Alan Shlemon "Engaging Muslims with the Gospel"

Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful

that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either

by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for

us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?

The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really,

I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible,

they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will

do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a

non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't

hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the

types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.

We're going to pray for ourselves and for Alan as he prepares to speak to us. Welcome, brother.

Let's pray. Father, we give you thanks and praise that there are many Muslims in this city,

and many of us probably know Muslims. We give you thanks and praise that you have put us in proximity

to them, and we ask that you grant us opportunities that we might tell them about Jesus. I ask, Father,

for the anointing of your Holy Spirit upon this, our brother Alan, as he opens your Word and helps us

to understand the gospel and the whole counsel of God better, and as he gives us some coaching and

encouragement as to ways to enter into good faith, friendly conversations with our Muslim friends

about the gospel. And so, Father, we ask that you would bless Alan as he speaks and bless us as we

listen. And we ask all of these things in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

Amen. Welcome, brother. Thank you, brother.

Well, good morning. My parents were born in the city of Baghdad, which is in the country of Iraq,

which, by the way, if you're looking for a warmer vacation destination, I don't recommend you go there.

Things aren't quite settled there just yet. Maybe hold off for another, I don't know, 2,000 years,

and things will get a little better. But my parents did not raise my brother and I as Muslims.

Rather, they raised us as Christians. And the reason is, is because my people, my ethnic background,

is called a Syrian. Now, this is not to be confused with Syrian, which is a reference to the country in

the Middle East that exists today. Those people are Syrians. I am from Assyria, which is a country

that has not existed for 2,700 years. Now, just out of curiosity, raise your hand if you've ever heard

of the Assyrian people at some point in your life. Yeah, looks like a lot of you have. Chances are,

if you've read any parts of the Old Testament, you'll recall the Assyrians, my people, are talked a lot

about in the Old Testament. Which sounds kind of cool, until you realize we were the sworn enemies

of Israel. So, consequently, that made us the sworn enemies of God. So, that was kind of a bummer growing

up and kind of finding that out as you get older. But with therapy and counseling, I got over it. I'm

very comfortable in my skin today. So, be of good cheer. I'm comfortable today. All right. But enough

about my problems. Let's talk specifically about the nature of Islam and how we're supposed to reach

out to Muslims that we might know as friends or family members, in fact. I remember when I first

started witnessing to Muslims, I thought to myself, well, I need to find some Muslims to start talking

to. That's probably the best way to get started. I was living in Los Angeles, and I knew of a very

significant neighborhood that had a large population of Muslims. So, I thought to myself, all right, let's

go there. So, I drove to the neighborhood. I'm driving around. I'm looking for some Muslims to talk to.

And I see this kind of mall area with a bunch of stores and restaurants. And the font that the

restaurants were using had this sort of like Arabic script kind of font. And I thought to myself, well,

this must be the right place. So, I parked my car. I got out, started walking around. And I see these

two guys that had a dark complexion, kind of looked like me. So, I'm like racially profiling them. And I'm

like, oh, they must be Muslims, right? So, they're about to walk into a restaurant. And I ran up to the

door. And I put my hand in the door. I said, excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you. I said, are you guys

Muslims? And they kind of looked at each other a little bit hesitant and apprehensive. Like, why is

some random person asking us this? But they eventually said, yeah, we're Muslims. Why? I said, oh, great.

I said, hey, I'm a Christian. Would you like to talk about God and Jesus and the Bible? And they said,

to my surprise, sure. Hey, why don't you come inside and sit down with us as we eat? I'm like, whoa,

that's great. That's really easy. Okay. So, we sit down. And for hours, we talked about God and Jesus

and the Bible. And of course, we didn't agree on a whole bunch of things. But actually, the conversation

was quite vigorous. And we went on for hours and had actually a really good time. Now, I want you to

think about this. As I got up to pay for my part of the meal, and I pulled out some money, they saw that.

And they said, no, no, stop. Put away your money. They said, your money's not good here. We insist

on paying for your meal. Now, imagine had I gone to an average, typical, sort of U.S. mall,

and walked up to two average Americans and said to them the same thing. Hey, I'm a Christian. Would you

like to talk about God and Jesus and the Bible? What do you think they'd say? Yeah. No would be the

nicest thing they'd say. It's more like, get lost, freak. Like, no, we don't want to talk about Jesus.

Like, get away from us, right? But see, this tells us something about Muslims. They actually love to talk

about God and Jesus and the Bible. And so, starting a conversation with a Muslim about religion or faith

or God is like starting a conversation with Elon Musk about Tesla or SpaceX, right? I mean, if you just

started the conversation, it would go. It's virtually effortless. And so, I'm thinking we have this wide

open opportunity to talk to a massive group of people who are perfectly comfortable talking about

faith and religion. And by the way, it turns out there are a whole bunch of Muslims to talk to. In fact,

although this isn't a picture of every Muslim on the earth, this is a picture of Mecca, Saudi Arabia

during one of their gatherings. And it kind of shows, you know, all these little dots are people,

by the way. It just shows the magnitude of this gathering alone. But we estimate that there are

probably about 1.8 billion Muslims in the world. And when you think of the general world population,

what that means is almost one in four people on the planet is a Muslim. Almost one in four. That's a lot

of Muslims. And when you consider a more sobering statistic, based on our best sort of demographic

data, based on the rates of death in various countries, we estimate that every single day,

about 40,273 Muslims die and enter eternity without Jesus. Over 40,000 Muslims die every single day and

enter eternity without Christ. So the question then becomes, okay, well, with those kinds of numbers,

right, and with the fact that Muslims aren't just in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, they're all over the planet,

and of course, they're in Ottawa as well, what should be our approach as we consider how we could reach

our Muslim neighbor? And fortunately, the scripture passage that we looked at just now helps actually

answer this very question. And as you recall, as we looked at this passage, the Bible identifies us as

ambassadors for Christ. Which means if you're here this morning and you profess to be a follower of

Jesus, then you already are an ambassador for Christ. So that's not a title that's given to you after

you've been a Christian for 20, 40, 60 years, and then we say, okay, well, now let's pin the blue ribbon

upon your chest. You are now an ambassador. No. The instant you step over the line and decide to follow

Jesus, you become his ambassador and you become his representative. And that means however you come

across to other people, all the things that you say and that you do ultimately is a reflection upon the

good name of Jesus. And so a key question every one of us must ask ourselves is, well, what kind of ambassador

am I like? Am I an effective ambassador or am I an ineffective ambassador? Because regardless of

which one you are, you are saying something about your king. But now the second thing that this passage

here tells us is about the nature of our mission, right? So Paul tells us our identity. We're ambassadors

for Christ. But notice what word is repeated three times in this passage. In fact, four if you consider the

passage we read during our scripture reading. And the word is reconcile or reconciliation. Now, the idea of

reconciliation is to bring together two parties that are at enmity with one another. And if you consider

the fact that the Bible paints a picture of God and the world, and these two parties are at enmity with

one another. However, Paul, writing to the Corinthian believers says, you, however, have been reconciled to

God. You've been made at peace with God. You are no longer an enemy of God, but you are now a friend of

God. And since you have been reconciled to God, it is now your mission to proclaim that same message of

reconciliation to the rest of the world. And so notice your identity is an ambassador for Jesus,

and your mission is to proclaim the message of reconciliation. The question then becomes,

how do we fulfill that mission and that role when it comes to Islam? And I submit to you, the answer is

exactly the way an ambassador would do it. Like a political ambassador, right? What do political

ambassadors typically do? Two things. They learn, and then they engage. They learn about the people group

they're going to go reach, and then they go and engage that people group. And so what I want to do

here in my comments this morning is help you to do both. Learn something about Islam, and actually give

you some tactics to be able to engage Muslims. And in fact, I want to give you an overall strategy of how

I engage Muslims, and specifically address the most common objection you will run across when talking to

a Muslim. All right, so before we get to that overall strategy, let me just give you four background pieces

of information about Islam that are relevant for you to understand so that it makes better sense why this

tactic is effective and why it works. Now, you may already know that in order to be a good Muslim, you're

supposed to practice certain behaviors. These are known as the five pillars of Islam. And these pillars

are reciting a creed, they are prayer, they are fasting, they are giving alms, and they're going on a

pilgrimage. Now, I don't want to spend too much time on that. These are just sort of religious practices

of Islam. You could probably Google them if you wanted to learn more about them. I'm more interested in

another aspect of Islamic faith, which is not necessarily the behaviors of Muslims, but rather

the doctrinal positions they must adopt. So the behaviors of the five pillars of Islam, but the

doctrinal positions that they must adopt are called the six articles of faith. And I want to make aware

to you just four of them that are relevant for this specific tactic and strategy that I want you to

understand. So the first significant article of faith that's important for you to understand is the

belief in the angels of Allah. Now, according to Islam, Allah has created angels. These angels do not

have free will. They simply obey Allah and they administrate his kingdom. In fact, according to Islam, there are

two angels that follow each and every one of you throughout your entire life. One angel keeps track

of all your good deeds, and another angel keeps track of all your bad deeds. Okay, so as my Gen X, I'm sorry,

my Gen Z kids would say, that's mad sus that these angels are like following you all around throughout

your whole life, right? Kind of creepy. But that's what Islam teaches. A second required belief in Islam

is the belief in the prophets of Allah. Now, according to Islam, Allah has commissioned

different prophets throughout every human civilization. So every people group throughout

all of humanity has received some prophet who is a human being that was commissioned by Allah to receive

revelation and proclaim the truth. And what's interesting is that a lot of people who are in the Bible

are identified as prophets of Allah. So for example, Adam is considered to be a prophet of Allah.

Moses is a prophet of Allah. David is a prophet of Allah. And most significantly, Jesus is identified

in the Quran as a prophet of Allah. And of course, not surprising, Muhammad also is a prophet of Allah.

Okay. Now, I put photo not available, not because I don't have an image or depiction of Muhammad.

I do. But as you probably know, it is wildly unpopular and politically incorrect to show images

of Muhammad. And since, you know, many Muslims come to my presentations and sit, there's no need for me to

unnecessarily offend Muslims. Although interestingly, it was Muslims who first started creating artwork and

images of Muhammad back in the 12th century. And they actually created lots of them. And some of them

are still hanging in museums around the world. But obviously, it has since fallen out of favor,

according to Islam, for fear of idolatry and out of respect for prophets. Technically, they don't like me

to show any images of any prophets. But they usually let me get away with, you know, showing pictures of

Jesus and others. Anyways, the point here I'm trying to make is this. Belief in Jesus is a required

doctrine in Islam. Now, it's important to understand, their Jesus is not the same as the biblical or true

Jesus. Okay. According to Islam, Jesus is not part of the Trinity or the Son of God. And in fact, in the

Quran, it specifically teaches against this. Islam believes in what's called Tawheed, which is this

form of monotheism that says there is one God, but this one God exists as one person. And so, they are

vigorously anti-Trinitarian. In fact, to deny the doctrine that there is one God who exists as one

person is to commit the most grievous sin in Islam. That's called the sin of shirk. It's an unpardonable sin.

Meaning, if you believe and attribute divinity to, say, Jesus or the Holy Spirit, you've committed

that unpardonable sin called the sin of shirk. And if you die not having repented of it, you're

guaranteed to go to hell. No questions asked. You know, do not pass go, do not collect 200, go directly

to hell, right? Anybody play Monopoly here? No? Okay. Maybe you recognize that reference. Okay. That's right.

Bad joke. All right. So, notice, in Islam, they don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God, part of the

Trinity. They also deny the crucifixion of Jesus. And that's because the Quran says he was not crucified,

but rather he was made to appear as if he was crucified. And of course, if Jesus wasn't crucified,

then he couldn't have been resurrected. And if he didn't get crucified and rise again, he can't atone for

sins. So, on the Islamic and false view of Jesus, Jesus is merely a human being who was commissioned

to be a prophet. Just like we would say Moses was merely a human being who was commissioned to be a

prophet. And just like Muslims would say Muhammad is merely a human being who was commissioned to be a

prophet. Now, despite this lower Christology that they have about Jesus, it's still rather interesting

when you read the Quran to see what does the Quran say about Jesus. In fact, Jesus is the most referenced

person in all of the Quran. 187 references to Jesus in the Quran compared to about 25 about Muhammad.

And when you read the Quran, what you notice is the Quran has a very, very high view of Jesus.

According to the Quran, his birth was announced by angels. And in fact, I have a citation there,

Surah 3. The word surah just means chapter. So, chapter 3, verses 44 through 45 is where you'd find this.

The Quran also affirms that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. The Quran teaches that Jesus

was able to perform miracles like heal sick people and raise the dead. The Quran affirms that Jesus

lived a sinless and perfect life. The Quran even calls Jesus the Messiah. And according to the Quran,

Jesus at the end of his life was taken up to be in the presence of Allah and he's the one who's

appointed to come back at the end of time to kill the Antichrist, to break all the crosses, and to kill all the pigs.

So, no more bacon wrapped filet mignon at that point, which would be a big bummer because bacon wrapped filet mignon is amazing,

amazing food, right? Very tender filet, right? You can cut it almost like a butter knife, right? Filet is so tender.

But filet doesn't sometimes always have as much flavor as you want, but if you wrap it in bacon,

it adds some, you know, fatty flavor, which is great. Okay. That's not going away because, remember,

this is Islamic theology. Islamic theology is false, right? Now, this is rather significant that the

Quran itself affirms this about Jesus. But what's even more interesting is when you contrast with what

it says about Jesus with what it says about Muhammad. According to the Quran, there was no announcement

of Muhammad's birth, right? He had a very ordinary birth. The Quran does not affirm any kind of miraculous

events to Muhammad. It doesn't say he was sinless. It doesn't call him the Messiah. And according to the

Quran, Muhammad has been dead and buried in Saudi Arabia for the last 1400 years, and he's not the

appointed one to return. So what this tells me is that I, as a Christian, have tremendous freedom

to talk about Jesus with my Muslim friends and neighbors, right? Why? Because the Quran, which is

the highest authority in Islam, speaks volumes about Jesus and has a very high view of who Jesus is.

So this is also a key doctrinal position that Muslims must affirm about Jesus. So they must believe in

Allah's angels. They must believe in the prophets of Allah. They also must believe, and here's another

article of faith that Muslims must affirm, they also must believe in the final judgment.

And according to this doctrine, at the end of time, every human being will be resurrected and judged

according to their deeds, okay? And so all the good and bad deeds are going to be brought upon

and put onto a scale. And by the way, how do we know what good and bad deeds you have?

Those angels, that's right, those angels that have been following your whole life, right, they will

bring the deeds forth, they'll put them on a scale, and if your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds,

you go to heaven. If your, I'm sorry, if your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, you go to heaven.

If your bad deeds outweigh your good deeds, you go to hell. So they have a meritorious based system

of salvation. It's based on merit. It's based on deeds, on what you do, right? Quite contrary to the

gospel of Jesus Christ, which is based on grace and nothing that we can do ourselves.

So this is, again, another required doctrinal position Muslims must affirm. And the fourth one

that I want you to become aware of before I unpack this tactic is the belief in the books of Allah.

Now, the Quran identifies four divine revelations that are from Allah, and it identifies them by name.

All right? The first one, of course, is the Quran. So the Quran refers to itself as a divine revelation

that is, that is from, of course, from Allah, and given to which prophet in Islam? Tell me out loud.

Muhammad, exactly. The Quran also identifies the Torah as a true revelation on par with the Quran given

to which prophet? Moses. That's right. The Psalms is also named in the Quran as a true revelation on par with the Quran

given to which prophet? David. And then finally, the gospel is identified as a true revelation on par with the Quran

given to which prophet? Jesus. Right. Now, I know what you're thinking. Wait a minute, Alan.

Then, how could it be that Muslims are required to believe in the books of Allah? And one of those books

is called the gospel. And, of course, if you think of the gospels, right, in the New Testament,

they claim that Jesus was the Son of God, right? He makes a reference, and he says, I and the Father are one.

The gospels affirm the death and crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, right? All of these things

which Muslims, or I should say, what Islam denies. So, does anyone here know how do Muslims reconcile

the claim from the Quran, their highest authority, that the gospel is a true revelation,

and yet deny all these aspects of what the gospels teach? That's right. It's corrupted. So,

the number one objection that you will hear from a Muslim is that the gospel, and I'm not going to

address the Torah and Psalms as much right now, because the gospel, I think, is most pertinent for

our purposes to share the gospel. But the number one objection you will hear from a Muslim when you're

talking to them about faith and religion, or if you're trying to share the gospel, is that they'll say

the gospel is corrupted. Either Christians intentionally change the gospel, or as a result of their

irresponsibility allowed it to become corrupted. Either way, what the gospels say is not accurate.

It's got the words of Allah and the words of humans mixed in together, and we don't know which is which,

so we can't trust it. Now, not only is this the most common objection we'll run across when talking

to a Muslim, it's also the most serious objection. Because where are the words of Jesus and his message

of reconciliation found? The gospels, right? But that's the very source of authority the Muslim's

going to say, uh-uh, you got to take that off the table when we're having a conversation, because that

has become corrupted. All right, well, with that said, I want to tell you how to overcome that objection,

because unless you address this objection, you are not going to go very far in your ability to share

the gospel with the Muslim friend or neighbor. Because virtually every conversation with the

Muslim at some point comes down to just one issue, and that one issue is authority.

Muslims claim the Quran is the authoritative word of Allah. We would say, no, that's not the case.

The Bible is, and specifically in this case, we want to share the gospel is the authority.

And so you have to reconcile this issue. You have to deal with the issue of authority.

And here's what I've discovered in talking to Muslims for now over 15 or 20 years,

is that there is a distinction between what many Muslims say and what Islam teaches. Meaning,

there's a distinction between what Muslims say and what authoritative sources in Islam teach.

And although Muslims will say the gospel is corrupted, it turns out that their highest authority,

the Quran, teaches the opposite, that the gospel is a trustworthy revelation from Allah.

And let me show you what this looks like. It turns out that the gospel, I'm sorry, the Quran affirms

three things about the gospel. The first thing is this. The Quran affirms that the gospel is a divine

revelation of Allah. And I have just three or so verses in the Quran cited here. There are actually

probably a dozen. So I just want you to know that these statements I'm going to be making are not from

some esoteric verse here that's maybe taken out of context and misinterpreted. Like, this is the plain

teaching of the entire corpus of the document of the Quran. Okay? So the number one, the Quran affirms

that gospel is a divine revelation of Allah. Number two, the Quran affirms that the gospel was available

to be read in the 7th century when Muhammad was around and talking about Islam. Okay? Christians could read

it. Muslims could read it. It was available. And the third thing that the Quran affirms about the gospel

is that the gospel is authoritative, which means it should be believed and obeyed.

Now, if this is true, if what I'm saying here is accurate based on these verses, this is a monumental

and very significant truth because now we have the highest authority in Islam affirming something

about the gospel, which is that it is trustworthy and should be believed. And so here's kind of the

logic of this approach. Notice, whatever the Quran affirms, Muslims must affirm. Right? Because remember,

the Quran is the highest authority in Islam. So whatever it says, Muslims must affirm.

Premise two, the Quran affirms that the gospel is uncorrupted. Therefore, conclusion, therefore,

Muslims must affirm the gospel is uncorrupted. So there's two premises there and then a conclusion.

And for those of you who are into philosophy or logic, just so you know, this is what you call a valid

deductive argument, which means if premise one is true and premise two is true,

then the conclusion, the last sentence logically follows by necessity. It must be true. Now, which

premise one or two is the one that the Muslims are most likely to reject? Two. That's right. No Muslim

will reject one because of course, if the Quran says something, they must affirm it. Okay, well, it turns out

that I've given you some citations, although I'm going to unpack it here in just a second,

to show you that the Quran affirms that the gospel is uncorrupted. Now, although I had like probably,

I don't know, nine or ten citations, that's a lot of numbers for you to remember in citations.

Here's the thing. If you just remember one specific citation, surah 5, 46-47,

it turns out that this one passage incorporates all three points in these two verses.

All right? So surah 5, verses 46-47. So chapter 5, verses 46-47, and I guess I had some color coding

here, but I guess it didn't come through, but I think we can still do it. So,

yeah, okay. So, this passage has all three points, right? So, let's take a look at what it says here.

Starting at the top, and we sent, and by the way, the we sent is a reference to a law. So,

it's kind of the royal we don't think like, oh, is that the Trinity? That's not at all what's meant

there. It's just a royal we. So, and we sent. So, Allah sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus,

the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the Torah, and we gave him, meaning Jesus,

the gospel. Okay? So, there's a claim where Jesus is given the gospel. So, it's coming from Allah.

So, there's a claim that the gospel is a divine revelation. Then it says, the gospel in which was

a guidance and light in confirming that which preceded it. So, there you have the claim that the

gospel is authoritative. It's being described as a guidance and light. It is a guide for people to

follow, and it provides a light for the truth. Why would Allah call the gospel a guide and a light

if it was corrupted? That makes absolutely no sense. The only reason the Quran is saying this is because

it presumes that the gospel is uncorrupted and trustworthy. Otherwise, why call it a guidance and light?

It continues. So, which is a guidance and light confirming that which preceded it of the Torah as

a guidance and instruction for the righteous. So, by the way, there, notice the Torah is also described

as a guidance and light. And it says, and let the people of the gospel judge by what Allah has revealed

therein. Now, the phrase people of the gospel is a reference to Christians at the time. So, notice what

the Quran is saying. Hey, you Christians, you should judge by what Allah has revealed in your gospel.

Well, the only way the Christians could do that is if it existed with them in their hands at that time

in the 7th century. And of course, we know it did because the gospels were produced in the 1st century.

So, if it's still around 500 years or 600 years later, that's not a big surprise, right? So, notice the

Quran is presuming that the gospel exists and is available to be read there at the time.

It finally says, whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed, then it is those who are

defiantly disobedient. Again, another reference to the command by the Quran to consider the gospel

authoritative because you're supposed to judge your life according to the gospel. And if you don't,

you're disobeying. Well, why would the Quran say that if the gospel is corrupted? It wouldn't

because the gospel was never corrupted in the 7th century when this was written. So, notice this

one passage composed of two verses makes the claim that the Quran, I'm sorry, the Quran claims that the

gospel is a divine revelation of Allah available in the 7th century to be read and is authoritative,

meaning it should be believed and obeyed. So, I like to have this, I have this citation memorized,

and those other verses that I had for those other, for those three points, I just kind of keep on my

cell phone written down so that if I'm in a conversation, I can just highlight them and show

them to my Muslim friend when I'm talking to them, okay? I mean, it's just a quick thought experiment.

If there were a Muslim, and I know this isn't going to happen, but if there was a Muslim who had never

read the Quran, who had never heard the Bible or of Christianity, and had never been biased by a Muslim

scholar or imam, and that Muslim was given the Quran to read from beginning to end, and then asked

afterwards, tell me, what do you think the Quran says about the gospel? The only conclusion he would walk away

with is, oh, the gospel seems to be this wonderful divine revelation that is a guidance and light, it's revered

and honored, it's a wonderful thing that tells the truth from Allah. That's the only conclusion they would walk away

with. Because the highest authority in Islam, that's what it teaches. It's only through Muslim culture has this idea

that the gospel has become corrupted developed. It's just a cultural belief. In fact, through studying

Islam, I discovered that for the first 400 years of Islam, there wasn't a single Muslim scholar, including

Muhammad himself, who ever claimed the gospel was corrupted. No one ever did. It wasn't until the start

of the Crusades that we saw the claim of the Bible being corrupted start to pop up.

So, the Quran affirms that in the 7th century, the gospel was uncorrupted. Now, a Muslim might say,

well, maybe it was uncorrupted then, but what about now? Hasn't it changed from the 7th century to now?

Well, of course, we know that's not the case, because although copies have been made of the

Quran, I'm sorry, of the gospel and the Bible from the first century all the way to today,

and the Quran comes around in 632 AD and says, no, no, no, it was uncorrupted. We actually have copies

of the entire Bible from the 4th century, so nearly, you know, 200 or so years before the Muslims

came around, before the Quran came around, before Muhammad ever spoke. We have copies of the entire

Bible. Now, there are some sections missing, but the gospels are all there. The New Testament's almost

complete. And we can compare these earlier manuscripts of the Bible, these codices of the

Bible, to today's Bibles, and they're virtually identical. Why? Because the transmission has been

so perfectly preserved. And so, if nothing's changed since before the Quran to now, with regards to the

gospel integrity, then if the gospel, if the Quran comes around in the 7th century and says, oh yeah,

it was not corrupted, then nothing's changed even since the 7th century to today. So, Muslims can know,

yeah, nothing's changed in the last 1400 years, therefore, we can know that nothing's changed in

the gospel either. Okay, so, you know, I started using this tactic back in 2010. When I first started

going to a maximum security state prison, I used to do ministry in this prison, and there's lots of

Christians and Muslims that are in this prison. And so, I used to go and equip the Christians how to

reach the Muslims there. I use it even, this is a picture from just last summer. I take Christians to

mosques on a regular basis. This is 70, about 70 high school Christians. I will call up a mosque and say,

hey, I would like to bring 70 high school Christians to your mosque tomorrow. Is that okay?

Okay, I've been doing this for like 15 years. They always say yes. So, we go there. We watch their

service. Then, we go up to a room upstairs in the mosque. We invite these top Islamic scholar there

to give us a message and encourage us to convert to Islam. And then, we ask them questions, right?

And of course, what we notice is the Islamic scholar always claims the Bible's corrupted. But of course,

I've spent two days training these students how to understand this objection, how to respond to it.

And of course, they're able to respond and just gently push back. And we've been doing this for

years. And we have such a great relationship with this mosque and many others around the country because

we are always conducting ourselves as ambassadors, right? Yes, we're engaging them, but we're doing it in

a gracious, loving way because we remember we represent Christ in everything we do. So, we want to

come across as winsome and gracious. All right, let me just close with my overall strategy

and in terms of how I incorporate this tactic in my overall strategy when I talk to Muslims.

When I have a chance to talk to a Muslim, I want to ask them one key question. And this key question

is important because it can help me get to sharing the gospel in under 60 seconds. And here's the key

question as you see it. My question is this, are you 100% sure you're going to heaven?

Now, notice I don't ask them, are you confident or are you, do you think so? I say, are you 100%

confident? Now, what do you think every Muslim says to this question? They say no. And the reason is

because remember, they don't know what the angels are going to bring in terms of their good and bad deeds.

They don't know what the scales are going to show. So, they don't have 100% confidence. So, my follow-up

question is, well, would you like to have 100% confidence? Right? Now, I'm not saying that because

I can offer it by virtue of anything I'm going to do. But you know what I'm talking about, right? You

know what Christ has done. So, when they say, sure, I'm, yeah, of course I'd like to have 100% confidence.

Or they're just curious, what are you as a Christian going to say to this? Here's what I do. I point them

to John 3 16 through 18. Why? Because first of all, John 3 16 is the most well-known passage in all of

Christendom, right? And so, you'll probably already have that reference memorized. All you got to do is

just add a few more verses, okay? Second of all, it's Jesus speaking. And since they revere Jesus as a

prophet, they're more likely to consider that. And third, because John is part of the gospel, that's

also mentioned in the Quran as a true revelation from Allah. Now, I'll read this passage to them,

or have them read it, because it's, you know, it's Jesus sharing the message of reconciliation.

And if they say, well, but that's part of the gospel, that's corrupted. Well, then, of course,

you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go and use my tactic to show them that they can't

cite that as an objection, right? So, I'm going to use the Quran as leverage,

because that's their highest authority, to remind them, hey, by the way, your highest authority

says it's not corrupted. Your highest authority of the Quran says it's a divine revelation of Allah.

It's trustworthy. It should be obeyed. So, you can't claim it's corrupted. Once they acknowledge that,

then you can go back to John 3 16 through 18, or whatever passage you want to go to.

But again, I recommend something from the gospels where Jesus is speaking, because they revere Jesus.

And they need to hear Jesus, because Jesus is the only person who can give them hope to have 100%

confidence in their future and eternal destiny. Because Jesus addresses both sides of the Islamic scale.

Think about this. Jesus, in his death and resurrection, by his atoning work on the cross,

wipes away all of your bad deeds, all your sins, right? So, the side of the scale that would normally

hold all of your bad deeds is completely unweighted, because Christ has atoned for all of them.

But Christ doesn't just atone for your bad deeds. He also imputes his righteousness, which is a fancy way

of saying his good credit, his perfect life, his perfect standing with God is credited to you.

So, all, so the side of the scale that would hold all your good deeds is now perfectly weighted with the

perfect life of Christ. So, with no bad deeds and all the perfect good deeds of Christ, the tips,

the balance tips in your favor 100% perfectly. Of course, in the mind of a Muslim, right? So, this is why

Jesus is the answer. This is why the gospel is the answer for Muslims, because only he can give

100% certainty that they can go to heaven. Again, we can offer that to them, not because of anything

that we're doing, because we're pointing them to Christ. So, that's my overall strategy of how I engage

Muslims with the gospel, and again, incorporating that key tactic of leveraging their source of

authority just for the sake of removing the objection that the gospel's corrupted. Address that,

and you've addressed the issue of authority, and then you can turn to the gospel for the truth.

Let me close in prayer before Pastor George comes about. Heavenly Father, we're so thankful that you

have trusted us to be ambassadors for your son, Jesus. Lord, we're so humbled by that. We're just

blown away by that, Lord. We thank you, though, that your Holy Spirit lives in us to give us the wisdom,

the words, the courage to be able to communicate the truth, the message of reconciliation to all people,

and especially to Muslims. Lord, help us not to see Muslims as the enemy, but people who desperately need

to know the truth of the gospel. They're in a situation, they're in a system, they're being

deceived by this idea that they can somehow work their way through their own righteousness to you.

But, of course, you know the truth, and you've communicated the truth to us. Help us to be able

to share with them the message of the gospel, that there's nothing that they can do, but that you've

already done the work for them, Lord. They just need to put their trust in you and in your son, Jesus Christ.

Thank you for this reality, Lord, that we can share with them. Help us as we communicate to our Muslim

friends and neighbors to do it in a way that brings honor and glory to your son, Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Adam.

Thank you.