1 00:00:07,019 --> 00:00:12,240 Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a 2 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:16,440 moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith 3 00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:26,160 today. How does biblical Christianity compare to the religion of Islam? I'm beginning a series 4 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:33,979 this summer at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Sunday mornings, and I'm comparing 5 00:00:33,979 --> 00:00:41,960 Christianity with Islam and with Hinduism and with Buddhism, and I will ask three basic questions 6 00:00:41,960 --> 00:00:49,560 of each religion to get at them for comparison. And I will ask, number one, who is it revealed to 7 00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:55,619 me that I must worship? That's the first question of every religion. Who or what am I to worship? 8 00:00:56,179 --> 00:01:03,100 Secondly, how am I saved if I need to be saved at all? In every religion, every religion answers 9 00:01:03,100 --> 00:01:10,280 this question, how am I to be saved? And thirdly, what are the fruits of the religion I am bidden 10 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:17,500 to embrace? Jesus himself said, you shall know them by their fruits. Well, this is going to be an 11 00:01:17,500 --> 00:01:23,480 ongoing series through the summer, and I invite you to come and visit us at 10 a.m. on Sunday mornings 12 00:01:23,480 --> 00:01:30,739 at New Geneva to discover how Christ our Savior and the faith that he brings compares to what the rest 13 00:01:30,739 --> 00:01:37,159 of the world has to offer. And today, and for the next few weeks, I want to compare Christianity and 14 00:01:37,159 --> 00:01:45,319 Islam. Do you think it might be relevant to our world today, huh? Well, of course it is. Whether we 15 00:01:45,319 --> 00:01:51,219 know it or not, dear listener, we are in a life and death struggle for our very soul as a nation 16 00:01:51,219 --> 00:01:57,540 and for our liberties and our way of life, too. Now, I've been preaching to you Christ, 17 00:01:57,719 --> 00:02:02,379 Constitution, and Capitalism for the United States of America. That's how we were founded. 18 00:02:03,579 --> 00:02:11,000 Each of these, Christ, Constitution, and Capitalism are under assault by the plutocratic tyranny of the 19 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:16,860 world that has imposed, rather than Christ, it has imposed secularism for our spiritual life, 20 00:02:16,860 --> 00:02:22,639 and rather than our constitution for our political life, it has imposed statism. And, of course, 21 00:02:22,979 --> 00:02:28,979 rather than capitalism for our economic life, the plutocratic tyranny of the world has imposed 22 00:02:28,979 --> 00:02:37,120 socialism. And Muslims, I want to say this about Muslims, who share many of the same goals as those 23 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:43,460 plutocratic tyrants and, in fact, maybe are the tools of the plutocratic tyrants. In fact, 24 00:02:43,460 --> 00:02:51,580 we have supported the rise of ISIS, for example, in the Middle East, as a tool for destabilization 25 00:02:51,580 --> 00:03:00,419 for Syria, for example. Well, Muslims also desire to impose Islam for our religious life together, 26 00:03:00,479 --> 00:03:08,219 instead of Christ, of course. And for our political life together, they intend to impose Sharia law 27 00:03:08,219 --> 00:03:15,620 instead of the Constitution. And then instead of capitalism for our economic life, Islam intends 28 00:03:15,620 --> 00:03:22,340 to impose tribalism for our economic life together. And, of course, under tribalism, you have the 29 00:03:22,340 --> 00:03:29,960 Sheikh or the Caliph and his clan who possess and distribute the wealth of the people. This is the 30 00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:37,120 system that is now extant in almost every Muslim country around the world. And unless we clearly 31 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:43,680 understand these principles, dear listener, we will never be able to defeat our enemies. We will never 32 00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:51,099 be able to defend and articulate our own way of life. Presently, the plutocratic tyrants who rule us 33 00:03:51,099 --> 00:03:59,020 share a common goal with Islam. That is, the destruction of the remnants of the capitalistic 34 00:03:59,020 --> 00:04:06,759 Christian republic that we once knew, that we once were. And they intend to replace it with the 35 00:04:06,759 --> 00:04:13,560 alternative that they wish to impose, respectively. So, look around you, dear American. Do you know 36 00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:22,680 the heart of Islam and how it compares to biblical Christianity? Is Islam a religion of peace? Look 37 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:30,259 around you. George Bush characterized Islam as a religion of peace soon after 9-11, trying to mollify 38 00:04:30,259 --> 00:04:39,899 and excuse. Or is it that jihad, which is holy war, is jihad an inseparable component of Islam's spread? 39 00:04:41,339 --> 00:04:47,019 Have the barbaric demons of the Islamic state, and what else can we call them but barbaric demons? 40 00:04:47,620 --> 00:04:53,139 They routinely slaughter Christians wherever they conquer, and they burn, behead, and crucify 41 00:04:53,139 --> 00:05:02,139 Christians. Well, are the barbaric demons of the Islamic state, merely hijacking the label of Islam, 42 00:05:02,139 --> 00:05:08,939 and they don't really represent the religion, as the Obama administration, from the president down to 43 00:05:08,939 --> 00:05:15,740 the department, has regularly propagandized to us? Or does Islam, does the Islamic state, 44 00:05:15,740 --> 00:05:24,740 the Islamic state, or the Islamic state, or the Islamic state, or the Islamic state, or the Islamic state? 45 00:05:24,740 --> 00:05:32,139 So, at the heart of what I try to answer here, is this. Are the two religions, Islam and Christianity, 46 00:05:32,339 --> 00:05:38,540 comparable in what they believe, and what they inculcate? Are they comparable in the fruit that they produce? 47 00:05:38,540 --> 00:05:44,879 Is Obama correct when he says, and Obama says this, remember that during the crusades and the 48 00:05:44,879 --> 00:05:51,879 inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ? Is he thereby equating the two 49 00:05:51,879 --> 00:05:59,459 religions and excusing the behavior of the Islamic state? Oh, let's spend some time then examining, 50 00:05:59,459 --> 00:06:14,019 excuse me, examining and comparing Islam and Christianity, okay? First of all, I want to ask 51 00:06:14,019 --> 00:06:22,360 of Islam, by what authority is this being you're telling me to worship? By what authority is he revealed 52 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:28,439 to me to worship? Oh, all of the religions of the world share this in common, dear listener. 53 00:06:28,439 --> 00:06:39,000 They rely for their authority and their believability upon revelation. They are, in fact, called revealed 54 00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:44,740 religions. By this, we mean that a transcendent authority has communicated to us in some fashion, 55 00:06:45,519 --> 00:06:53,060 revealing spiritual truth that would not otherwise be available to us, or, as in the case of Buddhism, 56 00:06:53,060 --> 00:07:01,620 would require ages of suffering and countless incarnations to acquire this knowledge. Now, what Islam and 57 00:07:01,620 --> 00:07:08,420 Christianity share in common is that they are revealed religions whose deity has chosen to disclose 58 00:07:08,420 --> 00:07:17,199 himself by means of a book. Christianity, of course, the Bible, and Islam, the Quran. Also, both books 59 00:07:17,199 --> 00:07:26,199 reveal a monotheistic deity. The Bible reveals the Trinitarian God, that is, who is one in essence but 60 00:07:26,199 --> 00:07:33,879 expressed in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Of course, the Quran reveals the so-called 61 00:07:33,879 --> 00:07:44,199 indivisible Allah. Now, as one Christian scholar, a converted Muslim, a man named Abdul Salib, 62 00:07:44,199 --> 00:07:52,220 Salib observes regarding the Quran, Salib says, and I quote him, the Quran is God's final word to 63 00:07:52,220 --> 00:07:58,720 Muslims, and is the final word to humanity, and is the only authentic, authoritative, and reliable 64 00:07:58,720 --> 00:08:03,740 information from God, because it is the only information that has not been tampered with and 65 00:08:03,740 --> 00:08:12,660 corrupted, unquote. Now, Muhammad, soon after he began receiving these revelations, he came to 66 00:08:12,660 --> 00:08:20,259 Christians and to Jews, and he tried to say to them, see, my book is just like yours. Yet, when the 67 00:08:20,259 --> 00:08:26,660 Christians and the Jews of the Arabian Peninsula read the Quran as it was being developed by Muhammad, 68 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:33,460 oh, they practically laughed it to scorn, because it was incoherent and inconsistent with the Bible. 69 00:08:33,460 --> 00:08:43,840 Well, then, how did Muhammad and later Islam resolve this issue? Well, they said Christians 70 00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:49,840 were responsible for changing the Bible, for corrupting the Bible, while the Quran is pure. 71 00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:59,200 As Salib says, and he sounds very familiar in describing other religions who say the same thing, 72 00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:05,440 what is the solution for the Quran and the Bible contradicting one another? It is the doctrine 73 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:11,440 of tarif, that is the Arabic word for corruption, and it claims that the Jews and Christians have 74 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:16,759 corrupted their scriptures, and that is why their Bible no longer agrees with the teachings of the 75 00:09:16,759 --> 00:09:25,600 Quran, unquote. Of course, when other scholars, Christians and Jews, began to point out that the Quran 76 00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:32,700 itself has been compromised at many junctures in its history and its transmission from one generation to 77 00:09:32,700 --> 00:09:39,519 another. For example, let me give you just one most egregious example, and that is the Satanic 78 00:09:39,519 --> 00:09:48,759 Verses, a book by the same name, written by Salman Rushdie, the Satanic Verses, in which Rushdie goes into 79 00:09:48,759 --> 00:09:57,200 great detail about the portions of the Quran ostensibly dictated by Satan instead of Allah and the inescapable 80 00:09:57,200 --> 00:10:05,000 contradiction and error. Nature of the book, consequently, well, those who point these things 81 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:11,820 out, they are condemned to death by fatwas of every mullah from Mecca to Minneapolis, even as 82 00:10:11,820 --> 00:10:18,559 has happened to Salman Rushdie for publishing his book, The Satanic Verses. But this gets to the heart of 83 00:10:18,559 --> 00:10:25,600 another issue, the so-called inspiration of the Quran, if there are indeed Satanic Verses, who inspires the 84 00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:33,080 Quran. Muhammad received visions of revelation over a decade of transmission in which he went into a cave 85 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:40,419 at Mount Hira on the Arabian Peninsula, where the angel of Gabriel supposedly gave him his initial vision. 86 00:10:41,659 --> 00:10:46,860 Now, at first, realize this, dear listener, at first, Muhammad thought he was being visited by demons. 87 00:10:46,860 --> 00:10:57,740 I wonder why. And these demons are called jin in Arabic, plural, genie. Once we get genie in English, 88 00:10:57,980 --> 00:11:03,419 right? The genie in a bottle, you rub it three times, and he appears and grants you three wishes. 89 00:11:04,320 --> 00:11:11,759 These genie, or this jin, these are the description of those visitations, and they bear every biblical 90 00:11:11,759 --> 00:11:17,740 evidence of demonic possession, I submit to you. That is, things like Muhammad was writhing on the 91 00:11:17,740 --> 00:11:24,600 ground. He fell into absolute catatonia. He spoke gibberish and so-called heavenly tongues, 92 00:11:24,600 --> 00:11:31,019 and he also experienced great shuddering fear. He experienced terror for days afterwards. 93 00:11:31,960 --> 00:11:37,600 And it was only when his wife, Aisha, reassured him that the spirits must be good spirits. 94 00:11:37,600 --> 00:11:43,639 How did she determine that they were good spirits? Well, she said that one of those spirits left her 95 00:11:43,639 --> 00:11:48,679 presence when she was about to undress. The spirit was modest, so it must be good. That was her 96 00:11:48,679 --> 00:11:56,759 reasoning. Only then, after Aisha's reassurance along these lines, did then Muhammad begin to write 97 00:11:56,759 --> 00:12:07,580 down what these jin told him. The result is the Quran. The Quran is arranged in chapters called surahs, 98 00:12:07,580 --> 00:12:16,500 They are composed in Arabic, and they range from the longest chapters to the shortest chapters. 99 00:12:17,159 --> 00:12:25,200 And these chapters, these surahs, bear names like the cow or the house of Imran. And there's also a 100 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:32,460 chapter on women. There's a chapter on cattle, these kinds of things. It is important to note this 101 00:12:32,460 --> 00:12:40,000 distinction, though. All those books in the Quran, aspiring to displace the Bible, were given 102 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:51,870 according to the dictation theory of inspiration. That is, Muhammad and those who take their books 103 00:12:51,870 --> 00:12:59,129 by dictation merely write down what is told them by these jin or these spirits. And they were all done 104 00:12:59,129 --> 00:13:06,850 within the brief lifespan of one purported prophet, who had them revealed by an angel of light or by 105 00:13:06,850 --> 00:13:15,149 angels of light, sometimes ostensibly Christ or sometimes an angel like Gabriel. But the Bible 106 00:13:15,149 --> 00:13:22,110 has been given to us in utter contrast to this idea of the dictation theory. No, the Bible has been given 107 00:13:22,110 --> 00:13:29,529 to us by a divinely inspired human agency, God and man working together, God working through the 108 00:13:29,529 --> 00:13:36,629 personality and gifts of a particular man. The Apostle Peter says, for example, in 2 Peter chapter 1, 109 00:13:36,690 --> 00:13:42,110 he says, knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own 110 00:13:42,110 --> 00:13:50,110 interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were 111 00:13:50,110 --> 00:13:57,070 carried along by the Holy Spirit, unquote. This is that sense of the divinely inspired human agency, 112 00:13:57,970 --> 00:14:03,950 man speaking through the personality and being, or God speaking through the personality and being of a 113 00:14:03,950 --> 00:14:13,730 particular man and his personality and his gifts. So all of these in the Bible, these prophets, 114 00:14:13,909 --> 00:14:19,909 inspired prophets, individuals whose message and themes and motifs nevertheless beautifully 115 00:14:19,909 --> 00:14:26,929 comport with one another and speak the same message one with another, these were all composed by 116 00:14:26,929 --> 00:14:34,330 multiple authors over millennia of time. So I submit to you this is a crucial test of the authority of 117 00:14:34,330 --> 00:14:41,549 those respective books. Are they given by one man in his brief lifespan and dictated, or are they given 118 00:14:41,549 --> 00:14:47,250 through human agency, through human personality and distinctions and gifts over millennia and 119 00:14:47,250 --> 00:14:55,409 millennia of time like the Bible? Once again, commenting on the Quran, there's a website called 120 00:14:55,409 --> 00:15:02,549 thereligionofpeace.com. This is one of my favorite websites. They say, Muhammad's Quran did not contain a 121 00:15:02,549 --> 00:15:08,509 single original moral value, and it contributed only one new idea to world religion, and that is, 122 00:15:08,509 --> 00:15:16,710 Muhammad is Allah's prophet. In fact, Allah seemed oddly preoccupied with making sure Muslims knew to 123 00:15:16,710 --> 00:15:22,629 obey Muhammad's every earthly wish, as this mandate is repeated at least 20 times in the narration of 124 00:15:22,629 --> 00:15:32,210 the Quran, unquote. Well, secondly, as we explore the nature of Islam in comparison to Christianity, 125 00:15:32,210 --> 00:15:39,669 we also must ask, who is Allah, and who is his prophet? Who is Allah, dear listener? Who is he 126 00:15:39,669 --> 00:15:47,669 really, at base, at core, and who is his prophet? Oh, the city of Mecca was on the desert trade route 127 00:15:47,669 --> 00:15:54,669 through the Arabian Peninsula. For centuries, Jews had a community there, and then in more recent 128 00:15:54,669 --> 00:16:01,450 centuries, as we approach the time of Muhammad, Christian enclaves began to appear. And with them, 129 00:16:01,450 --> 00:16:07,350 of course, with Jews and with Christians, the doctrines of monotheism came in their wake. 130 00:16:08,210 --> 00:16:15,269 There is one God over all, says monotheism, one God over all, creator of all things, and who is alone 131 00:16:15,269 --> 00:16:21,590 deserving of worship, the essence of monotheism. And this message came to the pagan tribes of Arabia, 132 00:16:22,009 --> 00:16:30,250 one of those tribes being the Kirash, belonging to which was the young orphan Muhammad, who at the time 133 00:16:30,250 --> 00:16:38,029 was being raised by his uncle. And there, in the Kirash tribe, was a primitive form of animism. 134 00:16:38,509 --> 00:16:46,139 What is animism? Animism is still practiced all over the world. Animism says that the realm of nature 135 00:16:46,139 --> 00:16:53,860 is occupied by animating spirits. Thus, we have animism from animating spirits. That is, rocks and 136 00:16:53,860 --> 00:17:00,679 trees and streams and animals, all of nature is filled with animating spirits. And the premier object of the 137 00:17:00,679 --> 00:17:10,680 Qurash was the Kaaba stone, a large black meteor. Still, of course, in Mecca today, the Kaaba stone, 138 00:17:10,980 --> 00:17:15,720 the large black meteor that ostensibly had fallen from the sky in the days of Adam and Eve. 139 00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:23,559 And Muslim tradition has it that this Kaaba stone was originally white, but that over the centuries, 140 00:17:23,559 --> 00:17:31,720 it has turned black by absorbing the sins of believers. Now, the historian Alfred Juliome, 141 00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:41,180 in his book, Islam, Alfred Juliome says, these stones served as altars and the blood of the human 142 00:17:41,180 --> 00:17:47,720 victims, that is human sacrifice, the blood of the human victims was smeared or poured on these 143 00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:55,299 stones while the tribesmen danced round the stone. Herodotus states very credibly that blood brotherhood 144 00:17:55,299 --> 00:18:02,839 was established in this way. Alfred Juliome goes on to say, the devotees licked the blood or dipped 145 00:18:02,839 --> 00:18:10,380 their hands in it, and thus reciprocal bond held them to one another and the deity to whom the stone 146 00:18:10,380 --> 00:18:17,200 belonged. This is indeed, unquote, then, too. This is from Alfred Juliome and his book, Islam. 147 00:18:18,160 --> 00:18:26,319 Dear listener, this is partial history of the Kaaba stone that is still revered and to which 148 00:18:26,319 --> 00:18:34,380 pilgrimages are made yet by Muslims. When Muhammad entered the shrine of the Kaaba stone, following 149 00:18:34,380 --> 00:18:40,400 his exile from Mecca to Benina and his return to Mecca, well, Muhammad found that the shrine was 150 00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:49,480 filled with 360 gods, only one of whom was Allah. Yes, dear listener, very few people realize that 151 00:18:49,480 --> 00:18:59,400 Allah was originally only one of 360 gods in this panoply of pagan gods. And Muhammad, well, what he did 152 00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:07,160 in order to establish monotheism, ostensibly, what he did was to clear out all the other gods and left 153 00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:14,740 only the Kaaba stone and dedicated it then to Allah, declaring there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad, 154 00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:20,920 that is himself, and Muhammad is his prophet. He went on to say, then, superstition is not banned 155 00:19:20,920 --> 00:19:29,859 from Arabia. Oh, dear listener. Allah is early interpreted, too. Not many people realize this, 156 00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:38,019 but in Arabic, Allah is early on interpreted as moon god. And this is who Allah was when he was indeed 157 00:19:38,019 --> 00:19:47,740 only one of 360 other gods of the Qurash. He was only relegated to the idea of a moon god. And despite the 158 00:19:47,740 --> 00:19:54,940 protests of Muslim scholars today, this is the case. And the practices of Muslims today, things like 159 00:19:54,940 --> 00:20:01,039 bowing in prayer five times a day in the direction of Mecca, every Muslim is expected to do this. 160 00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:07,500 Well, it's the same practice as that practiced by the pagan tribesmen of Muhammad's day. 161 00:20:09,380 --> 00:20:16,900 Additionally, we can say that the moon god, Allah, when he was only one of 360 other gods, 162 00:20:16,900 --> 00:20:25,259 well, Allah's character has not changed from that day. For example, Allah still demands blood, 163 00:20:25,380 --> 00:20:32,039 even as the moon god, the pagan moon god demanded blood, the pagan moon god Allah. Well, Allah still demands 164 00:20:32,039 --> 00:20:40,640 blood, only it is the blood now of the sacrificial victims or infidels. We see this blood letting all 165 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:47,759 over the Muslim world today as they slaughter Christians and non-believers. And we must also point out that while 166 00:20:47,759 --> 00:20:56,579 Christ shed his own blood to save others, Muhammad shed the blood of others in order to save himself. And Muslims 167 00:20:56,579 --> 00:21:03,180 still do this today, do they not? That's a very pagan practice to shed the blood of infidels in order to save 168 00:21:03,180 --> 00:21:11,599 oneself. And indeed, in the salvation scheme of Islam, one's guaranteed salvation is only achieved 169 00:21:11,599 --> 00:21:18,400 when one practices jihad, that is the shedding of the blood of infidels in order to save oneself. 170 00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:25,220 This is a very pagan practice, dear listener. And of course, Allah is absolutely transcendent, 171 00:21:25,279 --> 00:21:30,980 such that there is nothing personal about him at all. Not so with biblical Christianity. Biblical 172 00:21:30,980 --> 00:21:36,680 Christianity says, in contrast, that Yahweh, that the God of the Bible, is transcendent, of course, 173 00:21:36,819 --> 00:21:44,480 in his nature, but he is also imminent in his presence in, but not of, his creation. Indeed, 174 00:21:44,579 --> 00:21:51,380 we say that the God of the Bible is imminent in his creation. That is, he is personal, and he is present, 175 00:21:51,519 --> 00:21:57,220 and he is accessible through the mediator, Jesus Christ. So, Yahweh is utterly different than Allah. 176 00:21:57,220 --> 00:22:03,759 We do not worship the same God, dear listener, while others may try to lull you to sleep and to 177 00:22:03,759 --> 00:22:11,339 pave over the differences between Allah and Yahweh. There is a world's worth of difference. There is a 178 00:22:11,339 --> 00:22:17,779 salvation's world worth of difference between Allah and Yahweh. They are not the same gods. God of the 179 00:22:17,779 --> 00:22:23,819 Bible is accessible. He is personal, and you may have contact. You may live with him through his mediator, 180 00:22:23,819 --> 00:22:29,660 his own son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, and we also must point out to you that while Christ 181 00:22:29,660 --> 00:22:37,900 brings peace, brings true biblical shalom with God through reconciliation of your sins, that is, 182 00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:43,200 in Christ, you have forgiveness of sins, and therefore, you are reconciled unto God, and you 183 00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:48,740 live with him. You have a personal relationship with him. You have peace with him. You have shalom with 184 00:22:48,740 --> 00:22:54,960 God through Christ, and you have shalom. You have peace with your fellow man, too, because of Christ. 185 00:22:55,119 --> 00:23:04,700 In utter contrast, Islam, instead of peace, means submission. The primary relationship between Allah 186 00:23:04,700 --> 00:23:13,359 and those who serve him is that of master and slave, master and servant, master and slave. That's what the 187 00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:20,900 relationship to Allah means with you, dear listener. If you adopt Islam as your religion, your primary 188 00:23:20,900 --> 00:23:30,799 relationship becomes that of slave or servant to master. You are then a servant or a slave to Allah and 189 00:23:30,799 --> 00:23:38,359 his will. What is his will then, dear listener? What is the will of Allah for you? First of all, it is to 190 00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:51,920 practice complete submission of yourself to the house of Islam, the Dar al-Islam, and then you must 191 00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:59,119 fight in jihad against the house of war, that is, the Dar al-Harb. There is indeed in Islam only two 192 00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:05,460 houses. There is the house of Islam, that is, those of the fellow believer, and then there is the house of 193 00:24:05,460 --> 00:24:13,079 war, the Dar al-Harb, that is, those who do not believe, the house of the infidel, the house of 194 00:24:13,079 --> 00:24:20,299 those that must be converted or made to submit to Allah. And then there is, of course, the outward 195 00:24:20,299 --> 00:24:28,160 conformity to the five practices of Islam. Islam is entirely an outward religion, not an inner change 196 00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:33,900 of the heart, but an outward change of the behavior. You must practice the five pillars of Islam, as they 197 00:24:33,900 --> 00:24:40,279 are called. You must practice the shahadah, that is, you must declare there is no god but Allah, and 198 00:24:40,279 --> 00:24:47,299 Muhammad is his prophet. There is the second practice, that is, the salat, which is prayer five times a day. 199 00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:55,200 The third pillar of Islam is the zakat, that is, the giving of alms to the poor. There is the fourth 200 00:24:55,200 --> 00:25:02,420 pillar of Islam, and that is the psalm, that is fasting or observing Ramadan for one month of the year. 201 00:25:02,420 --> 00:25:08,380 And then there is the fifth pillar of Islam, which is the hajj, that is, the pilgrimage to Mecca 202 00:25:08,380 --> 00:25:15,859 once in a lifetime, if at all, practically possible. So these, then, are the things to which you must 203 00:25:15,859 --> 00:25:23,960 submit, to which you must serve as a slave or servant of Allah in being in submission to him and 204 00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:30,619 remembering, of course, always, that Islam means submission and not peace. One of my favorite 205 00:25:30,619 --> 00:25:38,480 scholars, R.J. Washtuni, rightly observes that Allah demands outward conformity to the five laws, 206 00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:44,819 which are exterior to the heart, with no inward transformation required, that he might be saved, 207 00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:50,339 while, of course, Christ demands an inward transformation of the heart, that the sinner 208 00:25:50,339 --> 00:25:57,059 might be saved, and then that the law of love might be kept by the whole man in all of his life. 209 00:25:57,539 --> 00:26:03,059 Dear listener, I submit to you, Islam and Christianity do not share a common God. They 210 00:26:03,059 --> 00:26:11,259 are as different as night and day. I encourage you to join us at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian 211 00:26:11,259 --> 00:26:16,940 Church as we explore these differences between Christianity and Islam. There are vast differences, 212 00:26:16,940 --> 00:26:22,539 as vast as the universe between the God of Islam, Allah, and the God of Christianity, 213 00:26:22,539 --> 00:26:27,980 Yahweh, and his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are exploring these differences at New Geneva 214 00:26:27,980 --> 00:26:35,240 Orthodox Presbyterian Church on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and 215 00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:43,980 Boulevard. We encourage you to visit us at New Geneva. Once again, worship at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street 216 00:26:43,980 --> 00:26:50,640 on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Join us on Sunday mornings or call us at 523-0196.