Episode 78

Twenty-four percent of all the people living in the world identify as Muslim and some sources identify Islam as the fastest growing religion in the world. The range of beliefs within Islam extend from Islamism to secularism, with adherents falling anywhere in between. In this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast, we sit down with Leopold, whose extensive study of the religion helps us gain a preliminary understanding of what Muslims believe, how it animates their lives, and how it compares to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps you are searching for a starting point to understanding Muslims or maybe looking for insight into how to witness to them and point them to Christ. This episode will help remove barriers to those ends.

With regard to Muslims, they claim being descendant from Ishmael. But again, neither the Quran nor the others can establish this lineage. Like we can see in the Gospel, the Gospel of Luke or the Gospel of Matthew which talk about the genealogy of Jesus. We can trace it all the way to Adam, but Islam cannot do that. But still they still claim they are descending of Ismail. But even if we concede them, that still what Islam is teaching is contrary to the Bible.

Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m Jay and I’m MCG, and we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross.

This is episode 78 of the Removing Barriers podcast, and this is the second in the series of What Do You Believe? And in this episode, we will be looking at what Muslims believe. Join us in this episode is our guest from episode 77, Leopold. Leopold grew up in a predominantly Muslim country and you can hear his testimony in episode 77, Leopold, Welcome back to the Removing Barriers podcast, and it’s a pleasure to have you once again, brother. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be with you guys. Great.

Well, let’s dive right into this one, Leopold, because I think you among many can tell us at least on this first question, who are the Muslims? How many are they way are they in the world? Tell us about them. Now, based on some recent estimate, Muslim would be around, I would say 1.8 billion Muslims around the world. And most of them are concentrated actually in Asia. I would say Southeast and South Asia. Southeast will be Indonesia, which is actually the largest Muslim country. And then you have in South Asia, you have Pakistan, which also has almost 200 million, I would say. And then you have India. India, because it’s a large country, I would say at least 15%, which is also close to 200 million people. And then you have other countries like Nigeria, some North African countries and Turkey, et cetera. So I would say roughly around 2 billion people. That’s a lot. And obviously in West Africa, where I’m from most of those countries, I would say maybe half of them are predominantly Muslim. So Senegal, Niger, Mali, let me see. Nigeria. Nigeria probably is half 50% Muslim and probably 50%, but it’s a large country. And then you have these other small country, Liberia, Monsieur, alone, maybe, and Ivory Coast, probably 50 50. So a lot of West African countries are Muslim. And of course those countries in the Middle East. So it’s a growing population around the world. So which gives an opportunity for us Christians to reach out to some of these Muslims, actually, because there is a lot of connection between Christianity and Islam, we’ll dive in some of those similarities and stuff like that in this episode.

Yes. Now, I realized that the history of Islam is not something that you can quite condense into a few words, but doing the best that you can. Leopold, can you give us a synopsis of the history of the Muslims and to tack something else on? I find it interesting that you’ve listed so many West African countries that have significant Muslim populations. I would imagine that the reason why there is Islam in Africa at all is because of the rise of the Ottoman Empire. I’m not sure, though I’m not 100% on the history of Islam. Can you give us a short synopsis of the history of the Muslims and the history of Islam? Yes. So I’m not an expert of Islam, but I have studied the Quran. I’ve read it. I’ve read a lot of commentaries, a lot of history, a lot of background regarding Islam and its history. So let me just in a snapshot, let me say so Islam was started by Mohammed in the 7th century. Mohammed was born in Mecca, Mecca in Saudi Arabia. And he was born in a pagan nation around 570 Ad. And before he was born, his dad actually passed away. And after I would say six years, his mom also passed away. So he was often growing up and he was under the care of his grandfather. And when his grandfather passed away, his uncle took over and become his Guardian. And he grew up and he married this wealthy trader woman. And after I would say 40 years, when he was 40 years, he started receiving revelation when he was withdrawing from the city of Mecca to pray or to meditate. One time he received some surprising visitation of an angel. And according to Muslim, that angel was the Angel Gabriel. And from that time around 80 to about 630, when he died, when he passed away, he received a number of revelations. And as a matter of fact, two thirds of his revelations were received when he was in Mecca. Because at some point, with the threat of the Mecca population, which was politics, because Mohammed when he came, he wanted to establish a monotheist religion with one God. Right? So the Megan pagan, they did not like it. So they tried to chase him out of the city. He had to run away for his life, especially after his uncle died. He was under the protection of his uncle. So he left and went to Medina in the north. And that’s where he received about one third of his revelation, which actually constitutes the Quran today, which has 114 chapters they call Surah. Now, Mohammed, before he established himself back to Mecca, he had to fight war, try to come back to Mecca. And when he was able to subdue Mecca and the entire Arabian Peninsula, that’s where Islam starts spreading and they start going from the Arabian Peninsula all the way to North Africa and probably later on. That’s why in West Africa you have a lot of countries that are Muslim now, because the Muslims were able to even go even further. So in a nutshell, I would say that’s how Islam came to be a religion, monote religion, I would say. Yeah. Which claimed to be descending from Abraham.

Right. So once the spreading down to fourth. I know in Christianity we tried to win the loss through the conviction of the Holy Spirit preaching the gospel. And you said that this status is spreading from Arabia and start going down to not African. What was this done through force or was this done through some other means? It was done through fourth. Unlike Christianity, where to the contrary, the Apostles were persecuted for spreading the gospel. In the case of Islam, they were using weapons, arms and everything to subdue those countries or donations that they come to be under control. Either you subdue and you become Muslim or will either kill you. And the only exception the Muslim were giving is if you’re a Christian or a Jew, you have to pay what they call Jesus. Right. Which is like some money to say that you are subservient to the Muslim. It’s only under that condition that they allow you to leave. Otherwise it spreads to violence through persecution, through military conquest. And that’s the history of Islam. And let me just say also, when Muhammad died in 632 Ad, he left a big, I would say like over 10,000 of followers who took over. And the first caliph was his name is Abu Bakr. And Abu Bakr was killed. Then Omar become the second caliph. He was also killed. The third caliph, again, he was killed. So there was a fight of power within those first Muslim followers. Unlike Christianity, we were not looking for powers, we are trying to serve God. Those Apostles were trying to spread the gospel, but they were being presented well out in Islam. It was a fight for power to a point where even that fight to this day you can see between the Shia and the Sunni because the fork precisely. His name was Ali and he was claimed he should be the rightly guided caliph who should succeed Muhammad because he was his cousin. The others were just probably far relatives or just close friends who became associated with Muhammad. So that fight has been going on for centuries.

Yeah, I know there was a difference between the Sunni Muslim and the other side there, but I didn’t know that the history there. So would you say that Islam is mostly a peaceful religion? Because politically, at least in the US, it seems to be a problem. If you say Islam is not peaceful or if you say it’s peaceful, where do you stand in that? I would say, I would like to make a distinction. You have a lot of Muslims who are very peaceful. I don’t want to give the impression that all Muslims are violent or radical. But one thing that is important to highlight is in the Quran for those who are strictly following what the Quran is saying, it contains many reference of violent subjugation of others or the religion, including in some parts of the Quran, Jews and Christians. So you have some statements in the Quran which say be peaceful to the Christian, but they also have all the States on which they subjugate kill those Christians and or Muslims, especially if they don’t submit to our religion. There is actually a verse, if I recall, Surah five, verse 17, which say actually Surah five, verse 17, said the Christians are unbelievers because they claim that Jesus Christ is Allah. And indeed, we claim that Jesus Christ is God. But he said, if you claim that, then you are a disbeliever, you are an ability and you need to be pursued and killed, you understand so that’s in the Muslim scripture. So even though some Muslims are peaceful people, if they really follow what the Quran is teaching, they should be targeting, I would say, Christian. Why? Because that’s what the Quran is saying. And you will see Muslims who have trouble with some of those Quranic verses, they will claim, oh, we cannot understand it in this way. But when you look at all their commentary throughout history, it’s very clear if you’re a Jew and a Muslim and you believe that Jesus is Allah, you are a disbeliever and you need to be pursued. Basically, you need to be killed. And that’s why in Muslim countries, those who established the Sharia, if you convert to another religion, it’s a death penalty. Why? Because you cannot believe anything else. And that’s in the Muslim scripture, Unfortunately, Yeah,

let’s dive a little bit deeper. What are some of the core beliefs? I know they have a lot of beliefs and this episode can be 2 hours long. But what are some of the core beliefs of the Muslims? I know you just mentioned some, but dive a little bit deeper because Islam was developed in the context of Christianity expanding. So Muhammad, as he was receiving his revelation, he was also getting exposed as he was traveling in the Arabian Peninsula because he was a trader, he would be exposed to teaching of Christianity and at the same time, he would also be exposed to some heretical teaching from Christian sect. And that’s why when you look at the Quran, there are some passages that refer to those heretical teaching and we can see it and you can trace it back. For example, if you take the Babylonian Talmud, right, it has some stories in it that are expounded from the Bible, from the Old Testament, but that are not part of the Old Testament because some of these are commentaries and they come up with a lot of meats inside. So Muslims have borrowed some of those into their scriptures. And of course, a lot of Jews lived in Mecca where Mohammed was even in Medina when he run to Medina to establish a Democratic state there. So he was exposed to all this teaching. And that’s why you will see there are some of these beliefs that we share in common. For instance, if you take the Virgin birth of Jesus Christ affirmed that Jesus Christ was born miraculously of the Holy Spirit. Actually, in three, verse 45, it specifically says that and also they believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Right. And that he’s going to come back. Now, one fundamental difference is they did not believe Jesus Christ died. They believe he was taken by God, like, in other words, for example, and that he would come back to live and die like a normal death. That’s what they believe. And so in a sense, we share the idea of Jesus being a Messiah. But what we understand by Messiah is very different from what Muslims understand about Messiah. The only similarity is he’s coming back. That’s what we share. And also, I would say we share quite a number of similar stories in the Old Testament because they borrow it again from the Bible stories of Abraham, Moses, Joseph, et cetera, David. And obviously, many of them, we have some discrepancies, some differences, but we do share some of those common beliefs.

Yeah. You know, the basic fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith is the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Without the resurrection, there is no Christianity. And it sounds like Muslims don’t believe that. So would you say, in your opinion, that the Muslim faith, though, there are many similarities between stories and perhaps people that are mentioned in the Quran that are also mentioned in the Bible, in spite of those similarities, that this religion does not square at all to the core tenets of the true Christian faith? Absolutely. And this is why even in my Ministry, I try to emphasize that because again, when you hear a lot of Muslims, they always want to focus on the things that we share in common. And we do share certain things in common. But that’s the misleading part, because like you said, the core tenets of Christianity are rejected by Islam. I mentioned earlier, Sarah Five, verse 17, which says if you believe that Jesus is Allah, then you are a disbeliever for them. You have rejected the faith and you are on your way to hell. That’s what the Muslims believe. Now we know from the scripture, from the Old Testament and the New Testament that Jesus Christ is God himself. It’s very clear. And this is why I wrote my book, actually about the divinity of Jesus Christ, to prove that Jesus Christ from the Old Testament all the way to the New Testament claim to be Jehovah God. So they reject that. And that’s central to Christianity. If you do not believe that Jesus Christ is God, you cannot call yourself Christian. Right. Like you mentioned, the death and resurrection of Christ. And as the Apostle Paul mentioned in the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15 if Christ did not die, our faith is in vain. So if you reject the core talent of Christianity, what is left? Nothing is left. You might as well throw everything else. And that’s precisely why Islam is in opposition to Christianity because it rejects the core tenant. So it’s hiding the similarities to say that we share a lot in common but that’s something that is in the surface I would say. But when you look at the core doctrine and this is why in the book of John I think first John, if I remember the verse yet he said if somebody does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, he is the Antichrist. And that’s what precisely Islam believes because they reject that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Right, right. They say Allah is a father to no one and he does not have a son because they have this biological idea of son and father. It has to be physically burnt. And this is why actually they are being misled in their own Quran to believe that Mary and if you want God, the Father and Jesus Christ are the triumph of God. They don’t have the idea that Jesus Christ being the Son of God is spiritually the Son of God, not from a physical birth because he has been son from eternity past and that is rejected by Islam verse after verse. They have so many Surah that say you cannot associate Allah with other divinity and we know we serve a triumph God which is rejected by Islam. So in a sense Islam stand in opposition to Christianity.

Yeah, it’s amazing you said that. I remember a few years ago now that I was witnessing to Muslim young man and he was very friendly, very good conversation I had with him and he was saying to me that we basically believe the same thing he said except for a few things that’s different. We basically believe the same thing. And he said to me the difference is that we don’t believe Jesus is God and we don’t believe that he died in the cross for our sins but we will do the same thing. And my response to him was similar to what you said. Well you’re talking about the core tenets of Christianity removed the fact that Jesus is God and that he didn’t die in a cross for sins. There’s no such thing as Christianity then. Exactly. And many people are confused even sometimes among Christians who think oh yeah, we need to focus on what can unite us, but we have to stand for the truth even if it’s at the expense of hurting somebody’s belief. Or we can’t help it but share the truth in love and hoping that they will reason. And this is why in our Ministry we’re trying to reason with Muslims and we want to go into their own scripture to see some of those contradictions that they are not aware of because we have the advantage of having God’s word and the entire story. Because if you read through the Quran, I don’t know if you have tried to do that, but it’s quite difficult to follow through because you will have one verse which talk about something and the next verse is completely disconnected from that verse and it makes it very difficult. And this is why many Muslims, they don’t even try to understand the Quran. What do they do? They rely on their Imam, who is the expert. And if they have a question, if they want to understand something, they go to him. Traditionally. This is why many Muslims, they don’t even understand their own faith, their own scripture. Why? Because it’s difficult to put things together. So they have to rely on those experts who basically execute the scripture for them. And this is why we want to reach them, to help them reason, because their imams are not telling them the truth. Sometimes they know what the Quran said and also what some of the scriptures, scripture are saying, but they’re trying to hide that because it’s also part of Islam to hide some of these things and not be Truthful. And this is why in sharing with them, I try to go to their own scripture without losing sight of the basis where I’m coming from, which is the word of God, which is the Bible. And I always try to bring them back to the Bible. I start with their own scripture so it can link me back to the Bible and I can take that up on it to share the truth with them. And through reasoning,

you mentioned the word Imam for those who might be listening that don’t know what that means. What is the name? Mama? Who is the name? So Imam is basically first of all the one who’s leading the prayer in the mosque and who is usually knowledgeable and who gives the sermon, who preach basically after the prayer for you to preach, obviously you have to study the Quran and study a lot of Quranic scriptures. So they go to those people who are called Imam, well respected and scholars somehow who are able to recite the Koran by heart and also to preach and to execute the car for them so that they can understand somewhat equivalent to maybe a pastor equivalent to a pastor. But you see the difference with us as Christian, we don’t just go to the passage, we read the Bible and the story flows through because you can understand when you read it. You don’t need to be a PhD to start understanding what the Bible is talking about. You can just take your Bible open and start reading and it will start making sense for them. It’s a little bit different. And many Muslims and having many Muslim friends, I’ve come across so many of them sometimes don’t even have the basic understanding of the Quran and why? Because they always rely on this amount. Who is hiding them sometime from the truth. You mentioned, Leopold, that Islam is fundamentally antithetical to the Christian faith on account of their denial of the deity of Christ and his death, burial and resurrection.

So if they don’t have a savior, how is a Muslim reconciled to God? How is someone reconciled to God? According to the Muslim. According to the Muslim. So again, Islam is a worth based Salvation system. They believe. And again, like any work based Salvation system, you can never have an assurance of Salvation because you don’t know how much you need to work. So they rely on their good deeds to make it to heaven and they have to follow what they call the five killer of Israel, which is the five prayer, daily prayer. And first of all, they have to profess what they call the profession of faith which is called the Shahada. You have to recite it, you know, to say Allah is the only God and Muhammad is his Prophet, something like that. And then you have to fast during the month of Ramadan. You also have to pay what they call the Zaka, which is like kite in a sense, something that they collect and give the poor. And then if you can, if your means allow you, you have to go for pilgrimage. Jamaica. Okay. These are the five pillars of Islam and every Muslim is called to follow strictly and rigorously those pillars. And then obviously they have to believe in the message of the coral and do some good work to have a chance to make it to paradise. I did not say to have a chance to have a chance because there is one tradition they call Addis, which is also an authoritative book for Muslims. They have many Addis, but there are two main ones, Sai Bukhari and Sai Muslims. These are the two main authentic. They call it the authentic Hadis, which are more reliable than others. And according to one of those had, this the second caliph, his name was Omar. He said you can do all these good deeds on Earth and have more good deeds than bad deeds. As a matter of fact, they have to wait a balance for them. If you have more good deeds, then you have a chance to make it to heaven. Omar said after having done all good things on Earth and having more good deeds than bad. When you step into Jenna, which is what they call paradise, even if you have your first foot in heaven, you still not guarantee you’re going to make it. Why? Because Allah can change his mind. Last second. Wow. After what you have done all this, you have 1ft in paradise, you can decide because Allah is a sovereign God and he’s also a Capricious, by the way. He can change his mind and it’s up to him. So in a sense, they are living with the fear of whether they’re going to make it to heaven or not. And the only assurance, this is why you have so many Muslims committing suicide. Because according to the Quran if you die fighting for the defense of Islam through those bombings for instance, then you are guaranteed paradise. That’s the only condition. Paradise. Otherwise no one has the assurance because they have to rely on the work that they’re doing on Earth.

Wow. So it’s a works based Salvation and with no assurance, with no insurance. You mentioned is it Hadith, Hadith, had. This is basically the same and the action of Prophet Muhammad because they are not recorded in the Quran. The Quran record mostly the revelation that he received from the angel. And what is interesting, as a matter of fact about the Quran, I always ask myself that question in the entire Quran, the 114 Surah chapter, the name of Muhammad is only mentioned four times. Only four times. So if you take the Bible, if you take the New Testament, let’s say the four Gospels. Can you imagine if the four gospel had only mentioned the name of Jesus four times? Many would be suspicious. Are we talking about this real Jesus exists or why was he only mentioned four times? The rest of the time it’s always he referring to him Muhammad, never through his actual name, only four times. And now the addict is all the actions during his lifetime, whatever he has done, they have recorded it. And what is interesting is those had this were written 200 years after the death of Mohammed and basically they were relying on oral transmission of his saying of his action everything from generation to generation until someone in the 9th century decided to travel to Mecca, Medina, to all those places where those witnesses who were transmitting this information and he was collecting that one by one. He had over 200,000 Haddis originally. But because many of them are not reliable, it was cut down literally to $7,000 100. Over 90% of those had this’are not reliable and they were thrown away. So now Muslims are left with only 7000 of those and they call it authentic. But even among them there is still a lot of dispute regarding their liability. To this day Muslims are debating because some believe it’s authoritative and others don’t believe it’s authoritative. They only believe the Quran is authoritative and those people are called Qurani. So they reject the Haddish. But again if you rely only on the Quran, you will never understand the Quran because the Quran is explained by the Hadis because the Addis give you the background of those revelations. So if they never had the artist, there is no way somebody can explain to you those revelations from the Quran because they are incomprehensible.

Wow. I just have a few questions on my mind here. So the fact that Islam, Judaism and Christianity, but all those incotations Mark Abrahamic religions, does that make them equal in any way? Absolutely not. Now let me start with the Jew. We share with the Jew, the Old Testament. And we know throughout the Jewish history those sacred texts were preserved and they took great care to make sure the word of God was preserved and we see evidence after evidence that how the jewel able to preserve that. However, unfortunately, when Jesus Christ came in the first century, they did not recognize him as a Messiah because the Jews were expecting to see the Messiah because it was announced throughout the Old Testament, the Prophet. And if you read the Apostle Peter, I think the first episode when he said even the Prophet long to see these days that they are experiencing because they saw the Messiah, but they could not. So the main issue for the Jew is they rejected the very Messiah who came to save them from their sin. Okay. And if they don’t put their trust in Jesus Christ, who came basically to conclude God’s revelation in the book of Hebrew. Actually, it clearly said in chapter one that God has spoken through this Prophet through diverse minds. But in these last days he has revealed himself through his son right to tell you that this is the last revelation he came, but they did not recognize him, they reject him and this is why they are astray. But God still has a knife on these Jews and one day he will rescue them when he comes back. Now, with regard to Muslims, they claim being descended from Ishmael. But again, neither the Quran nor the others can establish this lineage like we can see in the gospel, the Gospel of Luke or the Gospel of Matche which talked about the genealogy of Jesus. We can trace it all the way to Adam, but Islam cannot do that. But still they still claim they are descendants of Ishmael. But even if we concede them, that still what Islam is teaching is contrary to the Bible, to the teaching of the Bible. So even though we have the same ancestor, because maybe they all descendants of Abraham, they’re Semitic people, yet the beliefs are fundamentally in opposition to each other.

Just before we go into break, let me ask you this other question on my mind. What about the different sects of Islam? Because I remember I was witnessing to another Muslim young man, not the same one I mentioned. And he was saying to me, oh, Christianity have so many different denominations. And he was trying to say that because Islam is just one, that they are the truth. But most people, if you do a cursory research of Islam, you’ll find that there are many different sets. So explain the different sets. Absolutely. Let me say there are two major sects in Islam. So the Sunni, which is the majority, I would say maybe close to 90% and then the Shia. And as I was explaining earlier, the rift came in the fourth Caliph who was the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad. His name was Ali. So Ali came and the Shia are claiming to be descended from Ali if you want. Okay. Whereas the Sunni are the other branches from Abu Bakr, Omar, Osman and all the others. So these are the two main branches. But apart from this, for example, you have a sect in Islam called Ahmedia and they are mainly in Pakistan. They believe the Quran and I think they are a little bit reserved regarding the Alice or at least some of the Addies. Okay. And they are a more peaceful branch if you want of Islam. They promote a lot of peace. They are not very violent. And they believe Christ has written the Mahdi. They call it the Mahdi in one of their leaders who actually started if you want that branch of Islam. So they have different beliefs with respect to Sunni and with respect to Shia. And then we have what they call Sufi, which could be either Sunni or Shia. Sufi are those people who are mystical. They allegorize most of the Quran and they focus on what drove their interests. And they don’t have, let’s say a literal interpretation of the Quran, like some of the Salafis, what they call Salafis. And even within the Sunni, you have what they call Salafis, which are more radical. And they trace their lineage back to the 13th century. This theologian called Ibun Tamiya Mia in the 13th century was a radical Muslim and one of his disciples, as a matter of fact, he’s a great commentary of the Quran, which I use a lot in my Ministry. His name is Ibn Katir. So he was a master of Ibn Khatir. He started that branch of radical Islam. Ibn Tamiya and some of the Sunni are part of that which interpret the Quran in a certain way. They don’t agree with some of the interpretations. So you have differences within Muslims. It’s not like it’s monolithic religion. They all believe and also Muslim makers believe that the Quran has never been changed. The Quran has gone through several series of what they call canonization. And during the process of canonization, a lot has changed in the Quran. But when you hear Muslims today speaking, they will tell you we have one Quran, which is not true, because even today we have multiple versions of the Arabic Quran. It’s not the same. If you go to North Africa, they have differences with other Muslims. You go to West Africa. Actually, they have a different version that they are using, even though most Muslims now are using the 1924 version of the Quran called Habs an Asim, which actually was canonized by some experts in Egypt. And that’s what most of them are using. But that’s not the original Quran that Utmain had. If you want canonized and remember, during that time Goodman has assembled all those writings about Mohammed revelation after he died. And all the people who memorize it. He tried to get all the information and compile it and write it as a Quran. And then guess what he did. He burned every other document. Afterwards, when Muslims are saying the current has never been changed. First of all, unlike Christianity, where you have all these apocryphal writing that were never banned, but they were alongside with the true Canon of scripture, the New Testament in particular, the Muslims, they burn. The third caliph burned every single written document that he did not agree with that was not incorporated in his Quranic text. And anybody who had another text will either force to submit to this Quran or he would be persecuted. And we have example, one of the four guided recipes of the Quran that Muhammad himself said, if you want to learn the Quran, learn it from these four people. And one of them was Ibn Masud and the other one is UBI Ibn Car. Those two guys, they knew the Koran by heart and they were trusted recipes of the Quran of Mohammed. And he said, if you want to learn the Quran, go to these people. Two of those guys, they did not agree with the Otmanik version of the Quran. Yes, Muslims are telling us the Quran has a unanimous agreement among Muslims and has never changed. That is not true. When you look through history, many changes have taken place in the Quran. But many Muslims don’t know that because their Imam, again, some of them may know the history, others may not. And if they know, they will not share that information because it’s embarrassing for Islam.

Well, you’re listening to the Removing Various podcasts. We’re sitting down with Leopold and we are talking about Muslims and what do they believe? We’ll be right back.

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all right there, Leopold. Tell us about your Ministry a little bit more and we’ll put a link in the description to your Ministry so those who listen to this episode can go directly and get some more of layer poll if they haven’t had enough. Okay, so you can go to our website. It’s called www. Dot admoph E as in Elephant, D as in David, I as India, M as in Mary, O as Oscar, and F as in Frank. So Eddiemoff.org, so that’s a website and we have a YouTube channel. If you also type on YouTube, Adammov, which is the name of our Ministry, which means basically a discerning spirit, which what we’re trying to do to discern between all these different beliefs and lead people to the true faith. So that’s what the Ministry and it’s mainly designed for French speaking around the world, but at the same time we’re trying to cater to the English speaking. So we do have some videos in English and that touch on some of these topics on Islam and some of the culture as well. Java witnesses. And of course, we have some Bible studies that we’re doing at the same time.

Okay. Your Ministry is striving to reach the Muslim population, to show them the true and living God. It seems to me though, that when we are desirous of witnessing to a Muslim, it’s almost like trying to navigate a minefield. Because you have Muslims who don’t really know what the Quran says. They’re depending on their Imam to tell them what it says. And even if they wanted to go back and understand what the Quran says, they can’t go any further than the one gentleman who decided this is what the Quran is and we’re going to burn everything else. It’s not like the Bible where you have all of the manuscripts and the textual criticism. You can go back and look and see what changes have been made across time and to complicate things further. This is a religion where if you do not believe the basic tenets of the faith and if you do not, or if you affirm Christ in any way in terms of deity, then you have committed an offense punishable by death. If you leave the faith, it is an offense punishable by death. It just seems that no matter where you turn, there are pitfalls and minds that you can step on. When you are trying to witness to a soul that has been burdened and bound by this false religion. How should we witness to a Muslim in light of all of these traps in light of all of these difficulties? Okay, again, I’m not an expert in witnessing to Muslims, even though I know sometimes the way they think. And I studied a little bit their scripture. I would say for me the approach I always like to use to draw their attention. I start with something from their own scripture and obviously something that is can be linked with the Bible or with Christianity because I don’t want to go on a tangent talking about things that are irrelevant to what the Bible so that I can find the transition. It’s a way for me to get a foothold and get their attention. And one way I found to be able to witness to Muslims and help them think because in a sense, what we’re doing, we’re trying to help them reason through their own scripture. And one major problem that Islam has, because Islam affirmed in many, many of their Surah, in many of their verses, the Christian scripture. They affirm that the Torah and the Gospels are authentic and exist. They do affirm that. But at the same time, when you start from there, you show them everywhere. Their Quran said go back to the Christian, go back to the Jew if you want to know what has been revealed because this is what Allah is telling Muhammad, he’s telling him, if you don’t know about the previous revelation, go ask the Christian, go ask the Muslim. So you show them Surah 1094 for example, which talks about that. And it’s from their own scripture which is telling them it speak about the Torah and the angel. And you ask them would you like to know more about the Torah? Because this is what your own Quran is telling them. And then you bring them into the Bible. And when you bring them into the Bible, you show them what the Bible review and then you can bring them back again to talking about the deity of Christ, for example, which is affirmed throughout the Torah. And look at what your current is saying and ask them, do you see any consistency because you are affirming that we have the previous revelation of God? And if we need to know, we should ask Christian and Jew, I’m a Christian, so would you like to know more of this? And that’s how I usually like to approach them. And when you do that, it makes them start to ponder and think and themselves. Maybe go back and try to find out what do those verses are specifically talking about. And that creates a connection if you want, because you want to find a way where you can connect with them. And of course do it in a very friendly, very cordial way. But bring out those to make them think and reason because they are blinded. As we know, they are blinded. They don’t have the truth. Because when you dig into the Quran you will see a lot of contradiction. Yes, that’s a very unique way. I’ve been taught about that way. I know the Muslims that I’ve had the privilege to witness to. What I normally will do is ask them how is someone reconciled to God according to the Muslim and then try to bring in the scriptures that way. But doing it that way, you just explain seems pretty good in terms of using their own scriptures to break in the true scripture, the Bible, and to pray on the Gospel. Definitely a very good way.

Do you think it is necessary to adjust the errors in Islam when we witness into them? I would say depending on who you’re talking to, at some point maybe you can bring it up front, but for others, maybe you want to see a way of before you start addressing those issues, how to create that connection with them first, because never underestimate the Muslims. You may think they think in a certain way, but you want to start asking them questions. What do you think about this to find out where they are coming from and how are they thinking? Because again, when you talk to many Muslims, they will tell you, oh, we believe in Jesus, right? You ask them, okay, what do you believe about Jesus? You start pondering their questions so that you get a sense of what do they know about their own scripture. Okay. And what do they know how to help them read it. So I would say, depending on who you’re talking to, you may not want to address it right away, but you need to as a Christian to witness. You need at some point to bring out these doctrine of issues. You have to, because otherwise you’re not preaching the gospel, because the gospel is plain and simple and clear. You must believe in Jesus Christ. He is the only way, the truth and the life. At some point you need to bring it out so that they know once you are able to establish some of these issues and help them wrestle with it. Right. You bring them to the scripture and say, this is what the scripture says. For example, you can start with the assurance of Salvation because that’s a major concern for them. Tell them you can pray all those five prayers, you can fast all your life. You can go to the Mecca many times, and when you die, you still have no guarantee you’re going to have it. Does it bother you? And would you like to know how you can have the assurance of Salvation? And I like to do that to make them think, to provoke them in a sense, but in a kind way to help them think, because sometimes they go through the routine of doing things, just following what they have been taught growing up and never realized with all this, you still don’t have the assurance of Salvation. Are you not bothered by that, by a religion which doesn’t guarantee you no matter what you do, then what’s the point of doing all those doing all those works?

Are there any other special consideration we should consider when we witness into Muslims? We want to be careful and respectful. But what are some other special considerations we should keep in mind? Yeah, I would say avoid being confrontational. And also sometimes I have also this idea that in the west we tend to also sometimes stereotype the Muslims, like usually with the idea of them being terrorists, because there are many Muslims who are peaceful, who are kind, who want to help out, do good things. And we want to avoid confrontation and also come with open minded and show them that you care about them, that you care about their eternity. Let them sense that you’re being honest, because you care about their eternity, because at the end of the day, that’s what Margaret and if you can show him a better way where you can have the guarantee of having eternal life. Would you like to know that? Would you like to find out more? So that’s how I would try to and also talk about some of their things. They believe that we share in common to build some type of confidence. Because if you start by talking about maybe what you believe, which contradicts what they believe, that can shun them away. But start by talking about I know Islam and Christianity. They do share a lot of history together. And some of them believe, like the Quran believes the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ, believe that he’s a good man, not talk about his deity. He’s a good man. And you also believe he has done so many miracles. Right. And the Quran attached to that start bringing them, preparing them somehow to build that confidence. And then as you go, depending on how they react and how sensitive are there to what you’re sharing and how interested how they want to know, you take it to the next step. But you never want to shy away from sharing the naked truth of the word of God. Because at the end of the day, that’s what we’re called to do to preach the gospel. We are not called to evolve or to water down the gospel. It is the truth and the truth will convict them, especially those who are seeking the truth.

Leopold, what are some pitfalls that we should be careful to avoid when we are witnessing to a Muslim person? So again, like I said, I would avoid any confrontation with Muslims because some of them can be quite argumentative. And you don’t want to be into that situation because that may speak of several things that they’re not really looking to know anything else. They’re not openminded to look at even their own scripture with their own contradiction to make them think. And in those circumstances, you want to just back off from that and never assume. I would say that Muslims, you know, the way you think is the same way they think they are not. They are trained differently. And in the religion itself, they are telling them Christians are your enemy. You may not show it to them explicitly, but they are your enemy so you can’t reveal everything to them. You have to be cautious what you share with them. So again, that’s why asking those questions always will help you know, how to really witness to a particular person. Yeah. Since the scriptures record Christ as saying no man can follow him unless they are willing to hate their mother, hate their father, and turn away from the life that they have now to follow him essentially forsaking all for him. Considering that the Muslim faith requires the death penalty for someone who apostates us from the Muslim faith, would you also recommend that as a Christian when we are calling them to repentance, calling them to faith that we not necessarily avoid the need to turn from let me backtrack, like the need to count the cost to explain to the Muslim that when they are turning from Islam and turning to Christ, they must count the cost, which would probably mean death. If they turn away from Islam, is that something that we should shy away from when we’re calling them to faith, or is that something that we should be more direct about? I think we should be more direct about telling them because Christianity is not an easy way of life, that you just embrace it and you sit down and do nothing. So it has a cost. Jesus Christ said, if you want to be my disciples, take up your cross. And each one of us, we do have our cross. And I remember the story of this Muslim who became Christian. Maybe you know him. He wrote two best selling books, Nabil, Croatia. Yes. When he was telling his story, I remember he said the biggest hurdle for him to come to Christ was the cost of, I would say leaving his family. Because for them, Islam is not just a religion, it’s an identity. And if you leave Islam, somehow you’re losing your identity. And that’s a big cost to pay. And for him, it took him say, I think four years after being exposed to the gospel with a friend of him, year after year, it’s only after four years. And he’s a very smart man and he could read the scripture and have a good understanding. But it took him four years. Why? Because he was still debating the cost, even though he knew the truth, he was convicted about the truth of Christianity. He was still reluctant because again, there are consequences. Now, if you’re in America, the consequences are nothing near compared to if you’re in the Middle East. Right. If you are in those Muslim wish area, low country where it’s a death penalty here, he was talking about just being disconnected from your parents. You’re not following the same thing. Their faith, prayer. You don’t do that. Things like that. You don’t celebrate with them. When they celebrate, you start hanging out with Christian. And that’s a cost for him. That was the biggest hurdle. And again, when you share the truth with Muslim, obviously, if that question come across asking you so weighing the cost, you have to tell them. Now, when you compare the suffering that you’re going to go through here versus the eternal suffering in the Lake of fire, how would you compare that in terms of cost? Would you rather suffer that here on this Earth goes through all tribulations challenge because you found the truth and then knowing that for eternity you’re going to be in the presence of God? Who wouldn’t want to trade that for the cost of living your life here on Earth with all the costs that is required to pay? I would say he’d love it. Mother, father or sister brother more than me, you know? Wow, that’s definitely good.

So Leopold, let me ask you a very wide open ended question here. Because as we wrap this episode up, just imagine that a Muslim stumble upon this episode and they want to know the biblical truth as how to be saved. And like many Muslims have believed that we believe the same thing. Do you believe that a practicing Muslim is biblically saved and why or why not? And how can they be biblically saved? How can those barriers and obstacles that are in their way be removed and they can be biblically saved? Tell us by imagining you’re sharing the gospel to a Muslim. Yeah, I would say so. First of all, even a practicing Muslim is on his way to help because they don’t believe the truth. Jesus Christ said if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that he died and rose again, you shall be saved. Their own scripture reject the first one saying Jesus Christ is God himself because they say if you associate any other divinity with Allah, you are on your way to help. We say the complete opposite. We say you have to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. And second, you have to believe he died and rose again. Their scripture in Surah 457 rejected. They say Jesus Christ never died and that if you believe that you can never have obtained Salvation and Jesus Christ again, that’s Romans ten, nine to remind us that first of all we have to recognize we are sinners and on our own we can never make it to heaven. On our own we are doomed because we have broken God’s law. And we have to explain to those Muslims, if you’re listening to me, we are all sinners, right? There is not one single human being who has never broken the law of God. Just take the Ten Commandments starting from that shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all you who has not broken, that you shall not murder, you shall not lie, et cetera, et cetera. Okay? And any person, whether he’s Muslim or any other, they must recognize they are sinners. They have broken God’s law. And God say according to his word, if you have broken his word, you are separate from him. The Bible says the wage of sin is death. Okay? You are separated from God. And unless you turn back to God by believing on his son that he sent on this Earth to die for every single human being because on our own, like I said, we are on our way to hell because we cannot pay for the sin that we have committed. And Jesus Christ Almighty God came to become a man to die for the sin of every single human being. And if you’re Muslim, Jesus Christ also came to die for you. And what he’s asking you to do because he died in your place you were supposed to die because you violated God’s law so he did it for you because he loves you and he wants you to have eternal life he wants you to have a relationship with him because you are separated from him because of your sin and he’s inviting you to believe in what he did on the cross for you and he gave you the promise if you put your trust in him in what he did on the cross to die and rise again and he said you will have eternal life and once you have that and you understood that and you turn your life to Jesus Christ, you repent you make I would say 180 degree shift from the way you were thinking to restart now thinking the way God wants you to think and that’s my message for the Muslims and we need to because of how Islam is rapidly growing around the world and even here in the United States we need to be more committed to reaching out to the Muslims because they’re on their way to health because they don’t know the truth. They apply it in their own belief and we need to rescue them we need to help them by sharing the truth with them with kindness and meekness as first Peter Tree 15 is reminding us.

Amen. Leopold, thank you so much for joining us. Under Removing Barriers podcast welcome It’s my pleasure.

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