The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his126/mid_east.arj/MID-EAST.TXT

Text File | 1991-02-07 | 17KB | 311 lines

CIB BULLETIN
A Ministry of Christian Information Bureau
P.O. Box 7349
Bend, OR 97708


Dear Praying Friends,

        We have commented to some extent upon the incredible changes
        taking place in Eastern Europe. And now comes the Iraqi invasion
        of Kuwait precipitating the current Gulf crisis. One more piece
        of the puzzle falls into place, pushing us along to what Gorbachev,
        Bush, the Pope and others are now calling "a new world order."


        Much attention has been given to the Iron and Bamboo Curtains
        of communism. Recent events are causing the world to take notice
        at least of the worse Islamic Curtain. Behind the wall any religion
        but Islam is forbidden. Converts to Christianity have been imprisoned
        and killed in large numbers in Islamic countries, often by their
        own family members. Freedom of the press and of speech and of
        assembly along with freedom of religion and the import of
        Bibles and Christian literature have been denied behind Islamic
        Curtain even more strictly than behind the Iron Curtain.

        Like Marxism, Islam has failed to provide the ideal society
        it promised. Many Arab countries today, in spite of billions
        in annual revenues from oil, remain among the most primitive
        nations in the world, outside of their few large modernized
        cities. Islam has perpetuated an autocratic feudalism and
        cruelly held basic human rights in the name of Allah.

        While tolerating homosexuality Islam, wickedness so rampant
        in nominally "Christian" countries such as in the United
        States. The immorality in the West, however, is contrary
        to the teachings of the Bible and is done in defiance of
        Christ--whereas in Islamic countries much evil is due to the
        Koran itself and is practiced in the name of Allah and in
        obedience to his prophet, Muhammad.


        No one now calls for a Holy War in the name of Christ as is
        done in the name of Allah. Terrorism and the taking of hostages
        is not done in the name of Christ, but is done in the name of
        Allah with good conscience. Christ taught us to love our enemies,
        to turn the other cheek and He seeks to win men's hearts with
        His love.

        In contrast, Muhammad taught that Islam should be spread by
        the sword. That Satanic policy has been applied everywhere,
        beginning with Muhammad's own Quaraish tribe in Saudi Arabia
        Islam's teaching that those who die fighting in its defense
        go immediately to paradise made the Arab armies almost
        invincible.

        After Muhammad's death they conquered Persia, Turkey, all of
        North Africa, crossed the Mediterranean to conquer Spain and
        were well on their way to taking all of Europe when they were
        defeated in 732 AD at the Battle of Tours in France. Thus
        was the "faith"of Islam taken to the world. It was either
        submit to Allah and to the teachings of his prophet, Muhammad,
        or die.

        Such shameful heritage of Islam in those countries which it
        presently controls. It is still quite in keeping with their
        religion for Muslims to consider it their honorable duty
        to kill Christians and Jews today.

        Yes, there were the crusaders, who struck back against the
        Arab invaders, but they acted contrary to the Bible. Inspired
        by Pope Urban II, the members of the First Crusade went to
        recover "for the Church" the land that belonged to Israel.
        Plundering, raping and murdering along the way, they slaughtered
        all the Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem when they took that "holy
        city" for the Roman Catholic Church.

        They were acting in direct violation of the teachings of
        Jesus whose cross they claimed to be carry to be outdone
        by Islam's promise of instant paradise for those who died
        in Jihad, the Pope offered a "plenary indulgence remitting
        all punishments due to sin...to those who should fall in the war."

        The call by various Popes for Holy Wars ranks among the worst
        violations of true Christianity from the Dark Ages, and would
        never be repeated today. The shrill cry of Jihad, however,
        is still heard and heeded for it is in perfect harmony with
        Islam and with the deeds of its prophet Muhammad. It is impossible
        to understand the current situation in the Middle East, much
        less anticipate probable future developments there, except in
        the context of the religion that grips and motivates the Arab world.

        Today's fastest growing religion, Islam means "surrender
        to Allah," the God whose revelations (the Koran) were allegedly
        dictated to the prophet Muhammad. Here we encounter the first
        of many contradictions. In its early chapters the Koran endorses
        the Old Testament and the Gospels of the New as inspired of God,
        appeals to their authority to authenticate Muhammad's revelations and
        urges obedience to their precepts.

         Yet the Koran goes on to contradict the Bible by declaring that
         Jesus did not die upon the cross for our sins or rise from
         the dead, that salvation is by one's own good works rather than
         by grace through what God has done for us, etc.

        To "explain" the flagrant contradictions between the Koran
        and the Bible, which it affirms, Muslims insist that the Bible
        has been corrupted since the days of Muhammad. That this is
        a blatantly false charge is proved by the many manuscripts
        in existence from the time of Muhammad and before which are
        identical to the Bible as we have it today.

        The Bible must be discredited to maintain the claim that
        the Arabs, as descendants of Ishmael, are the true heirs of
        God's promises to Abraham. The Koran declares it was Ishmael, not
        Isaac, whom Abraham was told to offer to God and to whose
        descendants the land of Canaan was given.

        In 1948 both Jews and Arabs were living in Palestine. Jews
        had been trying to return to the land of their ancestors for
        decades but most were denied entrance by Britain. Horrified
        by the murder of 6 million Jews in Nazi extermination camps,
        the U.N. voted to partition Palestine in order to create a
        small Jewish state as a place for resettlement of the survivors
        of Hitler's holocaust. The Palestinian Arabs were given the
        remainder of Palestine as a state of their own. Insisting that
        Allah had promise to them, and unwilling to allow a Jewish
        state to exist, 7 Arab nations attacked, confident of driving
        the Jews into the Mediterranean.

        Thus began the war of 1948. The Jews were forced to fight
        for survival against a far superior force in numbers and
        equipment. Having been alloted such a narrow strip of land
        along the sea that it was indefensible, as part of her victory
        tiny Isreal pushed her boundaries outward to a more defensible
        position.

        Jordan subsequently annexed the remainder of Palestine that
        had been partitioned to the Palestinian Arabs. Since then,
        in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, rather than being integrated
        into society the Palestinian Arab refugees have been confined
        to camps, where most remain today, to keep the "Palestinian
        problem" alive.

        Since 1948 the relentless cry of the Arabs has been to liquidate
        Israel-which they have attempted to do in several wars.
        Israelis live under the constant threat of all-out destruction
        by the surrounding Arab nations, which outnumber them nearly
        50-1. Had Israel been left in peace she would never have enlarged
        her borders. The Arabs have reaped the results of their own
        greed and hatred, which frustrates and angers them all the
        more. the extension of Israel's boundaries has only taken place
        as a result she has been forced to fight in order to defend
        her very existence.

        The Golan Heights, for example, were long used by the Syrians
        for sniper and rocket attacks upon the Israeli farm settlements
        below. In the Yom Kippur war of 1973, while the Egyptians
        simultaneously attacked across the Sinai, the Syrians poured
        over the Golan and down into Israel with thousands of tanks.
        The Israelis, caught by surprise and with only a small fraction
        of the tanks and men drove the Syrians (at great cost of life)
        back over the top of the Golan and the Egyptians back to the
        Suez Canal  has since relinquished the territory it
        took from Egypt under a peace treaty with that country.

        On the other hand, in view of the continued threats of extermination
        from Syria which, like other Islamic nations refuses even
        to acknowledge its existence, Israel prudently retains the Golan
        Heights in order to prevent its use once again as a point of
        harassment and attack.

        When Iraq's forces overwhelmed tiny and defenseless but oil-rich
        Kuwait it was only the swift action of the United States responding
        to Saudi Arabia's urgent appeal for help that prevented Saddam
        Hussein from moving right on and taking over that country as well.

        This brought about something that had previously been unthinkable:
        the presence of "infidels" upon the soil of the holiest Islamic
        nation defending from Muslim enemies Mecca and Medina, Islam's
        two most sacred shrines! For the first time in tory, the United
        Nations responded quickly and almost unanimously to oppose with
        practical and severe steps an aggressor nation, raising hopes
        of a "new world order."

        Equally amazing, the majority of the Arab states sided with
        the U.N. against a fellow Islamic country.

        One of Hussein's demands, however, appealed to most Arabs:
        that any withdrawal of his forces from Kuwait should be linked
        to a similar withdrawal of Israel from "occupied" Palestine.
        In their joint press conference in Helsinki, Bush and Gorbachev
        disagreed on this point. Bush correctly "saw no link between the
        Arab-Israeli dispute and the Gulf Crisis." Hussein's take-over
        of Kuwait was an act of unprovoked aggression, whereas Israel
        occupies territory that it was forced to take in self defense.

        Thinking Arabs are now faced with some serious questions.
        Why did mobs of Arabs give credence to the call for Holy War
        from Saddam Hussein, a Muslim who was ruthlessly trampling
        other Islamic nations? Why are fanatical Muslims responsible
        for most of the terrorism and hostage-taking in the world and
        seem to outdo infidels in all manner of atrocities? And if
        Allah is all-powerful, why do infidels have to defend Mecca--
        and against Muslims?


        The Emir of Kuwait's appearaence at the U.N. presented an
        embarrassing spectacle: an Islamic nation was appealing
        to a world of infidels to help rescue it from another Islamic
        nation, which was at that moment plundering, raping and
        torturing. Moreover, the Emir of Kuwait was a feudal monarch
        who, prior to Iraq's invasion, had muzzled the press and
        jailed human rights activists. In exchange for U.N. liberation
        of Kuwait the Emir will have to yield to pressures for
        democratic rule. Change must come to a world.

        The West has suddenly awakened to the fact that six Arab
        families ruling from feudal thrones control 44% of the world's
        oil reserves. The pressure of world opinion and growing grass-
        roots movements in those countries will force new freedom and
        rights for citizens. Democracy must come to the Arab world as
        it has to the communist world.

        That will weaken Islam's fanatical hold so that Muslims, too,
        can become part of Antichrist's empire and religion.
        As the collapse of communism is providing great opportunity for
        the gospel to be made known and received by many in Eastern
        Europe, so the coming upheavals in the Arab world will bring
        similar opportunities.

        After centuries of almost no response to the gospel, thousands
        of Muslims are now coming to Christ as a result of facing some
        of the serious shortcomings and contradictions in Islam.
        It promises heaven, but offers no assurance of getting there,
        except death in Holy War.

        As in Catholicism, where is never enough to keep one out
        purgatory, so in Islam one never knows whether enough prayers
        have been said, enough alms given and enough good deeds done
        to bring one to Paradise.

        Confronted at last by some of the embarrassing questions about
        Islam, the faith of many Muslims is being shaken. Why did
        Muhammad with his "new revelation" give his God the same name,
        Allah, as the chief idol in the kaaba, the ancient pagan temple
        at Mecca?

        And why, although he destroyed the idols which it housed,
        did Muhammad retain the kaaba itself as a sacred shrine?
        And why did he keep and continue to revere the Black Stone
        that had long been worshipped along with the idols in the
        ancient religiemonies of Mecca?

        And why do Muslims consider the kaaba holy and kiss its
        Black Stone as an important part of their pilgrimage to Mecca?

        Thinking Arabs can no longer deny that Islam has perpetuated a
        barbaric medieval mentality. Surely the recognize that the
        continued taking of hostages and the frequent spectacle on
        television of crazed mobs screaming "Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!"--
        "Death to Bush!" and "Death to the United States!" does
        not encourage Western viewers to put much confidence in
        a "peaceful Arab solution" to the problems in the Middle East.

        And when a Salman Rushdie, because he writes something offensive
        to Muslims, has a price his head by Muslim's foremost leader
        and must go into hiding to save his life from Muslim assassins--
        are Arabs proud of such barbarism and do they feel that it
        commends Islam to the world? And to be able to beat one's four
        wives and unlimited concubines and to divorce merely by pronouncing
        it done as the Koran decrees is criminal! Surely the time for
        change has come!

        Unfortunately, the pressure for change is also bringing a
        growing openness to ecumenism that is preparing the Muslim
        world to embrace the Antichrist. The new attitude was expressed
        by M.A. Zaki Badawi, principle of the Muslim College of London,
        while in attendance at the August, 1990, San Francisco Assembly
        of the World Religions.

        In response to Sun Myung Moon's announcement that he was the
        new world Messiah, Badawi made this interesting comment:
        "We don't accept Rev. Moon as Messiah, but suspect him of
        bringing the world's religions together." The next step is easy.

        Satan's Messiah will have incredible powers that neither Moon
        nor any of the other lightweight antichrists can display. We
        have already noted that Jesus Specifically declared that Israel
        would accept the Antichrist.

        It is no longer so difficult to imagine that with a little more
        preparation Muslims, too, will be able to embrace and even
        worship the counterfeit "Christ"--while still professing allegiance
        to Islam.

        For Islam's Allah, after all, is not the God of the Bible that
        Muhammad claimed him to be.

        Events are moving rapidly. God in His grace is allowing
        great opportunities to share the Gospel for the last minute
        gathering in of communists, Muslims and others who have not
        heard it (Lk. 14:21-23).

        Let us reap this harvest quickly, for the time is short.
        Christ's  coming for His Church is very near. May we live
        and witness for Him to His glory more faithfully and joyfully
        than ever!

                                In Christ's love,
                                       Dave Hunt