Is Allah God?
I’ve been wanting to address the issue of Islam for a while now, but simply never had a chance to get around to it. It’s not exactly a priority in our corner of the world. Chances are slim that you’re going to run into a Muslim in Greenfield. However, we should have some idea of what is happening around the world as we see more and more Muslims becoming active.
As Christians, we should have some general knowledge of this religion that we have been compared to. President Obama, in February of this year called ISIS a “brutal, vicious death cult” but then also compared that to the Inquisition and the Crusades saying, “…people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”
There are too many inaccuracies to deal with here today. Suffice it to say that he was factually inaccurate.
a. The Inquisition and the Crusades had to do with the Catholic Church. Catholicism does not
represent all of Christianity.
b. The events he mentions were both over 1,000 years ago. These statements were made 48
hours after ISIS burned alive a Jordanian pilot. Making this comparison is like saying that
Catholicism was the ISIS of the day.
b. The Crusades were not murders in the name of Christ, they were an attempt to stop the
murderous actions of Islam back then.
People have a difficult time understanding where these faiths divide. (Comments like those of Pres. O don’t help the matter.)
Here are some of the facts:
Islam has about 1.2 billion followers as compared to all denominations of Christianity has 1.9 billion.
The name means “submission/surrender”. (Basically, “submit or surrender to god”.)
It teaches monotheism. ONE God. Allah is the name they give their god.
He is supreme and all knowing.
He is not a trinity.
Their holy scripture is called the Koran, which means “the reading.”
This is divided into 114 chapters called Suras.
The Koran covers every detail of living including how to dress, what to eat, etc.
It was supposedly delivered by the angel Gabriel which is also called the holy spirit, but not god.
It was delivered to Muhammed over a 23 year period.
They have a saying that “There is one god and Mohammed is his prophet.”
Several other prophets preceded him, but with Mohammed being the most recent, his words take
priority over any other prophet. (Contrary to scripture.)
Noah, Abraham, David and Jesus were former prophets.
They are considered great prophets, but only for people at that time.
There is also the Hadith. This is the story of Muhammed’s life, written by people who knew him.
Regardless of their stand that all Muslims must be united, there are several divisions within Islam.
There are Sunnis, Shiites and several others. (http://video.foxnews.com/v/4035307057001/why-president-obama-compared-christianity-to-isis/?#sp=show-clips )
Mecca is a holy site for them because it was supposedly the birthplace of Muhammed.
Where did this all come from?
Don’t think of Islam that gave rise to all of the people groups in the middle east.
Consider that these groups were around long before Muhammed had his visions and wrote the Koran.
Go back in time to Genesis.
After the Noah’s flood.
After the tower of Babel.
Genesis 12, God promises Abraham that if he leaves his family and homeland, that God will make a great nation out of him. (Unfortunately, Abraham takes his nephew Lot with him.)
Eventually, their combined households are too large to stay together, so Lot leaves and goes to
Sodom.
God renews His promises with Abraham.
In Chapter 15, Abraham tries to convince God to accept Eliezer as a suitable heir. God says no.
Abraham and Sarah leap ahead of God’s plan and Abraham takes Hagar for a wife and she has
Ishmael. Abraham and Ishamel are both circumcised in Ch. 17, but God is still going to give
Abraham an heir through Sarah.
In chapter 18 God tells Abraham that He’s going to destroy Sodom and Abraham pleads for Lot’s sake.
In chapter 19, Lot and his two daughters have escaped the destruction, but so tainted were his daughters
by the evil of Sodom that they conspired to get their father drunk so they could commit incest
with him to preserve the family name. They each did thing without his knowledge and as a
result they gave birth to a boy named Moab (Moabites) and BenAmmi (Ammonites). Each will
build his own people group and they will fight with each other and everyone else around them.
Israel will be plagued by these groups more than once.
When the family of Israel is in Egypt for 400 years, becoming the nation of Israel, these groups
will grow and possess the Promised Land in the absence of Abraham’s children.
Getting back to Abraham.
Ishmael will also become a thorn in Israel’s side.
He was not the legitimate heir that God had promised.
In Ch. 21 Hagar and Ishmael are kicked out, but God promises to make a nation of Ishmael.
Interesting thing here is that when they leave, they are dying of thirst.
Hagar puts Ishmael under a bush and walks away because she doesn’t want to see him die.
Ishmael prays for help, but not Hagar.
Ishmael had a good start. He will become father of some of the Arab tribes and some believe
specifically Afganistan. (Hard to tell because of so much intermingling.)
Getting back to Abraham. (Long story short now!)
Sara has Isaac.
Isaac gets married and will have Jacob and Esau.
Jacob and Esau are twins in the sense that they were born at the same time, Esau first.
They don’t resemble each other in any other way.
Genesis 25:21-28 (KJV)
21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
22 And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.
23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
25 And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.
26 And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.
27 And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.
28 And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Jacob takes a wife from the old country and this pleases his parents. Jacob will be renamed Israel.
Esau wants to be in the spotlight too, so he gets married, but he chooses a wives from his great uncle Ishmael. Some of Esau’s descendants also become Arab tribes and no end of headaches for Israel.
These battles have been going on for 5,000 years.
As Israel grows, they are freed from slavery, they have the Law of Moses, they retake the Promised Land.
As long as they follow God, they are unstoppable.
God prophecies to them that it is their nation that will bring the Messiah into the world.
As they grow, the nations surrounding them are constantly trying to beat down their door to get what they have or to simply destroy them.
In 570 A.D. along come Muhammed.
In 610 A.D. shortly after marrying his third wife (at age 9), he hears the voice of “Gabriel” telling
him that all the gods of the world are wrong. Only Allah is the true god.
IS ALLAH GOD?
NO! Consider this…
I. Jesus has already proclaimed that He is God in the flesh.
John 8:56-59 (KJV)
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
A. For anyone to claim to be God was blaspheme, so they were going to stone Him.
B. John claimed Jesus to be God from the very first chapter.
John 1:1-4 (KJV)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
John 1:14 (KJV)
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
C. Jesus is God in the flesh and in John 14:6 “Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life, no
man cometh unto the Father but by Me.”
THAT SHOULD SETTLE IT.
There can be no other God but the God of the Bible.
Before Muhammed wrote his Quran, God had used John to finalize the Bible with the book of Revelations in about 90 A.D.
So 520 years before the writing of the Quran, God’s Word was finalized and John wrote,
Revelation 22:18-19 (KJV)
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Fact is, when Muhammed had his vision of Gabriel, according to the Hadith, he went to his
wife and said that he didn’t understand where this was coming from. It was his wife who told
him that it was from God.
Nowhere in scripture do you have a prophet of God wondering where he got His prophecy.
• None can change Allah's words
1. 6:34, "Rejected were the messengers before thee: with patience and constancy they bore their rejection and their wrongs, until Our aid did reach them: there is none that can alter the words (and decrees) of Allah. Already hast thou received some account of those messengers."
2. 6:115, "The word of thy Lord doth find its fulfilment in truth and in justice: None can change His words: for He is the one who heareth and knoweth all."
3. 18:27, "And recite (and teach) what has been revealed to thee of the Book of thy Lord: none can change His Words, and none wilt thou find as a refuge other than Him."
9:30, "The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!"
Here’s the take aways.
1. The people of the Middle East were killing each other and those around them a long time before Muhammed came along and gave them Islam. I see Islam as a tool that the devil has used to try to direct all of this wicked energy toward Israel.
2. Islam contradicts itself and it contradicts the Bible. It denies the deity of Jesus Christ and presents a false god, Allah. (This is the tip of the iceberg.)
3. The greatest take away is that there is no other Savior, but Jesus Christ. YOU are on the right track.
Acts 4:12 (KJV)
12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Salvation is not by works, but ONLY by faith in Jesus Christ.
