From Answers in Genesis Ken Ham

President Obama Speech: Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

by Ken Ham on February 4, 2016

Yesterday US President Barack Obama spoke in a mosque at the Islamic Society of Baltimore on the topic of religious freedom and Muslims. He made several comments and inferences during his presentation that suggested he believes Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Near the beginning of his presentation, President Obama compared a mosque to a church, temple, or synagogue, and said that they are all places to “worship and express . . . love for God.” But which god? Whose god is he referring to?

Later, he said that we need to remember that “we’re all God’s children.” Again, which god is he referring to? Is he talking about Allah, the Muslim god, or Yahweh, the God of the Bible? He never made a distinction about which god.
Near the end of his speech, President Obama quoted a Muslim American who, following the tragic Chattanooga, Tennessee, shooting by a Muslim extremist said, “in the name of God, the God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammed, God bless our fallen heroes.” By quoting this statement, Obama seems to be agreeing with the idea behind it—that Christians and Muslims worship the same god.
This morning at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama spoke started his talk by saying: “Giving all praise and honor to God for bringing us all here together,” and then quoted 2 Timothy 1:7. His speech was full of references to Jesus, God, faith, and how God can help us conquer fear in our tumultuous times. But what god was he ultimately talking about? Near the end of his speech he made reference to “good people, of all faiths, who do the Lord’s work each and every day.” He went on to define this work as caring for the hurting and needy, and said that people of all faiths—Jews, Christians, Sikhs, and Muslims—do this in times of crisis. So, according to President Obama, no matter what your faith, you’re doing the Lord’s work? And which Lord? Certainly not the Lord Jesus Christ! Jesus says that “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.” If you are not with Jesus Christ, regardless of what work you do, you are against Him.
Obama continued, “That the God that is in each of us comes together. And that we don’t divide.” Which God in each of us? While each of us bears the image of God (Genesis 1:27), only those who have repented and trusted in Christ for their salvation have God actually living in them.

I think of the verse: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
What President Obama is talking about—this idea that all faiths are equal, especially Islam and Christianity, and that all people serve God in some way—is a dangerous misconception. It is increasingly becoming common in our pluralistic and inclusive culture. But nothing could be farther from the truth. A quick study of God’s Word and key Christian doctrines makes it clear that Islam and Christianity are utterly incompatible.
Scripture makes it clear that Christ is both Lord and God, and the only way to be saved is through what Christ has done:

For in Him [Jesus] dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)

That their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ. (Colossians 2:2, emphasis added)

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5–11)

That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

Muslims reject Christ as Lord and God. They claim that He was just a prophet. But Jesus claimed to be the great I AM (John 8:58), not just a prophet. Muslims also reject the idea that God has a Son, Jesus. But Scripture is clear that Jesus is the Son of God (1 John 4:15). Muslims don’t believe that Jesus died and rose again, but that someone (usually they say Judas) was crucified in Jesus’s place, and Jesus was taken to Heaven without dying. But Scripture is clear that Christ’s death and resurrection were necessary for salvation and that they happened in real history (1 Corinthians 15). Since Muslims reject these key Christian doctrines and do not worship Christ, the great I AM, the God of the Bible, they can’t possibly be worshipping the same God as Christians.
The Bible also makes it abundantly clear that God is a triune God—three persons in one: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Since Muslims vehemently deny the Trinity, they deny the true God.
These is just a small sampling of the huge differences between Christianity and Islam! But even this brief overview clearly shows that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God. To argue this is to ignore both the teachings of Islam and the teachings of the Bible.
So if Muslims don’t worship the one true God, then they are worshipping a false god. They’ve been deceived into thinking that they are serving God, but really, they are not, and sadly they are headed for an eternity separated from God. This should break our hearts as Christians. We have the message of salvation that all people need to hear. Millions of Muslims live here in the United States, and they need to hear about the one true God who came as a man, died for their sin, rose again, and now offers the free gift of salvation to all who will confess Christ as Lord and trust in Him (Romans 10:9). We need to tell others about this precious gift!
To learn more about witnessing to Muslims see our two-part article series or our new book World Religions and Cults: Volume 1.
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

From David Hocking

JESUS UNVEILED

By Charles Gardner (IsraelTodayNews)

I was greatly encouraged to read the report from David Lazarus about a group of prominent rabbis calling for a renewed look at Jesus.   At the same time I have been greatly inspired by a book about Joseph, the Jewish patriarch, and how he offered total forgiveness to his brothers who had sold him into slavery.

God Meant it for Good by R T Kendall was published by Kingsway 30 years ago, and is an absolute classic that could transform lives, communities and nations. The author's main purpose was to deal with the issue of forgiveness, so vital in all our dealings.   But I want to deal with the issue of Joseph, as a type of the future Messiah, revealing himself to his brothers in the flesh, and of course forgiving them.

Effectively given up for dead, Joseph is finally unveiled - alive and in charge of all Egypt - and instead of wreaking vengeance by handing out the punishment they fully deserved, he astonishes them by saying: "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." (Genesis 50.20)

This is the gospel, and especially so for the Jew, to whom it was first given; that though we put Jesus on the cross - and the Jewish religious leaders were especially culpable - it was meant to happen. "...It was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer..." (Isaiah 53.10)

Despite his brothers' rejection, Joseph became the savior of Israel, and was a sign of what would happen 400 years later when God's method of substitutionary sacrifice for sin was demonstrated on the night before the Exodus from Egypt.

Although Moses was the chosen human instrument in Israel's deliverance from slavery, the vital spiritual element was the blood of the lamb daubed on the lintels and doorposts of their homes, prefiguring the death of the Lamb of God who was to lead them into true freedom.

Joseph's brothers threw him down a well in a fit of jealousy over their father Jacob's misplaced favoritism.   Thanks to Reuben's influence, they thought better of it and rescued him, only to sell him as a slave to passing Ishmaelites.   But when, many years later, they were forced to go down to Egypt during the famine predicted by Joseph in interpreting Pharaoh's dream (of seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine), they felt they were being punished for their wicked deeds and began to repent among themselves.

They did not at first recognize their brother, whose wisdom in hearing from God and thus storing up grain in preparation for the lean years was to save them from starvation, but of course it was a great shock when he was finally revealed as the Prime Minister of the greatest nation on earth!

And I imagine it was an even greater shock when they realized that he held nothing against them; that he wept with joy at being re-united with his brothers; and that they were totally forgiven.

It's interesting that Joseph was taken into Egypt after being rejected by his brothers. After Jesus was largely rejected by the Jewish people (though a significant number accepted him, of course, or the Church would never have come into existence), the message about him was taken to the nations, and the Gentile world elevated him to a prominent role in their affairs. Isaiah had prophesied that the Gentiles would put their hope in Him. (Isaiah 42.4; see also Matthew 12.21)

As far as the UK and the USA are concerned, it would be true to say that from the 17th through 19th centuries the gospel of Christ and the Bible itself was the most influential teaching they possessed, affecting virtually every institution and producing great wealth and power in the process.   At the same time a host of passionate preachers went out to the far corners of the world spreading this gospel to heathen nations. Jesus had in some respects become Lord of the Gentile world, a situation that would, in time, make Israel "envious", according to the Apostle Paul, an orthodox Jewish rabbi who led the mission to the Gentiles. (Romans 11.11)

But just as Joseph never forgot his brothers, and longed for reunion with them, so Jesus - actually descended from Judah and described in the Bible as the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev 5.5) - reaches out in love to his long-lost brothers in the flesh, for whom things got worse before they got better.   Now, over the past two centuries (even in the midst of multiple pogroms and the Holocaust itself), He has been revealing himself afresh to his people.

Though sadly Jesus is still seen largely as God of the Gentiles, Jewish eyes have gradually been opened. It is believed, for example, that there were as many as 100,000 Jewish followers of Jesus at the outbreak of World War II in 1939.  

Tragically, many of them would have perished in Hitler's gas chambers. But out of the ashes of the Holocaust, we not only have a re-born nation of Israel, but a growing number of so-called Messianic fellowships bringing Jesus back to where he belongs.

Just as Joseph was a sign of what was to come 400 years later with deliverance from Egypt through the blood of the lamb, so the voice of the prophets recorded in the Jewish Tenakh (what Christians call the Old Testament) fell silent for 400 years until the revelation of Jesus in the New Testament.

Joseph provided his brothers with grain amidst the famine. And now Jesus is "the bread of life" - the manna from heaven - as he "fills the hungry with good things" (John 6.35, Luke 1.53)

There will come a time when, back in the land of promise and delivered from bondage in a hostile world, all Israel will recognize Yeshua, their Messiah. (Zechariah 12.10, Romans 11.26) What a day that will be - life from the dead as he who was despised and rejected of men is revealed to his brothers alive... and as Lord of all!

NEW YORK TIMES AGAIN VILIFIES ISRAEL WITHOUT FACTS!
By Ari Yashar (Arutz Sheva News)

Editors once again have to correct Diaa Hadid, formerly of Electronic Intifada, after she slams Old City Arab eviction on a complete lie.

Diaa Hadid, a New York Times correspondent, has once again forced her editors to correct her work, after not bothering to get the facts straight in a recent piece that slammed Israeli policy for the eviction of an Arab family from Jerusalem's Old City.

In her article earlier this month, Hadid wrote that: "Nazira Maswadi's new landlord is trying to kick her out based on a claim that her estranged husband, Tawfiq, the original lessee, is dead. 'He's not dead,' she insisted. 'He has 10 children with me.   If he died, they would have to bury him.'"

There is only a problem with the claim presented in the New York Times article - it is completely false.

An investigation by the media watch organization CAMERA caused the paper's editor on Tuesday to acknowledge that the court documents in the eviction case reveal that Maswadi was in fact being kicked out for the simple reason that she is not paying rent.

The revelation exposes the baseless nature of the bias seen in the article, including lines such as: "the Palestinian families and their supporters claim the evictions, often based on seemingly arcane violations of their rental agreements, are part of a broader agenda to create Jewish enclaves inside the historic Muslim Quarter."

As noted by Honest Reporting on Tuesday, it would be hard for Hadid to sell to readers that failure to pay rent is an "arcane violation" of a rental agreement, as she opined in the article.

The New York Times editor also admitted that "the descriptions were based on the tenants' accounts; the article should have included additional information from court documents or from the landlords," revealing Hadid simply took the story of the evicted Arab residents without even a minimal checking of the facts.

This is not the first time that the editors have had to correct Hadid, who worked in the past with the pro-Hamas site Electronic Intifada, as well as with the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment.

Earlier this month the paper's Public Editor Margaret Sullivan had to issue a correction admitting the problematic nature of Hadid's recent article which portrayed Arab Israelis in Haifa as cultured and "cool," after it was disputed by a key pro-terror Arab source who said he was misrepresented.

Sullivan admitted that the article lacked "context."

It focused on "liberal Arab culture" in Haifa, but Ayed Fadel, a main source quoted in the article, revealed on Facebook that "90%" of what he said, which was about "resistance," was taken out. He slammed the attempt by "white media" to portray Arab citizens of Israel as "cool yay hipsters."

David Hocking

HFT Connect