How to share the Gospel with a Muslim
Comparing the Ten Commandments of the Bible to the commandments of Mohammed in the Koran is shocking!
Commandment #1: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.”
The word translated “LORD” in English is YHWH, in the original language of the Old Testament. It’s not a title, it’s a proper name. It literally means, “The eternal self-existent One;” The God who is, the God who was, and the God who always will be, from eternity past to eternity future, without beginning, and without end.
YHWH comes from the same root as Exodus 3:14 where God said of Himself to Moses, “I Am, that I Am, tell them, I Am sent you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.” This is the most holy and proper name of God.
More than 2,000 years after God personally revealed His proper name to Moses at Mt. Sinai, Mohammed is quoted in the Hadith as saying, “I have been commanded that I should fight these people till they bear witness that there is no god but Allah. When they do this, their blood and their property shall be safe with me except as Islam requires.” The name “Allah” is found nowhere in the original languages of the Bible.
Commandment #2: “You are not to worship or bow down to any created thing.”
The greatest act of worship in Islam is the required once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca. The highpoint is the ceremony at the religious shrine known as the Ka’aba. Muslims must run around the building counterclockwise seven times, and each time pause to kiss a black rock that supposedly fell from heaven!
Do you think kissing a rock in a religious ceremony is an act of idolatry? We are not even to bow to any created thing, let alone kissing it!
Commandments #3: “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD in vain.”
Did you know Surah 53:19 says Allah has three daughters? Why does the Koran say, “God forbid that Allah should have a son,” and then say he has three daughters?
Will Durant in his classic, The Story of Civilization, writes,
“Within the Ka’aba, in pre-Moslem days, were several idols representing gods. One was called Allah; three others were Allah’s daughters, al-uzza, al-Lat, and Al-Manat. We may judge the antiquity of this Arab pantheon from the mention of At-il-Lat by Herodotus [a fifth century B.C. Greek historian] as a major Arabian deity. The Quraish (Mohammed’s tribe) paved the way for monotheism by worshiping Allah as the chief god.”
Archaeological evidence uncovered in Arabia is overwhelming in demonstrating that the dominant pre-Islamic religion was the worship of the moon-god, Allah. Mohammed simply eliminated the other 359 deities, including Allah’s daughters referred to in Surah 53:19. That is why you see the crescent moon on the Islamic flag and above Islamic temples.” The God of the Bible is not the god of the moon, He is the Creator of the moon! To refer to a pagan deity as God is to disobey commandments 1, 2, and 3.
Commandment #4: “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.”
Originally on Saturday, it was changed to Sunday to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. True believers rest in the finished work of Christ who sacrificed Himself to pay for the sins of the world. Muslims worship on Friday.
Commandment #5: “Honor your father and your mother.”
Commandment #6: “Thou shalt not murder.”
There are 123 verses in the Koran that call for fighting and killing anyone who does not believe this statement, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.” Jews and Christians are specifically named and targeted as “infidels.” Faithful Muslims are commanded to murder all who refuse to believe in Islam.
Sura 5:37 says,
“…they (the infidels) shall be slain or crucified, or have their hands and feet cut off.” Sura 9:5 says, “Wage war against the infidels, as are your neighbors…” and in 47:3-9, a Muslim who cuts off the head of an “unbeliever” is promised paradise!
Ironically, Sura 2:256 says,
“Let there be no compulsion in religion.”
And what awaits the men who are admitted to Paradise? Wine and women! Two things that are forbidden as sin in this life in the Koran! What do the women get? Sadly, no one knows.
Commandment #7: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
In Matthew 5:28 Jesus said, “But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” In 19:5 Jesus (quoting Moses) said, “…. a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” The grammar is clear—one man has one wife.
But, in Sura 4:2, the Koran says,
“….of other women who seem good in your eyes, marry two, or three, or four; and if ye still fear that ye shall not act equitably, then one only; or the slaves you have acquired.”
When God gave Moses the 10 commandments (1,500 B.C.) pagan religions celebrated sexual immorality as a form of worship to their gods. The Canaanites and the Babylonians worshiped Baal, which included temple prostitution. The Greeks and Romans also had their own forms of “sanctified prostitution.”
The doctrine of marital fidelity is a foreign concept to all man-made religions. The Judeo-Christian worldview alone teaches that human sexuality is sacred. It is sacred (holy) because it began in the mind of God.
Islam teaches that a man can have 4 wives and numerous concubines. Mohammed, the founder of Islam had 11 wives. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism had 33 wives.
Nature itself proves that the doctrine of polygamy cannot be divinely inspired since the ratio of men to women has always been 50/50. If there were four (or more) women to every man in the world, this doctrine might not be so obviously false.
The Koran goes on to say that the owner of any female slave can sell her into prostitution or rape her anytime he wants to and Allah will forgive him! Don’t believe it? Sura 24:33 says,
“Force not your female slave into sin in order that you may enrich yourselves in this world, if they wish to preserve their modesty. Yet if any of you do compel them, afterward, God will forgive you.”
This is a classic example of “Doublespeak.” That is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words or phrases.
Commandment #8: “Thou shalt not steal.”
Yet in Sura 24:29 the Koran says,
“There shall be no harm in your entering houses in which no one dwells, for the supply of your needs.” In other words, as long as no one is home, go in and take whatever you need!
Commandment #9: “Thou shalt not lie.”
But in Sura 5:91 the Koran says,
“God will not punish you for a mistake in your oaths, but he will punish you for an oath taken seriously.”
The word “oath” means a solemn appeal to God for the truth of what is affirmed. In Matthew 5: 33-37 Jesus said, “But I say to you, make no oath at all, … let your yes be yes and your no be no; anything beyond this is of evil.”
Commandment #10: “Thou shalt not covet.” To covet is to desire something that belongs to someone else, or something forbidden. That is what wars are made of.
** A NOTE ABOUT MARRIAGE **
In Sura 4:38, the Koran says,
“Men are superior to women,” and gives men permission to “remove them unto their beds, and beat them…”
In 1 Peter 3:7, the Bible says,
“You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.”
In Eph. 5:28-29 the Bible also says,
“So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church.”
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Following the Muslim and the Koran, regarding the physical abuse of women, disobeys Commandment #5, that women are to be honored, and are of equal value with men in the sight of God. Jesus said: “Whatever you do to the least of these my brethren, you do to Me.”
Stated positively, the Ten Commandments can be summed up in two: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. James 2 calls it, “the perfect law of liberty!”
Muslims are told if your good works outweigh your bad works Allah may have mercy on you. Romans 3:20 says, “For by the deeds of the law no man will be justified in His sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” The law was not given to show us how to save ourselves, but that we have offended an infinitely holy God and need to be saved!
When Adam and Eve sinned, an animal was killed to cover their shame. Cain offered a sacrifice from a garden and Able brought a blood sacrifice. One was accepted, one was rejected. The angel of death passed over the Israelites in Egypt by the blood of a lamb. God is trying to tell you something. These are prophetic object lessons on redemption from sin.
In Leviticus 1-17, God instructed Moses how and why to begin the sacrificial system. A sacrifice was needed to atone for sin. Leviticus says, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” Symbolic of sinless perfection, the sacrifice had to be perfect, without spot or blemish. Since the penalty for sin is death (all men die because all men sin) in order for a savior to save you, he would have to be sinless and die for you (death means eternal separation). If you come to God without a blood sacrifice, your own life is required!
This is how God legally forgives sin without compromising His justice. Justice and mercy were reconciled when Christ (Messiah) died on the cross. Three days later, Jesus took authority over sin and death when He raised Himself from the dead—by His own power!
The sacrificial system provided the world with 1,500 years of literal, historical, and theological context, so when Jesus died on the cross, this would all make sense. That is why when John the Baptist saw Jesus he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The sacrificial system ended when Jesus fulfilled this prophetic picture of salvation. He satisfied God’s perfect justice (the law of sin and death) once and for all!
The Ark of the Covenant contains the Ten Commandments. The top of the Ark, called “The Mercy Seat,” symbolically covers the law we have broken (our sin). The high priest went into the Holy of Holies in the Temple where the Ark was housed and sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the Mercy Seat—a complete picture of atonement for sin.
Simply stated, it’s because we have broken God’s law that we need His grace. How do you get saved from sin? Repent (change your mind and direction) and believe the Gospel. It’s found in 1 Cor. 15:3-4,
“…that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”
Christianity is not a religion, it’s a revelation, and once you’ve had the revelation it leads you to a personal relationship with God based on love not law. God is a person and you can know Him. We love Him because He first loved us and gave Himself for us that we might become children of God. We call God “Our Father.” You can know God too!
In Deut. 4:29 God said, “You shall seek Me and you shall find Me when you seek me with all of your heart and all of your soul.” In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by Me.”
John 3:16 says,
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
BUT HOW CAN ONE GOD BE A TRINITY?
God created tri-unites all around us—creation is a reflection of our Creator. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity proved mathematically (math being a perfect science) that we live in a three dimensional world: Time, space, and matter (which is energy) –a trinity of trinities.
- Time is a trinity: The past, the present, and the future. The past is not the present, the present is not the future, and the future is not the past. One is not the other, all are part of the same, none can exist without the other, and yet each one is distinct.
- Space: We live in a three-dimensional world: Height, width, and depth. Height is not width, width is not depth, depth is not height. One is not the other, all are part of the same, none can exist without the other, and yet each one is distinct.
- Matter is made up of atoms, and atoms have three basic components: protons, neutrons, and electrons. One is not the other, etc.
One molecule of water consists of three atoms—two hydrogen and one oxygen. Hydrogen by itself is flammable, and oxygen by itself is flammable. Combine them in a 2 to 1 ratio and you have a third substance which you can use to extinguish a fire! Can you rationally understand that? As you can see, whether or not you can rationally understand something does not preclude you from believing it. There are many more tri-unities all around us. Earth, wind, fire, light, and man (made in the image of God) are all triune and yet, one.
l Thess. 5:23 speaks of man’s spirit, soul, and body. Have you ever justified doing something in your mind, and afterward your heart, beating faster than normal, said, “You shouldn’t have done that?” That is your spirit (conscience) speaking to your soul!
The human brain is the most complex thing known to science. Your brain houses the mind (intellect), the will, and the emotions. The mind is not the will, the will is not the emotions, and the emotions are not the intellect. One is not the other, all are part of the same, none can exist without the other, and yet each one is distinct!
As you can see, the Trinity is not an unfathomable, irrational contradiction. There are “trinities” all around us. In this light, there is no logical or theological reason whatsoever, that Almighty God cannot sit on the throne in heaven, come to Earth as a man, and fill the whole world with His Spirit—all at the same time. He’s God! When Job questioned God, God asked Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth? Tell me if you have understanding!”
Interestingly, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity fit the Biblical account of creation perfectly. The very first verse in the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.” In the beginning (that’s time), God created (that’s energy), the heavens (that’s space), and the Earth (that’s matter)!
The Bible predicts the future—absolute proof of divine inspiration!
God gave us all the proof we would ever need to know which one of the so-called “holy books” was the right one. The Bible is the only book ever written that reveals thousands of prophecies concerning great historic events written hundreds and even thousands of years before they occurred! Events like the virgin birth, the place and time of birth, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and much more. Another recurring theme throughout the Bible is the birth, the death, and the rebirth of the nation of Israel (something we can see).
In Ezekiel 36-39 (written 2,500 years ago) God revealed that the Jews would be exiled from Israel (because of their sin), the land would remain desolate for a long period of time, and in the latter days, He would bring them back as a nation. He then says, “These things were written so that the nations may know that I am the LORD.”
In A.D. 70, the Roman army chased the Jews out of Israel, and they remained without a homeland for nearly 1,900 years. Then, on May 14th, 1948 they returned to establish a 2nd Jewish state, as promised by God.
According to Ph.D. astrophysicists and qualified scientists, the odds of the Bible’s more than 2,500 predictions being fulfilled by chance is one out of a number expressed as 1 with 2,000 zeros after it! According to the mathematical science of probability, if a number has more than 50 zeros after it, the odds of that happening by chance make it virtually impossible. Only someone with omniscience can predict the future with perfect accuracy.
The Koran says God’s Word cannot be changed. Here is the truth about Ishmael and Isaac…
In Genesis 17:19-22,
“God said: ‘No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.”’
More than two thousand, six hundred years later, Mohammed claimed Ishmael, not Isaac, was the rightful heir, and therefore the land belongs to the Arabs. That is why Muslims believe they must destroy Israel and take the land. If Israel prevails (or even exists), they will be forced to the inescapable conclusion Allah is not the true God, Mohammed was not a prophet, and the Koran is false!
You can be wrong about a lot of things, but if you are wrong about the sacrifice of Jesus to atone for your sin, you are wrong enough to spend eternity separated from God. The real battle is not between Jews and Arabs, God loves them both; it’s between the forces of darkness and the Prince of Peace. The battle is for your soul (what you believe). Truth…
It wasn’t the nails that held Christ to the cross—it was His love for you!
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