interfaith

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is currently the President of Iran. His tenure is coming to an end, but for these past seven and a half years, he has been the loudest voice of Shia Islam.

Shia Islam is the second largest denomination of Islam. Of Shi’ites, there are about 20 million or 10% of total Muslim population. About 80% of the Shia population lives in only 4 countries: India, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. The largest denomination is Sunni, of which there are about 1.2 billion or 90% of Muslims.

The Shia (and Sunni) Muslims believe that Jesus, AKA Isa, was a prophet of Allah, born of a virgin, lived a wonderful life, was NOT killed on the cross but lifted bodily straight up to God. They believe that Jesus will return with the 12th Imam or Final Mahdi to perform one last task: to break the cross, to kill the people of the cross, and to renounce his own Christianity and causing all to worship the true God: Allah. Then Isa will get to marry, have children, and die a natural death under the ‘peaceful regime’ of Allah. If this sounds suspiciously like Christianity’s False Prophet, you are correct.

Hugo Chavez was a socialist and friend to Iran, who died this week. Of Chavez’s passing, Ahmadinejad was praising him in a eulogistic pronouncement. However, it seems that Ahmadinejad went too far in his praise of his dead friend Chavez, saying that Chávez would “return on resurrection day” with Jesus and the Final Imam, the Twelfth Mahdi, who is the most revered figure in Islam.

Ahmadinejad is receiving criticism for this statement because Imam and Jesus/Isa are revered figures and are prominent players in Muslim end time scenarios. They take it seriously, because that is the time period which is supposed to usher in the final peace, with Islam being dominant over all the world. Jesus/Isa has a major part to play in that ushering-in. To speak words that include Chavez in the scenario is a religious no-no, illegal, even.

I wrote on the blog in September 2012, that Ahmadinejad said at the UN in his annual speech, “that the return of Jesus Christ was soon to come, along with the Islamic end-time figure the 12th Imam. “God Almighty has promised us a man of kindness, a man who loves people and loves absolute justice, a man who is a perfect human being and is named Imam Al-Mahdi, a man who will come in the company of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) and the righteous,” Ahmadinejad said, according to a transcript by PolicyMic. According to Shi’a Muslim beliefs, which the Iranian president subscribes to, Jesus of Nazareth will return to Earth along with the above-mentioned Imam, and they together will solve many of the world’s problems.”

One of those world problems is the presence of Jews and Christians, which ‘Isa’ will kill at Imam’s command.

Now to Rick Warren.

At the 2008 Obama inauguration, Rick Warren was asked to give the invocation. He prayed the following to end his prayer–

“I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesús, Jesus…”

Warren prayed in the name of Isa.

He prayed in the name of a false god which a billion and a half Muslims believe will return to kill Christians, break the cross and renounce his Christianity. Warren may as well have said “I pray in the name of Baal”.

I don’t want to hear any excuse that Warren was just using a pronunciation. Warren’s next door neighbor is a Muslim, with whom he traveled to Syria to learn more about Islam and his neighbor’s world. He breaks bread with Muslims at their local Mosque on Friday, he has spent money and effort to ‘build bridges to Muslims’, and he has studied Islam for a long time. Warren knows Isa is not Jesus.

The bible says we are not to be yoked with unbelievers when doing the work of Jesus. We are to be separate.

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’ Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).

What good can come from darkness? Hitching with organizations or religions which deny Jesus of the Gospels goes against Revelation 2:14-15. Why unite with apostates? You see the damage it does? You wind up calling Jesus Isa and praying to the “All merciful One” of Islam.

In an interfaith paper to Muslims, seeking exactly the opposite of what the bible calls for, ‘reconciliation between two great faith communities’, Rick Warren was a signatory. The letter ended like this:

“Before we “shake your hand” in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.”

Again, Warren invoked a different God. By the way, Rick Warren is one of the paid consultants to oversee the scriptural integrity of the doctrines presented in the History Channel’s “The Bible” miniseries.

When Ahmadinejad says ‘Jesus is coming’, THAT Jesus bears no relation to God in the flesh who died for the sins of the world. Ahmadinejad’s Jesus, or Isa, is satan. Rick Warren’s Jesus/Isa is satan.

So what do Rick Warren and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have in common? They both pray to a false god. To be even more clear, they both pray to satan.

Listen to this. This is a good story. From Ezra 4:1-5, a one act play in three parts, with application for today.

Pt 1: Question

“Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the LORD, the God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.”

Pt 2: Answer

“But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”

Pt 3: Reaction

“Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.”

Note that the first verse states that these were enemies of Judah and Benjamin. Every translation uses the word enemies or adversaries. These people who showed up undoubtedly had heard the shouts of praise and weeping as recorded in the previous verse (Ezra 3:13). And no one could miss 50,000 or so people tramping back with all their families, servants and animals. Their arrival was noted. And not appreciated. What to do? What to do? Well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!

“Let us help you!” they said. They were all nicey-nice. They asked politely. They said that they respected the Israelites’ God. For gosh sakes, we worship Him, even sacrifice! We’re like you!

The two tribes said … drumroll please … NO.

By today’s standards, we’d say that the Israelites were being mean, impolite, “exclusive”, “intolerant”, and “haters” by refusing the offer. After all, weren’t the would-be helpers seeking? Wouldn’t it achieve a dual common goal by getting the temple finished earlier and offer the seekers the opportunity for the Jews to dazzle the pagans with their wonderful personalities before setting the bait-and-switch of … ta-DA! … sharing the knowledge of the LORD?

No it would not. First, the Jews knew that the LORD had placed it upon their hearts to do the work, He had not placed it upon the Gentiles’s hearts. Therefore they were respecting the decree of the LORD by working exclusively toward fulfilling His command. Second, they were respecting the decree of the King to be the ones who built it. And third, we knew then and we know now that there is never a common spiritual goal when pairing with Gentiles. They promote satan’s goals, we promote Jesus’s. There is between them a great gulf fixed.

Sure enough, their true colors came out. And right away too. They immediately began a multi-pronged approach to thwarting the goal of rebuilding the temple and thus of God’s work. They were doing satan’s work. It had only been a ruse in that first prong approach of joining them. When that didn’t work, right away began to bribe the officials, appeal to the king, discourage the Jews, frustrate them, and bully them. They kept this up for fifteen years. Fifteen years. As we can see by their persistence, their goal was never to help get the temple built, it was only to prevent the temple from being built.

See? Ecumenism never works. The seeker’s goals are not the same as ours, and their true colors will come out soon enough.

We can see by one of satan’s methods that he sows tares among the wheat, something undoubtedly the pagans had wanted to do. The Jews would have naturally relaxed their guard by being in daily proximity to the pagans, and satan would have started sowing the tares. Intermarriage, friendliness, social mixing or melding their different religions, pollution would have begun. Just ask Solomon how that works out.

Note I’m talking about maintaining separateness when setting out to accomplish a purpose of God, or a consecrated thing, not that we never mix with unbelievers. The fact is, though, the bible is replete with warnings not to mix holy and profane:

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14)

The Greek lexicon defines this unequal yoking as “used figuratively of Christians wrongly committed to a partner holding very different values (priorities), i.e. that run contrary to faith (the kingdom of God). Scripture uses symbols to teach about the importance of keeping spiritually pure. Along this line, Scripture prohibited partnering with the apistos, or the unfaithful, by evoking the picture of two different animals yoked together. Would the field get plowed if you yoked a bull and a goat together?

“…but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away…(Matthew 13:25)

Félicien Rops, Satan Sowing Seeds, pencil, c. 1872.

I’ve used this pencil drawing before recently. I like it. Why? I’m amazed at the accuracy the drawing evokes of satan’s activity and methods. It reminds me of so many different verses. The wheat and the tares is one. The verse where God asks satan where he has been and satan says he has been roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it. (Job 1:7). Another verse is good to remember here, satan is god of this world, (2 Corinthians 4:4) and he has been given power to deliver kingdoms to all he chooses (Matthew 4:8-9).

We must resist the world because satan is the god of it. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9).

We should not combine with unbelievers, or even with those who say they worship the same God as we do but obviously do not. Let not the political, cultural, or social desires get in the way of the biblical desire to remain dedicated to being pure and bringing glory to Jesus. Ecumenism, or interfaith, is not what it seems. This is evidenced by the immediate reaction of the rejected pagans who had asked to “help” build the temple but only wanted to allow satan to go back and forth on it, sowing tares.

Category: interfaith

What do Rick Warren and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have in common?

Ecumenism never works, Interfaith is not what it seems