 have dreaded this moment and looked forward to it for a long time. I think this microphone is working, so I'll get rid of that one. First of all, thank you, Dr. Hanford, for the invitation and the team here and for allowing me to talk about a topic like this, which is fraught with danger. It is a topic that if you bring up Islam, especially in the United States today and unfortunately even in the church, instantly the air is filled with electricity. To the point where most of us don't even bring it up, we don't share our opinions on it. We are afraid to say what we think about it and most of us don't know what we think about it, which is one of the reasons we don't talk about it. A lot of times when I come here, I'm giving these uplifting talks about the Eucharist and Mary and I don't think this one's going to be such an uplifting talk. This is more I feel like I'm the watchman standing on the walls of a city and people are sleeping in the city and I see danger coming up the road and I grab my trumpet and I warn the people in the town that there's danger approaching. Something's happening. Something's coming over the horizon. We haven't thought about this yet. We haven't prepared a way to think about it or to defend ourselves against it and people have ignored it and not wanted to talk about it. And if we do, they say we're an Islamophobe or something else to insult us, so we've been quiet. And the United States and the West has been quiet without knowing what we're up against and what Islam is and how we should begin to think about it and to approach it. I'm not politically incorrect. Everybody knows that. I will try to be careful today, but I will not be politically correct. I'm not going to tap dance around this. I'm no Fred Astaire, believe me. I want to discuss it, jump right into it because I don't have enough time to do this. I'm not in any way going to be able to cover everything. What I'm hoping this talk will do today is not give you an exhaustive understanding of Islam. There's a lot of good books out there for that and tapes and talks. I'll mention several of them along the way. But what I hope to do today is to light a spark. I hope the spark starts a little fire in all of us, a flame of wanting to learn more, wanting to know more, wanting to understand and then to do something about it. If I can only spark a flame and spark your interest today, then I've accomplished what I've come to do. So let's start out. I want to do four things. First, an introduction. Why should I be talking about Islam? Number two, what is Islam? Number three, do we worship the same God? Is Allah an Aba? That's a talk that Dr. Han gave that you should get a copy of. I'm going to mention it several times because I listened to it again a couple times in preparation for this along with some books by Robert Spencer and some others. And I want to talk about is do we worship the same God? And also, how should we think about Islam? So I want to jump right in. I usually like to ask people how many times have you been in a mosque during their time of prayer even at 12 o'clock on Fridays or if you go to Bethlehem, the whole manger square is full of Muslims bowing and praying and a mom comes out in the call to prayer. How many of you have ever been there during one of those services or even been inside of a mosque? How many of you have ever spent time in Muslim countries? Spent time? Many more people have done that than have been in a mosque. Have spent appreciable time in Muslim countries. And how many have even read the Quran? It's in your library. It's on your other side. One hand here, maybe two hands. I started reading. I've almost done reading through the Quran. I have to say it's one of the most tedious things I've ever had to read, but I'm working my way through it. But many of us are here facing this religion that is really imposing itself upon us now. And we haven't even taken the time to crack the book open and read and see what it says. And we hear it's a religion apiece. Read their own book. The problem I think with Americans today and even within the church is a lack of knowledge. We have a problem as Americans because we're good people. Most of us have a Christian background in America, whether Catholic or evangelical or Jewish, whatever. We have this very good religious background. And we think everyone else in the world is like us. We impose our persona, our religion, our thoughts, our ideas. We just assume that everybody else in the world is like us and they're not. Just think of the Aztecs when they were killing all of those tens of thousands of people in Mexico. They weren't like us. In infant sacrifice in biblical times where they were offering their babies to the gods Malik and Quimash Baal and Ashrut. They weren't like us. And Islam wanting to have jihad, terrorism and sharia law. They want to impose that on the world. We'll get into that a little bit more. And we just assume that they're like us. My best friend in Nazareth who's a Christian, 65% Muslim, 35% Christian in Nazareth, he says you Americans are very naive. He says you assume that everybody over here is like you. You assume that every other country, every other religion is like you so you don't have anything to worry because they're going to treat you like you expect to treat them. And it ain't so. That's one of our problems. And I think what I want to do is help us step out of our comfort zone and go through a learning process and realize that not everyone thinks and acts and does what we do. Not everyone has love your neighbor as their primary goal. The two laws to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. Not everyone believes that. I'm giving this talk because Islam is imposing itself upon us. Okay, I'm 63 years old. I never even knew about Islam until just recently. I never saw a Muslim. The first time I saw a Muslim is when my wife and I went to Israel for the first time in 1995. Since then we've been to Israel and all these places a lot more. And I've seen a change. They become much more fundamentalist, much more jihad, hajjibs, much more of a very expressive Islam, no longer wanting to be secular Islam like Turkey used to be. Look what's happening in Turkey today. And so I see Islam is imposing itself upon us. When I grew up and outside of Detroit, Michigan, I never saw a Muslim. I never heard about Islam. And now when I go to the grocery store, one out of three people is a Muslim. And they're coming in and they're wanting to express themselves around the world. Look at Europe. You want to see what we're going to be like in 20 years. Go visit Sweden or Holland or places like that, Germany. So what gives me the right to speak on Islam? I'm not Muslim and I never have been. I came here to give my conversion story from evangelical to Catholic, not from Islam to Catholic. I had a childhood where I never knew anything about it. But I've learned a lot since then and especially going to Muslim countries. I spent a lot of time in over 150 times in Israel and Palestinian areas just alone, not to count. I mean, the other times I've been in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, they invited me to come and give conferences at the at the parish of six of them in the Arab Emirates. I've done that twice. And Oman, I've been a lot of times in these countries. And one of the things I like to do when I visit these Muslim countries is to find the Christians and ask them what they think. How is it affecting you? What do you think about Islam? And they're not afraid to talk. They won't do it in public. And I'm not allowed to speak about it in public either. I've been told, do not talk about Islam when you give talks here. I'm speaking to a big audience of sometimes 30,000 people in India and the Philippines where the whole parking lot is full of seats with teletron TVs and they say one thing is do not mention Islam because we don't want our churches burned down after you leave. So I learn and I ask these people, I find a bishop, the first thing I do with the bishop is sit down and ask him what he thinks about Islam and how should we as Americans think about it. Then to the golden hikes many times where we take our groups and we park along the Syrian border and we look across and we talk about what's happening over there. Many times we've heard the bombs and felt the ground shake with the bombs going off and hear the machine guns. Knowing our brothers and sisters in Christ are being slaughtered on the other side. I want to learn. I have because my father would never give me a television. He made me read books when I was a kid. Good idea by the way, if your parents. I had the whole grew up with an insatiable curiosity. I had to know everything. So this is why I know about this topic to some degree because I go to these places and I ask a lot of questions. I'm 40 minutes away from Dearborn, Michigan, which is the largest Muslim community in the United States with the largest mosque. And already in some of the areas in Southeast Michigan, you hear the call to prayer. You know, I don't know. I don't do it very well, but you know what I mean. You've heard it from the minarets, the call to prayer. One time in Turkey, I went up the minaret with our group and I got to the top and I said, it's time for prayer. Our father, which art in heaven. I'm glad I got out of that one alive. Anyway, I live near this population. We're already the call to prayer is starting to be heard. And I say to people when they hear it in Israel or in any of these places, I hope you like the sound of this call to prayer at four o'clock in the morning because it's coming to a town near you. But I want to get into the three parts. What is Islam? Islam means submission. Simple as that the word Islam means submission and Muslim means to surrender. So a Muslim is one who surrenders and submits to Allah. And it is not primarily done out of love. You submit also to God. You also surrender to God. But why? Because he loves you and you love him back. The whole principle of Christianity is that we respond to love. God loves us. He sent his son to die for us and we love him back. In Islam, you submit to God because of a stick. It's all about fear. It's all about you're going to go to hell. Allah will do this. Allah will do that. It's all about the stick being hit on the back. You read the Quran all the way through. That's the way it is. And I talk to people and they say exactly that's what it is. Islam is you surrender out of fear and out of angst because God is not a God of love so much as he is a master, which we'll talk about soon. They claim to be Abrahamic. Who is the son of Abraham, by the way? Who is the son of promise of Abraham? No. No, no. You're confused. The Jews and the Christians, they changed the original scriptures, you know. The real son of the promise is Ishmael. Ishmael is the son of Abraham and from him are the descendants. The Arabs come from Ishmael. The Jews come from Isaac. Certainly not the promised people. It's the promised son of Ishmael. Now of course you know I'm just being sarcastic I hope. Ishmael is not. But they say that Muhammad came to correct the scriptures that were corrupted and that it's really Ishmael. Dr. Han's talk, Abba or Allah, does a nice job of comparing the two on that topic. Very nicely done by the way. Thank you. It's a good talk. Talks about Abba and Allah and the differences between the two and why one is out of love and why the other isn't and who is the real son of promise and what that all means. So Christians corrupted the scriptures and Muhammad came as a prophet to supersede, to correct and to fulfill to be the final prophet. Because see you say Jesus is the final prophet. He is the one that came from God. The word from God. They say no, no. It's Muhammad. Jesus is not God. He's not the son of God. He is simply a prophet like all the other prophets and Muhammad is the final prophet. He's come to to fulfill to correct what we Christians have screwed up and to get the true religion. In fact, you don't realize it but Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and David, they were all Muslims. But you say but Muhammad wasn't even until 600 AD. How could they all be Muslims? Because they were following the true religion of Allah and the Jews and the Christians changed and converted the scriptures and changed it all and Muhammad came along to get things back on track again to the real religion of Abraham and Moses and David which was Allah then typically meaning Islam. This is what you're dealing with out there when we're talking about this. The way that you convert to Islam is very simple. You don't have to go through our CIA. You don't have to get baptized. You don't have to do anything. One statement is all it takes. There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. Say that and mean it and you are a Muslim. Simple as that. That's how you convert. It's worldwide over 108 1.8 billion of them, second largest and they're catching up with us. Almost 22% of the world's population and growing. The word Allah means God in Arabic which is a problem for Christians in Arabic speaking countries because if you go to Mass in Jerusalem or Bethlehem or somewhere else and you hear the readings of the day when the word God is, you hear the word Allah because Allah means God for Christians and for Muslims and there's a big problem now because Muslims are trying to say that Christians cannot use that word in their liturgy because Allah is Muhammad that's Islam and you can't use that word but that's what the word Allah means. It means God. Who is a Muhammad? I'm just going to run through these just for the facts of it. He was an Arab from Arabia who was regarded as a founder and descendant of Ishmael. The founder of Islam and the descendant of Ishmael born around 580 nobody knows the exact date died in June of 632 allegedly given the revelation of the Quran. The word Quran means recitation and it was he was allegedly given this recitation verbatim from Gabriel the archangel but don't forget that even Paul says the devil can masquerade as an angel of light and this was supposedly given the Quran word for word. The two big things that are there is the Quran but then there's also something called the Hadith which is the life of Muhammad. It talks about his life is exploits the way he lived he's considered to be infallible and he is the model or the standard to be followed. He is the holy one. He is the one to be followed so when he marries a six-year-old girl and consummates a marriage when she's nine years old I guess that this is what Muslims believe is okay because this is the way Muhammad lived and in the Hadith you hear his story and how he lived and that is the model for how all Muslims should live based on his life just like we do Jesus Christ Jesus Christ the way he lived we model our lives after him. St. Paul even says as I follow Christ you follow me this is the way they believe you should follow Muhammad. They deny that Jesus is God they say he's just a prophet. In fact in Dr. Han's talk I liked it he starts up by talking how he was having breakfast with a Muslim and every time he referred to God his father Dr. Han made the point of he is not that's blasphemy and the guy got up and left because every time we how can we talk about God not is not as our father or Jesus Christ the Son of God and everything heresy out he goes but that's the way it is Muhammad is the last of the prophets. Two main divisions Sunni and Shia don't want to talk about that because I want to talk too much about the other things 85 to 90 percent of the Muslims in the world are Sunnis mainly in Saudi Arabia Turkey North Africa Syria and everywhere else 10 to 15 percent of Muslims are Shia and that's mostly in Iran Pakistan Indian Iraq but mostly in Iran. There's other groups too they're kind of like Protestants there's a lot of different sects and groups there's Alawi Sufi Wahabi and so on so I want to get out do that now we go to the five pillars of Islam one of the reasons why people find Islam as a very attractive religion is because it is so simple and straightforward very simple and straightforward there's not a lot you have to do to be a Muslim first of all the first one is faith second is prayer charity fasting and pilgrimage those are the five tenets practices of Islam first of all I already mentioned in order to be a Muslim you have to say there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet that's the first one faith you express that you are Muslim second of all prayer you have to pray now they don't all do it just like all Catholics don't do what we're supposed to do either but they have the requirement every five times a day to face towards Mecca and in fact if you're in any of these countries in the Middle East Muslim countries and now even becoming non-Muslim countries you'll always find an arrow with a little picture of Mecca and an arrow pointing so that the Muslims know which way to pray most of the time you go in a hotel pull out the drawer and right next to the Gideon Bible is a little pointer so you know which way to pray when you pray to Mecca it's even on airplanes I've flown in airplanes from Arab countries and they even have on the screen it changes where the airplane is to let you know where Mecca is while you're on the airplane so when you pray you can face that way five times a day dawn noon afternoon evening and night the one I don't like the most is dawn because it's four o'clock in the morning it always wakes me up charity the giving of alms we're required they are required to give alms fasting mainly the month of Ramadan we don't know much about Ramadan but it is a huge event when you're in Muslim areas because that's the month of fasting you can't eat anything from sun up to sun down no drinking water no eating food nothing a pleasurable but after the sun goes down boy do they eat pilgrimage to Mecca is something that is required of every Muslim who can and has the possibility of doing it a Muslim Muslim has their obligation to go to Mecca it's called a Hajj they go round and around this building that they say is where Muhammad was born there in Mecca and they millions millions go to Saudi Arabia counterclockwise they go around this building called the cube and it's has to do with Abraham they say and this is the fifth requirement of Islam very straightforward very simple doesn't require a lot of you really not like it the Christianity does of us we have to love our neighbors we have to become holy oh my goodness we have so many things we have to do Islam straightforward it's all basically outward things that you have to do you can fulfill all the obligations of Islam by doing outward things it's a capital crime to convert not to Islam anybody can convert to Islam and you get padded on the back for that but it's illegal it's a capital crime to leave Islam to become something else there are some who tell us that there are millions of Muslims converting today to Christianity Father Zachariah who is a Coptic priest in Egypt he's on the air he's always they're always out to get this guy but he knows the Quran better than they do and he preaches and he's got YouTubes and he goes all over the world and he says there are millions of Muslims converting but you don't hear about it because to say so you will get in big trouble even executed that's the penalty for conversion and there's also something going on even the United States that we don't hear about much anymore at all is honor killings because in a Muslim family if a daughter or somebody in the family becomes westernized or marries a western or a Christian or a girl marries a Christian man or something that's called an honor killing it's the responsibility of the father or this oldest son to kill that girl for the honor of the family something we as Christians do right something very common for us right so we understand these things i'm being a little sarcastic because we often think that this is a religion like ours we're often told that even by some in the church that we're talking about a religion that's very much like us a religion of peace a religion that just wants to live and let live and so on but this is not at all and we need to know the truth about what it is now i'm going to get to the point part two which is a little theologically interesting do we worship the same god when i get up in the morning and i pray to god am i worshiping the same god that muhammad abdule wakes up in saudi arabian prays to god are we praying to the same god my answer to that is somewhat yes and no and let me explain the catechism in paragraph 841 which is quoting lumen gentium and vatican too the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the creator in the first place amongst them are the muslims these profess to hold the faith of abraham and together with us they adore the one merciful mankind's judge on the last day paragraph 841 if you read that on its face value it says oh my goodness the muslims and us worship the same god and they're saved says that they're they're also the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge among them the muslims so they're already saved they've got a great relationship with god and they profess well so they're they're holding the faith of abraham too it says and together with us they adore the one merciful god so i guess they're like us i guess they worship the same god i guess we don't need to evangelize them because it says right here they're the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge meaning the muslims so many people have taken this paragraph to mean that you don't evangelize muslims they're okay that they're the same god we are we just express it in different ways but i want to unpack this a little bit in the context this paragraph 841 is in a larger context entitled those who have not yet received the gospel this about the islam and muslims is in a category in the catechism which starts out with for those who are have not yet received the gospel and they talked about the jews the muslims the hindus the buddhist and so on so that's not trying to if you just take that quote out of out of context you can make it say a lot more than it intends to say just like you can take verses out of the bible and make it say more than it's meant to say this is not telling us that the muslims are already saved because they're part of that plan what it's saying is that they also want to serve the one god and they are striving to serve the one god and to obey the dictates of their conscience and therefore they are also let's say due to no fault of their own this but the catechism says this about everybody say the little boy in the amazon jungles who's never heard of jesus but it says that these two anyone also may be saved if they seek after god and they obey the dictates of their conscience and you know i give the example i was raised in michigan i was raised in a baptist family the bible was in my hand all the time went to church knew about jesus from from the my mother's milk the little boy in the amazon jungle never hears of jesus and there's the judgment day and god says steve ray you come into heaven because you you believed in my son and you little boy you never believed in my son so to hell with you the little boy is going to say well that's not fair steve ray was raised if i was raised in steve ray's family i would have been a christian because i wanted to know god and i was trying to do it was right and follow up but i didn't know who you were so the muslims if you're raised in a muslim family and you seek to serve as one god what the catechism is saying is that these two may be saved if due to no fault of their own the two in ignorance that they never had a chance to overcome and due to no fault of their own and they still obey the conscience that they have that these two may be saved and this is the plan of salvation but it's also telling us that the muslims those who have still not yet received the gospel and then where it says they profess to hold the faith of abraham know it doesn't say that they do hold the faith of abraham it says they profess to hold that's very important that wording there they profess to hold the faith of abraham which they don't of course only in some small ways and that they together worship this one god now i believe that lumen gentium and pope francis's comments and so on recently have a pastoral tone more than a theological tone or a doctrinal tone they're more in the last 50 years i think that we have if there's a balance between trying to build bridges and understand and to be um it's a word i want to use to relate to we should do that but not to the neglect of really understanding and being honest about what islam is there's a balance here and i think that we have not struck the balance very well in the last 50 years one of the things i'm hoping this talk if i don't get killed on my way out of here hoping that this talk will spark and inspire people to think about this they strive to follow the one god and obey their conscience but the ones who do suicide bombings are less chance than others because that is something that obviously the conscience cannot accept those kind of actions as some of them have have been doing robert spencer makes the interesting comment the vatican council is only noting what they claim their faith is of abraham without discussing whether it is whether or not islam actually is authentically following the faith of abraham so do we worship the same god yes and no here's a practical way to look at it say that this room was a mixture of american populations some of them are muslims some are jews some are christians some are atheists polytheists pantheists whatever and i say okay we're going to divide the room up i want all of the monotheists to go to this side of the room and all of the polytheists and atheists and others to go on this side of the room guess what we end up finding ourselves on that side of the room with the muslims we're on that side because we're monotheists we believe in one god we are on the muslim side in that category and against the others who are atheists pantheists polytheists or whatever else you isms you can come up with so we find ourselves on the side of islam with that division but i think let's divide it up and make it even maybe a little more understandable paul says in romans chapter one 19 and 20 these are two of my favorite verses in the bible that which is known about god is evident to everyone for god made it evident to them for since the creation of the world his invisible attributes his eternal power his divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so by looking at the nature at creation at what god has made by the way that's the greek word poema by looking at god's poem his creation you can tell something about god his divine nature his eternal power his other attributes now let's imagine there's a young man in saudi arabia who goes out at night and looks up to the stars and he said oh my goodness the universe has an amazing creator perfect unchanging self self subsistence eternal beautiful artist creator and sustainer of everything wow we have a beautiful god he sees that in saudi arabia now a boy is walking out at night on the farm in ohio and he looks up at the stars and he says oh my goodness the universe has an amazing creator perfect unchanging self subsistence eternal creator sustainer of all wow are they both worshiping and thinking about the same god at this point yes this is called natural revelation we have in the catholic church natural and special revelation natural revelation is what you see with your eyes special revelation is what you hear with your ears how will they know without a preacher so with natural revelation when you go out and see they both are worshiping the same god the one god who created all of this but when the boy in saudi arabia goes back in the house he picks up their religious book the only one that's allowed in saudi arabia and it's called the Quran and he picks it up to learn more about this one god and he begins to read and he gets one perspective of what this god is and the boy in ohio happens to be in a town that is a very christian town and he picks up the dusty old bible on the coffee table and he begins to read about what god is and he comes to a very different perspective do they now worship the same god no very different the boy in saudi arabia is worshiping allah with his one god no son all of the and we'll talk about that in a minute and the boy in ohio is reading the bible and finding out that god is a trinity made of three persons in one god and then he sent jesus christ the son who has two natures very different perspective on the level of natural revelation i can say that we worship the same god on the level of special revelation we worship very different gods and i think that's probably a good way to think through it and christians have special revelation the word of god in tradition and scripture and christian revelation does not need muhammad and the angel to supersede or perfect it thank you very much he bruised chapter one verses one through two i paraphrase that in the past god has spoken to men in many ways through his prophets but in these last days he has spoken through his son he has spoken through his son jesus is what the word of god god speaks through his word jesus christ god himself the second person becomes incarnate and dwells among us that is god's word in person he is the final word and the catechism says when he sent his son that was the final word and god had nothing left to say oh you think you're going to supersede this muhammad you think you're going to correct our scriptures you're more important prophet than jesus no thank you this is our special revelation we know and because jesus came and died in rose again that he is the son of god and he is the final word of god there will be no prophets we don't need joseph smith to start the mormons we don't need muhammad to start this and all the other isms that they say that they've come to fulfill and to supersede we have the final word gearhard mewler who is the recent prefect for the congregation the doctrine of the faith said muslims and christians do not believe in the same god and he said that without contradicting magisterial teaching he said of course and he's actually making the two points of special and natural revelation here of course you can also on a philosophical level natural revelation say together say together there is only one god we all see in our understanding the god as the same god but by understanding the christian revelation our special revelation it is not the same god in this respect the christian god is very different from allah the god of the muslims so yes muslims have a small part of the truth but they also have very much error and we better figure out what to do about it and i think we ought to realize too that they need to be evangelized i think we need to do three things first understand them second decide what to do and how to react to them and third start learning how to evangelize muslims they're tough but it can be done because i you've seen many many places where they're converting now and in the past many ways that they have converted as well now five ways to compare trying to figure out how much time i have left here 17 18 more minutes okay i'm going to have to speed up my talking a little bit i will try to enunciate and be succinct but i'm going to talk a little faster five different ways that you can think about yaway the god of our god the god of israel and the god of the christians and allah the god of the muslims ways that they're very different in islam allah is pure will and arbitrary he's will to say that allah cannot do something is a heresy in islam allah can do anything he is pure will he's arbitrary in the sense that in our christianity god is love and god is rational god is both love and rational that's why science developed because you can think god's thoughts after him two plus two is four and it works everywhere in the universe god our god is rational but our god is also love it never says god is justice or god is holiness it says god is love and for god to be a god of love that requires or it means that certain actions he's going to relate to his creation in a certain way he's going to relate to his creation out of love and out of rationality whereas in islam god is pure will power can do anything there's no limitations on him the ends justify the means in islam which is why in many places when you go i mean i remember the archbishop of smirna he's a good friend of mine his parents are up for canon to be canonized soon they're on the road to sainthood this archbishop and whenever i went to smirna and turkey i talked to him a lot because that's all muslim turkey is 99 percent muslim and he always says you don't negotiate with muslims you can't have a real honest dialogue because they can lie to your face and walk away because this is what Allah says to do you can do this with an unbeliever because all of you are infidels you know and you don't have to treat the infidels the same way as you do muslim believers two different ways you can relate to people and he said it's futile to negotiate because you can work and work and get a deal with them and he said they can walk away and stab you in the back because that's the way Allah is you remember people live like their gods if your god is a god of pure will and power then people can live that way and they follow and live like their god but if your god is love then you start to live and follow the way he is people live like their gods islam ala is master i'm gonna mention the talk again that dr. han gave as soon as he said god was father heresy he's not father he's Allah he's master and christianity god is a father our father which art in heaven you have no idea how traumatic and what an amazing thing it is that jesus tells us we can call the creator the universe abba father he is a father and if he's our father how does that relate to us as christians when we come to government the government is not there to impose upon us it's there to assist us like a father does it's there to care for our best and our well-being if you do an employer a employer doesn't view his employees as slaves he views them as equals to him and he works with them in a sense of employment as we know in this country and a husband and a wife if your husband and a wife and this Allah is pure power and he's the he is the master then you watch Muslims their wives are 10 feet behind them walking behind them they have that same attitude between a husband and a wife the wife tends to be like the servant making children and cleaning the house the man is like Allah he is the master but in christianity it's very different see so you can see when you have god who is master that filters down into the whole society how they live and how they think of themselves and their family and their employees in their countries and other people and in christianity of god is love you see how that filters down to the way we think of god and the way we think our families and so on very different people live like their gods how does god reveal himself islam according to chesterton i love chesterton gk chesterton he says islam has a lonely god he's just one person up in heaven he's a lonely god and some people then say that he had to create people because he was lonely he wanted someone to talk to we don't have a lonely one person isolated god we have a trinity three gods in three persons in one godhead and they love each other there's no loneliness in our god the father loves the son the son loves the holy spirit they love each other in fact you know why you got created some people think they got created because god wanted to have people to whip them and make them you know punish them and all this angry god in heaven no no no no no god created you because him the three persons of the trinity have so much fun together they have so much love and fun it's bubbling over and they said oh this is way too much fun we have to create other beings like us in our image to share all of this with did you know that's why god created you because he loved they love each other so much they have so much fun together they created you so they could have bubble over and they are to let you share in it with them christianity is very different than Allah the lonely god who just makes dictates and gets you to follow him by hitting you with a stick basically and to simplify things number three oh that's how that was number three number oh by the way in that regard of the lonely god just one when you many times now when we go up from the parking lot up the road to the church of the enunciation in nazareth we see signs that the muslim put up because they know millions of christians are going to be going past this sign and so they put up signs god is but one god god forbid that he should have a son the messiah the son of mary was no more than an apostle christians call christ the son of Allah Allah's curse be upon them how they are deluded away from the truth these are big signs now that you see as the christian pilgrims are walking up to the church of the enunciation and why they're because that's where god became man do you know that on the altar in the grotto of the church in nativity it says the word became flesh here here in space and time two thousand years ago he didn't become god he didn't become man incarnated in Bethlehem that was nine months after the fact it's in nazareth that the word of the angel and the fiat of mary that the word became flesh here the latin word heik but as you're going up there the muslims want to correct you and there's now times many times i've seen on friday where they have muslim apologists there we're on the road trying to block the christians and hold their bibles out and said show us where jesus said he's god show us from your own book and they challenge the christians as they go up they deny the son listen to what john writes in the bible first john 222 who is a liar but he who denies that jesus is christ he is antichrist who denies the father and the son whoever denies the son does not have the father either he who acknowledges the son has the father also every spirit that does not confess that jesus christ has come in the flesh is not a spirit of god and this is the spirit of the antichrist which you have heard is coming and is now already in the world obviously he wasn't talking about islam but the spirit of antichrist denies the father and the son and that the father sent the son there's a great hostility of muslims to the cross and the people of the cross we need to prepare ourselves christianity number four way to think about the two they have different political orders in christianity we have always maintained that the church is there to inform the state and the state is there to govern and be informed by the religion by christianity they are not one and the same the church never wants to be in charge and take over the politics of a country the catholic church has no desire or evangelicals either to become the government they want to be outside the government separate institution but informing the government of what it should do and the government in spawn responds to take care of the people in the response to the christian mentality and teaching but in slum is not that way there is no separation in fact when you think of a slum i would think of it as a religion only secondarily primarily it is a political ideology how many of you think of islam as a political ideology we're always told that it's a religion it is a religion but i think primarily it is a political ideology and they want to have the whole world under a law as a theocracy a government ruled by god theo god accuracy government a government ruled by god and who then administers it the imams and the mulas look at iran today who's in charge of iran the ayatollah it's a political ideology islam can never accept democracy it can never accept the idea of a king it can only accept a theocracy islam it's built right into its structure that there is no separation between religion and government it's all one and it ultimately has to be brought under a law and they have plans for america i've been reading some of these things the ultimate goal is not just to have saudi arabia under a law that goal of it is to bring it to the whole world to bring the whole world under a law and to be ruled what's called a caliphate which is a government run on islamic law morals there's a very vast difference in morals christianity tends to we say more to fly the flesh do not live according to the deeds of the flesh lust and and letting your sexual desires drive you and theft and lying and all these things but be pure in spirit the fruits of the spirit Paul gives us in galatians we are to deny the flesh we are to deny our carnal instincts and to live in the spirit serving god that way not so in islam islam is very carnal and i'm not even going to say this myself but first of all what is the reward when you go to heaven what is your reward you get to be with god and adore the trinity and the beatific vision and be with your family and praise and worship and be in the glory of heaven what does the muslim man get promised what heaven what is the primary goal to get there 72 dark guide virgins i always wonder what do the women get when they get to heaven and muslim islam what's prepared for the women in heaven this is what i mean it's a very male oriented religion and it's all about carnality and if i can say that pretty much because if that's the goal of heaven is 72 blind uh blue dark guide virgins for all of eternity then guess what they're how they think of heaven and of life i'm and i'm not even going to say this i'm going to read i'm i know i'm running short on time well boy am i running short on time i'm just going to read part of this Aquinas angelic doctor of the church Muhammad seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concuponsense of the flesh urges us his teachings contain precepts and conformity with his promises and he gave free reign to carnal pleasure in the in all of this he was obeyed by carnal men for proofs of the truth of his doctrine he brought forward only such as could be grasped by natural ability of anyone with the most modest wisdom indeed the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity this is Thomas Aquinas this is in me he did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way which alone fittingly gives witness to the divine inspiration on the contrary Muhammad said that he was sent by the power of his arms in other words the sword which he which are signs not lacking even among tyrants and robbers what is more no wise men men trained in things divine or human believed in him from the beginning those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers utterly ignorant of all divine teaching through whose numbers Muhammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of the sword preceding prophets offer him no witness so in other words no prophets ever gave him witness on the contrary he perverts almost all the testimony of the Old and New Testaments by making them into a fabrication of his own and he can be seen by anyone who examines his law it was therefore a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to ever read the Old or New Testaments lest these books convince him them of his falsity it is thus clear that those who place faith in his words believe foolishly summa contra gentiles book one chapter six i didn't say that i only quoted why don't we ever hear this taught why are we always taught that they are like us we're imposing our perspective on them they're like us they have the same views they have the same spiritual body they have the same why don't we hear about this this is what i'm saying i hope i spark something today i hope that i know it's not a pleasant talk i didn't come to give a pleasant talk today all the other ones i did this one i didn't i wanted this was a warning talk i have a quote here too from my best friend in israel but i'm not going to read all of that but he could just confirms everything and he says and they have the audacity to call their religion equal among the monotheistic religions this is my friend who's a kind of a bible scholar and anyway so muslims worship their god out of fear and it's all very carnal christians are very much the opposite our current situation there are many nice muslims how many work with muslims have muslim neighbors they're nice folks right most of them are i'm not talking that we should not like muslims there's a difference between muslims and islam i do condemn the radicals those ones who are doing great harm but i have to say and i hope i don't get in trouble for saying this but the jihadists and the terrorists are not radicals they are only the ripe fruit of islam they are doing what you read in the quran jimmy achon one time i hope he doesn't mind i quote him saying this but jimmy achon one time said he's a catholic answers apologist said the only good muslim is a bad muslim the only good muslim that we think is good our nice neighbor the person that sits in the cuban extras we say they're a nice muslim because they're really not practicing what the quran says quran gives three alternatives that you are to fight the infidels everywhere you meet them but islam muslims don't do that until they get to be a majority they come in quietly they don't assimilate if you think they do go look at germany go look at netherlands go look at sweden where they brought so many in and even in minnesota they brought a bunch of sudanese in and now they regret it they said these people will not assimilate they want everything their way and once just like in detroit now what they're wanting to do is they have their own sharia law and in france in paris they have called no go zones where the muslims they don't even let the police in they have their own sharia law but the only good muslim we think is the one who really doesn't follow the full teachings of islam and europe's experience shows that isis thank god they're being wiped out but i don't think that they're so much radical if you go back and look at the history of islam and what mohammad did mohammad took the sword he took the soldiers and he rampaged across and the muslims went across northern african they came up and they converted by the sword and there are three things that you as a christian can do when they come in and if you haven't been following the news and i bet you haven't because the news here doesn't want you to know what was happening in syria and iraq but i know because my friends have family living there and i hear what actually happens there what happened when isis came through there and those radicals in in syria is you have three choices mr christian you can convert right now say on your knees in front of your village that there is no god but allah and mohammad is his prophet say it and if you don't then you have two other choices and by the way the christians don't the second choice is to become a dimmy which means a slave you would get charged an exorbitant tax that no one can begin to pay and you are set aside as a slave as an infidel among us and there's serious consequences for that and the third one is that you die they kill you with a sword there are stories in syria where the muslims came into these christian villages and they said convert and the christian said no they said then you have the other option we're going to kill you or you leave with nothing in your arms you leave with the shirt on your back right now go walk away i don't care where you go and they have to leave and one woman had her baby in her arm and she starts to walk away with her baby and the man stopped her and he says ma'am i said nothing you take and they took the baby away and made her leave fight the infidels wherever you see them they don't do it when they're sitting next to you in the cubicle but i think that when areas get to be predominantly muslim this becomes much more of a possibility history proves it over over again if the hadith says that the mohammad is the one that we follow he's our example look at how he lived his life and look how muslims have and their goal is to take over with the sword they use used to use the sword today they use population and immigration you know what i mean by population how many how many babies are americans having even catholics too how many babies are muslims having i know families that have 25 they have four wives they have an unfair advantage not all of them but they can't have up to four wives the battle of lopanto i'm out of time but the battle of lopanto is something you should read about i'm just have to close because i'm out of time and i want to be obedient we need to know and teach the truth we can love the muslim but we do not have to love islam i think that we need to teach our children we need to learn more about what it is i have a vested interest i have 15 grandkids and one on the way i tell my kids i want you to raise my grandchildren to be martyrs and little maria fostin says but grandpa why do you want us all to die maria fostin i don't want you to die but i want you to know that there are dangers in the world and you are a christian and it's not going to be easy to be a christian when you're my age the world is changing and i want you to know that there is something worth living for and there is something worth dying for and never ever compromise never ever back down thank you now somebody says okay now what do we do i'm only telling you about how i perceive what islam is i didn't say i was going to say what we should do that's another talk for another time or maybe another speaker but i will say that i think three things we need to understand don't let the media lie to us don't let the even pastors who tell you that it's a religion of peace just ignore we the church is not doing us any favors right now i have to say that we need to have people stand up and tell us the truth of what's really going on and i think we need to understand to be ready to resist and to act as christians lovingly but also to know what's happening and how to respond and more than else we have to see muslims as people who are without yet the gospel and who need to be evangelized i hope that you are sparked today thank you for listening god bless you and may the god of abraham isek and jacob who sent his son will worship him amen