Writing Jesus Out Of The Bible. Notes for AFR show

Transcription

1 Notes for AFR show Tom Wallace Fortress of Faith Resisting Islam Rescuing Muslims Reviving America Tel: Shahram Hadian The TIL Project Mission Speaking the "Truth In Love" Tel: Writing Jesus Out Of The Bible Segment One Before I get into the subject at hand let me mention some of the things in the news. You will notice that this administration uses the term ISIL instead of ISIS. There is a reason for this. ISIS is the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. ISIL is the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. This is a deliberate affront to Israel. The Levant is an area that includes the land of Israel. ISIS has grown outside of Iraq and Syria. It has expanded to a number of other nations. ISIS recently killed 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya simply because they were Christians. Where is the outrage from this administration over the killing of Christians? When this administration spoke of these 21 people being killed they never mentioned that they were Christians, nor did they mention that they were killed for being Christians. If this was the first time this had happened we could give them a pass. This has been the norm for this administration. It is Obama doing what he said he would do concerning Muslims. In his book he said that if he had to make a choice he would come

2 down on the side of Muslims. It is even more upsetting in the light of the reaction of leaders of other nations. They showed much more outrage than anyone in this administration and they mentioned that those killed were Christians. Obama constantly speaks of the hate crimes against Muslims, but rarely, if ever, speaks about the hate crimes against Christians by Muslims. Churches have had Muslim slogans spray-painted on them in Florida and nothing has been said. This is a pattern for this administration. It is true that ISIS has killed more Muslims than Christians. We must understand that the Muslims they have killed are considered apostates by ISIS. ISIS is following the teaching and example of Muhammad, as all Muslims are commanded to do. Anyone who is not following these teachings is considered and apostate and deserves to be killed. When Muslims speak of the innocent, they only mean faithful Muslims. The State Department believes that the problem with ISIS is about jobs, not about ideology. Marie Harf, a State Department said that young Muslims would not be joining ISIS if they had good jobs. In the recent conference on radical extremism this administration has refused to mention that it is for the most part Islamic. They said that even though some are doing violence in the name of Islam this is not their main concern. They said we have other violent extremists in America. We must ask who they are talking about. Are they talking about how they are labeling Christians as domestic terrorists? We must realize that this administration is not defending America. It is more concerned with defending Islam. This at least borders on treason. It baffles me that this administration cannot seem to admit that we are at war with Islam. We didn't declare the war, they did. The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, said that he was commanded by Allah to fight the unbelievers until they are ready to confess that there is no God by Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. If you refused to make this statement then you are at war with Islam, not by your own declaration, but by their's. We should be bold in trying to rescue Muslims out of the darkness of Islam. We should care enough to share the Gospel with them. In stead of this we see missionary organizations that are changing the Bible and watering down the Gospel. Some are even telling Muslims that you can accept Jesus as you Saviour and still remain a Muslim. Another thing that baffles me is that there are those who call themselves Christians and still believe the Obama is a Christian. His actions support the opposite and the only thing left for him to do is say I am a Muslim. Our broadcast is only played on Christian radio stations and when we do a show exposing Obama for what he is I get more hate mail than for anything else we do. What is the matter with Christians? Don't they read their Bibles? I have said before that the day we live in is very much like the 1930's. There was a voice warning against Hitler. That voice was Winston Churchill. Just as no one wanted to hear the truth that Churchill was speaking, no one wants to hear the truth today. They were tired of war and would rather ignore the problem than face another armed conflict. Appeasement didn't work back then, and it won't work now. Muslims, like the Nazis, see efforts at appeasement as a sign of weakness. It only encourages them to do more because they know they can get away with it.

3 Islam is a more dangerous enemy that Nazism. Islam is called a religion and we, therefore, allow it in our country. Worse yet, we have a President who is at the very least sympathetic to Islam. He is more concerned with protecting Islam than he is with protecting America. Would you consider supporting this ministry on a monthly basis? You can do so by going to our donation page. Segment Two I want to look at those groups who are rewriting the Bible to be Muslim friendly. For example, in Islam it is considered heresy to say that Jesus is the Son of God. Some organizations like Wycliffe Bible Translators, SIL Frontiers are reprinting Bibles in foreign languages that are removing offensive passages. On today's broadcast we had a special guest, George Housney, who is on the forefront of fighting against this new trend. You will want to listen to the broadcast to get the full force of what he had to say. The greatest weapon we have against Islam is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately we are seeing something very disturbing in the missions community. I don't mean to say that all missionaries are doing what we will be talking about today. There are some missionaries that are doing it right, even at the risk of their lives. Many missionaries are promoting Allah as the god of the Bible. They are saying it is not a big deal to us the name of Allah for God. The say that Allah just means a god in Arabic. As those of you who follow our ministry know, this is not so! The Insider Movement is telling Muslims that they can become a Christian and continue to go to the Mosque and continue to accept the Qur'an as the word of god and Muhammad as a true prophet. Other missionary groups are promoting that they can be a follower of Isa, the Muslim Jesus, and get to heaven. This is called Messianic Muslims. We, as Christians, know that God is our heavenly Father and that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of the world. We know that He died to pay our sin debt, He rose again for our justification, and He is coming back to catch us out of this world and take us to Heaven. These things are foundational to Christian theology. Without them you do not have Christianity. What Is Their Justification For Changing The Bible? One of the things that is taught in missions is that the Gospel must be taught in a way that is understood in the culture where the missionary goes. This does not mean that we change the Gospel, it means that we consider the way people think in a given culture and present the Gospel in such a way that they can grasp it. The Bible is offensive to Muslims because they are taught things that are the opposite of what the Bible teaches. Because of this missionaries are going to the Bible translation groups and asking them to soften the language so it is not offensive to Muslims. The goal of these missionaries is to see Muslims saved. This is a good goal, but they are trying to use deceitful methods. The end does not justify the means.

4 If you make a convert who doesn't believe Jesus is the Son of God, what kind of convert do you have? Would this person really be a true Christian? Are those who use such methods really concerned about the souls of Muslims? Or is their purpose to inflate their numbers so they can maintain their support? Having been a missionary I know the pressure that is put upon missionaries to be productive. Those who change the Word of God are violating Biblical principles. We have no right to touch the Word of God. We also have no right to add or take away from the Gospel. If we change our Bibles so we don't offend Muslims, are we not proving that the Qur'an is correct and the Bible is wrong? Muslims claim that the Bible is wrong because it says that God has a Son. If we remove this thought from the Bibles we give them are we not admitting that they are right? We must call out those who do this. We must cease supporting missionaries and translators who do this because they are undermining the work of God. One of the ministries that is raising funds for the Muslim friendly Bibles is Big Life Ministries. Sadly this ministry is supported by the likes of Oliver North and Mike Huckabee. Both of these men claim to be Bible Believing Christians. What a contradiction to call yourself a Bible believer and believe that it is OK to remove essential Bible doctrine to supposedly reach Muslims for Christ. You cannot reach anyone for Christ if you don't tell them who Christ is. There is an article in the Naples Daily News, where Big Life Ministries is headquartered, that says the following? The news reports daily how radical Islam is tearing our world apart. Yet the Koran commands the Muslims to read the bible, the Islamic leaders teach that the bible is corrupt and cannot be trusted. So what is the answer? A "Muslim Friendly Bible". Big Life has printed a Bible that looks and reads just like a Muslim holy book and they are reading it and coming to faith by the thousands. Big Life projects at the rate they are seeing Muslims come to faith they will need another 72,000 this year. Think about what this says. It says that the Islamic leaders are saying we have corrupted the Bible and the answer is to corrupt the Bible so it reads like a Muslim holy book. They say that Muslims are reading these Bibles and are coming to faith. The question is what faith are they coming to? They cannot be coming to Christian faith if they don't believe that God has as Son, and this Son is Jesus Christ. How foolish can people be. Be informed. Purchase our special package on Understanding Islam for the special price of $15.00 plus shipping and handling. You can order it from our webstore. Segment Three George Housney has been involved in Bible translations for a number of years. He is from Lebanon and has been used to bring Muslims to Christ more than anyone I know of. We had Bro. Housney on our broadcast today because of his involvement in translating Scriptures. He is acutely aware of the subject we are dealing with today. His input is very valuable and I encourage you to listen to the broadcast by clicking here. It will have the date 2015/02/21.

5 We learned about this attempt to change the Bible to make it Muslim friendly through the work of Bro Housney. He has been in the forefront of this battle for a long time. If we start changing the Bible so it doesn't offend Muslims, if we start taking terms out like the Son of God, we are giving Muslim leaders ammunition against us. If we make changes like this they are correct. If we make changes like this we no longer have the Word of God, we have the word of men. This idea of changing the Bible so as not to offend started a long time ago. When Bro Housney started translating the Scriptures he was confronted with this issue. His first encounter with this was when Wycliffe Bible Translators said that when we are translating for a culture that does not have sheep we should not translate it to say Behold the Lamb of God, we should say whatever animal this culture has. In certain translations Jesus becomes the pig of God and in other cultures he is the calf of God When you change things like this you remove the historical elements of the Word of God. All of the metaphors and illustrations fall apart. They went even further by saying that if the phrase Son of God offends we should not use it. When asked what they used they said there are many possible expressions that can be used. One example is to call him the Beloved of God because God does love His Son. He told them that this removes the Father/Son relationship and it didn't seem to bother them. As Bro. Housney had opportunity, he warned others of this situation. He was sidelined as someone who had no authority or credibility on the subject. After all, those who were doing this were big, wellknown organizations and they were producing Bibles in so many languages, they should know what they are doing. We can't just let them go unchallenged. When they got to Bro. Housney's language, Arabic, he said enough is enough. He contacted the leaders of these groups and they consistently refused to listen to any challenge. They said that their scholars know all of the languages of the Bible and the languages into which they were translating and they knew what they were doing. Further investigation showed that they had already done this in 35 languages and they had plans for 205 languages. This outraged Bro. Housney and his people so they formed a committee called Biblical Missiology for the purpose of leting Christians know what is going on. In Matthew 28:19 the Bible says: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:2 Matthew 28:19 Calling God the Father and Jesus the Son is blasphemy in Islam. The Muslim friendly Bible says: Cleans them by water in the name of Allah, his messiah, and his holy spirit. Not only have they removed Father and Son, they have changed baptism into something that washes one clean from their sin. They change Jehovah God into Allah, who is definitely not the same god. You will also notice that it is not the Messiah, it is Allah's messiah. The Scriptures are very clear on this issue. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: [(but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.] 1 John 2:22-23

6 This shows the seriousness of the issue. We are called to be watchmen and to warn of dangers like this. If you would like to schedule a meeting with Tom you can call him at No church is too big or too small. Segment Four Bro. Housney started a petition against this practice of changing the Bible. There were many who not only signed the petition, but who contacted Wycliffe. He heard that this resulted in these organizations loosing more than half their support. This brought them to their knees and they agreed to submit to the World Evangelical Alliance, which is a global alliance of churches. They asked for guidance. Bro. Housney asked if they needed to a committee to tell them that Jesus is the Son of God. A committee was formed with people from both sides of the issue. The committee produced a report reprimanding Wycliffe for what they were doing. Bro. Housney's understanding is that Wycliffe committed to following the guidelines of this committee. This only dealt with the issue of the Father and the Son. It did not deal with other translation issues. Bro. Housney has an analysis of this committee on his website. The committee left some wiggle room for the translators. They allowed that if the Son of God is offensive they can seek other ways to translate this phrase. Bro. Housney has heard reports that there has not been much change on the field. There are translators on the field that are convinced that Son of God is offensive so not much seems to have changes. This is, at this point, just hearsay and no evidence has yet come forth on this issue. Other translation organizations have continued to remove Son of God from their translations. Efforts are being made to correct this also. Groups like Frontier are not only continuing to translate in this manner, they are supporting things like the Insider Movement. They are supporting telling Muslim converts that they can remain in the mosque and not come out of Islam. Too many are saying these things are not important. They are extremely important. Allah and Jehovah are not the same God. Jesus is the Son of God and outside of Him there is no salvation. This philosophy may get a lot of converts, but they will not be converted to Christ. One of Shahram's friends travels to a lot of missions conferences and he says this philosophy is being promoted in most of them. Anyone who supports Wycliffe or Frontier needs to think twice before sending another check to either of them. Don't just look at their statement of faith, check out their practices. Many groups have statements of faith that seem good. It is what they do that matters, not what they say. Bro. Housney has a statement of practices on his website you can use for a guide to evaluate these organizations. We don't have any right to change God's Word! Don't you thing that God knew there would be Muslims when He inspired His Word/ There is no hope for anyone apart from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This Gospel says that we are lost in our sins and there is only one solution to the problem. Jesus Christ, the

7 Son of God, came and died for our sins, was buried, and rose again for our justification. To change this message is to send people to Hell. We need to believe that what God said is right whether we understand it our not. God cannot make a mistake. Anything that disagrees with Him or His Word is wrong.