Defense of the Faith - Western Religions & Worldviews Part I
Vern Peterman · Jun 14, 2015
Defense of the Faith, No. 23
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492656434769

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

For this Sunday, we'll look at Western religions and then Eastern religions for next Sunday. So anyway, one point we have here is religion, what is it? It's a personal or institutional set of system of beliefs and practices rooted in the view of human life in the physical world and in the relationship with the spiritual realm or denial thereof. So the major world religions, most minor religions, have a definition of the spiritual realm that affirms its existence and defines a relationship of humans to that realm. Agnosticism is what? What is agnosticism?

Yeah, we haven't decided yet, we don't know, some cases a statement of we can't know, that kind of thing, right? Why would we cover that as an elective here at Holly Hills? Why would discussing those be something important? To know what other people do or don't believe. And you started to say something Marilyn?

We deal with people in the world. Yeah, we encounter various people. The Western religions, we'll focus on three, basically Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. And look at those three. Are there other Western religions aside from those? Yeah, actually, in fact, lots of them. One fellow that I've been interacting with is dealing with a nephew of his that is into Odinism. You may say, what is that? It's Norse religion.

It's going back to the religion of Scandinavian and English cultures before Christianity came into being. or into place, the message of Christianity came in. So in that case, this is dealing with things like Thor, right? And so the religion prior to Christianity being introduced. A lot of cultures have a pre-Christian culture or religion or In some cases, not even the introduction of Christianity.

So there's a lot of native religions. I encountered that when I went to Uganda. A lot of native religion that was there. And it's important for us as Christians to be able to understand in some degree and address those when we talk to people, rather than just kind of saying, OK, we got this one. and we don't know about anything else.

One of the things we point out in here, Western religions, the main Western religions are all centered on the person of Abraham. Isn't that interesting? Judaism and Christianity and Islam, all three of those major Western religions are based on the person of Abraham.

They simply look at Abraham differently. They look at Abraham differently. The Roman Catholic Catechism acknowledges the Muslims who look to Abraham and doesn't acknowledge the Protestants. So this guy Abraham, it turns out, in the Western world, is a pretty critical and important guy. and how one looks at him ends up determining which group a person falls under.

You have a chart on your handout there on the lower left and it shows descendancy from Ishmael and then through Sarah and Isaac and then Keturah. And it was interesting in Islam that that place called the Dome of the Rock, that's looked upon as the place where Abraham offered up Ishmael, not Isaac. So they have the same person, the same rock, but their account put centuries later.

Is that in the Koran? Yeah, it's in the Koran. And then they have also, their other document less often spoken of is the Hadith. So the Koran... That was written quite a bit later than the Bible. Yes, if you look at it, the Bible was written Old Testament from about 1400 to about 400 A.D. and then the New Testament written in the first century. Muhammad died in 632 A.D. and so his revelations roughly 600. So many centuries after the Old Testament was written.

Yeah, Roy? I'm just wondering if this even applies, but weren't the Muslims, that we know today, a conquered religion? In other words, they amalgamated a whole bunch of different religions in Africa into one. Yeah, that's something we'll cover, and that's a very important point. Islam was formulated from about 300 Arabic tribal religions. And like I say, Muhammad died about 632.

He had contact with some Jews and the reason was because Jews were taken over to Babylon, right? And Babylon and Persia, so he had contact with Jews. He had contact with some rather peculiar Christians. They were followers of a guy named Mani, M-A-N-I. And so he actually did have contact with them.

The Quran and the Hadith is based on a different set of traditions about all the people that you see in the Old and New Testament. The Muslim traditions are all in conflict with the Jewish and Christian traditions and history. And so the Koran talks about Isa, Jesus, and Mary, and talks about Moses, and as we went throughout Israel, just a few months ago, as we went throughout Israel, we found that Muslims had traditions about the same people and the same places that were in conflict with the Christians at every single point. It's like the whole thing was set up to put them in conflict with the Jews and the Christians. But at every single point, written centuries after the New Testament, at least 500 years, if not more. Five to six hundred years later, after the New Testament, all completely in conflict with Christianity and Judaism. Yeah, you bring up a good point. But it is all set in conflict.

Even things like the place where Peter met with Simon the Tanner is different for, in Joppa, is different for Islam than it is for Judaism or Christianity. Yeah, Stan? Igar came from Egypt and has a cultural background. A good question, I don't know the answer to that right off. Take a look at that. But that also sets off a different cultural background and tradition. That's right, and Haran, and Keturah, I'd have to look that up if it has any answers.

So real interesting, this guy Abraham is at the core, and yet the understanding of what this guy was and who it was that was critical is different. We say, Father Abraham and many sons, and by faith we are sons of Abraham. This is the teaching of the book of Galatians.

Galatians 3.7, Therefore be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. But other genealogical connections are put together by Muhammad. Let's take a look at the table that is on page 2.

It shows side-by-side Christianity, and boy, we say Christianity, and boy, that's got a whole bunch of different groups and denominations. The last count that I read of was about 30,000 different Christian denominations and sects and groups. 30,000 different Christian denominations, sects and groups. Founded in the first century A.D., Judaism you would say is founded in the 15th century B.C., and Islam, 7th century A.D. So those would be some very different groups.

Now, here's a question. If you have a later record, is that record of something historical less reliable? than something that's earlier. Very likely. So what that says at the outset is that Islam's record of what happened centuries and centuries before is likely less accurate. Just at the outset, without checking anything out. Because it happened many centuries later.

And as it so happens, Muhammad, who claims to have gotten this revelation from Gabriel, this is the same angel who supposedly revealed things to Mary. Muhammad has a number of things written in the Quran and the Hadith, which was later, but essentially the Quran, which are in chronic conflict with Judaism and Christianity. Every location, every person, the revelation is in conflict with what the Jews and the Christians have as the record. It's like the conflict was set up All right, then we have as the founder, Jesus was the founder of Christianity. And actually, what we would say is, well, wait a minute. That actually started far earlier, right? Because we take what we call the Old Testament as valid revelation. But nonetheless, that's how most would see it.

Judaism by Moses. Now, was Moses the first Jew? No, no. Who was the first Jew? It started with Abraham, and we look at that chart there, and then it goes through Isaac, and then through Jacob, and it's the sons of Jacob who are the heads of the tribes of Israel.

And then for Islam, Muhammad. Spelled in different ways, we have one spelling there. Now, saved by, and we would say by faith, however, many parts of Christendom, I'll call that, many parts of Christendom say faith and works. What are some parts of Christendom that say faith and works saves you? The Roman Catholic belief is one that says faith and works. In fact, by what you do or don't do, you may lose your salvation in Catholicism. You may lose your salvation and you may spend purgatory if you don't have sufficient merit. So there's a lot of element of works there in Catholicism. Is that the only part of Christendom that has works as being important?

Can you think of some others? Yeah? Actually, the Southern Baptists are pretty ingrained in works. Yeah, Southern Baptists can be ingrained in works. We have different Christian cults that are ingrained in works. The Seventh Adventists, you know, you've got to do it on the Sabbath, right?

Jehovah's Witnesses, you've got to go knock on door to door. So works is very important to a number of different sects and segments of what's called Christianity. I would prefer to call it Christendom. Yes? Reform theology tends in that direction, doesn't it? Yeah. Very much works-oriented. Ever heard of the Protestant ethic? Right? And boy, you better get your works done, right? So, yeah. I think that there are a lot more works incorporated than just faith. Yeah, you need to get the works in there, right? And, yeah. What is reformed theology? Okay, let's talk about that. What is reformed theology? During In the 1500s, Martin Luther was one of the early reformers, if you will, who came in there.

And you also had John Calvin. Martin Luther was in an area where there was lots of conflict and it actually turned military. Lots of conflict there. But then you also had John Calvin who set himself up in Geneva where he was somewhat militarily isolated and defended. And John Calvin was also the start of the Presbyterian Church because John Knox from Scotland went and spent some time with him.

Reformed theology developed into, for instance, the Presbyterian Church, and Reformed theology went into Holland, where it was actually institutionalized. The Reformed theology looks at Calvinism as the foundation and the basis, the teachings of John Calvin and his institutes, He wrote commentaries on much of the New Testament. He was rather puzzled by what Revelation says, so he didn't write a commentary on that. But much of the New Testament he wrote about.

A lot of the teachings of Calvinism center on the tulip, the five points of Calvinism. Total depravity, which they would say is you're out on a slab, cold dead, spiritually, and kind of stepping through the five points of Calvinism. It focuses on God's sovereignty. So at any rate, that's at the core of the teachings of John Calvin. are at the root of reformed theology and other theologies that derive from his teaching. So is that salvation is guaranteed or you can lose it? It's interesting, in Calvinism, I mentioned the tulip.

The last one is perseverance of the saints. So whereas the Catholic teaching would be you can lose your salvation by committing a mortal sin, John Calvin would say you can't lose your salvation. However, you must persevere as a Christian. And if you don't or didn't, then that proves that you never were a Christian. So essentially, I would call it backdoor loss of salvation. You're saved except that you didn't persevere, so you must not have ever been saved. Rather than saying, once saved, always saved. Yeah, Roy?

I guess that would then classify John MacArthur with the Lordship salvation. Similar to that, not the same, but he does believe that we're saved by faith. It's just the evidence of whether you were saved or not is the issue. Yeah, you know, Roy brings up a good point. John MacArthur, who unfortunately has centered a bunch of teaching on himself as a person, which I think is a mistake, but he has put forth the idea that you make Christ both Savior and Lord at the initial point of salvation, and therefore they call it Lordship Salvation. And by adding that, then he kind of builds that on top of the Calvinist idea of the perseverance of the saints. so that if a person appears to fall away or go fleshly or something of that sort, that they never were saved. So yeah, it makes it a bit more complex.

I would say this, that here's the Apostle Paul, he talks to the Philippian jailer in Acts 16. What must I do to be saved? What does he say? What does the Apostle Paul say? Believe. And does he say you've got to believe and make him Lord? No, he does not. He doesn't even use an intensified form of believe, which is possible in the Greek. You have to super believe, epi. He doesn't even say that. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Yes, Dan? I was just going to ask, over here where you say under Islam, I don't want to change languages, but under Islam it just says it works, but with their belief in Allah and the Qur'an, all the things in the Qur'an, that require faith in this system, why isn't faith part of it? Yeah, let's talk about that. You bring up a good point.

Because in Islam, it's what you do. It is what you do that matters. So faith is, however, not saving. It's what you do, yes, faith, but it's what you do that matters. How many times are you supposed to pray every day? Five times. I fly into Dubai and walk into the airport and first thing I hear is this prayer call. It's what you do in Islam that matters. Faith by itself in Islam is useless. Faith is useless, it's what you do that saves you, period.

So it's the faith that gets you to the works. Yes. So you can be saved. Yeah. Whereas Christianity is faith that saves and then the works are serviced. Yeah, very well put. Biblically speaking, for Christians, works are the product and the outcome of faith. In Islam, specifically, it is what you do that matters. distinction there is it is important, in fact essential, in Christianity that you know God. That you know God. Allah, however, in Islam is unknowable. Huge difference. Huge difference. You don't even try to know Allah, because that's not possible. You can't know Allah. It's not possible. You're not encouraged to try to know Allah.

He has revealed what you must do. Period. Huge difference. Massive difference. So that's the answer to your question. Faith is useless unless it results in works in Islam. Judaism has a combination of faith and works and it varies within the different sects of Judaism as to what counts the most. A key point here in this is neither Christianity nor Judaism nor Islam is monolithic. That is, none of them are the same throughout. of those different groups. We'll find the same in Eastern religions.

Heaven. There is one ultimate heaven for us as Christians, with crowns and rewards in place. In Judaism, it's rather vague, but three levels of heaven, and some of them focus not on heaven at all. We hear about Seventh Heaven, that's Islamic, that's not Christian. It's weird that they had this TV show called Seventh Heaven and Christians don't teach seven levels of heaven, it's the Islamic teaching that has seven levels of heaven, so really weird.

And then Purgatory. There is no teaching of Purgatory in the Bible. It was added on as a Roman Catholic teaching. It basically came out of the Egyptian religion. That's where the Roman Catholic teaching on Purgatory came from. In Judaism, there is no teaching about Purgatory. Islam, they do have a teaching about purgatory.

For those who are saved by their works, they may still have works yet to deal with. And then man's nature, interesting, man's nature in Christianity says he is sinful and therefore needs to be saved. In Judaism, it's interesting, man is good and bad. And so the sense of the need for salvation in Judaism is not as clear. Islam has a different teaching on it. It says man's nature is not necessarily sinful, but it's what you decide to do. Again, it's based on works.

What do you do? It's not your nature to be sinful, but if you decide good things or bad things in Islam, that's the critical question. Yes, Dan? And that's determined by Sharia law, right? Yeah, yeah. It's just what do you do, and here's Sharia law, and the Sharia law says here's what you did, and here's what you didn't do, and here's the consequences for what you did or didn't do. That's it. It's all based on what you do. So faith by itself does nothing in Islam. It is your works, period.

Then you have a question of double predestination. Does God choose those who are going to go to heaven, and does God choose those who are going to go to hell? In Christianity, the only ones who believe in double predestination are some hardline Calvinists that believe some are chosen to go to hell and some are chosen to go to heaven. That is not true in Judaism except historically the group called the Essenes, the ones who are believed to have been the ones who left the Dead Sea Scrolls, the group called the Essenes believed that they were chosen of God And those blankety-blank Pharisees and Sadducees were the ones who were chosen to go to hell. So they believed in double predestination.

They were the hardline Calvinists of Jesus' time. Jesus never mentioned them. In fact, nowhere in the New Testament are they mentioned, except where Jesus says, You know, in this Matthew chapter 5, you hate your enemy and love those who are with you. And you hate your enemy because those are the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And they're definitely going to hell. Yes.

Was John the Baptist in this scene? No. There are people who speculate that John the Baptist and or Jesus were Essenes. Jesus' teaching, however, was actually, believe it or not, closer to the Pharisees than to the Essenes. And John the Baptist was not, right? Yeah, John the Baptist was not. John the Baptist was one who pointed to Christ, right? And the idea that here's Jesus who died for the sins of the whole world, that's not double predestination. John the Baptist says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, right?

And so, John the Baptist was even, in pointing to Christ, was not addressing people like the Essenes would. The Essenes would have said, if you're not of us, you're going to hell. And that's not Christ. Christ talked to The Pharisees and the Sadducees said, unless you believe, you will die in your sins. But the Essenes wouldn't even talk to them. The Essenes wouldn't even talk to them.

When you say double predestination, isn't there just one? Did God say, If you're not one, you're the other, right? So if you're predestined to hell, then you must be predestined to heaven, vice versa. Yeah, that's double predestination. These are chosen to go to heaven, and these are chosen to go to hell. That's the double predestination teaching. So there's two choices, and those are exclusive to any other destination.

Yes, and the teaching of double predestination is God chose you to go to hell. And which a hardline Calvinist would say, God chose you to go to hell. He didn't choose you to go to heaven, therefore you're going to hell and that's God's sovereignty and that's it. So the choice, God chooses people to go to heaven and then by whatever's left over goes to hell. Yeah, that's right. So he chooses people to go to heaven? Yeah, he chooses people to go to heaven and chooses people to go to hell and that's it. God's sovereign, right? That's that view.

The Messiah to come. Yes, there's a second coming with some exceptions and variations. The amillennial view is that Christ will come again. There's one last and final coming. There is no thousand year millennial kingdom. There is no tribulation period. Just Christ will come again. That's it.

And then, aside from that, then there are those who will say Christ already came in judgment against the Jews in 70 AD, and those are your preterists, and they have varying degrees of preterism. The Orthodox Judaism believe, yes, Christ is still coming, the Messiah is still coming, they believe that the Messiah is not divine, not deity. I sat down with an orthodox rabbi here some dozen years ago, and his way of stating it is, we will ask the Messiah when he comes, is this your first or your second time? So that's kind of the big issue. So they would say, the Messiah is still coming, he is not deity, he is a descendant of David, and he will draw the Jews together.

Then in Islam they say Isa, who was Christ, is to come again, he's going to bow to Mohammed and die for the first time. They believe that Jesus didn't die on the cross, it was somebody else. That's their teaching. There are various teachings on that, because again, Islam is not monolithic, and you'll have imams from one group that are not acknowledged in another group. So that's one thing, because Islam is not monolithic, you'll have a variety of teachings. But this is the common teaching that Jesus will ultimately bow to Muhammad. Jesus will ultimately bow to Muhammad.

And then finally, the scriptures. We say the 66 books of the Old and New Testament. And then various groups will have a different apocrypha. I know, Tim, you had mentioned, for example, the Book of Enoch. The Book of Enoch is acknowledged by some Christian groups, Ethiopia is one that I can think of, as part of the Apocrypha. So when we say the Apocrypha, that is added to the Bible by different groups, it's got different definitions as to what's included. The Catholics have one apocrypha, the Orthodox have another one, and different groups will vary that among the Orthodox as to what they add to the 66 books of the Bible.

Then you have, among Judaism, they have the Tanakh, which is what we call the Old Testament. And then they will have, in addition to that, other traditional writings. The Mishnah would be an example of one of their traditional writings that gets added to the Old Testament. Don't they have the Psalms and the Prophets? The Psalms and the Prophets, and primarily they focus on the Torah.

Again, when I sat down with this rabbi about a dozen years ago, I talked about Isaiah and Daniel, and very interestingly, he says, yes, those are our holy books, and I don't want to talk about them. And some of the reasons why you wouldn't want to talk about them is Daniel actually gives the criteria for when Christ would come. and nails it down to a particular date.

The book of Isaiah in Isaiah 53 was for centuries, even among the Jews, looked upon as this is describing the Messiah, the suffering Savior. About 1850, the Jews all switched and said that Isaiah 53 is all about Israel. So, yeah, and it's because they just got in this conflict with Christians, because you look at it, you know, all we like sheep have gone astray, turned everyone to his own way, you know, and our wounds, or his wounds, you know, take our sins upon him. It sounds like Jesus.

And it even talks about death, burial, and resurrection. And they just got to a place where they just said, I won't talk about it anymore with Christians. It sounds too much like Jesus. like the jihadists and the terrorist people, don't appear to have any kind of guilty conscience, and when they've done works of terror or shot kids on the way, and I'm wondering if the fact that they say, submit or I'm going to cut your head off, and you choose not to submit, to worship Allah, and yes, He's God, then does that mean that you're already predestined to be condemned, therefore I can cut your head off and I don't have to do that? That's right, that's right.

No pains of conscience whatsoever. Because what happens is Allah's will. We think of God and we think of God's character We think of God being merciful, and God being loving, and God being gracious. We think of God providing a means of salvation that is gracious. But in Islam, they don't talk about God's character because God is unknowable. So in Islam, what you hear about is God's will, Allah's will, and Allah's power.

And so if you don't convert to Islam, then it's obvious, at least in that mindset, it's obvious that since you didn't convert to Islam, that you weren't chosen. And therefore, cutting your head off for doing whatever is of no particular consequence, because you're going to go to hell anyway.

I just changed the timing, right? This is their mindset. So, yeah, there would be no pangs of conscience whatsoever. This is why the guys could just fly this airliner into the Twin Towers. And it's the right thing to do. As a matter of fact, if it happened, that's all is well. So a much different mindset about God. And that translates into, I'm just fine with doing these horrible things.

Allah has power and Allah has will, but Allah does not have consistent character. And by the way, one of the things we talked about earlier in this elective, it's the Christian assumptions about God that allowed the establishment, that provided for the establishment of modern science. Islam could not be the foundation of modern science because in Christianity, God is a God of consistency and a God of order. But the God of Islam does not provide a basis for modern science because God is not consistent and God is not a God of order.

He's a God of will and power. That's it. Real different. And so that's why only the Christian presuppositions in essentially Europe, even though there were different kinds of Christians, That's the foundation of modern science. And Islam could never go there because God is completely inconsistent. God might will by his power to do this or that, and those inconsistencies are not a problem at all for Islam. It's whatever Allah wills, it's whatever Allah does by his power, and everything else doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if that's inconsistent character in Islam. Yeah, a very good point. Did we cover your point about double predestination there? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Roy? I've heard it said that the fear of people's needs is bad for a junaid. Yeah, here's what happened with that.

In the Roman world, they had, of course, Roman numerals, right? And they're really awkward. We use it somewhat. Even here at Holly Hills, we'll use Roman numerals to number things from time to time. But no way to express zero, for example. So that really limited it.

And it was actually an introduction from the Arabic numerals that brought our current math symbols, you know, 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. So we got various aspects of our modern, you know, mathematics and whatnot from different religions and cultures. The Babylonians, for example, are the ones who introduced, you know, degrees in the circle, you know, 360 degrees in a full circle. So we got various things from other cultures over time, and it's actually Indo-Arabic where we got our mathematics symbols. But while different cultures over time provided different things, and even the Greeks had things to contribute, the Babylonians had things to contribute, It was Christianity that developed modern science where I can go back and look at something and test it.

Let's take it for instance, the Greeks went and developed different theories and mathematical ideas, but the Greeks looked down upon servants. Whereas Christianity looked upon servanthood as that's a good thing. And experiments among the Greeks then were looked upon as that's servant work, I don't want to do that. Where you go repeatedly like Edison did, well let's try this filament and that filament and that filament, that would be looked upon as, among the Greeks, I don't want to do that, that's servant work. Christianity, however, with its principle of humility, would look at, I will work hard and try different kinds of things, and even try things that end up correcting my understanding. That was a Christian viewpoint that brought about modern science.

Aristotle would make speculations, but the idea of actually testing something to correct my understanding was looked down upon as that's bad. So therefore Aristotle held until guys like Galileo and Kepler and different ones had the idea of servanthood is okay. Being a servant is okay and testing out an idea is okay. Matter of fact, it's a good thing. But the Greeks didn't get there, the Muslims didn't get there, and the reason they didn't is it took the full set of Christian worldview assumptions to develop modern science. Okay, let's take a look here.

The last thing in the scriptures on this table, you've got the 66 books of the Old and New Testament, plus the Apocrypha among the Catholics and different Orthodox groups, which varied. It's not consistent among them. The Tanakh, the Old Testament, as we call it, and then they have some written traditions. And that primarily is focused on the Torah, the first five books, the Pentateuch as we've come to call it. In Islam, they have the Quran and the Hadith. Then there's the math dividing in addition.

Christianity typically is looked upon as there's Orthodox groups. You have Serbian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox. And I talked to this one fellow who had been caught up in the Antiochian Orthodox, you know, out of Antioch, the Antiochian Orthodox Church. There are about two dozen different Orthodox groups.

And then there's a Roman Catholic. By the way, Roman Catholicism is not monolithic. There are about 200 different Catholic groups. Some of them broken off from the Pope that's in Rome there. Within Catholicism there's a great deal of variation. Different ones.

And then Protestant, I actually don't count myself as a Protestant, because the Protestants were the ones who protested against the Roman Catholics and actually persecuted. those who didn't believe quite the same they did, as they did. So, for example, those who believed that infant baptism was not correct, but rather you should be baptized once you believe with a mature understanding, not necessarily adult understanding. The various groups, they're called Anabaptists, And over the centuries, they've been persecuted by both Roman Catholics and the various Protestant groups. In the 1500s, about 4,000 to 5,000 Anabaptists were killed, in part by the Catholics and in part by Lutherans, those of the Reformed faith, because they didn't believe in infant baptism.

So even though I put that in it as a third category, I wouldn't count myself as a Protestant. Judaism has Orthodox, and by the way, until about 1600, there wasn't anything else but Orthodox Judaism. Then there's conservative and Reformed Orthodoxy among the Jews. Reformed, I say, didn't exist except in the last few centuries. And the Reformed folks don't take the Bible very seriously.

I'm told that the conservative Jews in this area are very close to the Orthodox in terms of their beliefs, but elsewhere may not be. You mean here in Denver? Here in the Denver area, yep. But elsewhere they may not be. So interesting. Conservative doesn't necessarily mean conservative, as we would think of it. Orthodox is holding straight to the teachings of the Tanakh. And then Islam, I have Sunni and Shiite, but that's the main differences. There's all kinds of minor variation. Stan? What is the primary difference between Sunni and Shiite? Which one is Iran? Iran? Let me make sure of this here. Sunni. Iran is Sunni.

And what happens between those different groups, one can kill the other. You're so bad that taking your life is just no problem at all for me. And it's a problem right now, but here's a weird thing, and we saw it when we were over in Israel just a few months ago. Saudi Arabia and Israel are cooperating. Against whom? Against Iran. And it's the Sunni and Shiite problem. It's now come to a head.

So you'll have someone in Iran who is some Ayatollah and has these different titles, but he's of a different group, and he can declare a death sentence to people of the other group. And ISIS then would be Sunni, right? Pardon? ISIS would be Sunni? ISIS. Oh, ISIS. I'm sorry. ISIS.

Yeah, and so that's part of the problem, too, is they'll come in there and just slaughter Muslims. We use the word Muslims, but they're of the other group. And they have no problem at all slaughtering the other group. And it is rooted in what part of the family are you connected with, with Muhammad?

So are they Sunni then? Who? ISIS? Yes. They tend to be Sunni and they have no problem at all slaughtering other Muslims. No problem at all. Even other Sunnis? Yeah. Yeah, really no problem at all. If anybody does not agree with them, it's just, you know, you need to be annihilated. So, yeah, and of course somebody who's not Muslim at all, they can get rid of them and just, you know, have no pangs of conscience whatsoever. So you'll have Muslims who are there where ISIS is operating, and they will have no hesitation to slaughter them. Slaughter kids, slaughter mothers, slaughter anybody, no problem at all.

And so their mindset locks in on, again, it's what you do, and what group are you, And so that's their belief. Does doing that give them a position in their hereafter? Yes. Again, everything is based on works, right? Your salvation is based on works. Your eternal reward is based on works. They have an equivalent to purgatory, and that's based on works. So everything is based on works. Faith doesn't mean anything in Islam unless it's works. And it's only works that count.

So yeah, a lot of the conflict in the Middle East right now is, of course, folks that are not Muslim, they're obviously discounted completely. But if you're not of the right group, they'll kill the other in an instant, even within Islam. You'll have a pronouncement by some imam or ayatollah of one group, and they have no problem at all making a pronouncement, even of death, against the other group.

In the first century of Christianity, after the time of Christ, in the first century of Christianity, we have not one record of a Christian raising the sword in the name of Jesus. Later centuries, yes. But in that first century, none whatsoever. In the first century after Muhammad's death, however, We have the Muslims, instead of slaughtering each other, based on which group they're in, instead of slaughtering each other, they went into Europe, they went into Asia, and they went into North Africa with the sword. So Christianity fundamentally is not military and militaristic. Islam is fundamentally military and militaristic. Radically different. Radically different. There are a number of other different Western world religions. This is the top of page 3.

Zoroastrianism, which is rooted with the Persians when they came in, which is one of the reasons why the Persians would send the Jews back to their land. There is actually a Zoroastrian church in the United States centered in Los Angeles, and they believe in good and evil being in tension and equal. Then there's neo-paganism, the earth religions, including Wicca, Odinism, and various other earth religions. Animism and voodoo, that's what was prominent in Uganda before Christians came in, and before the Muslims came in. That's a belief in, for example, here's the spirit of the tree, and the spirit of the rock, and the spirit of the river, and the spirit of the mountain, and those kinds of things.

Rastafarianism is another belief centered in the Caribbean. Atheism and humanism are also, they would object to this, but western religions, and the reason I call them a religion is because you have to have faith even to be an atheist. Scientology is another one. Satanism. It's another one that's centered in the West.

In Egyptian religion, Isis, Ra, etc. Nancy saw a bumper sticker on there in Carson City that said, Isis, Isis, Ra, Ra, Ra. So Egyptian religion was popular even during the time of the Roman Empire. Philippi, for example, where Paul brought the gospel to the first church established in the European continent. It had Egyptian religion established there.

And we have some evidence of that still remaining here. Alright, we've run out of time, and so I'll pray and we'll call it quits here. Lord, we thank you as we look at these that we can look at all kinds of crazy and nutty doctrine. We thank you that we have certainty in what you've revealed and that we can indeed know you and know you forever. We thank you for what you've revealed because you love us and care for us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.