on the scene. Muhammed was a man who showed spiritual potential at a very young age. He would spend a lot of time in prayer and meditating in caves. When he was forty years of age, he made the best financial decision of his life. He said, “I do” and married a very wealthy widow, fifteen years his senior. He was the Ashton Kutchner of his day!
One day, Muhammed told his wife, “Honey, you know I’ve been doing a lot of meditating in the cave and I’ve got this revelation! I really feel like this force is talking to me. I’m not sure if it’s Satan or if it is some angel.” His wife said, “Mo, it’s an angel.” So Muhammed, over the next twenty years, began to write down what he claimed he heard while meditating in a cave.
The visions Muhammed recorded became known as the Qur’an. Muhammed began to preach this stuff in Mecca. The people in Mecca didn’t dig it. They kicked him out and he went to a city called Medina.
Years later, Muhammed began to recruit some warriors and they returned and conquered Mecca. So now we have Mecca and Medina as two of the three major big-time strongholds in the Islamic world. From there, Muslims adopted the lunar calendar; the crescent moon is their symbol; the mosque was the gathering place where Muhammed taught Islamic religion along with his own personal views of social, political, and economic issues. This practice at the Mosque continues today.
I didn’t grow up with any understanding of Islam. My only exposure to Islam was when Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammed Ali. Shortly afterward Lou Alcinder became Kareem Abdul Jabar. Now, more and more people have changed their names when they convert to Islam. Perhaps some of you have as little knowledge of this religion as I had growing up.
Today, when we think about Islam, what do we think about? Terrorist, extremist, haters of women’s rights and a terribly oppressive society. We can remember the Ayatollah as well as Saddam Hussein and what these men have done in the name of their religion. We think about other extremists such as Louis Farrakhan. It is easy to see why so many in the Western world consider the followers of Islam to be radical people. While not all Muslims are radical, bomb carrying extremist who look for opportunities to promote terrorism, we can not deny that it is from radical Islamic that terrorism has found a breeding ground.
I. THE FIVE PILLARS OF ISLAM:
1. THE FIRST PILLAR IS CREED. The creed they recite is called the “Shahada.” You are required to state the Shahada passionately and publicly: “There is no other God but Allah, and Muhammed is his prophet.”
2. THE SECOND PILLAR IS PRAYER. A Moslem has five set times to pray each day. He will pray facing Mecca. From the Moslem prayer guide: “If a dog, donkey or woman passes by a Muslim in prayer, his prayers are rendered ineffective.” (Hadith 1:490)
3. THE THIRD PILLAR IS ALMS GIVING. Moslems must give 1/40 of their estate to the mosque.
4. THE FOURTH PILLAR IS FASTING. Fasting occurs in the middle of Ramadan. During the fast Moslems go without water, food, or sexual relations from sun up to sun down. I would suppose attitudes begin to improve at sunset during Ramadan!
5. THE FIFTH PILLAR IS PILGRIMAGE. As a Moslem you are supposed to go visit Mecca at least once in your lifetime.
Shiites and Sunnis:
There are different sects of the Islamic faith. You have the Sunnis and Shiites. Here is the difference between the two: In 632 the prophet Muhammed died and left no instructions for his successor. The prominent Muslims came together and elected a very wealthy and prominent man by the name of Abu Bakr as the new leader and called him the “Caliph” or “Caliphate,” which means successor. However, other Muslims thought the leader should be “Ali” who was the prophet’s cousin and married into the family. Thus the division. Abu Bark represents the Sunnis and Ali represents the Shiites who believe their Caliph is a direct descendant from Muhammed. They lived in peace until 680 when the Sunnis murdered Ali’s son and the division was set. Saddam is a Sunni. About 1/10th of the Muslim world is Shiite and it is the Shiites who are the most radical group who maintain that every nation in the world should be an Islamic state under Islamic law in subjection to Allah and the Qur’an. They are on a mission to make sure that happens either through conversion or by conquering the nation. That is why you have fundamentalist parents strapping their children with explosives and rifles to fight. It’s a win-win situation for them. If they get killed in the battle, they are ushered in—the Qur’an says—to a sensual paradise. If on the other hand they win the war, they conquer another nation and make it subject to Islamic law. By the way, heaven or paradise represents a very important difference between Christianity and Islam. Islam says you can not know you are going to Heaven. You keep the five pillars of the religion and when you die Allah decides if you go to Heaven or face Hell as judgment. The only provision Muhammed made for insuring paradise is when you die as a martyr in a jihad. Even then, for the Muslim, paradise is focused on sensuality; whereas, heaven for the Christian is focused on worship.
Muslims do not believe the Bible is the true source of God’s word. They believe the Qur’an. They do not believe in the trinity. If you want to really freak a Muslim out, you mention God the father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They don’t believe in the resurrection. A case in point as Muhammed writes about the crucifixion in the Qur’an we read in Surah 4:157, “They slew him (Jesus) not, nor crucified, but it appeared so unto them.” Most Muslims believe that Judas was put in the place of Christ.
II. THE REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY:
Think about this religion called Islam. Remember, there are some people telling us that it is the same as Christianity? I’m sorry but when you really understand Islam and Christianity, they are not even close. We are commanded by our Leader to ‘love our neighbors.’ Jesus defines a “neighbor” as one who is different than you. Islam say “destroy your neighbor” unless they are just like you.
So what makes Christianity different? It’s very easy: The CHRIST Factor. Jesus is the difference. Jesus never won a war, unlike Muhammed. He never traveled more than 200 miles from his home. He never wrote a book. He never went to college. He never had an army. He only had three years of public ministry as opposed to more than 40 years of Muhammed. But Jesus said, “I Am God.”
Jesus didn’t say, “I’m a Guru. I’m a sage. I’m a good guy. I’m a teacher. I’m a prophet.” He said, “I Am God.” John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.” In John 8:58: “I tell you the truth. Before Abraham was born, I am.” That’s the ‘Tetragrammaton,’ the sacred name of God. This is the four Hebrew letters (Yod, He, Waw and Hey) or Yahweh.
John 14:6: “Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
1 Corinthians 15:17: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” Paul said, “if you don’t believe the resurrection, and the resurrection didn’t happen, then it’s lights out, no hope for you!”
A friend of mine is not a believer but thinks he is well versed in religions and tells me “There is good and bad in Christianity and Islam; they are so much alike so you might as well just pick one.” I responded by reminding him there is a huge difference between Islam and Christianity. Islam, and all the other world religions are spelled d-o. You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do that. You can’t do this. You’ve got to do that. Christianity is spelled d-o-n-e. It’s been done. The price has been paid. The gift is out there for us. We either receive it or we don’t.
III. THE REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MUHAMMED AND JESUS CHRIST
• Muhammed was the prophet of war; Christ is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6-7).
• Muhammed’s disciples killed for the faith; Christ’s disciples were killed for their faith (Acts 12:2; 2 Timothy 4:7).
• Muhammed promoted persecution against the "infidels"; Christ forgave and converted the chief persecutor (1 Timothy 1:13-15).
• Muhammed was the taker of life; Christ was the giver of life (John 10:27-28).
• Muhammed and his fellow warriors murdered thousands; Christ murdered none but died for all! (compare John 12:48).
• Muhammed’s method to his religion was COMPULSION; Christ’s aim was voluntary relationship by CONVERSION (Acts 3:19).
• Muhammed practiced FORCE; Christ preached FAITH (John 6:29, 35).
• Muhammed was a WARRIOR; Christ is a DELIVERER (Col. 1:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:10).
• Muhammed was swift to shed blood (Romans 3:15-17); Christ shed His own blood for the salvation of many (Ephesians 1:7).
• Muhammed preached "Death to the infidels!"; Christ prayed "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34)
• Islamic terrorists derive their inspiration from Muhammed and carry out their despicable atrocities in the name of his god; Christians give their lives as missionaries deriving their inspiration from the One who said, "Go into all the world…Blessed are the peacemakers" (Matthew 28:19; Matt. 5:9)
• Muhammed hated music; Jesus and His disciples sang hymns, and the Apostle commanded the Lord’s Church to sing. (Matthew 26:30, Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16)
• The Muslim’s only true hope for eternity is to die as a martyr in jihad where Muhammed has promised a sensual paradise with many virgins and the promise of two wives; Jesus promised the joy of eternal life to all who by faith will trust Him as their personal Savior. (2 Cor. 5:8)
• Muhammed said the witness of a woman was half the value of the witness of a man; and Muhammed said a woman goes to Paradise because she satisfies her husband sexually; The Bible teaches that a husband is to love his wife; submitting one to another, and to be willing to die for her. (Ephesians 5:25).
• Muhammed ’s Mission was to conquer the world for Allah; Christ’s mission was to conquer sin’s penalty and power through His substitutionary atonement (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 3:18).
• “Mohammed teaches a God above us; Moses teaches a God above us and God with us; Jesus teaches God above us, God with us, and God in us.” (Samuel M. Zwemer, The Moslem Doctrine of God)
• If you return to the tomb of Muhammed in Medina, you will find it occupied. When you go to Christ’s tomb found outside of the walls of Jerusalem you will immediately discover it’s empty!
Now let me ask you are really profound question: “Are you going to bet your eternal life on the One who came back from the Dead or the one who is still in the grave?”
So, to say that Islam and Christianity are the same, to say that we all got the same little path going to the same destination, that math doesn’t work. Let me show you by returning to the path we call the ROAD TO DAMASCUS. Both Paul and Muhammed were on the same route. Paul was confronted with the resurrected Christ, convicted of his sin and by faith chose Christianity. Immediately his life changed. He went from a heart full of hatred sent on a mission to kill those who did not believe like him to loving those who did not understand his faith in Christ and saying, “I would even give my own life, I would die and go to hell if it would mean the Jewish nation would recognize the Messiah.” I call this “THE CHRIST FACTOR.”
The Christ factor is the difference! Qur’an says “Do the five pillars and when you die if Allah is in a good mood that day you might get into paradise. Now think about grace. Galatians 2:16: “Know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.”
On Islam, we can put a big giant billboard with flashing lights to draw attention to each one who passes by saying: “We are just like Avis, We try harder. We really try harder. We will keep on trying harder until the day we die.”
There are over one billion Muslims in our world today. Each one of them matter to God. Pray for them. Love them as you encounter them in our South Florida culture as you meet them on your path. Engage them in conversation. Show them the difference that Christ makes by showing them the CHRIST FACTOR IN YOUR LIFE. Don’t sit back and ignore them while they walk by. Don’t roll your eyes and say, “Oh, how stupid, the five pillars of four noble truths.” Instead, be real, be filled with Christ and speak the truth in love.
CONCLUSION:
When Jesus was dying on the cross for your sins and mine, He was crucified, as you know, between two criminals. One of the criminals said, “Hey, just go ahead and jump down. Take us all down off the cross. You can do it if you are God, if you are the real Messiah.” The other criminal said, “Hey, don’t listen to him. We deserve this, but this man has done nothing wrong. Please remember me in your Kingdom.” Jesus turned to this criminal, He could hear, see and feel his faith. He said, “From this day forward, you will spend eternity with me in paradise because of your faith, because of your love.”
I ask you, “What if, instead of Christ being crucified, Muhammed was there on the cross. Muhammed would say, “Well, you’ve got to do the Avis thing, you really have to try harder! I’ve set up the five pillars, and you’ve got to do the creed, the prayer, the alms giving…you know the drill….and, well if you’re really good and hope that Allah is having a good day, then perhaps He will let you into Heaven!” WHICH MAN WOULD YOU RATHER FOLLOW?
What did Jesus say? It’s a RELATIONSHIP…not a RELIGION. It’s by faith, not by fear. It’s a free gift. That is what makes Christianity different than Islam...It is the Christ factor.
You may be asking me this final question, “Are you telling me that Jesus is the only way to God?” No, please don’t misunderstand me or what I’m saying. I’m not telling you Jesus is the only way to secure eternal life…Jesus is the One who told you this eternal truth, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by Me.” John 14:6
