Our text today will be a repeat
of some text I've used before, and we'll be coming at a similar
topic that we've discussed before, but from a little bit different
direction this time. The text will be from 2 Corinthians
chapter 11, verse 3 and 4. And there the scripture tells
us, but I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning,
your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion
to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims
another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive
a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept
a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with
it readily enough. The second text is from Galatians
chapter 1. verses six through nine. And
here we're told, I am astonished that you were so quickly deserting
him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to
a different gospel. Not that there is another one,
but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel
of Christ. But even if we or an angel from
heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached
to you, let him be accursed. And as we have said before, so
now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary
to the one you received, let him be accursed. As I said, we've
looked at these texts before, and the topic was another Jesus,
another gospel, and indeed that's the topic today, but we're coming
at it from a little bit different direction today. And I will say,
of course, discussions of this nature can get controversial.
That's not my purpose in bringing this up. And certain topics can
and do at times have political overtones. And I don't know that
I shy away from that if we truly hold Our religion, our belief,
our faith close to our heart, it will affect our politics. There is no separating religion
from politics, and people who say that you can make that separation
I think are misguided. Again, it's not my purpose to
be controversial or cause an argument, but I have some comments
on this subject today. The text that we read, are both
letters from Paul, come from letters from Paul. They were
written to two different churches, two different places, two different
times, and yet they address the same problem, and that is that
some were preaching something other than what Paul preached,
other than the gospel of Christ. The Corinthian church was a church
that was established in town of Corinth, which was a major
trade center in the pagan world. It was a major port city. It had people from all over the
Roman Empire coursing through there at any given time. There
was a mixture of all kinds of religions, all kinds of people
there. The congregation in Corinth was
mixed. It was Gentiles and Jews. The corrupting influences, the
contrary gospels being preached were coming from Jewish legalism,
from Jews in the congregation who held that the law was still
in place in some way, shape, or form, and from Gentile pagan
immorality. The place was a port city, and
it was immoral, and those pagans in the congregation were, unfortunately
enough, bringing their immorality into the church with them. The
Galatian church was A church within the realm of Paul's second
missionary journey through Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, and areas
of Turkey, what we would call Turkey. Now, the congregation
was, again, mixed, Jews and Gentiles. The corrupting influence there
was primarily Judaizers, Jewish believers who were drawing other
believers back into Jewish law. That was a major corrupting influence
there. All of this may seem distant
to us in the realm of history, but it's really not because these
things, while we're not living in Turkey and we're not living
in Greece, these influences are still ever-present even today.
There is within any church at any time some kind of misunderstanding
of the gospel, some kind of misrepresentation of the gospel, whether we mean
to or not. We all are subject to misunderstandings
at times, and there are these things that come into churches.
They're very real problems at times. And you can go to different
churches and see these influences, anything from extreme legalism
all the way to licensed antinomianism. being practiced within churches.
So these are common concepts. We see some things that have
come into our churches in our lifetime that draw attention
to the idea that there could very well indeed be preached
another Jesus, another gospel. We see a blurring of distinctions
in churches now. What is it to be a Christian?
And where does our faith come from and where is it headed to?
And I know we've mentioned this before, that now the buzzword
in Christianity and the magazines that you read and some of the
preachers that you listen to and some of the radio broadcasts
and what have you is this talk of an Abrahamic tradition. Well, we recognize now that the
great faiths Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all come from one source,
from this Abrahamic tradition, and that really we have this
common thread now run through all three religions, and therefore
we're not as far apart as we may think we are. The liberal
churches, the extremely liberal Christian churches, will accept
this idea of an Abrahamic tradition. Conservative churches will accept
and voice the idea that there is a Judeo-Christian tradition. And it starts with the idea,
and a true idea, that Christianity came forth from Judaism, so there's
this common thread that weaves through both Judaism and Christianity. Adding to that, then, you have
that most conservative Christianity has dispensational end times
theology as a base. And you can see how distinctions
can become blurred. Dispensational Christians will
accept that Christians are the children of God, citizens of
the heavenly Jerusalem, members of the kingdom of God. But they
make a distinction between Christians and Jews. And to the dispensational
mindset, the Jews are and always will be the people of God. They are the chosen people. And here is where the rub comes
in. Because we've set up two categories
with that mindset within the kingdom of God. There are the
Jews and there are the Christians. and both are equally valid according
to this thinking. This is the tension. This is
the tension. And this is truthfully where
the rub comes in and where politics and religion meet because it
drives us to a Middle Eastern policy. And it is there in the
Middle East now that we see the tension played out. We see Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam present in the Middle East, and the situation
is horrible. It's worse than horrible. It's
deadly. It's deadly. We see the Islamics have spoken
boldly that they intend to wipe out the Jews. And following the
Jews, they intend to take care of the great Satan. Well, the
great Satan, if you've read the articles and followed the news,
is us. That's us, America, you and me,
Christianity, as they understand it. And complicating all this
is the issue of political correctness, and nobody wants to stand up
and say that this is, at its heart, its core, a religious
war. Nobody wants to say that. No,
we won't do that. We'll coat all this with propaganda slogans, meaningless
slogans that ignore the facts, but may soothe our conscience
a bit. We'll say things like, Islam is a religion of peace. It's only radical Islam that
is the problem. I focus on that because that's
in the news every day. But here it is, at its core,
we're talking about religious differences that are driving
people to kill each other. And I must say, and very few
want to admit this, The differences are irreconcilable. They're irreconcilable. Because of the heartfelt beliefs,
the faiths of all three groups, of all three groups, Jews, Christians,
and Islamics, Muslims, there cannot be peace. There cannot be. The differences
are irreconcilable. There is one truth, but three
variations on the truth, or three different viewpoints, if you
will. All three cannot be correct. So what do we do? How do we get some understanding
on this? You go to some people and say,
look, Let's talk about the Middle East. What is the answer there?
How can we handle this? And they'll say, well, I'll tell
you one thing. Regardless of what else all happens, we can't
walk away from Israel. They're God's people. And you
know that anybody that blesses Israel will be blessed, and anybody
that curses Israel will be cursed. And I'm not going to be on the
wrong side of that argument. OK? That's a viewpoint. But where does that come from?
Is that a political viewpoint? Not at all. That's a religious
viewpoint. But there you have it. Religion
and politics mixed together, inseparable. And truthfully,
it is. If we believe something in our
heart of hearts, we cannot and will not separate it from our
politics. But for us as Christians, there
is a dividing line. The judge of all things The important
matter in all considerations is Jesus Christ. We are Christians,
little Christs. And for us, the first and foremost
consideration, above all else, is Jesus Christ. Where do we stand on Christ,
and where do those that we deal with stand on Christ? And that's what I'd kind of like
to look at for just a few minutes today, the Middle Eastern situation, and talk about Islam, Judaism,
and Christianity, and the person of Jesus Christ. Because there
are three different views. Only one can be correct. Only
one can be correct. And the three views are not reconcilable. They are not. The first view we'll look at,
and none of us would agree that they're correct, is Islam. We've all our lives been told
that Islam is not correct, and I agree they're not correct.
We'll look at them because I think we can easily put that issue
to rest. But how does Islam view Jesus Christ? According to Islam,
Jesus Christ is not deity. He is not God. He is not the
son of God. Allah is undivided. There is
but one Allah. And Allah has no son. First point. Second, they do,
Islam does recognize Jesus as a great teacher and reformer
and a prophet. He was, according to Islam, a
great prophet. Not the greatest prophet. The
greatest prophet, according to Islam, is Muhammad. But in the
line of prophets, Jesus is next to Muhammad. He was sent to correct
the errant Jews because according to Islam, the Jews had taken
the message of Allah and had corrupted it and twisted it and
changed it. Jesus was sent as a reformer,
a prophet, to bring the Jews back into line. They rejected
him. His message then was corrupted
and changed into Christianity and they don't view Christianity
as any more correct than Judaism. They look at Christianity as
a further corruption of the truth. Next point, they do not believe
that Jesus died on the cross. Allah would never never stooped
so low as to allow one of his prophets to die that shameful
death. They will tell you that somebody
was put on that cross that may have even had a close appearance
to Jesus, but it was not Jesus. Allah would never suffer his
prophet to that shameful of a death. Jesus did not resurrect, as we
say, because he never died that way. Now, Jesus will come back as
judge. That is similar to our belief
in a return of Christ as judge. But he is coming back primarily
to judge errant Judaism and Christianity. That is his purpose in returning
at a point is to judge the Jews and the Christians for their
errors. That is the Jesus of Islam. Now
again, if you talk to somebody Islamic, if they will condescend
to speak to you, and it can be very hard at times to get a discussion
going with a Muslim because they don't usually dirty themselves
with conversations with us, but if you Do talk to them, you'll
find out these are their views. If they'll be open with you and
honest with you. I've been privileged to have
those kind of discussions with a few, not many, Islamists. Now let's look at the Jews. The Jews, of course, do not believe
that Jesus is God or the Son of God. In that aspect, they're
similar to the Islamists. They do not believe that Jesus
is the son of God. They say that Christians worship,
depending on the strain of Judaism you follow or the books you read,
worship two or three gods. The original arguments against
Christianity were that the gods were God and Jesus. And then later, as Trinitarian
beliefs became defined in the Christian church, then they expanded
that to, say, three gods. So depending on which rabbi and
which time period you're reading, Christians worship two or three
gods. They believe that Jesus was indeed
a teacher of the masses. They can't deny that. But if
you'll go back through your scripture, and read his interactions with
the Jewish authorities, you'll find out that they did call him
rabbi, prophet, teacher. But if you read the scripture
in its context, you'll find out they're using those terms more
mockingly than out of respect. They did not respect Jesus. He was not one of their clergy,
one of their leaders, and he was not respected. He will be
recognized as a teacher of the masses, but not a respected teacher. He was recognized as a troublemaker. And here comes the threat, or
the mixing rather, of religion and government. He was recognized
as a threat to religion and to political peace in Jerusalem. Again, there's that mixing of
religion politics. As he made bolder and bolder
claims about who he was personally, he was recognized by the Jews
as a blasphemer. He was recognized as a man worthy
of the death penalty. And as we know, he received the
death penalty. They do not, the Jews do not
recognize his resurrection. Scripture tells us that the story
immediately circulated was that his body was stolen, taken away. So there was an appearance of
a resurrection, but no, it did not happen. He is as dead as
dead can be. He is not resurrected. Jesus to the Jew is not a Savior. Not a Savior. Now, we'll talk
about those. As Christians, we recognize that
Christ is God, the Son of God. We recognize that Jesus was indeed
a teacher, a prophet, a priest, our king, our savior. We recognize that Christ was
indeed killed, crucified, buried in the grave three days, resurrected,
brought to life, and indeed lives to this day at the right hand
of God the Father. We talked about that a bit this
morning as Brother Bill preached from Hebrews. That is our belief
as Christians. How does all this tie together? Three Jesus mentioned this morning.
Three Jesus mentioned this morning. All of them are out there being
preached. Some of this is being preached
from Christian pulpits, a mixing Abrahamic tradition, Judeo-Christian
faith. But even this brief view of Jesus
that I presented today, even with that brief view, I think
we can see the views are irreconcilable. I cannot make Christianity and
Islam mix. I can't. I cannot. I can talk about a common faith. I can talk about a root in Abraham.
I can do everything. And it can have the appearance
of coming together maybe to a point, but the minute that Jesus Christ
is mentioned, there is a divide and we must part. I cannot make
Christianity and Islam mix. They do not come together. They
will not stand together. Judaism is the same. And in fact,
as we read the New Testament, the epistles, even the gospels,
because Christ faced this very issue himself, Judaism and Christianity
are also irreconcilable. There's very little point of
discussion. They do not recognize Jesus. as the Son of God, they do not
recognize Jesus as a resurrected Savior. They don't recognize
Jesus as a Savior. Judaism and Christianity, at
a point in history, separated, and unless they, the Jews, come
to Christ, we cannot be reconciled. Now,
that's the condition in the Middle East. That is what is flowing
under all else that is happening there. That's what's flowing under all
else. There is a divide, a spiritual,
a religious, a theological divide that cannot be reconciled. They
will come to Christ or they will not be reconciled. Now the situation
in the Middle East has another complicated factor which I will
mention this morning, but few mention this and few talk about
it. And that is, what about the native
Christians in the Middle East? Christianity as a faith, as a
religion, began in the Middle East. That is where our Savior
was born, lived His life. taught, preached. That is where
he died and where he was resurrected. And from the day that Christ
began his ministry until now, there have been Christians in
the Middle East. We don't think about that, but
there have been. Now, has it been a huge body
of believers? At times it was. Up until the
middle 600s, there were a lot of Christians in the Middle East.
But in the 600s, Islam came into effect. Muhammad had his visions,
whatever he had. Islam spread. It was conversion
by the sword. And many, many, many Christians
left this life. But there have been throughout
the Middle East to this very day, native Christians. Some are in what we call Israel
now. There are Palestinian Christians,
there are Syrian Christians, there are Iraqi Christians, Iranian
Christians, Turkish Christians. There are Christians in the Middle
East. This is where the situation in the Middle East gets complicated.
This is where dispensational theology, our view of Christ,
and a question of who are God's people all come together. It
all comes together there. We will stand up. Many will occupy
the pulpit. You'll see them on TV. You'll
hear them on the radio saying, we must, we must, we must support
Israel. No mention, no mention of the
native Christians that are there who are suffering persecution
from both sides, from the Islamics and from the Jews. As Christians, I would think
our obligation is to our brothers and sisters in the faith. Such
is not the case. Our obligation seems to be to
the nation of Israel. And this is, I understand, controversial,
but this is what happens when you mix religion and politics.
And I said you can't separate them. It gets sticky. But in the terms of In terms
of politics, how should we think politically? I don't think it's necessarily
a good idea to tie our politics to our views on prophecy, but
there are things from the scripture that we can tie it to. And we
can base our politics on certain factors that are biblical, that
do make sense and do lead to firmer politics. Are the nations
that we deal with just? Do they treat their people well? Do they treat foreigners within
their bounds in their country? Do they treat foreigners well?
Are they aggressive to their neighbors? Or are they peace
seekers and peace keepers? These are better factors to consider
when we're talking about politics than our views on the end times. The truth about end times theology
is that I may be 100% right in my viewpoint. I might be part
right, part wrong, or the painful admission is that I might be
100% wrong in my end time view. Now, if my end time view is driving
my political view, and I'm 100% wrong, where are
my politics going to be? This is the problem that we get
into. Now, end time views are important.
We have to consider that. We have to think about what we
believe about the end times. And I'm not trying to tell you
one way or another how the end times are going to play out.
I've got my views, but I can't stand up there and tell you with
certainty that I'm right. But Paul addresses end time views. It's throughout the New Testament.
Christ himself spoke of an end. So there is a way to address
this, to get a perspective. But notice in the letters of
Paul, as we read his letters, we find out that Paul spent the
first part of his letters addressing doctrine, firming up what we
must believe as Christians. And then the second part of the
letters addressed application. If this is true, then how do
we live? You'll notice as you go through
the letters of Paul that the person of Christ, what we believe
about Jesus Christ is in the first part of the letters. We must understand Jesus Christ
or we will understand nothing else correctly after that. Paul's
mentions of prophecy tend to fall in the latter parts of the
letter. after he's addressed doctrine. Now, in times is doctrine. I understand that. But it is
more of a practical application of doctrine than it is doctrine. Prophecy is the working out of
Jesus Christ in the future. That's our interpretation. That's
what we understand. How will it be in Jesus Christ? Prophecy is an application. But
if we're wrong on the person of Jesus Christ in the first
place, we cannot get a firm grip on what prophecy can or does
mean. And this is where we come into
the problem, because we're looking at the Middle East situation
through the lens of prophecy first and foremost, and we're
willing to set aside the various viewpoints of Jesus Christ by
ourselves and our allies and our enemies, because we have
this understanding of prophecy. And yet Christ must be first
and foremost. Jesus Christ must be first and
foremost in our mind. Prophecy will be second, third,
or further down the list, but it is only if we understand Jesus
Christ that we will begin to understand prophecy. That's important. And this is where we come right
back to where we started. There are those who preach another
Jesus. and another gospel. And we've looked today at the
situation in the Middle East, and we've seen three different
views of Jesus presented. Three. The Islamic view, the
Jewish view, and the Christian view. And I think that, again, as I
said earlier, even the brief mention that we've had of these
three views today, we understand that they are not reconcilable.
I cannot make Islam and Christianity mix. I cannot make Judaism and
Christianity mix. So I must come to a better understanding
of Jesus Christ before I can start to even put together an
understanding of the situation in the Middle East and an understanding
of what may be a solution in the Middle East. Of course, the
situation there is much bigger than me and it will take wisdom
of God to even begin to crack into that, but I certainly won't
have any wisdom and understanding if I don't understand Jesus Christ,
our Lord and Savior. That's the thought I leave us
with. Brothers and sisters, be watchful because there are those
all around us that sound good. They use Scripture. They proclaim
the name of Jesus over and over and loudly and boldly and yet
When you stop and listen, they're not talking about our Lord and
Savior. We must be watchful. There are
those who preach another Jesus and another gospel. Thank you.