How Does Islam Compare with the Bible?
The Qur'an - Session 2
The Qur'an, the Muslim addition to the Bible, was reportedly recited to Muhammad in the year 610, by the angel Gabriel, in a cave where Muhammad had been praying, concerned over the idolatry that permeated the religion of his community. That is, the Qur'an began to be recited in the year 610. It was given to him in segments and added to at various times throughout his life.
The Muslim Claim: The Qur'an is without error and is the accurate word of God (Allah), who promised to keep it free from contamination.
The Qur'an is considered vital to the existence of Islam.
Some have supposed that the Qur'an is to a Muslim,what the Bible is to a Christian. But in actuality the Qur'an to a Muslim is like Christ is to a Christian. Granted, Muhammad is right up there at the top of their list, and it is true that they become extremely defensive if Muhammad is doubted or criticized, but they become much more agitated, angry and violent if the Qur'an is attacked. A few years ago a Florida pastor and his leadership put the Qur'an on trial. When they found it to be guilty of all of the charges against it, they sentenced it to be burned. The media did their best to downplay the publicity but news of it reached Afghanistan and other Islamic states and caused a great stir. They called on the US government to discipline those who desecrated the Qur'an.
The six main teachings of the Qur'an are the following:
(1) You must believe in Allah.
(2) You must believe in the Angels.
(3) You must believe in the Books.
(4) You must believe in the Messengers (prophets). Thousands of messengers have been sent, but the only ones that are known and valid are the ones named in the Qur'an.
(5) You must believe in the Day of Judgment. There is the torture and judgment in the grave, but the general/final judgment comes at the end of time.
(6) You must believe in Fate (pre-destination). Islamic fate teaches that God has ordained everything, including good and evil. However, they also believe in the freewill of individuals.1
The Qur'an has five 'pillars of action'.
In addition to what a Muslim must believe, the Qur'an contains the five pillars of action that a Muslim must maintain.
(1) Recite the Shahada - (Confession of Faith) "La ilaha illa'Llah; wa Muhammadun rasulu'Llah."
"There is no God but Allah; and Muhammad is Allah's prophet."
(2) Salat - Prayer (formal obligatory prayers 5 times a day, plus informal prayers)
(3) Sawm - Fasting during the month of Ramadan from daybreak to sunset of each day.
(4) Zakat - required donations to the poor (2_%)
(5) Hajj - Pilgrimage to Mecca (supposed Abrahamic origins)2
The origin or the giving of the Qur'an to Muhammad.
To refute the Muslim claim that the Qur'an is the accurate and unchanging word of God and that it is a conclusion or completion of the the Old and New Testaments of our Bible, we can do so in a number of ways. We can look at the internal content to see whether it agrees with scripture or not. And we will be doing some of that. And we can also look at the external evidence.
External (outside of the Qur'an) evidence: Muhammad's claim: it was given by an angel, Gabriel.
As believers we accept the premise that we have the complete word of God. We do not have the original manuscripts, but we have writings from the second century preachers who quote from the original manuscripts. We have numerous 'families' of copies. Among them the Alexandrian, The Cesarean, the Byzantine, The Western Text to name a few.
The total number of manuscripts that have been preserved is 5,6865. The internal consistency of the New Testament documents is about 99.5% .
Internal Evidence (that is, inside the Qur'an) – there are doctrines that are anti-Biblical, also proving this is not one of God's books.
- God is not a Trinity Sura 4.171 O followers of the Book! do not exceed the limits in your religion, and do not speak (lies) against Allah, but (speak) the truth; the Messiah, Isa son of Marium is only an apostle of Allah and His Word which He communicated to Marium and a spirit from Him; believe therefore in Allah and His apostles, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for you; Allah is only one God; far be It from His glory that He should have a son, whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth is His, and Allah is sufficient for a Protector.
- Jesus did not die on the cross. Sura 4.157 And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa [Jesus] son of Marium, the apostle of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for sure
158 Nay! Allah took him up to Himself; and Allah is Mighty, Wise.
159 And there is not one of the followers of the Book but most certainly believes in this before his death, and on the day of resurrection he (Jesus) shall be a witness against them.
- Jesus is not the Son of God. Sura 5.72 Certainly they disbelieve who say: Surely Allah, He is the Messiah, son of Marium; and the Messiah said: O Children of Israel! serve Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Surely whoever associates (others) with Allah, then Allah has forbidden to him the garden, and his abode is the fire; and there shall be no helpers for the unjust.
Compare the above with this: 1Jo 5:9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son.
10 ¶ He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son.
11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
Will a Muslim listen to any of our Biblical evidence that the Qur'an is not a book given by God? With great difficulty. They have been taught that the entire Bible has been corrupted. Their position is that the only things in the Bible that can be believed are those things that are included in the Qur'an.
So how can we reach them if they will not listen to our Bible? More on this later.
The Qur'an, with its claim that it is the accurate word of God, has made a significant retraction relating to teaching from an earlier passage:
At one point (in the very early days of Islam) Muhammad was concerned that he was not being believed in his own city of Mecca. He made a compromise. He said he received a new scripture from Allah. The Arabs in his city were worshipping, among other gods, a Moon god that had three daughters. This new scripture that he came up with expanded 'the Allah' that he had be presenting, into being the moon god, whose name was Al ilah, the father of three daughters (goddesses)6.
Here is a comment from http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Miracle/satanicverses.html
Muslim authorities admit that Muhammad was at one time inspired by Satan to put some verses into the Qur'an. Some time later, upon receiving further revelation from Jibril (Gabriel), that those verses were not from God, but interjected by Satan, they were removed again. The Qur'an reports about it in Surah 22:52
Never sent We a messenger or a prophet before thee but when He recited (the message) Satan proposed (opposition) in respect of that which he recited thereof. But Allah abolisheth that which Satan proposeth. Then Allah establisheth His revelations. Allah is Knower, Wise;
It seems that Satan was able to inspire some verses and nobody realized it until Allah pointed it out by giving further revelation.
At a later point Muhammad received this message from Allah (via Gabriel):
And they indeed strove to beguile thee (Muhammad) away from that wherewith We (God) have inspired thee, that thou shouldst invent other than it against Us; and then would they have accepted thee as a friend.
And if We had not made thee wholly firm thou mightest almost have inclined unto them a little.
Then had We made thee taste a double (punishment) of living and a double (punishment) of dying, then hadst thou found no helper against Us. (17:73-75)
(end quote)
So, in fact, what we have in the 'infallible' Qur'an, are some verses that Satan put forward7. These were actually included and accepted by the followers until such time as Allah corrected Mohammad. That is the view that is taken by present day Muslims. I, personally, don't believe any of the Qur'an came from God. I think Muhammad wrote exactly what he wanted to (inspired either directly or indirectly from a spirit who was not God). In his desperation to have his teachings accepted in his home town he compromised so that new followers would not have to give up their favourite goddesses. The compromise was successful and many of his people happily joined him, embracing his new religion of Islam.
When his compromise later bothered him, he wrote some new scripture to underscore that God has no offspring, and in so doing confessed that 'the Devil made him do it'.
We will discuss at a later point the subject of evangelizing or 'spiritually reaching out to' a Muslim. As you may have deducted, using the Word of God to reach them sounds hopeless. How can we use scriptures that they claim are totally corrupted?
For example – The fact that Jesus died for our sins as recorded in scripture is essential for them to believe. As we noted in session one:
Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
Acts 4:12
Isa 53:1 ¶ Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 ¶ Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
10 ¶ Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
But if they refuse to listen to scripture ... then what?
I will conclude with two thoughts:
1http://www.ldolphin.org/islamprimer.html
2http://www.ldolphin.org/islamprimer.html
3 Sometime in the second year after our removal to Manchester, there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion. It commenced with the Methodists, but soon became general among all the sects in that region of country . . . and great multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties .... Some were contending for the Methodist faith, some for the Presbyterian, and some for the Baptist . . . my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect . . . but so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible . . . to come to any certain conclusion who was right, and who was wrong .... So in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty . . . I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God . . . I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head. . . .
When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description .... One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other 'This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!' .... I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right, (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong) and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong .... I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors [believers] of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase; and though I was an obscure boy, only between fourteen and fifteen years of age . . . yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was common among all the sects all united to persecute me (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith - History, 1:5-8, 14-19, 22 ).
4 I Corinthians 13:9
5Norman Geisler & Peter Bocchino, Unshakeable Foundations, (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2001) p. 256.
6Have ye thought upon al-Lat and al-Uzza
And Manat, the third, the other?
These are the exalted cranes (intermediaries)
Whose intercession is to be hoped for. (53:19,20)
7For more on the subject of the Satanic verses see http://www.answering-islam.org/Hahn/satanicverses.htm
The Qur'an, the Muslim addition to the Bible, was reportedly recited to Muhammad in the year 610, by the angel Gabriel, in a cave where Muhammad had been praying, concerned over the idolatry that permeated the religion of his community. That is, the Qur'an began to be recited in the year 610. It was given to him in segments and added to at various times throughout his life.
The Muslim Claim: The Qur'an is without error and is the accurate word of God (Allah), who promised to keep it free from contamination.
The Qur'an is considered vital to the existence of Islam.
Some have supposed that the Qur'an is to a Muslim,what the Bible is to a Christian. But in actuality the Qur'an to a Muslim is like Christ is to a Christian. Granted, Muhammad is right up there at the top of their list, and it is true that they become extremely defensive if Muhammad is doubted or criticized, but they become much more agitated, angry and violent if the Qur'an is attacked. A few years ago a Florida pastor and his leadership put the Qur'an on trial. When they found it to be guilty of all of the charges against it, they sentenced it to be burned. The media did their best to downplay the publicity but news of it reached Afghanistan and other Islamic states and caused a great stir. They called on the US government to discipline those who desecrated the Qur'an.
The six main teachings of the Qur'an are the following:
(1) You must believe in Allah.
(2) You must believe in the Angels.
(3) You must believe in the Books.
(4) You must believe in the Messengers (prophets). Thousands of messengers have been sent, but the only ones that are known and valid are the ones named in the Qur'an.
(5) You must believe in the Day of Judgment. There is the torture and judgment in the grave, but the general/final judgment comes at the end of time.
(6) You must believe in Fate (pre-destination). Islamic fate teaches that God has ordained everything, including good and evil. However, they also believe in the freewill of individuals.1
The Qur'an has five 'pillars of action'.
In addition to what a Muslim must believe, the Qur'an contains the five pillars of action that a Muslim must maintain.
(1) Recite the Shahada - (Confession of Faith) "La ilaha illa'Llah; wa Muhammadun rasulu'Llah."
"There is no God but Allah; and Muhammad is Allah's prophet."
(2) Salat - Prayer (formal obligatory prayers 5 times a day, plus informal prayers)
(3) Sawm - Fasting during the month of Ramadan from daybreak to sunset of each day.
(4) Zakat - required donations to the poor (2_%)
(5) Hajj - Pilgrimage to Mecca (supposed Abrahamic origins)2
The origin or the giving of the Qur'an to Muhammad.
To refute the Muslim claim that the Qur'an is the accurate and unchanging word of God and that it is a conclusion or completion of the the Old and New Testaments of our Bible, we can do so in a number of ways. We can look at the internal content to see whether it agrees with scripture or not. And we will be doing some of that. And we can also look at the external evidence.
External (outside of the Qur'an) evidence: Muhammad's claim: it was given by an angel, Gabriel.
- We have only Muhammad's word on that.
In the year 1838 there is another account of a person receiving 'a word' from God. Joseph Smith saw two beings in air who spoke with him about starting a new Church and writing another testament.3 Who did Joseph see ... must we take his word for it? As a result of his 'vision' the Mormon church was born. - We have a description of Gabriel that does not fit the bible. The Gabriel that Muhammad describes caused him great fear. He squeezed him three times. After getting away he ran home and it took sometime for him to settle down. It was after talking with his wife about it that he decided that it was Gabriel. (How did he know of the name, Gabriel unless the angel identified himself? Remember the era in which Muhammad lived ... he would have had access to both old and new testaments.) Gabriel appeared to Daniel in the old testament. Daniel was not afraid. He appeared to Zachariah in the temple ... and was told by Gabriel, “Do not be afraid”. He appeared to Mary ... and told her to “Fear not”. From what we know of Gabriel it was never his intention to intimidate or create fear. Muhammad's Gabriel was very different from the Gabriel we know of in the bible.
- We have scriptures that clearly say that the Qur'an is not valid scripture.
- Ga 1:6 ¶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! Both Joseph Smiths new book and Muhammad's Qur'an are different gospels in that they present salvation as being by works, not by grace.
- Peter says that God, without giving any new addition, gave us all we need. 2Pe 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
- Paul says to the Corinthians that the Word of God was coming to completion and made no mention of a future book needed to wrap things up.
1Co 13:8 ¶ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; 10 but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.
Paul's topic in Chapters 12-14 in 1 Corinthians is not specifically about the Word of God. It was actually spiritual gifts ... their use and abuse that he was addressing. But we can learn something very important here about the word of God. Paul is using an incentive in his argumentation or instruction regarding the spiritual gifts that Christians had been given. As an incentive he had said ... I want to show you a better way. It was the way of love. And he clearly says that love is one of the spiritual gifts which is given to believers. He knows that in the Corinthian church there was a great tendency toward division. He even used the word 'puffed up' at one point, indicating pride. Who has the best, most showy and powerful gift? It was a pride contest going on. So he shows the quieter better way ... the gift of love. But he also adds some very interesting words which we have read above ... words that are not mentioned a lot in our churches of today for one reason or another. But knowing the truth about these verses will actually remove any doubt as to whether the Qur'an might be part of God's word.
So here's the truth:
- the gift of tongues won't last forever – verse 8
- neither will the gift of prophecy
- same with the gift of knowledge.
These will be done away with ... but three gifts will remain, they will not be done away with. They are 1. faith, 2. hope, and 3. love.
Because of prior teaching you may have received, you may have been told that the gifts would pass away at the coming of Christ. The reason we may have been led to believe this could be the words 'face to face'. And that would be very understandable except for ...
The gifts that would not pass away, faith hope and love, would have to last from the coming of Christ ... right on into eternity. But the greatest of these is love ...why did he separate it from the other two?
Thing about it ...- we won't need faith when Christ comes ... faith will become sight.
- We won't need hope – that is what we are waiting for and living for ... but we will have the hope realized. We won't need hope once Christ is here.
- But love ... we will need forever.
I say ... that the phrase 'face to face' refers to the coming completion of scripture ... the Bible. Paul refers to his normal way of teaching and preaching ... “we see 'in part'. Our knowledge is 'in part'”4. That is, Paul's ability to study the word was very limited. It was in part. God was speaking ... and Paul was writing ... and it was God's Word! But Paul still called it fragmentary. In these verses he is referring to a future time, about which God has spoken to him, when God's word would be complete. A person would be able to see it all and even see himself in it clearly. We look into God's book, particularly the New Testament, and we see a clear picture of ourselves. What a treasure we have. The complete word of God, available at any hour of the day ... 24/7.
As believers we accept the premise that we have the complete word of God. We do not have the original manuscripts, but we have writings from the second century preachers who quote from the original manuscripts. We have numerous 'families' of copies. Among them the Alexandrian, The Cesarean, the Byzantine, The Western Text to name a few.
The total number of manuscripts that have been preserved is 5,6865. The internal consistency of the New Testament documents is about 99.5% .
Internal Evidence (that is, inside the Qur'an) – there are doctrines that are anti-Biblical, also proving this is not one of God's books.
- God is not a Trinity Sura 4.171 O followers of the Book! do not exceed the limits in your religion, and do not speak (lies) against Allah, but (speak) the truth; the Messiah, Isa son of Marium is only an apostle of Allah and His Word which He communicated to Marium and a spirit from Him; believe therefore in Allah and His apostles, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for you; Allah is only one God; far be It from His glory that He should have a son, whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth is His, and Allah is sufficient for a Protector.
- Jesus did not die on the cross. Sura 4.157 And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa [Jesus] son of Marium, the apostle of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for sure
158 Nay! Allah took him up to Himself; and Allah is Mighty, Wise.
159 And there is not one of the followers of the Book but most certainly believes in this before his death, and on the day of resurrection he (Jesus) shall be a witness against them.
- Jesus is not the Son of God. Sura 5.72 Certainly they disbelieve who say: Surely Allah, He is the Messiah, son of Marium; and the Messiah said: O Children of Israel! serve Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Surely whoever associates (others) with Allah, then Allah has forbidden to him the garden, and his abode is the fire; and there shall be no helpers for the unjust.
Compare the above with this: 1Jo 5:9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son.
10 ¶ He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son.
11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
Will a Muslim listen to any of our Biblical evidence that the Qur'an is not a book given by God? With great difficulty. They have been taught that the entire Bible has been corrupted. Their position is that the only things in the Bible that can be believed are those things that are included in the Qur'an.
So how can we reach them if they will not listen to our Bible? More on this later.
The Qur'an, with its claim that it is the accurate word of God, has made a significant retraction relating to teaching from an earlier passage:
At one point (in the very early days of Islam) Muhammad was concerned that he was not being believed in his own city of Mecca. He made a compromise. He said he received a new scripture from Allah. The Arabs in his city were worshipping, among other gods, a Moon god that had three daughters. This new scripture that he came up with expanded 'the Allah' that he had be presenting, into being the moon god, whose name was Al ilah, the father of three daughters (goddesses)6.
Here is a comment from http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Miracle/satanicverses.html
Muslim authorities admit that Muhammad was at one time inspired by Satan to put some verses into the Qur'an. Some time later, upon receiving further revelation from Jibril (Gabriel), that those verses were not from God, but interjected by Satan, they were removed again. The Qur'an reports about it in Surah 22:52
Never sent We a messenger or a prophet before thee but when He recited (the message) Satan proposed (opposition) in respect of that which he recited thereof. But Allah abolisheth that which Satan proposeth. Then Allah establisheth His revelations. Allah is Knower, Wise;
It seems that Satan was able to inspire some verses and nobody realized it until Allah pointed it out by giving further revelation.
At a later point Muhammad received this message from Allah (via Gabriel):
And they indeed strove to beguile thee (Muhammad) away from that wherewith We (God) have inspired thee, that thou shouldst invent other than it against Us; and then would they have accepted thee as a friend.
And if We had not made thee wholly firm thou mightest almost have inclined unto them a little.
Then had We made thee taste a double (punishment) of living and a double (punishment) of dying, then hadst thou found no helper against Us. (17:73-75)
(end quote)
So, in fact, what we have in the 'infallible' Qur'an, are some verses that Satan put forward7. These were actually included and accepted by the followers until such time as Allah corrected Mohammad. That is the view that is taken by present day Muslims. I, personally, don't believe any of the Qur'an came from God. I think Muhammad wrote exactly what he wanted to (inspired either directly or indirectly from a spirit who was not God). In his desperation to have his teachings accepted in his home town he compromised so that new followers would not have to give up their favourite goddesses. The compromise was successful and many of his people happily joined him, embracing his new religion of Islam.
When his compromise later bothered him, he wrote some new scripture to underscore that God has no offspring, and in so doing confessed that 'the Devil made him do it'.
We will discuss at a later point the subject of evangelizing or 'spiritually reaching out to' a Muslim. As you may have deducted, using the Word of God to reach them sounds hopeless. How can we use scriptures that they claim are totally corrupted?
For example – The fact that Jesus died for our sins as recorded in scripture is essential for them to believe. As we noted in session one:
Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
Acts 4:12
Isa 53:1 ¶ Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 ¶ Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
10 ¶ Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
But if they refuse to listen to scripture ... then what?
I will conclude with two thoughts:
- Heb 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; Do you believe these two scriptures? The word of God is the Spirit's weapon, not ours. The Muslims do not believe our scripture. Suppose a thief breaking into a house had heard about firearms but personally did not believe what he had heard. Would his lack of belief make any difference if the householder decided to use one on him? We simply have to USE scripture, not explain it. - Jude 1:22 And on some have compassion, making a distinction; 23 but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. Number one above is somewhat useless if we ignore the power of this verse. “and on some have compassion ...” We must never underestimate the power of love.
1http://www.ldolphin.org/islamprimer.html
2http://www.ldolphin.org/islamprimer.html
3 Sometime in the second year after our removal to Manchester, there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion. It commenced with the Methodists, but soon became general among all the sects in that region of country . . . and great multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties .... Some were contending for the Methodist faith, some for the Presbyterian, and some for the Baptist . . . my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect . . . but so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible . . . to come to any certain conclusion who was right, and who was wrong .... So in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty . . . I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God . . . I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head. . . .
When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description .... One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other 'This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!' .... I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right, (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong) and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong .... I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors [believers] of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase; and though I was an obscure boy, only between fourteen and fifteen years of age . . . yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was common among all the sects all united to persecute me (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith - History, 1:5-8, 14-19, 22 ).
4 I Corinthians 13:9
5Norman Geisler & Peter Bocchino, Unshakeable Foundations, (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2001) p. 256.
6Have ye thought upon al-Lat and al-Uzza
And Manat, the third, the other?
These are the exalted cranes (intermediaries)
Whose intercession is to be hoped for. (53:19,20)
7For more on the subject of the Satanic verses see http://www.answering-islam.org/Hahn/satanicverses.htm