30 Mar Follow Up On Our Mark 13 Sermon and Prophecy of Islam vs. Bible
This is an excerpt from a transcript of a John MacArthur sermon. You can find the full sermon transcript HERE or you can watch the sermon HERE.
I found this interesting to see from the writings of Islam what they believe will happen and how John compares it to what the Bible says. Don’t be fooled like so many are these days. The truth shall set you free (John 8:32).
Norm
Here is the excerpt from his sermon on Mark 13:1-13
Go over to verse 22. You heard me read this, “False Christs, false prophets will arise, show signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect.” They can’t lead the elect astray but they will lead those who are not true believers to follow them.
I want to just talk about that for a moment, in a way that perhaps will be interesting to you. There are always false prophets, always false teachers, we know that, always people who claim to be Jesus, claim to be Jesus Christ, some more notable than others. But as you get to the end of human history and you get in to the period of time called the Tribulation, there is a specific fulfillment of this prophecy that I want you to understand, and it has to do with Islam.
Most people think of Islam as an utterly distinct religion from Christianity, with no connection to Christianity. We would think if someone is a Muslim, they have absolutely no connection to Christianity. And there are many religions that have no connection to Christianity, Hinduism has no connection to Christianity, Buddhism has no connection to Christianity, many others have no connection. It’s amazing how many do connect because Satan wants to counterfeit and deceive and get as close to the truth as he can.
There are actually confessed evangelical people who think that. Muslims not only believe in God because they are monotheist, believing in one God, but who think that Muslims are okay because they actually believe in Jesus. And by the way, they do. Brian McClaren an Emerging Church heretic writer in his book The Secret Message of Jesus says, and I quote, “All Muslims regard Jesus as a great prophet. A shared reappraisal of Jesus’ message could provide a common ground for urgently needed religious dialogue. This reappraisal of Jesus may be our own way of saving a number of religions, including Christianity,” end quote.
So if we want to save Christianity and save other religions, we need to all get together and that should be easy for us to do because we can start with the Muslims because they already believe in Jesus. A popular speaker and author, Tony Campolo, says, quote: “When we listen to the Muslim mystics as they talk about Jesus and their love for Jesus, I must say it’s a lot closer to New Testament Christianity than a lot of Christians.” Really! So you think that the Muslim Jesus is the same Jesus?
I can help you with that because they describe Jesus. The Muslim Jesus plays a crucial role in Islamic eschatology. Now you do know that the Muslims have an eschatology. In other words they have a theology of the end. They know where they’re going, according to their writings. They know where they’re going.
Let me describe the Muslim Jesus to you. This is out of their own writings, the Koran and the Sunnah. The Koran is supposedly the word of Allah, actually the word of Satan, but they think it’s the word of Allah. The Sunnah…the Sunnah are the words of and the works of Mohammed. The Koran then constitutes their holy Scripture and the Sunnah, sometimes called the Hadith constitutes their holy tradition. Their theology comes out of the Koran and the Sunnah, just as Roman Catholic theology comes out of the Bible and Tradition, or Judaism comes out of the Old Testament and rabbinic tradition…the Muslims have two sources of authoritative truth.
In their system they have Jesus. Jesus was a man, he was not God. He did not die, he went to heaven like Elijah. He did not die, therefore he did not rise. He did not rise, therefore he did not provide an atonement for anyone because no one can provide an atonement for anyone else. He is a man. He is a prophet. He is nothing more. He went to heaven like Elijah. And he’s in heaven right now, standing alongside Allah, waiting for Allah to send him back. In their system, this man, this prophet Jesus who is now in heaven, never having died, plays a key role in the end times because he will return from heaven without dying, he will come back when Allah sends him back.
Now the question to ask, is why would Allah want to send Jesus back? He has a lot of prophets to pick from, why does he send Jesus back?
Answer…so that when he shows up he can correct all the Christians who have misunderstood who he is. The sources for this, again, are the Koran and the Sunnah. The great event of the coming of Christ, or coming of Jesus, is so that this prophet, this man who comes back can straighten out the misdirected, misguided, misconceiving Christians who think He was God who died and rose again and provided atonement…he’ll come back and straighten it out. And by the way, after he gets here, he’ll get married, have children and die and be buried next to Mohammed. That’s the Muslim Jesus.
In Islamic eschatology, there are three great signs of the end of history…three great signs. There are some lesser signs, or some minor signs, or some major signs. In their eschatology, again quoting their sources exclusively, there are three great signs of the end of history. And each of them is a man. Let me tell you about those three men.
First of all, the first man that will come in the end of history is the Mahdi…M-a-h-d-i. Sometimes he’s called the Twelfth Imam. Every time Ahmajinedad over in Iran gives a speech, he gives glory to the Mahdi, glory to the Twelfth Imam, every time. He’s waiting for the coming of the Mahdi.
What is he coming to do? He’s coming, listen carefully, to slaughter all who will not worship Allah, convert to Islam. They are identified in their writings as pigs and dogs. And to establish the everlasting world dominating kingdom of Islam. That’s what he will do.
The Mahdi, or the Twelfth Imam, that means the guided one, is the long-awaited savior. He is the establisher of the final Caliphate. The world must follow him as he takes over or he will destroy all enemies of Islam. He will come and he will carry on holy war and either you convert or you’re killed by the Mahdi. He will have an army. His army will be a massive army and his army will go from nation to nation to punish the unbelievers. The holy writings of Islam say that this army will carry black flags. And on those black flags there will be one word and that one word will be the word Punishment. By the way, the Iranian army today carries black flags. They want to be ready for the coming of the Mahdi.
He will lead the army of black flags first to Israel, slaughter all the Jews, and then he will establish his rule in Jerusalem on the temple mount. That’s what their literature says. Slaughter the Jews, establish his rule on the temple mount.
According to their holy writings, the Mahdi will bring rain and wind and crops and wealth and happiness so that all will love him and no one will speak of anyone but him. Their writings say the Mahdi will come and make, at first, a peace agreement with the Jews and the west for seven years. The reign of Mahdi will last seven years in which he establishes Islam on the earth.
Their holy writings say this, the Mahdi will come riding on a white horse, and it even says in their writings, “As it says in Revelation 6:1 and 2. Saddam Hussein, by the way, painted murals of this Mahdi on a white horse all over Baghdad. And he comes carrying a sword to kill the infidels.
When the Mahdi arrives, he will discover hidden scriptures, he will discover them, interestingly enough, somewhere near the Sea of Galilee and there will be there hidden scriptures, hidden gospels and a hidden Torah and they will be the true scriptures which will be used by the Mahdi to show the Jews and the Christians they were wrong, that their scriptures were the false scriptures.
Let me summarize. The Mahdi will be a messianic figure. He will be a descendant of Mohammed. He will be an unparalleled, unequaled leader. He will come out of a crisis of turmoil. He will take control of the world. He will establish a new world order. He will destroy all who resist him. He will invade many nations. He will make a seven-year peace treaty with the Jews. He will conquer Israel and massacre the Jews. He will establish Islamic world headquarters at Jerusalem. He will rule for seven years, establish Islam as the only religion. He will come on a white horse with supernatural power. He will be loved by all people on earth.
If that sounds familiar, that is a precise description of the biblical Antichrist…absolutely step-by-step-by-step-by-step. The Bible’s Antichrist is their Mahdi. We know that the rider on the white horse in Revelation 6 is the Antichrist. They use that verse to describe their Mahdi.
Why am I giving you all this? Because the description of the Mahdi is exactly the description of the biblical Antichrist, the beast of Revelation 13, and you go into any kind of a study of that and you will find that all the details match up perfectly. The Bible’s Antichrist is Islam’s Savior and world conqueror who establishes a universal Islamic kingdom.
And there’s a second sign, a second person, and it is Jesus. The Mahdi is not Jesus. The Mahdi is greater than Jesus, and that’s important to their system because if you have somebody greater than Jesus then the Christians were wrong. So Jesus will return. Yes, Muslims believe that Jesus will come again. They believe in the return of Jesus, not the true Jesus, the Jesus of Islam, not God, didn’t die, didn’t rise, didn’t provide a sacrifice for sin, but he does return. He’s a prophet and he comes back and he has one purpose when he comes back and that is to assist and aid the Mahdi. He returns, listen to this, as a radical Muslim. He comes back as a radical Muslim. He will arrive, by the way, at a minaret near Damascus. And he will come back holding the wings of two angels who flew him down to meet the gathering army of the Mahdi in the east, the army of the black flags.
Jesus when he comes back will pray to the Mahdi who is greater than he. He will acknowledge the Mahdi as his lord. He will make a pilgrimage to Mecca. He will worship Allah and thus he will lead all Christians who will follow him to reject their notion of Jesus and accept the real Jesus who is nothing but a prophet and a man. He will establish worldwide Sharia law. He will become the greatest Muslim evangelist and he will be the final witness on the day of judgment against non-Muslims. Christians everywhere will affirm that they were wrong, that the gospel is wrong, the New Testament is wrong, He didn’t die, He didn’t rise, He isn’t God, He isn’t the Son of God. He Himself will come back and point out how wrong we’ve been. He will correct all misinterpretations and all misrepresentations.
Let me quote what their literature says. “He will shatter crosses.” That’s metaphoric for the destruction of the church, a symbol of Christianity being placed in the church. He will kill pigs. He will abolish the tax on non-Muslims because there won’t be any living non-Muslims, can’t tax dead people. And then he will do one more thing. He will kill the Islamic Antichrist. He will kill the Islamic Antichrist. Then he will die and be buried by Mohammed, but not until he has destroyed Christianity by revealing who he really is.
Who is this? You compare what he does to the false prophet in the book of Revelation, chapter 13, 16, 19, 20 refer to the beast coming out of the earth, the false prophet, who aids and abets the Antichrist. He is as the Mahdi is the exact replica of the Antichrist, the Jesus prophet in Islam is the exact parallel to the false prophet who aids and abets the Antichrist. One of their writings says he espouses the cause of the Mahdi. He is the Mahdi’s executioner. He is the Mahdi’s enforcer. He is the Mahdi’s prophet. And it is he who kills the Antichrist.
That leads me to the third person. The Antichrist will show up. The Muslims call him Dajjal, he is the great deceiver. He comes to earth on a mule and he’s blind in one eye. He is an infidel. He is a false miracle worker, this Antichrist, this Islamic Antichrist. But you know who he claims to be? He claims to be Jesus, the son of God. He claims to be deity. He will attempt to stop the Mahdi and the true Jesus but the true Jesus will slaughter him.
This is their view of the true Christ. Our Jesus is their Antichrist. Our Antichrist is their redeemer. It is a satanic counterfeit that is in complete reverse. The army…this is a quote… “The army of Satan will be led by a person who will claim to be Jesus Christ.” There will be a battle. The Muslim Jesus will fight the false Jesus and kill him and establish Islam forever. The truth is, the true Jesus will destroy the Antichrist and the false prophet and establish His Kingdom forever. This is Satan’s complete counterfeit, Muslim world domination.
Now somebody might say, “Well, when you think about the future and what’s going to happen in the world, don’t we have a revived Roman Empire? Doesn’t that mean the west? You remember that the image in Daniel 2 of the final world empire had two legs and the Roman Empire had the west and the east? You know, of course, if you know history that the western part of the Roman Empire basically dissolved and the east survived for a thousand years or more so that at the time of the New Testament, sixty percent of the Roman Empire was land that is now under Muslim control…at least 60 percent. The vast majority of the Roman Empire in New Testament times is today under Muslim control and Islam is moving across the west rapidly in Europe, isn’t it?
When you have a picture in Ezekiel 38, you have a picture of the Antichrist, Gog and you have the listing of eight nations, that will be a coalition for the Antichrist. All eight of those are Muslim nations, all eight of them. And they ring the Mediterranean to Libya.
In Revelation 17:9 to 11 it says there were six kingdoms and then a seventh and finally an eighth. What is the seventh? Well there’s been a discussion about that, it well could be the Ottoman Turk Empire which lasted five hundred years and didn’t really fall until the modern era. The Turkish Empire was the last Caliphate which ended in 1923 and they’re waiting for the restoration when the Mahdi comes.
So right at the very end somebody is going to say, “I’m Jesus.” Somebody else is going to say, “I’m Jesus.” Who you going to believe? That’s just one form of this deception that will show up at the end, and even now it’s deceiving people. There are a whole world of Muslims who think Jesus is someone He is not and consequently reject the true Jesus. Do not be deceived. There’s a world of Muslims deceived about the person of Jesus Christ. You cannot accommodate that by saying, “Isn’t that wonderful, they love Jesus.” They don’t. Any other Jesus than the true Jesus is not Jesus. And if you worship any other than the true Jesus, you are cursed.
