Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with the moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today that issue of life and faith is what are the fruits of Christianity and what are the fruits of Islam? Jesus said, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Who is the false prophet?

Christ or Muhammad? Who is the ravenous wolf? Christ or Muhammad? Jesus goes on to say, you will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. What religion bears bad diseased fruit? What religion bears good salutary fruit, huh? Jesus goes on to say, a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. Dear listener, today we are asking you, which religion, Islam or Christianity, bears the good fruit? Which religion bears the diseased, the bad fruit? Oh, it reminds me of the story of a very famous song, famous in the jazz world anyway, called Strange Fruit. In 1938, a New York City school teacher, Abel Mirapol, saw a photograph of a lynching in the South, a picture of a young black man hanging by the neck in a tree in a remote nameless woods in the South.

This was the period in America when the Ku Klux Klan was still flourishing in the South, and parts of the Midwest, and the torches of the KKK illumined the whole scene in the dark of night in this picture. An amateur poet and composer, Mirapol went home, and he wrote a poem about what he'd seen, and then he later composed music to accompany these lyrics, and the song that resulted, called Strange Fruit, was recorded first and famously by the jazz singer Billie Holiday. Here are the lyrics to this jazz song, Strange Fruit, and see if you can see how this applies to Islam, as well as to Southern racism in the early 20th century.

Here is the lyrics to Strange Fruit. Southern trees bear a strange fruit. Blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of a gallant South, the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, scent of magnolias sweet and fresh.

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh. Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck, for the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, for the sun to rot, for the tree to drop. Here is a strange and bitter crop. But this song, speaking then of Southern racism in the early 20th century, was far too pensive and melancholy and graphic ever to become an anthem in the civil rights movement, like We Shall Overcome. But nevertheless, its haunting, vivid metaphor for racism in the South made it popular in the underground culture.

And it's been recorded often ever since, especially if you're a jazz fan, you'll recognize this song. Now, echoed throughout the song is this biblical metaphor, a tree is known by its fruit. Jesus said, if the root is bad, then so will the fruit be bad. And Mirapol eloquently reflects this. He says, southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root.

Well, the doctrine and practice of racism bears consequent fruit from this bloody root, doesn't it? Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Well, we also see this same strange fruit. Born, do we not, in Islam. We see it, for example, in Iraq and Syria today, where the Islamic State has conquered.

We see in these places beheadings and crucifixions and burnings of Christians for merely identifying themselves as Christians. Many of these communities in Iraq and Syria, they've been there from the third and fourth centuries. And these Christians were, and this is so ironic to me, these Christians were protected under Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein indeed protected the Christian communities that had been there for so long, slaughtered far fewer people than the Islamic State is slaughtering, even amongst the Muslims. They're now being butchered.

Muslims, Christians, anyone who disagrees with the Islamic state and the Islamic way of doing things is slaughtered. Oh, and we can say, ironically, that things were better. The Christian community, even Muslims, were better off under Saddam Hussein. Oh, what irony. So, we must ask of every religion, including Christianity and Islam, what fruits does this religion bear to its disciples?

I have three points I want to make with you regarding these things. My first point of three is, what are the fruits? Is my transformation from within? That is, is it a root that produces true good fruit? Last week, we observed how our nature underwent a fundamental transformation under our first parents, Adam and Eve.

While we were created in righteousness and holiness in God's image, they sinned. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned and brought themselves and us into a state of original sin. With this fact, and in this circumstance, every mortal must contend. Every son and daughter of Adam and Eve must ask, how can I be saved? Now, we noted that every other world religion tells its adherents that they must do or perform certain outward deeds in order to achieve an inner transformation.

But biblical Christianity is just the opposite, the only religion that says, Au contraire, you must first experience an inner transformation before you can ever perform outward deeds acceptable to God. And that inner transformation Jesus calls the new birth. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Oh, dear listener, Jesus was insistent that inner transformation precede an outward transformation of behavior. But this is not so in Islam.

No. Abdul Salib, you may remember Abdul Salib, one of the experts that we've consulted, a former diligent Muslim who converted to Christianity, and he says this about Islam. Islam believes that humankind is not sinful by nature. Muslims say that Christianity makes man a weak creature who has fallen and in desperate need of help, but Islam gives him dignity. Islam says, rise up.

You are morally capable of fulfilling God's will for yourself and your neighborhood and clean up your society. Unquote. Giving, indeed, succinctly, the Muslim view of the inner transformation, ostensibly, of man. Instead of salvation preceding works, in Islam, works done in the flesh must first be done in order to be saved. And I quote you here.

This is from the Quran, Surah, number nine. Those who believe and suffer exile and strive with might in Maine, in Allah's jihad, with their goods and their prisons, have the highest rank in the sight of Allah. They are the people who will achieve salvation. Unquote. Salvation in Islam, it is not a matter of grace, of giftedness.

It is not a new birth given as a gift of God to his creatures who could not experience this new birth otherwise, but rather in Islam, salvation is a product of works. That is doing, for example, the five things, confession, prayer for five times a day, alms, Ramadan, the pilgrimage to Mecca. And most of all, as we see time and time again, and we just read it for you, the thing that must be done, the work that must be done, that guarantees your salvation is jihad. Dying in jihad. So you wonder why Muslims all over the world flock to jihad, flock to the war, flock to fight the kafir, the unbeliever like us.

And it's the fatal flaw in every world religion that bases its salvation on works meant to achieve an inner transformation. Oh, the fatal flaw. Because it is the fatal flaw, because even as you attempt to do these good works, you are still so flawed in your natural, unchanged state that these works cannot do the kinds of perfect things that God requires. If an inner transformation is to take place at all in you, then it will have to be done by God himself graciously before you do any good works. So this reality has consequences for these religions.

The works they end up doing extensively to save themselves, religions that base themselves on works, they're done still yet in the flesh, fallen, sinful, and they're not done in the spirit. And so they thus produce fruits of the flesh. This is precisely why Islam is characterized by fruits of the flesh, fruits of evil, fruits that are corrupt and bad. Paul says the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, and indeed Islam by nature is full of sexual immorality, multiple wives, temporary marriage. If you want to sleep with a whore overnight, it's filled with idolatry.

We see indeed that Allah was only one of 360 gods of the Quresh tribe. Muhammad only singled him out, one of the pagan gods. So idolatry is rife in Islam. And then notice all of the emotions and the strife that you see all through Islam. Paul says the works of the flesh include enmity and strife and jealousy and fits of anger, rivalries.

How many rivalries do you see throughout Islam? Dissensions and divisions, all of these things. Well, they are only following the pattern of their masters. All religions have their masters and all disciples seek to become like their masters. Muhammad, the master in Islam, the Buddha, Buddha Gautama, the master in Buddhism, and of course, Christ, the master in Christianity.

So that brings me to my second point. What are the fruits? As a student, then will I be like my teacher? And as a servant, will I be like my master? In religion, we must say yes to all of these things.

Who is the master? You will be like him. We often call ourselves disciples of Jesus, don't we? Without knowing precisely what Jesus meant in his own first century context by discipleship. Ancient discipleship did not mean that one went to a seminary or a Bible school, for example, and that you paid a small fortune for a battery of classes and then you stuffed your brain with albeit valuable knowledge about the master.

But nevertheless, it was knowledge that wasn't put to practical use just yet and you didn't employ his teachings until it felt like that the brain would explode, right? Disciple in the ancient world was actually quite different. Disciple, the word disciple is actually a derivative of discipline because it required a disciplined life. The discipline of ancient discipleship was that once you committed to become a follower of a particular master, well then, you set aside what normally preoccupied you and you went where the master went. You ate what the master ate.

You slept where the master slept. You did what he did. You said what he did. You said what he said, excuse me. You taught what he taught.

And also, most importantly, you suffered what the master suffered and you shared in whatever benefits and rewards that master received. This is true in Islam, as well as in Christianity, as well as in Buddhism. Jesus himself gets at this in many of his parables of discipleship, doesn't he? He says, as they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.

This indicated to that disciple that you aren't ready yet to eat what I eat, to sleep where I sleep, to go where I go. And then the text goes on to say to follow me. But the disciple said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, leave the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Yet another said, I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to those at my home.

Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Unquote. Well, this disciple was really having second thoughts and was looking for an excuse to bow out of true discipleship. Oh, dear listener, precisely in this fashion, that is by living the life of the master, the disciple became like the master. Jesus himself said, it is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant to be like his master.

We are therefore fully expected, dear listener, to be like Jesus, if we call ourselves Christians, to be like him within the context of our own personality. But nevertheless, to be like him as we grow in our discipleship. And we should see then Jesus Christ, our master, reprised and viewed in ourselves and then in one another as well. This mode of discipleship, I submit to you, is no different for the Muslim. He must be like his master Muhammad.

He must be like his teacher Muhammad. They understand exactly this principle. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. So, very few of those in the West in particular who pretend to understand Islam grasp this. All of those who followed Muhammad in his early years and those ever since, they too practiced this very same model of discipleship.

In fact, Muslims look back to the early years of the disciples of Muhammad who were called companions. The Muslims look back to the early companions of Muhammad with the same fondness and reverence and awe as Christians look back upon the apostles of Jesus, the 12 apostles of Jesus. The highest compliment even today that one can pay to a Muslim is to call him a companion of the prophet. You hear this in the language all the time of Muslims. Osama bin Laden called the perpetrators of 9-11 paid them the highest compliment by calling them companions of the prophet.

It means that one shares in the sufferings, the exile, and the life of the prophet. It harkens back to those early years of Islam when it was a persecuted, misunderstood minority among the pagan tribes of Muhammad's home tribe, the Qirash of the Arabian Peninsula. The seminal moment in Islam is Muhammad's hajj, that is, his pilgrimage from where he was being persecuted in Mecca to the small city of Medina, where he had been invited to stay by tribesmen there. Those companions, that is, the apostles, who went with him into exile and obscurity, these are the very models of what it means to be a Muslim.

Oh, in fact, so significant is the hajj in Islam that the Muslim calendar is dated from its inception. The hajj was begun on July 16, 622 of our calendar, but was day one in the calendar of the Muslim. And what few outsiders realize is that this model of discipleship provided by Muhammad does not end with this ostensibly humble, quiet retirement into exile. No, Muhammad, while he was in Medina, turned palpably to a different course of leadership and practice in Islam. He turned to banditry to support himself and his followers.

He began to slay his opponents now, including Jews and Christians, and he began to assemble converts by giving them a choice, convert or die. In other words, Muhammad became a bandit, a butcher, a beheader, and a debauched man. The entire tone of the Quran takes on a palpable change after Medina. The Quran now is violent and aggressive and uncompromising. Plunder and slaves and women, multiple wives, vengeance on one's enemies, and glory in war and jihad.

This becomes the very marks of a disciple of Muhammad. Are we surprised when we see this reprise today? When we see Islam full of bandits and butchers and beheaders and debauches? Why? Ali Darhti, I encourage you, if you want a Muslim perspective on the life of Muhammad, read Ali Darhti's book, 23 Years, A Study of the Prophetic Career of Muhammad.

Oh, yes. There, I quote from it now. Describing these days, shortly after his return from Medina back to Mecca, he says, 10 years after the Hajj, the few men, these would be the companions of Muhammad, the few men who had left Mecca to join Muhammad, some clandestinely as fugitives, others openly as travelers, these would be the masters of Mecca, while all their opponents would be on bended knees, unquote. This is the attitude now of Islam all day long, isn't it? This is why you are a deceived fool.

If you listen to Muslims who preach Islam as a religion of peace, those who understand Islam know that this is the Islam, which Muhammad finally inculcated as master and teacher. Indeed, Muslim, be a bandit, a butcher, a beheader, and a debauched man. These are the fruits of Islam. Behold them. And they were first born by the original fruit bearer, Muhammad.

Then, thirdly, we must ask, what are the fruits of the religions that we are looking upon? What are the fruits? Will I produce fruit myself as a disciple? Will I produce fruit in keeping with the Spirit or the flesh? This is the third question I want to ask of these two religions.

In the broadest sense, then, we must say, we can see the fruits of Christ, and we can see the fruits of Muhammad. We can see the fruits of Christianity. We can see the fruits of Islam. And we can see it both in the West and the rest, that is, the West and the East. We can see the fruits of Christ and Muhammad in the respective cultures that they bear.

The West is largely a culture born of the fruit of Christ. Indeed, the best point of it, anyway. We see, indeed, the West leading the world. We see modern innovations. We see science.

We see knowledge. We see tolerance. We see the blessings of liberty and a republic. We see all of these things born fruit in the West. And as I have demonstrated to you in many, many previous lectures, that these things have all had Christian roots from Christian principle.

But if you want to see the future of the world as it would be under a new caliphate, if you want to see, indeed, what culture would be like under Muhammadism, under Islam, or the Islamic state in the Levant is one prime example, ISIL, indeed, or ISIS, look to them. If you want to see what a world would be like under a new caliphate, look to the backward and the destitute and the tyrannized lands where Allah the Beneficent, Allah the Merciful, now reigns unopposed. Yes, you find there are cultures that are backward. Where?

But in Islamic countries do you find such backward and poor, poverty-stricken, destitute cultures that are also full of tyranny? Yes, if you want death and ignorance and tyranny as your heritage, then indeed embrace Islam. Embrace the new caliphate that is being proposed by radical Muslims all over the world. Oh, welcome then to your new culture, dear Westerner. If you are indeed such a fool as to think there are no differences, that one culture is like another, that one should be tolerated as much as another.

No, one culture is not as good as another. Indeed, if you want to see what will happen to you, dear Westerner, under a new caliphate, under the boot heel of Islam, women, welcome to burqas and beds and beatings. Oh, in fact, the Quran teaches you, and in fact, good Muslim Imams have courses on how to properly beat your wife. This is all you will know, women of the West, welcome to the burqas, beds and beatings.

Oh, and you thinkers, those of you who think you are scholars, and that you indeed are those who know much and teach much, well, thinkers of the West, welcome to the religion that burned, for example, the library at Alexandria, when Omar the Great conquered Alexandria, Egypt in A.D. 640, and when asked what they should do with the Great Library, that was at Alexandria at the time, renowned throughout the world, still the volumes at Alexandria Library echo through the halls of history.

When asked what they should do with all of these books, Omar said they will either contradict the Quran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with the Quran, so they are superfluous. Burn them all, he said. And it took six months to burn all of the books at the library at Alexandria, and they were used as fuel for the saunas of the Muslims.

Well, then, as well, if you think that there's no difference between cultures, dear listener, welcome, you gays and lesbians and transgendered persons who flaunt yourselves now in the West, and who think you are so persecuted here in the West, welcome to those of you gays and lesbians and transgendered, soon to be under the Caliphate, you will be killed, you will be beheaded, you will be burned.

Also, welcome, if you think there is no difference between a Caliphate, between the boot heel of Islam and the liberty and freedom and true republicanism of the West, welcome to all of those who love liberty and justice, welcome to the religion of peace, as it's called, which is actually the religion of tyranny, the religion of death and ignorance and tyranny. Ask yourselves, then, whether the fruit of the flesh or the spirit match Islam. The works of the flesh, remember, are sexual immorality and impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger.

You see this all through Islam, rivalries, dissensions, and divisions. Compare them with the fruits of the spirit, which the Apostle Paul inculcates to us as Christians. That is, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

So says the Apostle Paul. These, indeed, are the fruits of Christianity, born in the individual lives of Christians, many of them being slaughtered under the booty of Islam, even today in places like Syria and Iraq. Dear listener, I welcome you to compare and contrast the fruits of these two religions. Jesus said, beware of false prophets. You decide whether Christ was the false prophet or Muhammad was the false prophet.

Beware of false prophets, Jesus said, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves, and you will recognize them by their fruits. You will determine, you will decide, you must see for yourselves, dear listener, who is the true prophet, who is the false prophet, and you will see this by their fruit, born not only in the individual lives of its adherents, but also in the larger cultures in which they generate. So, dear listener, this has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We encourage you to visit us. Perhaps you've been listening for a while.

It's time to cross our threshold to visit us to consider becoming a member of New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. One of my people encouraged me to exhort you to do these things, so I am doing this. I thought that was a good idea. Many of you have been out there in the shadows listening, perhaps agreeing, perhaps saying amen to many of the things that we've said. We encourage you to begin to join us, to begin to visit us, to see what we're about and the larger scope of worship of the Lord Jesus Christ and practice of our religion.

Please, I appeal to you then, come and visit us at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We meet for holy worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of Ortham Boulevard, and you can call us for further information at