|
|
|
|
ome things just cannot be reconciled. Light is not darkness. Black is not white. Death is not life. Our society, and indeed the entire world, stands between Christ and Mohammed. We must make our choice between two world religions. We shall see in our study that the claims of Christianity and Islam are mutually contradictory. Christ holds the keys to life; Mohammed holds a sword. Do we choose Christ, or do we choose Mohammed? We hold that one of these two religions is true and one of them is not. To help us make our decision, we must study the matter closely. We must look to the original documents—the Bible and the Qur’an[1]—as the primary source material for an accurate portrayal of these two religions. As we move deeper into our study, we find that Islam has nothing in common with Christianity. The message of Christ can never be reconciled with Mohammad. Either Jesus is Lord or he’s not. And either the message of Islam is true, or it’s not. There are no middle grounds in the debate. We must confess that ours is a message that will not be welcomed in our pluralistic, multi-cultured, politically correct society. “There’s truth in all religions,” the liberal feel-good crowd likes to say. “Religion is man’s search for God and for truth.” “No,” says the Apostle Paul (if I may summarize in one sentence the first three chapters of his letter to the Romans). “Religion is man running away from God and His truth.” You see, Paul argues that man makes up his religion to suit himself rather than face the fact that he is a sinner on his way to an eternal hell apart from the presence of a very holy God. Islam, as we shall see, claims to be an authoritative revelation from Allah. But just as light is not darkness and death is not life, Allah is not God. The Allah of Islam has nothing in common with the God of the Bible. And the Christ of the Bible has nothing in common with Mohammed and the Qur’an. Between Christ and Mohammed is our effort to present a contrastive study between these two world religions. It is our desire to present a clear and concise summary of the differences between Christianity and Islam, between the Bible and the Qur’an, and between Christ and Mohammed. An integral part of your study of Between Christ and Mohammed should include our various study aids, all of which can be downloaded from http://davidsonpress.com. And please note that some editions of this book may also include a CD-ROM which contains teaching aids, such as a PowerPoint slide presentation with complete Speaker’s Notes to help you teach the message of Between Christ and Mohammed to your church, adult Sunday School, or youth group. The CD-ROM also includes the complete, searchable text of the International Standard Version New Testament. Charles Welty, Publisher Fullerton, CA [1]We shall also consider the Hadith in Chapter 11. Also, in our study we have included quotations from the International Standard Version of the Bible. Citations from the Qur’an are in English and in Arabic so that the student of Islam may review the selections from each sura in their original language. Foreword
merica is in a “new war.” The events of September of 2001 have permanently changed our world and whether we realize it or not, you and I are more deeply involved than we imagine. We cannot win a war unless we know who the enemy is. We need to understand the practical threats to our nation, to our way of life, and to the very freedoms which have allowed the enemy’s threats to be so proximate. Between Christ and Mohammed is an essential primer on the realities you, and I, and our loved ones are facing. The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was predicted many months in advance. And it was just a beginning. A nuclear or biological attack is virtually certain to follow. These are simply the inevitable consequences of the legacy of hate that has been inculcated for generations by evil forces that we must come to understand. The unbridled celebrations throughout the Muslim world during the days after the September 11 attacks speak volumes toward revealing the true hearts of our adversaries. Islam is the fastest growing religion on the Planet Earth. And it has a deeply sinister global agenda. It is hostile, and not just toward the Jews; it is committed to the destruction of the West in general, and to Christians in particular. The Qur’an, the source scriptures for Islam, is a warrior code with over 100 commands to violence against the non-Islamic “infidels.” Islam is committed to the destruction of Christians and Jews before Judgment Day. This isn’t a war of property or greed in the usual sense: it is a theological war. And in any cultural war, truth is the first casualty. We must not be prey to the myths and deliberate disinformation that is being promoted through an illiterate press or by hidden agendas. It is imperative that we understand what we are up against—and what the stakes are. The real truth is so shocking that we should be most grateful to have it presented by such recognized scholars in terms that are authoritative, well researched, and diligently competent. And it has been my privilege to know the authors personally. Each of them are among the most distinguished professionals I have encountered during my 40-year career in both strategic intelligence and biblical studies. And they are at significant personal risk in bringing you this material—which itself speaks to the issues at hand! As we begin to better understand the vicious trap that Muslims find themselves in, we also need to remember that the true Living God loves the Muslims—He died for them. The very fact that Muslims face a death sentence if they aspire to leave Islam for another religion underscores the sinister nature of their predicament. The real truth can set them free, too, if we are serious about the task. The real truth should shame the Islamic nations into permitting their oppressed captives to follow their own consciences. Reason and love must be allowed to prevail over the tyranny of ignorance and oppression. In the Name of the Living God, Charles W. Missler Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
|
|
