The Biblical Origins of the Middle East Crisis (Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer)

well after that introduction i can scarcely wait to hear what i'm going to say i hope this is really good in a small town in a small town in illinois a uh janitor was speaking to a parishioner in the hallway the janitor was speaking about the furnace but a parishioner who overheard the conversation thought that the janitor was talking about the pastor what the janitor said was the blower still works but the fire's gone out well after preaching in this pulpit for 31 years plus actually if you take in the total i hope that the blower works but i also hope there's still some fire in the furnace welcome here to the moody church a word about the architecture you'll notice that this building actually is both byzantine and romanesque in its architecture and was inspired by not copied but inspired by hagia sophia in istanbul there's a lecture that i give around the country that i've never given here and you will not hear it this time around in which i ask people to visualize that all the seats are out and there are rugs from one end to the other and moody church has become one of the most famous mosques in all the city of chicago and because the number of minarets is dependent upon the importance of the church probably moody church would have four minarets now if you travel around the world you discover that thousands of churches have been turned into mosques all throughout the middle east that's a separate lecture but you'll have to hear it in a different time in a different way because my topic today that has been given is the origins of the conflict of the middle east if you ask the average person when the conflict began he probably would tell you it was during the crusades during the crusades for example let's hear it from former president bill clinton he said indeed the first crusade when the christian soldiers took jerusalem they first burned a synagogue with 300 jews in it then they proceeded to kill every woman and child who was a muslim on the temple mound i tell you that story is being told in the middle east and we are still paying for it the story is being told in the middle east but according to this we're paying for it because of the crusades that took place now before i continue this lecture i need to say this that we should not view muslims as our enemies as a matter of fact every time i get in a cab here in the city and i try to witness and help our muslim drivers to see that jesus is more than a prophet i want to make jesus look good in the little time that i have i sometimes ask them whether or not they should be killed if they convert to christianity many times they say yes so what we need to do is to see that while muslims are not our enemies they are victims of a very oppressive very oppressive religion and we're going to be talking about that and if you are here today as a muslim or you're listening to this by some other means i want you to listen to the end because at the end i will also talk about what love is all about and we'll bring this plane down on time today thanks for joining me on this journey what we're actually going to cover is the teaching of the koran about the jews because that's where we need to go to find the origin of the conflict i'm just going with the topic that was assigned and then the conflict between ishmael and isaac islam's first capture of jerusalem the first crusade and what happened after world war one we're going to work that in in the next 30 or 35 minutes like i frequently say it's my responsibility to speak it's your responsibility to listen and i have been praying that we shall end at the same time thank you so much for being with me here today on this journey well first of all what we want to do is to see what the quran has to say about the jews that is actually the origin of the conflict mark gabriel and that of course is a pen name he's been here at the moody church a number of times but he writes under a pseudonym for security purposes he was a lecturer of islamic history at al hazar university in cairo one of the most prestigious universities in all the islamic world and he has written a series of books and in the book he tells the story of how as a little boy a reciter used to come to his home and this reciter would recite the quran for perhaps an hour and the family would listen sometimes the reciter came twice a week one time the man was reciting surah 5 60 which told of the fate of the jews who incurred the wrath and the curse of allah the quran said that these cursed jews were those that allah transformed into pigs and apes so as a boy mark said is this true and the reciter answered yes my son you have heard the quran which i have just recited to you and allah never lies to us so little mark as he calls himself now was taught from the earliest days to hate the jews he said that he would spit on their tombstones he was told that they were under a curse he was told that they killed pregnant women and the stories went on and on what is it that the quran actually says three times it says that the jews have been transformed into pigs and apes let me give them to you surah chapter 7 number 66 so when the jews exceeded the limits of what they were prohibited we said to them be you monkeys despised and rejected surah 5 verse 60. shall i inform you of something worse than that regarding the recompense from allah those jews who incurred the curse of allah and his wrath those of whom he transformed into monkeys and swines one more surah chapter 2 verse 65 and indeed you know those amongst you the children of israel who transgressed in the matter of the shabbat we said to them be you monkeys despised and rejected now one of the questions that we have to ask is why all of this anger why all of this anger and hostility and hatred in the quran about the jews in order to understand that we have to understand a bit of history as you know i'm sure muhammad was in mecca he was espousing his revelations and his religion and some converted but not many and he eventually went to medina but it was during this period of time when muhammad was trying to win the good will of the jews and have them to convert to islam now if we had time this morning i would quote verses from the koran which speak of the jews in favorable light for example there is a text that says that the jews were the chosen people of god it says that the jews were protected by god when they were in a foreign land and then in a text which i have here which maybe i should take time to read it actually says that abraham was not a jew but a muslim let me read this is surah 367. abraham was not a jew nor yet a christian but he was true in faith and bowed his will to allah which is islam and he joined not gods with allah now what's very important to realize is during this period of time muhammad was trying to convert the jews to islam and he was doing it by not only speaking favorably but of course they are both monotheistic religions so you can see the connection he was telling them that if you were a true uh true jew a true follower of abraham you'd become a muslim and you hear this even today on television there are those who say that all true christians are muslims all true jews are really muslims and what muhammad said is that this christian scriptures and the old testament scriptures have been corrupted and if you want to go back to the real true quintessential bottom line faith it is islam and he hoped therefore to persuade the jews to become muslims but it didn't work the jews said to themselves we don't think that that abraham actually was a muslim they noticed a lot of contradictions with the old testament stories and the stories in the quran and so they rejected him and at that period of time muhammad said that his previous stories his previous affirmations were abrogated you know how important the abrogation is and they began to accuse him and say in fact this is actually in the quran we don't have time to read the verses but it says that the jews were criticizing muhammad because of the fact that muhammad said that god can change his mind muhammad said that god sometimes takes commands that were applicable at one period of time and then substitutes others so when he began to receive these revelations in mecca he began to receive opposition many of the jews therefore began to contradict him they began to oppose him and as a result he turned against them now i have so much material to cover i'll simply summarize what does the koran say about the jews if we had time we'd give you a surah for each but we can't first of all that the jews are the greatest enemies of islam jewish people do not love muslims number three jews start wars and cause trouble on the earth both christians and jews blaspheme because they say they are children of god jews are cursed because they claim they killed the messiah absolutely important surah 4 157 to 159 says that jesus did not die on the cross someone else died separate story and now judgment comes on both christians and jews for example this is what it says in surah 4 47 christians let me oh you who have been given the scriptures namely the jews and the christians believe in what we have revealed the revelations of muhammad concerning what confirming what was already said with you before we face faces and that means that we make your face look like the back of your neck without a nose and a mouth and eyes and turn them behind words or curse them as we curse the sabbath breakers and the commandment of allah is always executed by the way mark says that when he began to be an imam he began to quote one of the surahs which i also have here but i don't take time to quote in which it is said the jews are like donkeys who have been given the torah but just like a donkey doesn't know what he's carrying on his back and cannot read that of course is a picture also of the jews so the bottom line is that there are statements in the quran that are very favorable to the jews but those statements evidently have been abrogated they have been changed because the jews refused to accept muhammad and his teachings as being legitimate judaism and therefore he turned against them in anger and cursed them i remember seeing a special on television maybe maybe you did also where school children in one of the countries that may have been saudi arabia i hope that you saw that every morning these children chant the jews are pigs and apes the jews are pigs and apes that's their chant as they begin school in the morning because the jews refused to accept muhammad's religion let's go on to a second issue talking about the origin of the conflict and that has to do with the conflict between isaac and ishmael going to read just one or two verses about what the bible says about ishmael and then we will and you know the story of course of abraham and hagar and so forth this is what god said though this is chapter 17 of genesis verse 20. as for ishmael i have heard you behold i have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly he shall be the father of twelve princes i will make him into a great nation but i will establish my covenant with isaac you'll notice that when ishmael at about the age 14 was cast out of their home it says god was with the boy isn't that beautiful i remember the king james i think says and god was with the lad and he grew up he lived in the wilderness became an expert with the bow he lived in the wilderness of paran his mother took him to egypt that's where he got his wife because that's where hagar was from you'll recall that and then when he dies before he dies he and isaac actually meet at the cave of makpila where their father abraham is buried and then this it says he died at the age of 137 they settled from havala to sir which is opposite egypt in the direction of assyria he settled over against all his kinsmen so that's where he went what do we know about ishmael in the bible first of all god promised blessing to ishmael god says ishmael you're going to be a big nation and he is there's some question as to who the whether or not the arabs can trace their lineage back to ishmael because there have been so much intermarriage but at the end of the day god certainly fulfilled that promise god's presence is going to be with him you'll notice the phrase he says and the lord was with the lad about a week ago i was talking to a young palestinian woman a christian and she said oh i fear your conference that you're having at moody church i said why she said because you know the jews get the promises she says and you're going to forget about us palestinians i assured her no we wouldn't forget about you because we know that there's a blessing also to the descendants of ishmael because god was with them and god is with them today and our hearts are also especially for the palestinian believers that are found all throughout the west bank and actually all throughout the middle east god says i have a special blessing they settled in egypt they were at their father's funeral together but the promises of god go to isaac now what i want to read is a quotation from the quran and this quotation gives you a description of the sacrifice of isaac and the quran looks at it very differently as we shall see in a moment just listen carefully now this is the quran's explanation of abraham being willing to sacrifice isaac we gave him tidings of a gentle son and when his son was old enough to walk with him abraham said oh my dear son i have seen in a dream that i must sacrifice thee so look what thou thinkest thou he said oh father do that which thou art commanded allah willing thou shalt find me to be steadfast then when they had both surrendered to allah and he had flung him down upon his face we called unto him o abraham thou hast already fulfilled the vision lo thus we do reward the good lo that which was very clear was a test then we ransomed him with a tremendous victim now what's interesting is that the quran does not say expressly in that passage that it was ishmael that actually was sacrificed or willing to be sacrificed but in my quran which i was reading yesterday afternoon there's quite an extensive footnote that says that this is ishmael and the justification is this it says that ishmael was always abraham's firstborn which is really true ishmael is at least 14 years older or so than isaac so ishmael was always considered to be the firstborn in fact the text says there in the footnote that never at any time was isaac the firstborn that's true now do you understand how complicated the middle east is uh when you have two competing points of view as to who gets the promises as to who gets the land of course if ishmael is the child of promise if ishmael is the one that abraham was willing to sacrifice it becomes very clear then that you have two competing understandings as to what god has said and the consequences of course are very very huge now in my haste here i seem to have lost my way but that can be said about a lot of people can't it many people lose their way in their haste so what i'd like to do now is to go on to another subject and that is the crusades the crusades in 637 within the first year of islam i mean imagine muhammad was born in seven excuse me 570 and died in 632 so a few years after muhammad's death the siege of jerusalem took place it was part of a military conflict between the byzantine empire that's an important concept you need to get byzantine empire of course when you think of it think of constantinople which today is istanbul was between the byzantine empire and the caliphate it began when the army under the command of a man whose name's a little difficult for me to pronounce besieged jerusalem in nov november of 636 after six months the patriarch of jerusalem agreed to surrender on condition that he would submit only to the caliph so the caliph omar umar traveled to jerusalem to receive the submission of the city and so the muslim conquest over jerusalem strengthened of course the muslim advance and the muslim control now uh here's here's a point to be made in passing i'll make a number of different points in passing jerusalem is not mentioned in the quran as we learned last night how did jerusalem become the third holiest site of islam the answer is this the muslims always wanted to show their superiority over other religions by capturing them and then using those captured lands and captured spaces to assert their superiority and so they built a huge mosque actually there's the al-aqsa mosque and then there's the dome of the rock which many of you have either seen or been in i've been in many times and the reason that it was built there is because that was a site that was sacred to the jews and of course it was also sacred to the christians because that's where jesus was and that's where the temple was and that's where the holy of holies probably was somewhere close to that rock that might even be the place where abraham sacrificed his son are you aware of that because it says that he sacrificed his son on mount moriah and first chronicles says that the solomon built his temple on mount moriah so when you're in the dome of the rock and you see that huge rock remember this it may indeed be a very sacred rock but why the muslim dome of the rock there to show the superiority of islam over both judaism and christianity and that's why in the arabic texts in the mosque it talks about the curse that comes on those who believe that god had a son etc etc this is not my topic today but we think for example of the mosque near ground zero in my mind there's absolutely no doubt if you look at muslim history the intention is to build a victory mosque at the place of a great victory that took place for islam this would be very consistent i was in istanbul one time a whole day with a very very devout muslim i mean he would have said that he wants the restoration of the ottoman empire everyone killed who converts we got along very very well i could tell you some stories though about how things went i don't know if i should tell exactly how they went because i think this is being taped but let's just say that he and i had some frank discussions and he made it very clear that the superiority of islam is shown by its ability to crush christianity and that's why i give a separate lesson on the whole issue of what the seven churches of revelation that no longer exist have to say to the american church separate separate deal we can't go into but this is intended in new york to be a victory mosque to commemorate the victory of islam at 9 11 i believe that this can be shown if you look at history now all right the muslim conquest of jerusalem was used by the muslims as an opportunity for aggression for example in the 8th century christian pilgrims were attacked and crucified muslims were demanding money from christians oh you need to grasp this what's it like for christians under muslim rule they have to pay the jezya the tax and then they're protected i don't have time to go into the order of protection it's basically terms of surrender but anyway also a muslim ruler banned displays of the cross in jerusalem and increased the tax that christians had to pay christians experienced violence and persecution in bethlehem all the monks in a monastery were killed 9 23 muslims went on a palm sunday rampage in jerusalem plundering and destroying churches when the byzantines began to recapture part of the land a jihad was declared against them in the year 1009 an order was given by the muslim caliph to destroy the church of the holy sepulchre in jerusalem and that was the cause of the first crusade are you all with me or am i talking too fast everybody with me do i hear an amen out there somewhere amen you're with me there are times you know when we just have to back off and think the crusades are used in muslim mythology if i could put it that way to say that this is proof of western aggression the westerners just came in there without provocation and they just decided to take jerusalem and the holy land from us and because of what happened in the crusades that's why we are still fighting that war so a couple of comments first there was every reason for europe to go there and to capture jerusalem in light of the plight of those who wanted to visit the city and the muslim rampages etc etc that i've just read about and then the first crusade went the first crusade went because pope urban ii at claremont in france gave a lecture which you can read and it's very interesting obviously i don't agree with all of it but here's what i need to say in summary first of all i do not stand here today and say that the crusades were justified as such for two reasons they should have never fought in the name of jesus luther in fact wrote extensively about that and before this lecture is over i'm going to tell you some things about luther and the turks but they should have never done that in the name of jesus if the standing armies of europe had gotten together disciplined armies and had gone in there and rescued the land so that christian pilgrims could be there and so forth that would have been perfectly justified the second reason that you don't want to come in in favor of the crusades is because there were excesses you know there's one account that uses the book of revelation and says that the blood ran to the horse's bridles we know of course that that is uh that is really hyperbole how many people did the christians kill we don't know the original accounts i think said twenty thousand that might have been somewhat exaggerated but by the fifteen hundreds centuries later it became a hundred thousand because the muslim community began to see that these crusades could be used for propaganda purposes now again i do not justify what they did christians also are in the wrong and there's a lot of blood on christian hands not just on this first crusade but in other crusades as well and so they did go in they did massacre they did plunder all that i'm sure is true but here's what sticks in my heart today we hear that side of the story but we do not hear the atrocities committed by muslim armies folks today history is just being used like putty to be made into whatever position or shape one wants to promote a certain agenda our heart should be broken over that what is said in american textbooks is so wrong let's go for example to constantinople let's go to the church of holy wisdom in istanbul it's 1453. the muslims break over the wall and they come in prayers are being said in the church massacres begin to happen they kill all of the weak and the elderly and then they begin to realize that many of those who are healthy can be sold into slavery 5 000 people in the city were impaled it's the most painful death you can imagine thousands upon thousands were sold into slavery the atrocities were huge and we never hear about that but we continually hear about the crusades one footnote about the crusades and then we have to move on [Music] in his excellent book robert spencer who wrote the book the politically incorrect view of islam says that the crusades performed a tremendous function now the rest of them were disasters uh you know i i will not go into it some some things that were done there that would just tear your heart out in terms of stupidity and everything else the rest of the crusades but he said that they did perform a valuable function that doesn't make them right in christianity evil never becomes good but god may use evil on occasion according to spencer what happened is because of the crusades you have a situation in which the muslims were occupied in the holy land were not for them there had been a jihad all throughout europe and all of europe today can be muslim could possibly be muslim you know gibbon in his monumental history talks about the battle also of 722 and were it not for that battle that pointers in 722 where the muslim advance was stopped by the frankish armies notre dame today would be a mosque and by the way many muslims brag that it won't be that long before notre dame will be a mosque because of the population explosion and the logistics that are happening there in the middle east so please keep that in mind what we need to do when we look at history we need to see balance we need to see the sins and the crimes of the christians and they are there for all to see but we need to balance it and see the other side of the story but god preserved christian europe such as it was because remember the muslims overtook north africa they moved into different areas and in a moment i'll even talk about the ottoman empire as god wills so we're we're hurrying along now let me say a word about world war one in world war one what happened is the ottoman empire with its headquarters there in istanbul and if you look at a map of the ottoman empire you know that it encompassed a huge territory many different countries the ottoman empire sided with germany in the war germany lost the ottoman empire was already quite corrupt within and for various reasons it was dismantled and after that the allies moved into many of those countries we're going to be hearing about iraq and iran and those other countries and they basically created the lines and the borders of the country and in the muslim understanding this really showed that the west exploited these countries took natural resources from these countries and was party to the fall of the great ottoman empire now my guide in istanbul wished again that the ottoman empire would be reconstituted but you know it's interesting if you go to greece where we went after we were in israel they were celebrating the liberation of greece from the ottomans so it depends who you talk to you talk to muslims they'd like to see the ottoman empire reconstituted if you talk to the countries that were under their authority they were only too happy to see it dismantled but when bin laden spoke and said 80 years ago we have to avenge the great hatred against uh that was done against us most americans 80 years ago what in the world was that about it's the dismantlement of the ottoman empire and i could tell you a story about what happened in smyrna modern-day izmir also but you know what that's gonna have to wait for some other time it blows your mind away i mean you can't get your mind around everything that's happened now what is the contemporary and and so what we have then is the origin of the conflict and i want to summarize this first of all let me say this that think of it this way think of what the quran teaches about the jews the attitude that should be had toward them think of the conflict between isaac and ishmael who gets god's promises both groups claiming that god is on their side god gave them the land god gave them the right to occupy it think also of the view that is preached that once islam has territory it needs a jihad to always get it back it should never be given up i think i have time for this quote from bernard lewis the great scholar of islam from a western perspective he notes that in classical islamic view to which many muslims are beginning to return the world and all mankind are divided into two houses the house of islam where muslim law and faith prevail or the house of unbelief which is the house of war when a muslim says islam is a religion of peace understand what he means it brings peace to countries that are not yet under islam it should be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of the issues and the policies and the governments that pursue them this is no less than a class of civil civilizations now it's interesting that lewis wrote that in 1990 long before 9 11 long before the rise of what we consider to be modern terror terrorism so you have really this clash of civilizations now how do i bring this plane down on time and uh i got up a little late so i am going to go to 10 20 which is five extra minutes and every minute here is precious okay number one a word to the negotiators in washington two-state solution probably won't work joel was much more optimistic last night than i am maybe anti-christ will sign a covenant of protection but there's more going on here than the issue of the land there's the whole issue of blood and the desire for vengeance so i think that our diplomats should work toward peace i think if it comes through our diplomats it's going to be very short-lived the issues here are too deep too long and too religious somebody said oh if we could just take religion out of it we could solve it [Laughter] take religion out of it as something like saying oh you know i know of a toothpick that has all of the wood shaved from it religion is at the heart of it it is it secondly i want to say a word to the church when luther was confronted with reports of the advance of islam now remember ottoman empire luther nails the 95 feces to the castle church door in wittenberg 517 and the ottoman empire is in its flower suleiman the magnificent who by the way built the walls in jerusalem that you see today when you go there's a tourist built by suleiman the magnificent who was a great builder part of the ottoman expansion program when all that was happening luther was receiving all of these reports about the number of heads rolling on the sand because the muslims were bragging the cutting off of the head shows superiority and and all these different countries were being gobbled up he wrote a book about 40 pages on the turks and i'll give you one paragraph and it's in my words not his he says that what does the christian do when you look around and have no reason to believe that god is on your side we don't have reports like the muslims do he said at that time he says a christian believes god's bare word god's bare word that what you see is not the way it's going to be but i also want to say this to the christian church what are we to be doing the answer is clear to show the love of jesus christ to muslims about a year ago or so some of us met kamal saleem he came here from lebanon with the intention of doing terrorism and was a serious car accident three christian doctors loved on him they just loved on him this caused such distress in his soul that later on when he was better he went into his room and he shouted allah are you there total silence god of abraham isaac and jacob are you there and he says that within him the words arose i am that i am words he had never heard before and as a result he was converted and as you know he travels in universities and so forth listen don't ever underestimate what god might be willing to do with someone who is desperately seeking him and you and i are brought face to face with muslims whom god has brought to this country so that we could show them the love of christ it isn't a matter of an intellectual exercise it's a matter of love because what what he said was what salim said is i don't understand we were taught to hate hate hate hate and we have the true religion these infidels love love love love and that's what won him over here's a final word and that is this is a word of prophecy there are two different scenarios as to how everything is going to end in the muslim point of view jesus christ is going to return he's going to destroy all crosses he is going to force everyone to convert to islam then he's going to die a natural death and be buried close to muhammad in mecca that's one scenario as to how it's going to end but there's a different scenario as to how it's going to end and the different scenario says that when jesus christ comes he comes as king of kings lord of all lords and be before him every knee shall bow muhammad shall bow and buddha shall bow and everyone is going to confess that jesus christ is lord to the glory of god the father and things are not what they seem to be the christian goes on believing in the triumph of jesus no matter what happens in this fallen world may i pray for you father help us lord god to understand help us to love help us to care and we know lord that you have brought to us in this country tens of thousands of muslims who are seeking for truth and forgiveness and life help us to be winsome loving witnesses that you might overcome these barriers in the name of jesus we ask and bless all who are here we pray in the exalted uncontested name of jesus amen

Channel: Chosen People Ministries

Views: 5,130

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Keywords: The Biblical Origins of the Middle East Crisis, Inside The Middle East Crisis Conference, Dr Erwin W. Lutzer, What is the story of Abraham?, Isaac and Ishmael, chosen people ministries conferences, peace in the middle east, sharing the gospel in the middle east, Jesus in the middle east

Id: sA1O7rl1Pfo

Length: 40min 45sec (2445 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 28 2021