68,000 A Day!

Exodus 3:6, “Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

I listened to a series by Dr. Ergun Caner and Dr. Emir Caner, who are converted Christians and now both have earned doctorates. One is the President of Liberty University and the other is Dean at Southern Baptist Seminary. They were talking together about their Muslim faith and the Muslim faith in general, which is very eye opening. These two gentlemen know first hand what it is to be Muslim and then what it is to leave the faith.

The first statistic they gave was very eye opening and scary to say the least. They said that there are 68,000 converts to the Muslim faith every day. Every twenty four hours, sixty eight thousand people are turning away from their faith, whatever it is and turning to the Muslim faith. And if this is not enough, the Muslims have a goal to proselytize every American by 2013, and they have a 3 billion dollar commitment from Saudi Arabia to make this happen.

Both Dr. Caners were disowned by their father, and said that this is an act of mercy and probably only because they were in the U.S. at the time. In many countries still today it is a crime to convert from Muslim to Christianity. The penalty is that you are buried up to your waist and then you have a death cloth wrapped around you and then they stone you to death. They were talking about how this still happens today in countries like Turkey, North Africa, Afghanistan, United Emirates and Indonesia. One other country it happens in is a country we are trying to now befriend, Iran, which in my opinion is a very big mistake. If you want their reasoning then read their Surah 112, as that is considered the greatest Surah of the Qur’an.

I also liked how they talked about that the Muslim God is not the same as the Christian God, no matter how much the Christian wants to try to rationalize in some fashion that it is, because they claim Abraham as well. It is not the same God. First of all not one Muslim scholar would agree with the Christian trying to do this. We are trying to make something up that would not even be believed by the Muslim. Allah is not seen as a Father, and He makes decisions as he pleases and not based on what we believe because of God’s nature.

You have to look at the theological complexities between the two and not the linguistic aspects of these faiths. You may be able to find some words that line up and appear to seem like we are talking about the same God, but theologically we are millenniums apart. We have a Trinity, a Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and they have none of those and to espouse it is heretical. The closest they get to a name that says Allah is close is saying that he is next to your jugular, which is not because he loves you, but because he can kill you at any time. There are no intimate terms for Allah in all 99 of the names given to him by the Muslim. You live in fear within the Muslim faith and you live in freedom and peace in the Christian faith. They are nothing alike.

What I found interesting is their comparison of the Mormon faith and the Muslim faith. They say that Muslim is Medieval Mormonism. Mormonism has copied just about everything the Muslim faith has. Both say that all other religions are corrupted and both said they found tablets of gold. Muslims and Mormons teach that Jews and Christians lost their way, and they both teach works as a way to their heaven. Both make Jesus a celestial brother and that women in the end will be sexual servants. Lastly, they both teach that their leader, Muhammad or Joseph Smith, is the final prophet. They say that Satan just uses the same old tricks over and over again.

The Muslim faith is not the same faith as the Christian faith, and definitely does not have the same God. The question is, are all Muslims wanting death to the kafirs or infidels, those who do not turn to their faith? Well, you have to look at their eschatology, which I will do in the next blog. Then how do we reach them for Christ? What should you expect in witnessing to a Muslim? Again, we will be using the testimony of two Doctors who left the faith and paid heavy prices for it.

Acts 4:12, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name [Jesus the Christ] under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”