THE LAST THINGS
ISLAM AND ISRAEL
DR. JIM DIXON
GENESIS 25:7-10, REVELATION 16:13-16
JUNE 18, 2006
War and Peace is the name of an epic novel by Leo Tolstoy. This book was published in its completed form in the year 1869 and it tells a story of war and peace in the land of Russia. Today as we look at Islam and Israel, we look at war and peace but in a broader context. We look at war and peace in a global context, war and peace in an apocalyptic context.
Today we begin with the subject of war. The Bible tells us that there will always be wars and rumors of wars, but the Bible also tells us that as we move to the consummation, as we move to the end of this age, there will come one final global war the Bible calls Armageddon.
On this Father’s Day, I think it’s good to mention a dad whose name was Abraham. Abraham was a man who fathered multiple nations. From his seed came Moses and Judaism. From the seed of Abraham came Jesus Christ and Christianity. And from the seed of Abraham came Muhammed and the religion of Islam. Of course, it is true that Christians and Muslims and Jews have not always gotten along. They have often been in conflict. There has often been tension. I think today most Christians and most Jews are at peace and get along pretty well. Of course, the tension is still strong between Muslims and Jews. I don’t mean that there aren’t Jews and Muslims who love each other. There are. But on the radical fringes of Judaism and on the radical fringes of Islam, there is great hatred, great hostility. And this hostility and this hatred is going to drive the world to the brink.
If you’ve looked at Abraham’s death in Genesis, chapter 25, which was part of our scripture for today, you notice that Abraham’s sons, Isaac and Ishmael, stood together one day outside the Cave of Machpelah. They were not normally together. They were not close. Ishmael was 14 years older than Isaac and they were only half-brothers. Ishmael was the son of Abraham through Hagar, Abraham’s Egyptian maid, and Isaac was the son of Abraham through Abraham’s wife, Sarah, and so they were half-brothers 14 years apart and they did not get along. But this day they were together side-by-side sharing a common grief and a common love because they loved their dad whose name was Abraham. They were together that day outside that cave to bury their father. That cave still exists today. It’s in the land of Israel in the town of Hebron, which was ancient Mamre. Inside that cave today is the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Abraham is buried there. Isaac is buried there. Jacob is buried there. Sarah is buried there. Rebekah is buried there. Leah is buried there. It is the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Above the Cave of Machpelah, above the Tomb of the Patriarchs today there is a mosque, an Arab Muslim mosque.
It was just twelve years ago on March 2, 1994, that descendants of Ishmael gathered there at the Cave of Machpelah and there came a descendant of Isaac, a Jewish man whose name was Baruch Goldstein. He came with an automatic weapon. It was stealth. He had hidden it, but he opened his cloak and he opened fire and he murdered 48 people—48 Arabs, 48 Muslims, 48 descendants of Ishmael. Then he himself, Baruch Goldstein, the Jew, the descendant of Isaac, was also killed. One week later, as I’m sure many of you remember, there were two memorial services in the city of Jerusalem. One was a Jewish memorial service for Baruch Goldstein and the other was a Muslim memorial service for 48 Palestinians who had died.
At the Jewish service, the Jewish Rabbi Yaacov Perrin made his infamous statement that,” One million Arabs are not equal in value to a single Jewish fingernail.” At the same time at the Muslim memorial service in the same city, the PLO leader, Thiel Aziz made his infamous prayer when he said, “God, Allah, help us to murder every single Jew one by one until they are eradicated from the face of the earth.” It’s hard to imagine that kind of hatred, but it’s that kind of hatred between Muslim and Jew that is going to drive this world to Armageddon, that’s going to bring about the consummation of the age. It’s all drive by hatred.
Armageddon is in the Bible, the title given to the last battle, the last war of history. The word Armageddon is only found in Revelation, chapter 16, verse 16, but the concept of Armageddon is found throughout the Bible, and it’s described clearly in Zechariah, chapter 14, and many would say Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39. There’s going to come this last battle of Armageddon. The Bible tells us in the Book of Revelation, the 16th chapter, that Armageddon will be fueled by Satan. It will be driven by the hate of the devil himself, by demonic hate. The Book of Revelation tells us that from the mouth of the dragon and from the mouth of the beast and from the mouth of the false prophet shall come forth three foul spirits like frogs. These are demonic spirits forming signs and wonders who shall go abroad to all the kings of the whole world to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. They shall be assembled at the place which is called, in Hebrew, Armageddon.
Demonic spirits will go forth infusing hate into the nations for Israel, and the nations will come against Israel with hate. Do not marvel at this. You see, the evil one hates the people of God. It’s ever been so. The devil hates the Jews and he also hates the New Testament people of God. He hates the Church. He hates Christians. It’s no wonder why the Jewish people have been persecuted in history. It’s no wonder why Christians have been persecuted in history. The Inquisition is not that mysterious. It was inspired by demonic spirits. The Holocaust was inspired by demonic spirits with the gassing and incineration of 6 million Jews. It all came from demonic inspiration, and so it shall be at Armageddon—demonic inspiration as the nations will come against Israel and they will come with hate.
We’re told in Zechariah 14 that most of the nations of the world will come against Israel and they will come against Jerusalem. The word Armageddon itself comes from the Hebrew. It comes from “har” which means, “mountains,” and “Megiddo,” which refers to the city of Megiddo, which was in the hills or in the mountains, an ancient city, multi-layered—twenty cities really, built on top of each other over many millennia. Next to the Hill of Megiddo is the Plain of Megiddo, sometimes called the Valley of Jezreel, sometimes called the Valley of Esdraelon or the Plain of Esdraelon. This is the region of Megiddo. It’s famous for many wars throughout history. In Judges, chapter 5, the armies of Israel defeated the armies of Sisera there in Megiddo. In 2 Kings, chapter 23, and 2 Chronicles, chapter 35, we read how the armies of Pharaoh Necho put down King Josiah, King of Judah, right there at har-Megiddo, right there in the hills of Megiddo.
The Book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature. That is its the genre of literature. Apocalyptic literature if oftentimes symbolic in nature. There are some who believe that the word Armageddon is being used symbolically simply to refer to the last global battle at the end of the world. And certainly Armageddon will be global, but make no mistake about this. The focus will be on Israel literally. The focus will be on Israel literally and it will involve the region of Megiddo. The war will take place, in some sense, all over the world, but it will involve the Plains of Megiddo. And so, this great battle will come.
We’re told in Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39, that at the very end of time the nations of Gog and Magog, or, “Gog of the Land of Magog,” will come against Israel. The etymology is uncertain. These words are found in the library at Ashurbanipal. Of course, in the Bible Gog and Magog is associated with Meshach and Tubal and Persia and Cush and Put and Gomer, many ancient nations. Many have identified Meshach and Tubal with the region of Russia today and those other nations like Cush and Persia and Put and Gomer with Islamic nations that surround Israel.
Martin Luther, the great reformer who founded the Protestant Reformation, wrote a little booklet on Ezekiel 38 and 39, and in that booklet Martin Luther expressed his opinion that Gog and Magog refer to the Islamic nations, what he called Mohammedan. Certainly, Israel today, reborn in ’48 and in ’67, is today surrounded by Islamic powers and there is great, great tension. I want you to understand that in the Bible we’re told that God loves everybody. I hope you know and understand that. “God so loved the world that He gave His Son.” God loves everybody. I hope you understand God loves Jews and God also loves Muslims because God loves all people.
If you read Genesis, chapter 16, 17, 21, and 25, you will discover that God not only pronounces a blessing upon Isaac and his descendants but God also pronounces a blessing upon Ishmael and his descendants. God promises to make Isaac and his descendants a great people and God promises to make Ishmael and his descendants a great people. The Bible tells us that as Isaac was growing up, God was with him, and the Bible tells us that as Ishmael was growing up, God was with him. So do you understand that God has promised to bless both the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael. Of course, today you look at the world and you might think, “Wow! God has blessed the descendants of Ishmael more.” Of course, from Ishmael came the Arabs and there are 250 million Arabs in the world today and 21 Arab nations in the Arab League possessing 5 million square miles of the earth’s surface. From the Arabs came Islam and Islam has 1,200,000,000 people nominally possessing even a larger segment or controlling even a larger segment of the earth’s population. It’s huge what’s happened with the descendants of Ishmael. Many Arab nations are rich because of oil.
When we look at Isaac and the descendants of Isaac, the descendants of Isaac are the Jews. Their history doesn’t seem so blessed, does it? There are only 13 million Jews on the earth today. Did you know that? There are only 13 million Jews, about half of which live right here in the United States of America. There are 5 million Jews in Israel and 13 million Jews in all. And their history has been one of persecution. They don’t have 5 million square miles of the earth’s surface. They have 8,000 square miles of the earth’s surface, a very little segment of land called Israel, and they’ve only had that since ’48 and ’67.
You might think, “Well, God hasn’t blessed the descendants of Isaac very much,” but remember while God promised to bless Isaac and his descendants and Ishmael and his descendants, God also said that His covenant was with Isaac. God’s covenant was with Isaac and Isaac’s descendants. So, from Isaac came Moses and the Jews and God gave His first covenant to Moses on Sinai and then from Isaac came Jesus and the Second Covenant in the New Testament in the Gospel and Christianity and the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ today is 2,200,000,000 people nominally. God has indeed blessed Isaac. Don’t forget that, and remember that at the end of this age, as we approach the consummation, the world is going to focus on those 8,000 square miles called Israel. It’s amazing but true, and we see it today as the nations of the earth polarize themselves with regard to Israel and how they feel about Israel. The end is coming. Armageddon is coming.
I don’t want us to leave this subject without a more positive note. Next week we’re going to take a look at the Tribulation, the final time of great tribulation that will precede Armageddon. We’ll look and see what that’s all about and how that relates to us as Christians, but I want to conclude this week by looking at peace. We’ve looked at war, Armageddon. Let’s take a look at peace.
On July 20, 1969, the Apollo XI Lunar Module Eagle set down on the Sea of Tranquility on the surface of the moon. It was a momentous moment in human history. In the words of Neil Armstrong, “It’s a small step for man but a giant leap for mankind.” It was Armstrong and Aldrin who placed a copper plaque on the Sea of Tranquility on the surface of the moon, signed by them as well as signed by Cooper and then-president Richard M. Nixon. And so, this copper plaque was placed on the surface of the moon, and it had a 7-word message. “We come in peace for all mankind.”
You think about it and there’s a certain kind of peace on the moon in the sense of the absence of war, but of course the irony is that there’s an absence of war on the moon for one simple reason. Man is not there. That’s why there’s an absence of war on the moon. Of course, on earth, man resides and there is no peace. In fact, historians tell us in the history of the world there has never been global peace.
Today we look back in time and we think of the ancient world as primitive. We think of the Middle Ages as barbaric, and we think of ourselves as enlightened and civilized. But it is deception. The truth is that the 20th century saw more people killed in war than any prior century, and now that we’ve entered the 21st century. We know soon Armageddon is coming. We’ve grown in technology. Our power for destruction is greater. We have weapons of mass destruction, but we haven’t figured the whole peace thing out, have we? The human heart really hasn’t changed.
Some of you have heard of Bishop Phillips Brooks. Bishop Phillips Brooks was an Anglican priest who served the Union Army during the Civil War. He grew tired. He grew tired of ministering to dying young men, some of whom were little more than boys. He grew tired of conducting their funeral services, watching them die. He grew tired of telling moms and dads that their young sons were not coming home. He grew tired of telling wives that they would never see their husbands again. He grew tired of telling little children that their dads had died. He grew tired. When the Civil War came to an end, Bishop Phillips Brooks decided to take a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and so he set forth across Europe and into the Middle East and finally to Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem, Phillips Brooks paid a little money to rent a horse. He took that 2-hour horseback ride from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and in Bethlehem he went into the Church of the Nativity. It was there in the Church of the Nativity that Phillips Brooks wrote his famous Christmas carol, “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem.” You’ve all sung it, but did you know that Phillips Brooks wrote that Christmas carol as an appeal for peace? He had just come out of the Civil War, and he longed for peace and he knew he was at the place where Jesus was born and he knew the only hope for peace was Jesus and so he wrote that Christmas carol, “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem.”
We look at Isaiah, chapter 9, and we read, “Unto us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given. The government shall be upon His shoulders. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, ‘Pele Yoez,’ Mighty God, ‘El Gibbor,’ Everlasting Father, ‘Avi’ad,’ and Prince of Peace, ‘Sar Shalom.’” That’s what Phillips Brooks knew and I hope you know—it’s only Jesus who is going to bring peace. So we see in Revelation, chapter 11, He will come again. He will cut the Battle of Armageddon short, and He will come and the nations, it says, the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever. In Isaiah, chapter 2, it says, “He shall decide between the nations and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and nation shall not lift up sword against nation and neither shall they learn war anymore.”
That verse is printed on a plaque on the side of the United Nations Building in New York City. But many people, most people, don’t know that it refers to Sar Shalom, Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. He’s going to bring peace.
What about now? We’re talking about Last Things. We’re looking at the end of the world. We know that Armageddon will come and Jesus will come, but in the meantime, what about now? What are you supposed to do with your life now? What am I supposed to do with my life now? If we’ve come to Jesus Christ and we’ve received Him as Savior and Lord, there’s a sense in which we’ve found peace. And the Bible tells us that now we’re called to a ministry called the ministry of reconciliation. The Prince of Peace, Sar Shalom, has come into your heart and my heart and we’ve been called to a ministry of reconciliation.
In 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, it says, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” This is the gospel we take to the nations, the gospel of Jesus Christ. We offer forgiveness. But understand this: The ministry of reconciliation requires that we not count peoples’ trespasses against them. We want to go to Jews and Muslims and not count their trespasses against them and hope that they won’t count our trespasses against us. We’ve been called by Christ to a ministry of reconciliation and so we take the gospel to Jews and we take the gospel to Muslims. We have in our Missions Department Jewish ministries and Muslim ministries and we seek to take Jesus to everybody. We also seek to love and to serve Jews and we seek to love and to serve Muslims.
I know today, as God is with us, I know He wants you to have a heart for this ministry of reconciliation and that you would reach out to Jews and Muslims seeking reconciliation. It’s not an easy thing. I think in this room there are probably many of you who are willing to be reconciled with Jews and some of you are involved in our Israel Connection. We have many ministries to the Jews. Some of you are involved. But I think there are also some of you here not willing to be reconciled to Muslims. I think that might be true. I think there are some of you here who might hate Muslims. And how sad is, that because God is love. While God might and indeed does hate evil, God always loves people. So I hope you’re willing to love Muslims.
I know that the radical fringe of Islam is going to drive the world to the brink. I know that Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda will never be satisfied. The Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank… it will never satisfy them. They live for the eradication of Israel and the destruction of the Jews. I know that. I know that there are passages in the Koran and indeed in the Hadith that are offensive to us, offensive to me. I’ve read the Koran. I found some suras, some chapters, beautiful and very much like the Hebrew Old Testament. I’ve found some suras, some chapters, appalling, and yes, I would say evil, because they are contrary to the nature of God who is love. But most Muslims are just good people, trying to be good people. They’re just people trying to be dads or moms or husbands and wives. They’re just trying to make a living. They’re just trying to please their understanding of God.
Most Muslims are not on the radical fringe. You understand, I’m not endorsing the Koran. I understand it was written by Muhammed over a period of 23 years in the 7th century AD. I know that while it claims to give the true word about Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, that that’s all bogus. The Koran was written by Muhammed 2,600 years after Abraham lived, 1,900 years after Moses lived and 600 years after Jesus lived. It doesn’t correct anything, but it doesn’t matter. God loves Muslims. God loves people.
When you look at Islam and the Five Pillars of Islam, there are a lot of similarities with Judaism. We looked at the Five Pillars of Islam on Easter Sunday and I think some of you are familiar with “shahadah,” which is Arabic for “witness or testimony.” This is the first Pillar of Islam, that they would bear witness or testimony to their faith. Then “salat,” which has to do with ritualistic prayer, rendered five times a day facing Mecca, prostrate, forehead to the ground at the sound of the crier from the minaret. But you understand that Muhammed took this idea, this concept, this pillar, from the Jews who prayed ritualistically. In Arabia in the days of Muhammed there were large Jewish communities. In the very beginning he sought friendship with them, and he was greatly influenced by them. And so we see salat and we see “salum,” transliterated from Arabic to English as “sawm.” It refers to fasting in the month of Ramadan, the daytime fast. Again, Muhammed took this from the Jews who fasted in the first month of the year and in Arabia it was a daytime fast.
Then there’s zakat, alms and giving and caring for the poor. Again, Muhammed saw this in the Jewish communities. Finally, there is Hajj, the pilgrimage. Of course, Muhammed saw all the Arabian Jewish communities make their pilgrimage to Jerusalem and so he asked his people to make a pilgrimage. In the final analysis, he asked them to make that pilgrimage to Mecca where they would circle the Kaaba and kiss the black stone that allegedly fell from heaven.
How ironic. There are so many similarities between Judaism and Islam and yet such hostility between the two. But we want to seek reconciliation in the name of Jesus. You understand that in Judaism and in Islam, there’s a great respect for the power of God and in Judaism and Islam there is great respect for the justice of God. But both in Judaism and Islam there is a struggle to understand the love and mercy of God. And I think we only see the love and mercy of God fully through Jesus. So we take Jesus to Muslims and we take Jesus to Jews and we do this in the context of loving them and serving them.
So, do you want to be part of that? By the way, don’t think that all Muslims hate you. Many of them want to be your friend. The word Islam means “submission.” We have found with our International Student Connection at DU many Muslim students love us and many of them view Christians as Muslims because they see us in submission to God—and Islam means submission and so they view us as brothers and sisters. Many Muslims look at us like that. Some of them want friendship. There’s a tremendous opportunity to love them, serve them, and yes, tell them about Jesus.
So, we have ministries… we’re going to have two tables out in the lobby today. At one table you can adopt a Muslim family that has gone through the Tsunami in Indonesia amongst the Acehnese people in the region of Banda Aceh. You can go to that table and you can adopt them as a prayer family, that you would make a commitment to pray for them. We have prayer cards that you can pick up and you can make that commitment. We have many of these prayer cards that you can take home. These prayer cards remind you to pray for a Muslim family in the name of Jesus.
We have another table where you can go and find out how you can be instructed in the culture of the Muslims and how we as Christians can reach out to them in love. You can also learn how you can adopt a Muslim refugee. Are you willing to be involved? Until Christ comes, as this world is racing toward Armageddon, and as hate drives us to the brink, are you willing to be an instrument of love in the time that remains, the years that are given to you as long as you draw breath? Are you willing to be an instrument of love and to be part of this ministry called the ministry of reconciliation? Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.