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So, is the Muslim Allah the same God that we Christians worship? Well, let’s look and see. In the Qur'an, Sura 4:171 says,
“Say not Trinity…God is One: Glory be to Him! Far exalted is He above having a son…”
Sura 5:73—
“They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One God. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them.”
But we’ve seen several times that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one.
We also see in the Bible that God is the God of truth. That He does not use lies to accomplish His goals. That’s not the case with Allah. There is a term Muslims use, and it is taqiyya. Basically, it means hiding the fact that you are Muslim in order to save your skin. Sura 16:106--
“Anyone who after accepting faith in Allah utters unbelief except under compulsion his heart remaining firm in faith but such as open their breast to unbelief on them is Wrath from Allah and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty.”
In other words, if you renounce the name of Allah in order to save your life, that’s fine, just so long as you still believe in your heart. The following story is accepted as fact among Muslim scholars:
The non-believers once caught Ammar-bin-Yaser and they forced him to say praise their false gods and to condemn Prophet Muhammad... [He] gave in… to their demands. After that, when he returned to the Prophet Mohammed, [he] narrated the whole story to him. Prophet Muhammad asked him, how do you feel in your heart? To which Ammar replied, “I am fully content with Allah's religion in my heart.” To this Prophet Mohammed said, “If non-believers ask you to say the same again, say it.”
Yet Jesus told us in Matthew 10:33—“But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” Hebrews 11:36-38 tells of the numbers of faithful who, “were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection…others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned; they were sawn in two, were tempted, and were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented--of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.” These people could have said at any time, “OK, OK, put out the fire! Put the saw down! I don’t want any trouble here!” and gone home and lived a perfectly happy life believing on the inside, and denying God to the world. But Jesus tells us in Luke 9:24-25—“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?”
And listen to the words of these saints of the early church:
- Polycarp—a disciple of John the apostle. Arrested in Rome…for being a Christian. And don’t think it can't happen in this country one day. All he had to do was say “Caesar is Lord!” and he’d be home in time for dinner. But instead, he replied, “86 years I have served Christ, and He never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” He was burned at the stake.
- Tertullian: "We cannot lie about our religion - to do so is to deny what we worship… Your cruelties merely prove our innocence of the crimes you charge against us. When you chose recently to hand a Christian girl over to a brothel-keeper rather than to the lions, you showed you knew we counted chastity dearer than life…And you frustrate your purpose. Because those who see us die, wonder why we do, for we die like the men you revere, not like slaves or criminals. And when they find out, they join us."
- John 17:17—“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.”
- Titus 1:2—“…in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie…”
- Hebrews 6:18—“…by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie…”
- Numbers 23:19—“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”
- 1st Corinthians 14:33—“For God is not the author of confusion but of peace…”
Well, let’s look at what Islam teaches about Jesus Christ. Sura 5:75—
“The Messiah (Jesus), son of Mary, was no more than a Messenger before whom many Messengers have passed away…”
Sura 112:1-4—
“Say: ‘God is Unique! God, the Source [of everything]. He has not fathered anyone nor was He fathered, and there is nothing comparable to Him!’”
To the Muslim, Jesus was no more than a glorified prophet. He was no more worthy of worship than Abraham or Elijah. In fact, Sura 4:171 says,
“O People of the Book…The Messiah Jesus son of Mary was (no more than) a Messenger of God…so believe in God and His Messengers. Say not "Trinity"…God is One: Glory be to Him! (far exalted is He) above having a son…”
But the glorious truth is that Jesus was the Messiah, the word of God made flesh, in fact God Himself in the flesh! John 1:1 says the Word was God; John 1:14 says the Word was made flesh and dwelt among men.
- Luke 1:35—“And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.”
- Matthew 1:18—“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.”
“…they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Apostle of Allah"—but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them…for…they killed him not…”
But the word of God says this:
- John 19:30—“So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.”
- John 19:34—“But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.”
- Romans 5:6—“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”
- Romans 14:9—“For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.”
- 1st Corinthians 15:3—“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures…”
- Then the words of Christ Himself, Revelation 1:18—“I Am He who was dead, and am now alive. And I live forevermore, Amen. And I hold the keys of Hell and Death.”
My friends, any religion that says you can be good enough to earn your salvation does not make you a better person. It makes God less holy. It makes Him less perfect. Because look at Romans 5:6 I mentioned just now. Christ died for the ungodly. For ME!! I was ungodly. If you were talking to someone who knew me 6 ½ years ago, and told them I was preaching, they’d be laughing their head off. But you know, I was that thief on the cross. I couldn’t do enough; I couldn’t give enough to make things right with God. In fact, take that phrase out of your vocabulary. WE can NEVER make things right with God. We have to ask Jesus to do that. In Islam, there is no such thing as “atonement.” If you don’t do enough “good things” to outweigh all your “bad things” you wind up in the bottomless pit. And you can never be sure that you’ve done enough.
- If you follow Islam, you bring all your former sins with you. If you follow Christ, you leave all your sins at the foot of the cross!
- If you follow Islam, and you have too many sins to make up for, you must spill your blood to cover them. If you follow Christ, you can never have so many sins that the blood He spilled can't cover them!
- If you follow Islam, Allah keeps a journal of all your sins. If you follow Christ, the journal of all your sins is nailed to the Cross!
- If you follow Islam, you can never be sure you’ve done enough. If you follow Christ, you can be sure that He did it all!
