Islam & Israel ,POPE NEW WORLD ORDER
Dave Hunt
http://www.thebereancall.org/Newsletter/html/1990/nov90.php
We have commented to some extent upon the incredible changes taking place
in
Eastern Europe. And now comes the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, precipitating
the current Gulf crisis. One more piece of the puzzle falls into place,
pushing us along to what Gorbachev, Bush, the Pope and others are now
calling "a new world order."
Much attention has been given to the Iron and Bamboo Curtains of
communism.
Recent events are causing the world to take notice at last of the even
worse
Islamic Curtain. Behind that wall any religion but Islam is forbidden.
Converts to Christianity have been imprisoned and killed in large numbers
in
Islamic countries, often by their own family members. Freedom of the press
and of speech and of assembly, along with freedom of religion and the
import
of Bibles and Christian literature, have been denied behind the Islamic
Curtain even more strictly than behind the Iron Curtain.
Like Marxism, Islam has failed to produce the ideal society it promised.
Many Arab countries, in spite of billions in annual revenues from oil,
remain among the most primitive nations in the world, outside of their few
large modernized cities. Islam has perpetuated an autocratic feudalism and
cruelly held back basic human rights in the name of Allah.
While tolerating a great deal of homosexuality, Islam, to its credit, has
kept out much of the Western world's wickedness so rampant in nominally
"Christian" countries such as the United States. The immorality in the
West,
however, is contrary to the teachings of the Bible and is done in defiance
of Christ-whereas in Islamic countries much evil is due to the Koran
itself
and is practiced in the name of Allah and in obedience to his prophet,
Muhammad.
No one now calls for a Holy War in the name of Christ, as was once done by
the popes, and is still done in the name of Allah. Terrorism and the
taking
of hostages is not carried out in good conscience in the name of Christ
but
is done in the name of Allah. Christ taught us to love our enemies, to
turn
the other cheek. He seeks to win men's hearts with His love. In contrast,
Muhammad taught that Islam should be spread by the sword. That satanic
doctrine has been applied everywhere, beginning with Muhammad's own
Quraish
tribe in Saudi Arabia.
Islam's teaching that those who die fighting in its defense go immediately
to Paradise made the Arab armies almost invincible. After Muhammad's death
they conquered Persia, Turkey, all of North Africa, crossed the
Mediterranean to conquer Spain, and were well on their way to taking all
of
Europe when they were defeated in a.d.732 at the Battle of Tours in
France.
Thus was the "faith" of Islam taken to the world. It was either submit to
Allah and to the teachings of his prophet, Muhammad, or die. It is still
quite in keeping with their religion for Muslims to consider it their
honorable duty to kill Christians and Jews today.
Yes, there were the Crusaders, who struck back against the Arab invaders,
but they acted contrary to the Bible. Inspired by Pope Urban II, the
members
of the First Crusade went to recover "for the Church" the land that
rightfully belonged to Israel. Plundering, raping and murdering along the
way, they slaughtered all the Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem when they took
that "holy city" for the Roman Catholic Church. They were acting in direct
violation of the teachings of Jesus whose cross they claimed to be
carrying.
Not to be outdone by Islam's promise of instant Paradise for those who
died
in jihad, the Pope offered a "plenary indulgence remitting all punishments
due to sin...to those who should fall in the war."
The call by various popes for Holy Wars ranks among the worst violations
of
true Christianity from the Dark Ages and would never be repeated today.
The
shrill cry of jihad, however, is still heard and heeded. It is in perfect
harmony with Islam and with the deeds of its prophet, Muhammad. It is
impossible to understand the current situation in the Middle East, much
less
anticipate probable future developments there, except in the context of
the
religion that grips and motivates the Arab world.
Today's fastest growing religion, Islam means "surrender to Allah," the
God
whose revelations (the Koran) were allegedly dictated to the prophet
Muhammad. Here we encounter the first of many contradictions. In its early
chapters the Koran endorses the Old Testament and Gospels of the New as
inspired by God, appeals to their authority to authenticate Muhammad's
revelations and urges obedience to their precepts. Yet the Koran goes on
to
contradict the Bible by declaring that Jesus did not die upon the cross
for
our sins or rise from the dead, and that salvation is by one's own good
works rather than by grace through what God has done for us, etc.
To "explain" the flagrant contradictions between the Koran and the Bible,
which it affirms, Muslims insist that the Bible has been corrupted since
the
days of Muhammad. That this is a blatantly false charge is proved by the
many manuscripts in existence from the time of Muhammad and before, which
are identical to the Bible as we have it today. The Bible must be
discredited to maintain the claim that the Arabs, as descendants of
Ishmael,
are the true heirs of God's promises to Abraham. The Koran declares that
it
was Ishmael, not Isaac, whom Abraham was told to offer to God and to whose
descendants the land of Canaan was given.
In 1948, both Jews and Arabs were living in Palestine. Jews had been
trying
to return to the land of their ancestors for decades, but most were denied
entrance by Britain. Horrified by the murder of 6 million Jews in Nazi
extermination camps, the UN voted to partition Palestine (18 percent to
the
Jews) in order to create a small Jewish state as a place for resettlement
of
the survivors of Hitler's holocaust. The Palestinian Arabs were given 82
percent of Palestine as a state of their own. Insisting that Allah had
promised it all to them, and unwilling to allow a Jewish state to exist,
six
Arab nations attacked, confident of driving the Jews into the
Mediterranean.
Thus began the war of 1948. The Jews were forced to fight for survival
against a force far superior in numbers and equipment. Having been
allotted
such a narrow strip of land along the sea that it was indefensible, tiny
Israel, as part of her victory, pushed her boundaries outward to a more
defensible position.
Jordan subsequently annexed the remainder of Palestine that had been
partitioned to the Palestinian Arabs. Since that time the countries of
Jordan, Lebanon and Syria have refused to integrate these Palestinians
Arabs
into society, confining them to refugee camps. Most remain there today, to
keep the "Palestinian problem" alive.
Since 1948 the relentless cry of the Arabs has been to liquidate Israel,
which they have attempted to do in several wars. Israelis live under the
constant threat of all-out destruction by the surrounding Arab nations,
which outnumber them nearly 50 to 1. Had Israel been left in peace she
would
never have enlarged her borders. The Arabs have reaped the results of
their
own greed and hatred, which frustrates and angers them all the more. The
extension of Israel's boundaries has only taken place as a result of wars
she has been forced to fight in order to defend her very existence against
an enemy sworn to exterminate her.
The Golan Heights, for example, were long used by the Syrians for sniper
and
rocket attacks upon the Israeli farm settlements below. In the Yom Kippur
war of 1973, while the Egyptians simultaneously attacked across the Sinai,
the Syrians poured over the Golan and down into Israel with thousands of
tanks. The Israelis, caught by surprise and with only a small fraction of
Syria's tanks and men, drove the Syrians (at great cost of life) back over
the top of the Golan and the Egyptians back to the Suez Canal. Israel has
since relinquished the territory it took from Egypt under a peace treaty
with that country. On the other hand, in view of the continued threats of
extermination from Syria, which like other Islamic nations refuses even to
acknowledge its existence, Israel prudently retains the Golan Heights in
order to prevent its use once again as a point of harassment and attack.
When Iraq's forces overwhelmed tiny and defenseless but oil-rich Kuwait it
was only the swift action of the United States responding to Saudi
Arabia's
urgent appeal for help that prevented Saddam Hussein from taking over that
country as well. This brought about something that previously had been
unthinkable: "infidels" upon the soil of Islam's holiest nation defending
Mecca and Medina, Islam's two most sacred shrines, from Muslim enemies!
For
the first time in its history, the United Nations responded quickly and
almost unanimously to oppose with practical and severe steps an aggressor
nation, raising hopes of a truly effective "new world order." Equally
amazing, the majority of the Arab states sided with the UN against a
fellow
Islamic country.
One of Hussein's demands, however, appealed to most Arabs: that any
withdrawal of his forces from Kuwait should be linked to a similar
withdrawal of Israel from "occupied" Palestine. In their joint press
conference in Helsinki, Bush and Gorbachev disagreed on this point. Bush
correctly "saw no link between the Arab-Israeli dispute and the Gulf
crisis." Hussein's takeover of Kuwait was an act of unprovoked aggression,
whereas Israel occupies territory which it was forced to take in
self-defense.
All Arabs are now faced with some serious questions. Why did mobs of Arabs
give credence to the call for Holy War from Saddam Hussein, a Muslim who
was
ruthlessly trampling other Islamic nations? Why are fanatical Muslims
responsible for most of the terrorism and hostage-taking in the world and
seem to outdo infidels in the commission of atrocities? And if Allah is
all-powerful, why do infidels have to defend Mecca-and against Muslims?
The Emir of Kuwait's appearance at the UN presented an embarrassing
spectacle. An Islamic nation was appealing to a world of "infidels" to
help
rescue it from another Islamic nation, which was at that moment plundering
it and raping and torturing its citizens. Moreover, the Emir of Kuwait was
a
feudal monarch who, prior to Iraq's invasion, had muzzled the press and
jailed human rights activists. In exchange for UN liberation of Kuwait,
the
Emir will have to yield to pressures for democratic rule. Change must come
to the Arab world.
The West has suddenly awakened to the fact that six Arab families ruling
from feudal thrones control 44 percent of the world's oil reserves. The
pressure of world opinion and growing grass-roots movements in those
countries will eventually force new freedom and rights for citizens.
Democracy must come to the Arab world as it is painfully coming to the
communist world. That will weaken Islam's fanatical hold so that Muslims,
too, can become part of Antichrist's empire and religion.
As the collapse of communism is providing great opportunity for the gospel
to be made known and received by many in Eastern Europe, so the coming
upheavals in the Arab world will bring similar opportunities. After
centuries of almost no response to the gospel, Muslims are now coming to
Christ as a result of facing some of the serious shortcomings and
contradictions in Islam. It promises heaven, but offers little assurance
of
getting there, except by death in Holy War. As in Catholicism, where
nothing
is ever enough to keep one out of purgatory, so in Islam one never knows
whether enough prayers have been said, enough alms given and enough good
deeds done to bring one to Paradise.
Confronted at last by some of the embarrassing questions about Islam, the
faith of many Muslims is being shaken. Why did Muhammad with his "new
revelation" give his God the same name, Allah, as the chief idol in the
ka'aba, the ancient pagan temple at Mecca? Why, although he destroyed the
idols which it housed, did Muhammad retain the ka'aba itself as a sacred
shrine? And why did he keep and continue to revere the Black Stone that
had
long been worshiped along with the idols in the ancient religious
ceremonies
of Mecca? And why do Muslims consider the ka'aba holy and kiss its Black
Stone as an important part of their pilgrimage to Mecca?
Muslims everywhere can no longer deny that Islam has perpetuated a
barbaric
medieval mentality. Surely they recognize that the continued taking of
hostages, murder and terrorism and the frequent spectacle on television of
crazed mobs screaming "Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!"-"Death to Bush!" and "Death
to
the United States!" does not encourage Western viewers to put much
confidence in a "peaceful Arab solution" to problems in the Middle East.
And
when a Salman Rushdie, because he writes something offensive to Muslims,
has
a price put on his head by Islam's foremost leader and must go into hiding
to save his life from Muslim assassins, are Arabs proud of such barbarism,
and do they feel that it commends Islam to the world? And to be able to
beat
one's four wives and unlimited concubines and to divorce merely by
pronouncing it done, and to cut off hands and feet for petty thievery, as
the Koran decrees? Surely the time for change has come!
Unfortunately, the pressure for change is also bringing a growing openness
to ecumenism that is preparing the Muslim world to embrace the Antichrist.
The new attitude was expressed by M.A.Zaki Badawi, principal of the Moslem
College of London, while in attendance at the August, 1990, San Francisco
Assembly of the World Religions. In response to Sun Myung Moon's
announcement that he was the new world Messiah, Badawi made this
interesting
comment: "We don't accept Rev. Moon as Messiah, but we respect his vision
of
bringing the world's religions together." The next step is easy.
Satan's messiah will have incredible powers that neither Moon nor any of
the
other lightweight antichrists can display. We have already noted that
Jesus
specifically declared that Israel would accept the Antichrist. It is no
longer so difficult to imagine that, with a little more preparation,
Muslims, too, will be able to embrace and even worship the counterfeit
"Christ"-while still professing allegiance to Islam. For Islam's Allah,
after all, is not the God of the Bible that Muhammad claimed him to be.
Events are moving rapidly. God in His grace is allowing great
opportunities
to share the gospel for the last minute gathering in of communists,
Muslims
and others who have not heard it (Lk 14:21-23). Let us reap this harvest
quickly, for the time is short. Christ's coming for His church is very
near.
May we live and witness for Him to His glory more faithfully and joyfully
than ever!
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