In the midst of all the distractions that the enemy is bringing in among God’s professed people, there is a bold apostasy appearing in the church that should alarm every true believer because it represents a very fundamental shift in whom we worship.
Unbelievably, it is calling for the acceptance of Allah, the god of Islam, who they claim needs to be recognized as the creator of the universe. This is a most serious development, because we know that the great, final crisis will come over the matter of who we worship. The first Angel’s message calls for all the inhabitants of earth to “Fear God, and give glory to him. . . . and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters" (Revelation 14:7).
The Sabbath will be the great focal point of the final battle over who we worship, because it is a memorial of the One who “made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” There is only one God who has done that, and it distinguishes Him from all other deities. In Jeremiah 10:11 we read,
“The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.“
But now we have high profile men who are preaching that Allah is the creator who made heaven and earth. But do we worship the same God as Islam?
Because Allah in the Arabic Bible is the word used for God, they argue that Allah must be the same God as what we find in the our Bible. But by using the same argument, we could also claim that Baal is the same God as the God of the Bible because Baal means Lord and Master. That is what Christ is called in the Bible. Are we to extend that kind of definition to the gods of all the different non-Christian religions who refer to their pagan gods as God? The Hindu’s worship Vishnu who they believe is creator-god. So should we take the position that Vishnu, Allah and Jehovah are the same deity? Christians do not worship the same God as non-Christians.
The way Allah reveals himself in the Quran leaves no doubt that Allah is not the same God revealed in the Bible. In the following passages from the Quran, Allah denies the truth of the incarnation of Christ, when God gave His only begotten Son for lost humanity. It reads,
“Say (O Muhammad) He is God the One God, the Everlasting Refuge, who has not begotten, nor has been begotten, and equal to Him is not anyone” (Chapter 112).
“God has not taken to Himself any son, nor is there any god with Him“ (23:91).
Even though the Quran refers to Jesus, it speaks of Him as just a prophet, and of a lower level than Muhammad. It does not place much weight on what Jesus taught nor do the Islamic people follow His teachings. Islam does not believe the very basic truth that Jesus died as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and consequently it has no salvation message. It is basically a legalistic religion, a mixture of Christianity, Judaism and paganism.
We also find that the Quran commands the followers of Allah to resort to violence upon non Muslim’s. Following are a few verses from the Quran.
“Kill them wherever you find them and drive them from where they drove you out. Persecution is worse than slaughter” (2:191).
“So keep firm those who have believed. I will strike terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved. So, strike them at the neck and cut off their fingers” (8:12).
This is what ISIS has been doing in obedience to the commands of Allah as given in the Quran.
We can readily see that Allah, who dictated the Quran to Muhammad, contrasts sharply to what Jesus taught in the sermon on the mount. Even though the Quran has a number of points in common with Christianity, it differs widely from the Bible teaching that we are saved by grace and not by means of our good deeds. And in spite of what one popular preacher stated that the Quran contains every seed of truth that we hold as Christians, it doesn’t have many of the basic truths such as John 3:16 or Matthew 1:21 or Romans 3-8 or the foundation truth of Adventism as found in Daniel 8:14 and Revelation 14:6-12. The Quran is a mixture of truth and error which makes it all the more deceptive to deceive the very elect.
The Islamic people highly revere Muhammad and Allah. They firmly believe that there is just one god, Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. But what kind of leader was Muhammad? History testifies to the fact that Muhammad began his career by attacking and looting the travelling caravans which traversed the trade routes around Mecca and Medina. Two years after his Hegira, he organized an army of devoted Muslims by which he attacked and conquered Mecca. That is the example set by the founder of Islam, and we should not be surprised if his devoted followers follow his example.
The Bible describes the rise of rise of Islam in Revelation 9:
“And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; . . . . And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit.“
The Bible testifies that Islam arose from the bottomless pit.
Those who have been eulogizing the religion of Islam have rightly pointed out that the jihadic forces of Islam, on a number of occasions, prevented the papal forces from crushing the reformation in the 16th century. But that was a providential act of God who used these pagan armies to protect the reformation in its infancy. However, that was not the intentions of the Islamic forces. They were invading Europe to extend their territory and conquests for Allah, and not to defend the Protestant Reformation. Those who are zealous for Islam will be inclined to follow the example of Muhammad and join the Islamic jihad to convert the world to Allah’s religion or eliminate them from the earth.
Another point that the promoters of Allah would have us believe is that Allah was worshipped by Ishmael and his descendants back in the days of Abraham. But that is a myth. There is no record of a god called Allah in old testament times. The truth is, Allah was one of many gods worshipped in the Arabian peninsula at the time Muhammad was born. Hard evidence shows that Allah was a pagan deity, the moon-god married to the sun goddess. The stars were supposed to be his daughters. The evidence that Islam worships a moon-god is evident by the crescent moon appearing on its insignia. When Muhammad became a spiritual leader, he determined to have only one god to be worshiped, instead of the many gods worshipped in Arabia and elsewhere. Thus he chose Allah, who dictated to him what is written in the Quran.
Who then is Allah? We know the moon cannot communicate with men. We need to recognize that Satan identifies himself by all the false gods that are worshiped. Allah is one of those false gods. Allah is a front for Lucifer and his deceptions which have deceived 1.3 billion people on planet earth and has kept them in darkness and servitude. The task of evangelizing the Islamic people is a great challenge. No doubt God has honest souls among them whom He regards with tender love. They need to be reached, and some will accept the salvation that Christ so graciously offers to all. Yet how many of them will accept Christ and forsake their false religion, we have not been told.
Ellen White does mention that most of God’s people are in the Protestant churches and many in the Catholic church. She also mentions:
“There will be many converted from among the Jews, and these converts will aid in preparing the way of the Lord, and making straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Evangelism 579).
But there is only one reference to Mohammedanism in Inspiration and it does not specifically talk about any great harvest coming from among them. It tells us that
“Mohammedanism has its converts in many lands, and its advocates deny the divinity of Christ. Shall this faith be propagated, and the advocates of truth fail to manifest intense zeal to overthrow the error, and teach men of the pre-existence of the only Saviour of the world?” (Home Missionary, Sept.1, 1892).
Perhaps the call of Elijah on mount Carmel to the Israelites to choose between Baal or Jehovah needs to be given to those who are eulogizing Allah.
“How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if ‘Allah’, then follow him.” We can’t follow both.
Floyd Sayler attended Walla Walla College as a music major and completed his diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music, University of Toronto. Along with a passion for Bible study & research, Floyd also enjoys writing for Creation Illustrated, Fulcrum7 and the Adventist World magazines.