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Ex-Muslim Tells Baptist Pastors That Allah Isn't God

Discussion in '2003 Archive' started by Cindy, Jun 17, 2003.

  1. Cindy

    Cindy <img src=/Cindy.JPG>

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    (Phoenix-AP) -- A former Muslim has told Southern Baptist
    pastors that Allah isn't just another name for the God that
    Christians worship.
    Professor Ergun Caner, who teaches theology at The Criswell
    College in Dallas, told the pastors' convention in Phoenix that
    equating Allah with God is "nothing short of blasphemous."
    Caner said that when he left Islam to become a Christian,
    he "went from worshiping a false dead idol to knowing the one,
    true, living, sovereign Lord."
    The pastors' meeting precedes the annual meeting of the
    Southern Baptist Convention, which starts Tuesday in Phoenix.
     
  2. LadyEagle

    LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

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  3. Ben W

    Ben W Active Member
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    Yahweh is a Holy God, There are no other Gods before Him, To think that Gods of other religions are the same is foolishness. Look at what happend to the Idol Dagon when placed next to the Ark of the Covenant. The same for any that oppose our Holy Lord and Master.
     
  4. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    As long as you understand that, by that statement, Jews also worship a false god, then I'd be in agreement with you.
     
  5. LadyEagle

    LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

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    Yahweh was the Hebrew/Jewish God long before Christians knew Him.
     
  6. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    Yahweh was the Hebrew/Jewish God long before Christians knew Him. [/QUOTE]

    But Jews don't know Jesus, who is part of the Godhead. Therefore, by believing in a God without believing in Jesus, you're believing in a false God.

    You can't assert that Islam is a false religion with a false God unless you also assert that Judaism is a false religion with a false God.
     
  7. Kiffin

    Kiffin New Member

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    I for one assert that both Islam and modern day Judaism to be false religions that worship false gods.
     
  8. j_barner2000

    j_barner2000 Member

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    The first chapter of John establishes that in the beginning.... The Old Testament predicts the coming of The Christ. The New Testament affirms that He has come. Any religion that denies The Lord Jesus Christ is false.
     
  9. greek geek

    greek geek New Member

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    Following your logic Moses, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, King David, etc. worshiped a false God. For they did not believe in Jesus.

    Very Interesting considering the New Testament gives them a big thumbs up. Strange of God to applaud heathens for their faith.
     
  10. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    Moses, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, King David, etc., were from a time prior to the coming of the Messiah.

    I should clarify that I don't necessarily agree completely that non-Christians categorically worship false gods. In most cases, I believe that monotheists endeavour to faithfully seek the one true Almighty God, but that the method in which they do is in error. Paul talks about those who faithfully seek the "unknown God", and how God hears the faithfulness in their hearts, even in the absence of OT knowlege or understanding for these people. What I am asserting here is that you cannot say that Islam is worshipping a false god unless you also say that Judaism is worshipping a false god. For me, I prefer to simply share the Gospen and leave any faith determinations up to the Lord.
     
  11. Baptist Believer

    Baptist Believer Well-Known Member
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    Following your logic Moses, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, King David, etc. worshiped a false God. For they did not believe in Jesus.

    Very Interesting considering the New Testament gives them a big thumbs up. Strange of God to applaud heathens for their faith.
    </font>[/QUOTE]Jesus had not been revealed to them completely yet. But when Christ is revealed to those who are truly believers in God, Christ will be received with joy.

    A Jewish faith that rejects Jesus is a false faith.

    Here's just one place where this understanding is clearly explained:

    John 8

    31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, " If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
    32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
    33 They answered Him, " We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, 'You will become free'?"
    34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
    35 "The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.
    36 "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
    37 "I know that you are Abraham's descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.
    38 "I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father."
    39 They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, " If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham.
    40 "But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.
    41 "You are doing the deeds of your father." They said to Him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God."
    42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.
    43 "Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.
    44 "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
    45 "But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.
    46 "Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?
    47 "He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God."
    48 The Jews answered and said to Him, "Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?"
    49 Jesus answered, "I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me.
    50 "But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges.
    51 "Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death."
    52 The Jews said to Him, "Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, 'If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of death.'
    53 "Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?"
    54 Jesus answered, "If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, 'He is our God';
    55 and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.
    56 "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad."
    57 So the Jews said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?"
    58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am."

    59 Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.
     
  12. LadyEagle

    LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

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    There is a difference between worshipping a false god (Allah, the moon god) and worshipping the true God, Yahweh, and not accepting Jesus as the Messiah Who has already come.

    Jews worship the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which is the same God we as Christians worship. Jews look for the Messiah to come the First Time, while Christians look for the Messiah to come the Second Time.

    Muslims look for the Messiah to come, not as the Savior/Redeemer of the world or to attain salvation, but as merely a prophet.

    There is a big difference.

    Exactly. A false faith doesn't necessarily equate to a false God. Faith in a False God is entirely something else.

    Many people believe in God, the Creator of the Universe. But unless they have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, they are lost. The object of worship isn't false, but the worship is false because it isn't through Jesus Christ. Big difference.
     
  13. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    Oh, you're right, here we go again! :rolleyes:

    To deny Allah is the moon god is to deny the historical origins of Islam.


    No, they worship God the Father. That is not the same as worshipping a completely different god. Jews worship the One True God, but do not worship in Spirit & Truth. The Object of their worship is not false, but their faith is false because they reject Jesus.

    Did Abraham worship a false god because he did not know Jesus? Did David? Did Moses? Did any of the prophets of the OT? Even the OT writings proclaimed the promise of a Redeemer and Messiah, even as far back as Genesis. They looked forward to the Redeemer. See Isaiah Chapter 53. But when the Redeemer came, they did not recognize Him. They weren't looking for a false redeemer from a false god. To follow your logic, that is the only conclusion one can make. At what point in time did Yahweh go from being the One True God to becoming a false god? The Messiah being born of a virgin did not change the character or attributes of the First Person of the Godhead.

    Allah has always been a false god, a god Mohammed created from the existing gods in Mecca / Medina society. He just copied the idea of monotheism from the Jews in Mecca who who refused to regard him as a great prophet. He picked allah out of 300 or so of the gods worshipped in Mecca / Medina, allah the moon god. Top three were the moon god, the sun, and the three little sisters (stars) as the offspring of the moon and sun.

    It's documented history. Never was the moon god the same god as Yahweh.

    Again, the object of their worship is not false, it is incomplete.


    I don't know if your statements are accurate or not. The Hebrews certainly looked forward to the Messiah as salvation, which is documented throughout the OT, as stated earlier. I don't know if there are some sects of Judaism that reject the Redemption of the Messiah.

    But I do know that there will come a time when ALL of ISRAEL will recognize Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords and ALL of Israel will be saved because it is prophesied so.


    Using that line of reasoning, then, the same could be said about Buddhism or the god of the underworld. Or Ra. So that is a faulty interpretation of the Scripture.

    If the premise is faulty and one ignores the historical truth that allah is NOT the same as Yahweh, you would end up with this conclusion.

    But if one begins with the correct historical premise based on historical fact, one ends up with what I said earlier.

    Fact: Allah is a moon god and a god of war. It is demonstrated in the Quran. Allah is not a god of love, he is a god of works. Allah does not teach to love your enemies or to love your neighbor as yourself. Allah teaches to kill the infidels, Christians, and Jews.

    The two gods, Allah and Yahweh are diametrically opposed. Yahweh always had a plan for salvation from the beginning. Yahweh wrote his commandments on the hearts of men. One of those was to love your neighbor as yourself. He is the God of Love.

    Allah says if you kill the infidels and Jews and Christians you will assure a place in paradise for yourself and your family and you will have 72 black eyed virgins. Allah is the god of war.

    Johnv, you have yet to explain in many threads in your defense of Islam why either a sword and stars & nearly always the crescent moon adorns every flag of every Muslim country or why the crescent moon is atop many mosques just as in Christiandom there is a cross atop the synagogues and the Star of David atop synagogues.

    [ June 17, 2003, 07:21 PM: Message edited by: SheEagle9/11 ]
     
  14. LadyEagle

    LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

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    Oh, John, now I must ask for your forgiveness. I just accidentally deleted your post & superimposed mine (forgetting where I was and the Moderator thingy took over!!)

    I apologize. Guess I will have to stay off this forum. Tried to get your post back but it is toast, so now there are your quotes & my responses under your screen name. :eek: :(

    Sorry. I've said all I was gonna say anyway. :rolleyes: But I'm sure this will be discussed again in another thread.

    Will you forgive me even though you're mad? [​IMG]
     
  15. greek geek

    greek geek New Member

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    ok - in all honesty, JohnV, the replies since my last post have confused me. I am not saying this to be ugly but your replies lack consistant flow and consistant logic.

    So if they are not worshipping the True God and they are not worshipping a false god....then what is left for them to worship???? :confused:


    um....where do you get 'faithfully seek?' It was one statue among many others. How do you faithfully seek an 'unkown god' while seeking numerous other ones at the same time? There is nothing in the text that says they were faithfully seeking that one god.

    Oh and your capitalization of "unkown God" is reading into the text on your part that it was to The Only God. It was just to another statue to a 'god.' Paul used that, though, to proclaim the truth to them about the one true God whom they did not know.

    First of all lets clarify what Judaism is. True Judaism follows the TaNaK (OT). But Judaism today is more of a culture than anything else. I have a friend that is Jewish but only in culture - she claims no god. So I am going to assume that by Judaism you are refering to Jews actually trying to practice the Judaism laid out in the TaNaK.

    How can they be worshiping 'a false god' when God never changes.
    So how can Jews be worshipping a false god. Does He have a twin out there that was in charge of the OT and then suddenly our God took over and is in charge of the NT?? I think not.

    I am not saying that they are seeking God. In fact all the practicing Jews I have had encounters with, are focused on rules - which is wrong. The focus is to be on God.

    But the God of the OT is the SAME God as the God of the NT.

    What changed was the amount of revelation available to us.
     
  16. Ben W

    Ben W Active Member
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    Modern Day Jews that are of the Orthadox or Liberal Judaism attempt to worship the same God as Christians.

    The right and proper fufilment of Judaism for the jew is Messianic Judaism.

    Mosaic Judaism is rightly fufilled in Messianic Judaism.

    There is no temple, No Levites. Modern Jews are well aware that the current form of Jewish Worship offered in Synagogues is not the Same as in the Years prior to Jesus Christ.

    Yet Yahshua (Jesus) Completes Judaism. He is the final Sacrifice, He is the Holy of Holies, By appproaching Him, you may know the Father.

    Messianic Jews most certainley worship the same God as you and I, rightly so being that they are the church the Gentiles are grafted in to.
     
  17. LadyEagle

    LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

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    greek geek & Ben: You both said in a much more eloquent manner what I was trying to say (& you didn't mess up John's post, either!) So, Thanks! [​IMG]
     
  18. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    Of course, silly!!!!

    Rather than "fix" the post, better to let it alone and allow people to imput as they like. I don't think there's much else for either of us to add, that hadn't already been said, so rather than hijack the thread, I'll probably bow out as well.

    No apology necessary.
     
  19. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    So if they are not worshipping the True God and they are not worshipping a false god....then what is left for them to worship???? :confused:
    Worshiping God and knowing God are two different things. Paul asserted that the athenian "Unknown God" was the Almighty God he desired to share with them.

    um....where do you get 'faithfully seek?' It was one statue among many others.
    It wasn't a statue, it was an alter, dedicated to The Unknown God. Paul stated that they sought the Unknown God in ignorance. he did not say they sought him in vain. Their desire to seek God whom they worshipped, but did not know, was genuine.

    How do you faithfully seek an 'unkown god' while seeking numerous other ones at the same time? There is nothing in the text that says they were faithfully seeking that one god.
    Huh? Read Paul's words again. But more to the point, there are lots of people among us who seek God, and have never owned a bible. I know a few Christians who didn't start reading the Bible until after they got saved. They knew there was a God, and accepted that Jesus does for them, but that's all they knew. They weren't seeking a "false God", but an "unknown God". After they got saved, they gradually got to know Him better.

    [/b]...your capitalization of "unkown God" is reading into the text on your part that it was to The Only God.[/b]
    I followed Paul's example, when he said it was the unknown God that he wanted to tell them about.

    It was just to another statue to a 'god.' Paul used that, though, to proclaim the truth to them about the one true God whom they did not know.
    Yes, Paul was good at that. But the fact remains that he said the unknon God they worshipped in ignorance was the one Almighty God.

    First of all lets clarify what Judaism is. True Judaism follows the TaNaK (OT). But Judaism today is more of a culture than anything else. I have a friend that is Jewish but only in culture - she claims no god.
    Then she is culturally Jewish, but not faithfully Jewish. That's unfortinately true of a few Christians as well. There are also a few cultural agnostics who aren't really. But the issue of culture vs religion is completely different. OT Judaism is not just a culture, it's a faith system.

    So I am going to assume that by Judaism you are refering to Jews actually trying to practice the Judaism laid out in the TaNaK.

    How can they be worshiping 'a false god' when God never changes.
    Becaose God without the Messiah, according to Christianity, is not God.

    So how can Jews be worshipping a false god. Does He have a twin out there that was in charge of the OT and then suddenly our God took over and is in charge of the NT?? I think not.
    The God of the Jews, according to Judaism, had nothing to do with the NT, and the God of the Christians is the God of the OT, since we worship a man, according to them.

    I am not saying that they are seeking God. In fact all the practicing Jews I have had encounters with, are focused on rules - which is wrong. The focus is to be on God.
    That's probably a different topic altogether. The Jews I know are all faithful and dedicated, and follow Jewish tradition because that's their way of being obedient to God. I don't think that is necessarily wrong.

    But the God of the OT is the SAME God as the God of the NT.
    Well, we believe that, but the Jews don't. Even Muslims accept the NT more than the Jews do. They simply don't accept it as infallible.

    What changed was the amount of revelation available to us.
    I think the coming of Jesus was more than just a revelation, but again, different topic.
     
  20. Kiffin

    Kiffin New Member

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    The Old Testament Jews were saved by their faith in the coming Messiah. Modern day Judaism was reinvented after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 since they no could longer sacrifice. They rejected the Messiah and therefore have rejected God. In the Book of Revelation their places of worship are called, "synagogues of Satan". They are a false religion. God did not change but Judaism did. The faith of Abraham and Moses is found in the Church, no longer in what is now called Judaism.

    I disagree slightly with Ben though I understand where he is coming from. The right and proper fulfillment of Judaism however is not Messianic Judaism or any other denominational name but is Christianity. Christianity is the fulfilment of Judaism where there is neither Jew or Gentile. In the end only those who are the spiritual kin of Abraham are the children of Abraham and that can only be found in Christ (John 14:6) and His Church. Judaism like Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism etc..is a rebel religion of this world .
     
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