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Cecil Andrews, 29 Edengrove Park, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AZ, Northern Ireland Telephone/Fax 028 9756 5511. E-MAIL - takeheed@aol.com WEBSITE - http://www.takeheed.net Quick Links - Home - Assorted Articles - Audio/Video - Ministry Newsletters - Words of Wisdom |
In Cairo President Obama betrayed Jesus
Christ when he claimed to be a Christian
On Radio
Question
1:
Would a true convert and faithful disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ
describe writings, other than the Bible, as being ‘Holy’?
Speech
extracts [1]:
As the
Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the
truth."…
When the first Muslim-American was
recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using
the same Holy Koran…
The Holy Koran teaches that whoever…
The Holy Koran tells us, "O mankind!…
As you can see, on these four occasions during his speech, Mr Obama
referred to the Muslim Koran as being
‘HOLY’. Christians of course regard the Bible as being ‘HOLY’ for a
number of very good reasons.
Firstly, the SUBJECT of the Bible is ‘HOLY’ for the SUBJECT of the
Bible is none other than God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Temporal history
began with God as Creator [Genesis 1:1] and it will climax with God as
Re-creator [Revelation 21:5]. What is the supreme attribute of this God
revealed to us in the Bible? When Isaiah
had his vision of God as recorded in Isaiah chapter 6, one of the seraphim
“cried unto another and said, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is the Lord of hosts” [v 6].
Peter told his readers “But, as he who hath called you is HOLY, so be ye holy
in all manner of life. Because it is written, be ye holy for I am HOLY” [1st
Peter
In particular, the Bible draws pre-eminent attention to God the Son
just as He Himself did as He instructed two disciples on the road to Emmaus
“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them, in all
the scriptures, the things concerning himself” [Luke 24:27]. When Mary was told
by Gabriel that she would give birth to a child, Gabriel said to her “thou
shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shalt call his name
Jesus…also that HOLY thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son
of God” [Luke 1:31&35].
Then secondly the SOURCE of the Bible is ‘HOLY’. Very simply we read in
2nd Peter
Thirdly, the STRUCTURE of the Bible is ‘HOLY’. By the STRUCTURE I mean
every word that makes up the Bible. In Proverbs 30:5 we read, “Every word of
God is pure” – the word for ‘pure’ literally means ‘tried and found to be
without dross or error’ – and that perfectly reflects the Holiness of God who,
like His Word, is totally ‘without dross or error’. Of course His Word does
contain references to some very unsavoury and unholy things but because He is
HOLY and so, intellectually speaking can be viewed as ‘total truth’, so can His
HOLY Word likewise be viewed as ‘total truth’ and so it is rightly described as
‘pure’.
True and faithful Christians know, that of all the written materials in
the world, the Bible alone is ‘HOLY’. No true and faithful Christian should
ever refer to any other book as being ‘HOLY’ – particularly one that denies
both the deity and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, as is the case with the
Koran.
In the introduction to his book ‘The Muslim Christ’, Samuel M Zwemer
wrote, ‘Islam is the only one of the great non-Christian religions which gives
a place to Christ in its book…the Koran alone gives Him a place, but does it by
displacing Him. With great regret it must be admitted that there is hardly an
important fact concerning the life, person and work of our Saviour which is not
ignored, perverted or denied by Islam’.
For any professing Christian, including President Obama, to refer to
the Koran as being ‘HOLY’, a book that denies truths about the Lord Jesus
Christ that form the very foundation and bedrock of Christianity, that equates
to a betrayal of Jesus Christ.
Question 2:
Speech
extracts [2]:
All of us have a responsibility to work for the day… when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.
Comments [2]:
In this
portion of his speech, Mr Obama, supposedly a Christian, has set his seal of
approbation and approval upon an incident known fully to Muslims as ‘Isra and
Mi’raj’ - an incident also referred to as ‘The Night Journey’.
Sura 17 in
the Koran is titled ‘Al Isra’ or ‘The Night Journey’ and it opens with these
words ‘Glory be to Him (Allah) who made
His servant (Mohammed) go by
night from the Sacred Temple (Mecca) to the
farther Temple (believed by some Muslim scholars, though
not all, to refer to Jerusalem) whose surroundings We have
blessed, that We might show him (Mohammed) some of
our signs’.
It is
clear from what Muslims claim happened that their Jesus is merely ‘a prophet
among prophets’ and that in fact Mohammed is the pre-eminent one. In his book
‘The Muslim Christ’ that I have already quoted from, Samuel M Zwemer quotes a
Muslim account of this incident. In his pre-amble to the account Mr Zwemer
wrote ‘The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ is surpassed by the story of
Mohammed’s ascent into heaven, where he had personal communication with all the
previous prophets, and leaving Jesus far below in the second heaven,
himself mounted to the seventh, where, according to Muslim tradition, he ate
and drank with God’.
Mr Zwemer
then quotes the following account of this journey as given in Mishkat-ul-
Misabih (A collection of Muslim Traditions by Sheik Wali ud Mahammad: Study of the Mishkat-ul-Misabih is
viewed by many Muslims as being central to the understanding and practice of
Islam.)
‘Whilst I (Mohammed) was
sleeping upon my side, he (the angel Gabriel) came to me
and cut me open from my breast to below my navel, and took out my heart, and
washed the cavity with Zam-zam water, and then filled my heart with Faith and
Science. After this a white animal was brought for me to ride upon. Its size
was between that of a mule and an ass and it stretched as far as the eye could
see. The name of the animal was Buraq. Then I mounted the animal and ascended
until we arrived at the lowest heaven and Gabriel demanded that the door should
be opened. And it was asked, “Who is it?” and he said, “I am Gabriel”. And they
then said, “Who is with you?” and he answered, “It is Mohammed”. They said,
“Has Mohammed been called to the office of a prophet?” He said, “Yes”. They
said, “Welcome, Mohammed: his coming is well”. Then the door was opened; and
when I arrived in the first heaven, behold I saw Adam. And Gabriel said to me,
“This is your father Adam, salute him”. (Cecil – I’m just a little bit
curious as to why Gabriel would command anyone to ‘salute’ Adam when we keep in
mind the devastating consequences of his ‘original sin’] Then I
saluted Adam and he answered it and said, “You are welcome, O good son and good
prophet”.
After that
Gabriel took me above and we reached the second heaven; and he asked the door
to be opened, and it was said, “Who is it?” He said, “I am Gabriel”. It was
said, “Who is with you?” He said, “Mohammed”. It was said, “Was he called?” He
said, “Yes”. It was said, “Welcome Mohammed; his coming is well”. Then the door
was opened; and when I arrived in the second region, behold I saw John and
Jesus (sister’ sons: i.e. cousins). And
Gabriel said, “This is John and this is Jesus; salute both of them”. Then I
saluted them and they returned it. After that they said, “Welcome good brother
and Prophet”…
Then I
entered the seventh heaven and behold I saw Abraham. And Gabriel said, “This is
Abraham, your father, salute him”; which I did and he returned it and said,
“Welcome good son and good Prophet”. After that I was taken up to the tree
called Sidratu’ l-Muntaha; and behold its fruits were like water-pots and its
leaves like elephant’s ears.
And
Gabriel said, “This is Sidratu’ l-Muntaha”. And I saw four rivers there; two of
them hidden and two manifest. I said to Gabriel, “What are these?” He said,
“These two concealed rivers are in
Later in
his book Mr Zwemer wrote – ‘Every detail of the life of Jesus Christ has been
imitated and parodied by Mohammed's later biographers and admirers [p 161]…
Jesus Christ is supplanted by Mohammed not only in Moslem tradition and in the
hearts of the common people who are ignorant and illiterate. He is supplanted
in the hearts of all Moslems by Mohammed. They are jealous for his glory and
resist any attempt to magnify the glory of Jesus Christ at the expense of
Mohammed’. [p 166] This supposed event, known as ‘Isra’, is a very good example
of the Muslim Jesus Christ being ‘supplanted by Mohammed’.
Would the
real Jesus Christ, when confronted by someone who denies both His deity and His
death, really refer to him as a “good brother and Prophet”?
Would the
real Jesus Christ, who according to the Bible is seated in heavenly splendour
at His Father’s right hand (see Hebrews 1:3), really have remained at a lower
heavenly level whilst someone called Mohammed ascended to a higher heavenly
level to commune with Abraham and with God?
Would the
real John the Baptist be comfortable to be on the same level as Jesus Christ
having previously said “He (Jesus) must
increase and I (John) must decrease” [John
Would the
real Abraham refer to a non-Christian like Mohammed as a “good son and Prophet”
when the Apostle Paul made it very clear that the spiritual sons and daughters
of Abraham are Christians – we read this in Galatians 3:26-29 “For ye (Galatian Christians) are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus…
There is neither Jew nor Greek… for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if
ye be Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the
promise”. Mr Obama, by parroting this idea of the ‘common Abrahamic spiritual
family’ of Jews, Christians and Muslims, is advancing a false notion so avidly
promoted and pursued by non-Christian sources such as The Vatican and The Tony
Blair Foundation. Rick Warren serves on Tony Blair’s ‘Advisory Council’ and of
course ‘prayed’ at President Obama’s inauguration.
Question
3:
Would a true convert and
faithful disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ state that
Speech extracts [3]:
I have come here to seek a new beginning between the
Comments [3]:
On the eve
of His own betrayal, arrest, mock trial and crucifixion the Lord Jesus told His
disciples, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated
you… I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hateth you… The
servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me they will also
persecute you” [John
The Lord
had previously dealt with this question of the world hating His followers when
in the Sermon on The Mount He said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy; But I say unto you, Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them who deceitfully use you and persecute you” [Matthew 5:43-44].
The Lord
Himself demonstrated a very practical example of this when, having just been
betrayed by Judas, we read, “And behold one of those who were with Jesus [from John’s account we know this was Simon Peter] stretched
out his hand and drew his sword and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and
smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into its
place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” [Matthew
26:51-52].
From Dr
Luke’s account of this incident we also learn, “And he [Jesus] touched his ear and healed him” [Luke
History
attests to the fact that
Do we
really find such ‘shared common principles’ prevailing in the Muslim areas of
the world? In one simple word the answer is a resounding ‘No!’ The over
fourteen hundred-year history of Islam attests to a virtually continuous
violent campaign to Islamise the whole world and this campaign continues today.
‘Infidels’ [Non Muslims] are viewed
as ‘lesser beings’ and the Koran positively sanctions unfriendly attitudes
towards in particular Jews and Christians – ‘Believers, Take neither Jews nor
Christians for your friends. They are friends with one another. Whoever of you
seeks their friendship shall become one of their number. God does not guide the
wrongdoers’ [Sura 5:5]
As we have
already seen, Christ commanded His followers to
“Love your enemies” – what a contrast to Islam – ‘Let not the
unbelievers think that they will ever get away. They have not the power to do
so. Muster against them all the men and cavalry at your command, so that you
may strike terror into the enemy of God and your enemy’ [Sura 8:60]. ‘Make war
on them: [Non Muslims] God will
chastise them at your hands and humble them’ [Sura
In recent
years there has been an increasing litany of such violence against many
‘Infidels’ and in particular Christians. The Barnabas Fund web site carries
reports of many such distressing incidents and these can be accessed by sorting
through their archive reports on http://www.barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/
Previous
articles that I myself have written have also dealt with this global increase
in Islamic militancy and a couple that are relevant are found on http://www.takeheed.net/Assorted_Articles/Islam/WWIIIISRAGING.htm
and http://www.takeheed.net/Assorted_Articles/Islam/Turkeyfaithfuluntodeath.htm
As for the
‘tolerance and the dignity of all human beings’ not only does Islam deny these
to ‘Infidels’ it also denies ‘dignity’ to their own Muslim women. On a very
basic level, not I hasten to add that I’m in any way approving of polygamy,
Muslim men can have up to four wives but a Muslim woman can only have one
husband. A Muslim man can divorce a wife by simply making a verbal statement to
that effect – a Muslim woman has no such right of divorce. Sexually speaking,
Muslim wives are regarded as no better than a ‘field to be ploughed’ whenever
or however the husband wishes – ‘Women are your fields: go then, into your fields
whence you please’ [Sura 2:223].
As well as
the Koran, Muslims also rely heavily on the Hadith, a record of Mohammed’s
words and deeds recorded by various Muslim authorities. One such highly
respected source is the nine volumes by Sahih Al-Bukhari. In Volumes 1, 2 &
7 we learn how Mohammed said, ‘I was shown hell-fire and that the majority of
its dwellers are women’. In Volume 2 we are told Mohammed said to women, ‘I
have not seen any one more deficient in intelligence and religion than you’. In
Volume 3 we are told that Mohammed asked some women ‘Isn’t the witness of a
woman equal to half that of a man?’ The women said “yes”. Mohammed said, ‘This
is because of the deficiency of the woman’s mind’. [Source for quotes ‘Islam Unveiled’ (p 31-32) by Abdullah Al-Araby].
Robert
Spencer , one of the bravest and most informed writers on Islam, edited a large
book called ‘The Myth of Islamic Tolerance’, a compilation of 58
articles by various other equally informed authors. In one of his own
contributions entitled ‘Islamic Tolerance: Myth and Reality’ Mr Spencer
wrote on pages 36-44 -
‘The
almost universal prevalence of the myth of Islamic tolerance today has led to a
strange phenomenon: non-Muslims hastening to assure the public that the Islam
of the terrorists is not the “true Islam” which is they maintain a benign and
tolerant thing [The view expressed by Mr Obama in Cairo]
… Even stranger are instances when Western non-Muslims have taken it
upon themselves to lecture radical Muslims about their supposed misuse of their
faith [There are good examples of this by Tony
Blair, George Bush and Bill Clinton in the DVD ‘Islam: What the West Needs to
Know’]. In November 2003, two American converts to Islam,
Jeffrey Leon Battle and Patrice Lumumba Ford, were sentenced to eighteen years
in prison for trying to join the Taliban and wage jihad against their fellow
Americans. At the sentencing,
Dr Patrick
Sookhdeo, director of the Barnabas Fund, in his book ‘Global Jihad: The
Future in the Face of Militant Islam’ wrote on page 61, ‘Muslim
attitudes to violence are grounded in classical Islamic theology as derived
from the Qur’an, hadith and shari’a, as well as by the normative example of
Mohammed and the experiences of violent conflicts in the early history of
Islam’.
Dr John
MacArthur in his book, ‘Terrorism. Jihad and the Bible’ wrote on page
48, ‘The truth of the matter is that Islam today is the most powerful system
on earth for the destruction of biblical truth and Christianity. Islam is the
main persecutor of Christians all over the world. Thousands of Christians are
dying under Islamic persecution, especially in the
R C Sproul
in his book, ‘The Dark Side of Islam’ which details conversations he had
with Abdul Saleeb [a pseudonym] a Middle
East Muslim who converted to Christianity, records these comments by Abdul
Saleeb on page 91, ‘Islam divides the world into two segments: the House of
Islam and the House of war. The goal of Islam is to dominate the world: the
House of Islam must conquer the House of war. In a sense it is similar to the
Great commission of Jesus Christ; take the gospel to the end of the earth. The
radical difference between the Great Commission of Jesus Christ and the mission
of Islam is that Christians are not justified in using violence in spreading
the message of Christ, but Muslims believe they are justified in using violence
to spread their message’.
It would
serve President Obama (and the rest of the world) well to take the time to read
these and other such well-researched materials and not simply join the choir of
those singing the praises of a peaceful and tolerant Islam that is merely a
product of deadly, misguided wishful thinking.
For
President Obama, a professing Christian,
to publicly declare that America and Islam share common principles of
tolerance and dignity to all human beings, this
represents a betrayal of Jesus Christ and the principles He taught His disciples to adopt towards those opposed
to them
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
There have
naturally enough been many and varied reactions to President Obama’s speech in
Cairo but one of the most interesting, in the light of what I myself have
written, was a 9th June 2009 article in The Washington Times by
Frank Gaffney Jnr. Mr Gaffney in his time served under President Ronald Reagan
and in the run-up to the last Presidential election raised queries about Barack
Obama’s American citizenship and his eligibility to run for the office of
President. I know nothing of Mr Gaffney’s spiritual standing but was intrigued
to see some of the points he made in his article such as –
What little we know about Mr. Obama's youth certainly suggests that he not
only had a Kenyan father who was Muslim, but spent his early, formative years
as one in Indonesia. As the president likes to say, "much has been
made" -- in this case by him and his campaign handlers -- of the fact that
he became a Christian as an adult in Chicago, under the now-notorious Pastor
Jeremiah A. Wright.
With Mr. Obama's unbelievably
ballyhooed address in Cairo Thursday to what he calls "the Muslim
world" (hereafter known as "the Speech"), there is mounting
evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may
still be one himself. Consider the following indicators:
• Mr. Obama referred four times
in his speech to "the Holy Koran." Non-Muslims -- even pandering ones
-- generally don't use that Islamic formulation.
• Mr. Obama established his
firsthand knowledge of Islam (albeit without mentioning his reported upbringing
in the faith) with the statement, "I have known Islam on three continents
before coming to the region where it was first revealed." Again,
"revealed" is a depiction Muslims use to reflect their conviction
that the Koran is the word of God, as dictated to Muhammad.
• Then the president made a
statement no believing Christian -- certainly not one versed, as he professes
to be, in the ways of Islam -- would ever make. In the context of what he
euphemistically called the "situation between Israelis, Palestinians and
Arabs," Mr. Obama said he looked forward to the day ". . . when
Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and
a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in
the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) joined
in prayer."
Now, the term "peace be upon
them" is invoked by Muslims as a way of blessing deceased holy men.
According to Islam, that is what all three were - dead prophets. Of course, for
Christians, Jesus is the living and immortal Son of God…
Whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim or simply plays one in the
presidency may, in the end, be irrelevant. What is alarming is that in aligning
himself and his policies with those of Shariah-adherents such as the Muslim
Brotherhood, the president will greatly intensify the already enormous pressure
on peaceful, tolerant American Muslims [Cecil – whilst
there may be peaceful, tolerant Muslims in America and elsewhere, as we have
already seen there is no such a thing as a ‘peaceful and tolerant Islam’] to submit to such forces - and heighten expectations,
here and abroad, that the rest of us will do so as well.
I think many of the points made by Mr Gaffney could be
viewed simply as suggesting that Mr Obama, despite being a professing
Christian, had in his speech in Cairo, betrayed the Jesus Christ that he claims
to be a follower of.
It was somewhat ironic that just two days later, at the
65th anniversary celebrations of the D-Day landings, Mr Obama in his
speech in Normandy said the following about Nazism –
‘We live in a world of
competing beliefs and claims about what is true. It's a world of varied
religions and cultures and forms of government. In such a world, it's all too
rare for a struggle to emerge that speaks to something universal about
humanity. The Second World War did that. No man who shed blood or lost a
brother would say that war is good. But all know that this war was essential. For what we faced in Nazi totalitarianism was not just a
battle of competing interests. It was a competing vision of humanity. Nazi
ideology sought to subjugate and humiliate and exterminate. It perpetrated
murder on a massive scale, fuelled by a hatred of those who were deemed
different and therefore inferior. It was evil’.
It’s very
unfortunate that Mr Obama fails or perhaps chooses not to see that his
comments, that I have highlighted in bold, find suitable application to the
totalitarianism and ideology that is Islam. Barack Obama appears to be very
affable and is certainly very articulate and unfortunately my experience has
been that those who ‘preach another Christ and have received another spirit and
another gospel’ [2nd Corinthians 11:4] very often possess these
qualities and that makes them all the more dangerous to the true cause of
Christ.
If Mr Obama is
a Christian, and on the evidence it is very debatable, he is not one who
honours the God of Heaven, Father, Son and Holy Spirit by linking the Lord
Jesus Christ to Mohammed and the religion of Islam that he founded, in which
His deity and death are denied. John wrote, “The Father sent the Son to be the
Saviour of the world” [1st John
Islam is not
tolerant of any view that challenges their teaching on their god, Allah, and it
sanctions violence against any who do challenge it. Likewise the one true God
of Christianity, whilst He does not tolerate any view that challenges His
uniqueness and glory [see Isaiah 42:8] does specifically forbid any violence
against those who oppose Him as we have already seen from Matthew 5:43-44. No
faithful follower of Christ would ever then seek to align Christianity with
Islam as that would represent a gross betrayal of God the Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ and this is precisely what Mr Obama did in
One final
thought - perhaps you’re wondering who the Samuel M Zwemer is that I have
referred to in the course of this article. On this web site http://www.muhammadanism.org/Zwemer/Default.htm we learn the following -
Samuel Marinus Zwemer was
born on April 12, 1867 in Vriesland,
Unlike
President Obama, Dr Zwemer was a ‘good and faithful servant’ of the Lord Jesus
Christ and in the preface to a 1981 reprint of his book ‘The Moslem Doctrine of
God’ we read this fitting tribute to his fidelity as a disciple of the Lord
Jesus Christ –
‘The late
Dr Samuel M Zwemer was among the world’s greatest Islamic scholars. He was
expert in Arabic and its literature and in the Quran (Koran), in the Traditions, in the commentaries, and, by long
residence among Muslims, in the customs and mode of thought of the Muslim
peoples… What he demonstrates so successfully (in his
book) is that the whole Faith of Islam is not another way to God,
but the way to another god. With chapter and verse from the books which the
Muslims themselves most revere he proves conclusively that Allah is not another
name for our Holy God, but a different being altogether. And this Allah is not
the deity of a Sunni or Shiah or Wahabi sect, but the object of devotion of
them all’.
When it comes
to the subject of ‘Islam and Christianity’ it would serve
Barack Obama well to spend time studying the writings of such a man who, unlike
the President, was fully aware of the differing eternal consequences between
the two competing religions. Dr Zwemer, as a true Christian, knew clearly the
answer to the rhetorical question posed by Paul in 2nd
Corinthians 6:15 “what concord [literally ‘sounding together’ like
musical instruments] hath Christ with Belial [a name given to personify a system of impure worship]?’
Cecil Andrews – ‘Take Heed’ Ministries - 12th
June 2009