NEW CREATION BOOK FOR MUSLIMS
by Phil Goble
(c) Copyright 2017 by Phil Goble
Contents
1. Soiltesting
2. The Straight Path of the New Creation
3. The Prayer Life of a New Creation Muslim
4. The New Creation Confession
5. The New Creation Pilgrimage
6. How to Start a House Masjid and a Messianic
Madrasa for New Creation Muslims
Glossary
Notes
SOILTESTING
HOW WELCOME IS THE TRUTH IN YOUR HOUSE?
Are you like our father Ibrahim (Abraham)?
When three men came to his dwelling,
Ibrahim could see who they really were
--angels in disguise.
So even though his wife laughed like a kafir (dis-believer), our
father Ibrahim
opened his heart
to their message (1) [SEE END NOTE 1].
Ibrahim not only recognized the truth
but he also fearlessly welcomed it.
THE FARMER AND THE FOUR KINDS OF SOIL
Different people react in different ways to the truth,
just as, when a farmer plants his seed,
various kinds of soil react variously.
THE PARABLE (MATHAL) GIVEN
Imagine a farmer going out to plant seed.
As the farmer planted the seed,
some fell on the edge of the path,
and the birds came and ate those seeds up.
Others fell on rocky soil
where they sprang up quickly;
but as soon as the sun came up,
those that were rootless and shallow plantings
soon withered away.
Other seeds fell among thorns
which grew up and choked them.
Finally, there were seeds that fell on rich soil
and these seeds multiplied themselves
in the fruit they produced--
some a hundred times over,
some sixty times over,
some thirty.
THE PARABLE (MATHAL) EXPLAINED
The truth comes like seed from a farmer's hand.
The ears that hear the truth
are like different kinds of soil
receiving the farmer's seed.
Ears without understanding hear the truth
but Shaitan (Satan) comes
like the birds along the path
and carries the truth away
as soon as it is planted in the hearer's heart.
Ears with fickle attention hear the truth
and welcome it at first with joy;
but such a hearer has no unwavering root in himself
and he does not last;
when a crisis or a persecution comes
on account of the truth,
such a hearer falls away at once.
Ears with divided desires hear the word,
but the worries of this world,
and the lure of riches,
and the pleasures of life,
are like thorns that choke the truth
which produces in such a hearer absolutely nothing.
However, ears with understanding hear the word
like rich soil receiving seed.
Such a hearer yields a great harvest,
since a hundred or sixty or thirty times
as many hearers may receive the truth through him.
He who has ears to hear the truth
of the following mathal (parable), let him hear!
THE IBN DALL (SON OF ERROR)
There was once a hanif (one who desires true religion)
who had two sons.
The younger said to his father,
"Father, according to the wasiya (will),
let me have the fara'id (fixed share)
of the mirath (inheritance)
that is coming to me."
And the father divided his means and his property
between the younger and the elder son.
Now the elder son was a devout believer who prayed
regularly five times a day
and had made the Hajj (Pilgrimage) as many times.
No one was respected more among the townspeople
for his religious devotion than this elder son.
He was a man who performed his prayers
in the mosque with absolute perfection
and could read the Qur'an so well
that he would hold the audience spellbound.
THE YOUNGER SON GOES ASTRAY
It wasn't long, however, until the younger son
got everything he owned together,
and left for a far country.
There he squandered his money
in a dissolute life of fisq (sinfulness)
and moral depravity.
And when he had spent his entire inheritance,
and had not one thing left to remind him of his wonderful father,
there arose a terrible famine in that land;
and the younger son began to feel his loss.
So he hired himself out to a harbi (2)
who put him on his farm to feed the pigs.
The younger son would willingly have filled his belly
with the husks the pigs were eating
but he was treated worse than the swine,
for no one offered him even pigs' food to eat.
THE YOUNGER SON FORSAKES ALL PRIDE AND
SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS
He finally came to himself
and started thinking like an 'aqli (rational) being,
like a true son having the disposition of his father.
He said, "How many hired servants of my father's household abound
in food and I perish with hunger!
I will arise and stop straying from fasaqa (the right course) and
go to my father,
and I will say to him,
"Father, I have sinned against heaven
and in the presence of you.
And I no longer think I am worthy to be called your son:
make me not like my elder brother who thinks himself worthy but
make me like one of your hired servants."
Then he arose and came to his father.
THE FATHER WHOSE LOVE MAKES THE UNRIGHTEOUS TO
BE RIGHTEOUS
Now it was the tenth day
of the month of Hajj (Pilgrimage),
but the elder son, having a self-satisfied heart,
had some time before decided to forego the trip.
But when the younger son was yet along way off,
his father saw him.
And greatly moved with love and compassion,
his father ran to the younger son
and clasped him in his arms
and kissed him with tenderness.
And the younger son said to him,
"Father, I have sinned against heaven
and in your sight,
and I am no longer worthy to be called your son."
But the father said to his hired servants,
"Bring forth the best robe
and put it on him;
and put a ring on his hand
and shoes on his feet;
and bring the calf we have been fattening and kill it;
we are going to have
a Qurban (Sacrifice) as on 'Id al-Adha (3)
such as has not been since the time Ibrahim
celebrated the redemption of his son.
Because this son of mine was dead
and has come back to life;
he was lost
and now he has been found."
And the great feast began.
THE ELDER SON REFUSES TO FORSAKE A
SELF-RIGHTEOUS AND PROUD RELIGIOUS SPIRT
Now the elder brother
had just returned from the mosque,
and, on his way back, as he drew near the house,
he could hear the sounds of the wisal (communion)
of the father and his younger son.
Calling one of the hired servants,
the elder brother asked what all this was about.
And the hired servant said to the elder son,
"Your brother has returned safe and salim (sound)
and your father has personally sent word
for the Qurban (sacrifice) and the festivities to begin."
Now the elder brother was furious
and refused to go in.
He would have nothing
to do with this sort of din (religious practice).
Would God act like his father? (4)
Would تيتراغراماتون
bestow a matwaba (reward) on a son
with an innate qariha (disposition)
that was asin (rebellious)?
And not only that, one who had no tawab (merit)
because he had done absolutely no good deeds
or ihsan (right conduct)
--would تيتراغراماتون
act like this sort of father?
The elder brother resolved to never be like such a one
and he sat down and brooded in the outer darkness.
FAILING TO RECOGNIZE THE WORD OF THE FATHER
Presently the elder brother
thought he saw another servant approaching.
But it was really his father
coming to give him a personal word (5)
in order that the elder son could start thinking
like an 'aqli(rational) being
and enter into the spirit ofthe whole jam'a'a (house).
So his father pleaded with him.
Finally the elder son answered the man:
"Look, all these years I have submitted (islam) (6)
to you as an abd (slave)
and I can boast without shame that
I have religiously obeyed all of the shari'a (laws)
of this whole jam'a'a (house).
Yet I return from the mosque
and I hear the sounds of the wisal (conununion)
between you and this mufarrit (prodigal)!
Am I now to humble myself
and enter a house with this sort of zamala (fellowship)?"
A COSTLY DEATH AND THE INHERITANCE OF
THE FATHER'S PERSONAL WORD TO HIS HEIRS
Then the father looked at him with anguished love
and said,
"You know the costly death a murith (testator)
must somehow undergo in order that his heirs
may receive all that he has.
And yet you seem to love me
more like a self-justifying slave
than a trusting and humble son."
The father put his arm around the man and said,
"Are you so far away from knowing me
that you cannot rejoice that the one
who strayed from the fasaqa (right course)
has found tajaddud (renewal)
and has been rashid (rightly guided)
to the marashid (salvation) of God?
For like you
your brother had a sajiya (natural disposition)
that was dead but now he has been jadda (restored)
to the abundant life of wisal (communion)
as an heir of his father's house." (7)
ARE YOU WILLING TO RECEIVE THE NEW CREATION HEART,
THE HEART OF A LITTLE CHILD,
THE HEART THAT RECOGNIZES THE TRUTH?
Have you not read what it says of Isa al-Masih
that he would "heal those born blind
and the lepers...and raise the dead?" (8)
Why did he do this for people?
Because it says in the Zabur (Psalms)
that God "would send his Word and heal them
and deliver them from the Pit of jahannam" (9)(hell fire). Have
you not read,
"The Messiah, Isa, Jesus son of Mary,
was the Rasul (Messenger) of God, and his Word" (10)?
God has always loved his Word
as a father loves his only son.
And his Word has always been
the sirr (secret) of the mind of تيتراغراماتون
,
as a son is the likeness of his father.
What blasphemer would breathe the name of Mary here?
She was nothing but a loaner of flesh,
for تيتراغراماتون
has no wife and no mother and no partner
nor did He need any human being at all
to be what He has always been,
the one and only God.
ONLY A CHILD-LIKE HEART RECOGNIZES THE TRUTH
Now the story goes that Isa
who is تيتراغراماتون
's Word
had been healing many people in Muqaddasa (the Holy Land). And
when he sat down,
each talib (seeker) also brought unto Isa
his walad (little child)
in order for him to pronounce the baraka (blessing).
And so, with tender love, Isa,
who reverberates the love of the heart of God,
picked each one up
and placed the walad (little child)
one at a time on his lap.
Just then his hawari (disciples)
impatiently interrupted him and told the parents
that they would have to leave.
But Isa loved little children who, as everyone knows,
humbly and whole-heartedly receive what is given to them.
Little children accept everything as a gift
with awestruck gratitude as if from the hand of God,
and not with any tendency
to think they deserve God's favor on the basis of merit,
since in their own small eyes
they wisely know themselves too little
to have done any good deeds.
Isa said,
"Allow the little children to come unto me
and forbid them not.
For it is to people with hearts like these
that the Malakut (Kingdom) of God belongs.
In very truth I say to you,
whosoever shall not welcome
the Malakut (Kingdom) of God
like a walad (little child)
will never enter it." (11)
THE TRUTH HAS NOT BEEN LOST IN TRANSCRIPTION SINCE
EVEN LITTLE CHILDREN CAN RECOGNIZE
THE FATHER'S PERSONAL WORD OF TRUTH
Isa had difficulty with his people,
because many suppressed the correct interpretation
of the Scriptures that spoke of his coming.
However, those who did attempt to "conceal
تيتراغراماتون
's revelations in the Book" (12) did not succeed
as a Muslim child proved in 1947
when he discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Extremely ancient parts of every book (but one)
of the Hebrew Bible were found there in manuscript form,
greatly discrediting the skeptical scholars
who had attacked its infallible
accuracy and reliability. (13)
ARE YOU WILLING TO READ THE ANCIENT PROPHETS WITH
THE HUMBLE HEART OF A LITTLE CHILD? (14)
THE STRAIGHT PATH OF THE NEW CREATION
تيتراغراماتون
KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE
and so do Shaitan and the evil jinn (demons).
This was proven to a man of God
in modern times.
This is a true story.
A PRAYER IS MIRACULOUSLY ANSWERED
The man of God was calling
out to تيتراغراماتون
one morning
to bring more people to the jami' (congregation).
He was on his face before تيتراغراماتون
and he was supplicating du'a (free-prayer) very loudly
alone in a tiny apartment.
This was the only masjid (place of prayer)
the people had for their meetings
because the godless leaders,
more sensitive to politics than to تيتراغراماتون
,
had thrown the congregation
out of a public meeting hall.
But praise be to God who hears and answers
when we call on Him!
There is none like the Lord our God,
praise be unto Him.
He says somewhere,
"Before they call I will answer,
and while they are yet speaking I will hear."
In fact, the request of the man of God
had been answered weeks before he made his petition.
HOW GOD HAD BEEN PREPARING TO ANSWER PRAYER
Here is the true story:
A young man and his wife
had been travelling for several days
looking for the man of God.
تيتراغراماتون
had led them on a spiritual pilgrimage,
for تيتراغراماتون
foreknew both the prayer and its answer,
which He was now effecting.
We will call these two muridun (aspirants)
Isha and Ahmad.
They had long heard of the spiritual 'ilm (knowledge)
of the man of God,
though they had never met him personally.
And so they went out like Ibrahim (Abraham),
"who by faith obeyed
when he was called to go out to a place
which he was to receive as an inheritance;
and he went out,
not knowing where he was to go."
Like Ibrahim, the man and wife wanted to seek
the straight path,
the path of the just,
and they sought to do this under the huda (guidance)
of the man of God.
The man and woman wanted to submit their lives to تيتراغراماتون
and find the path of life in His Word,
as it says,
"Make me to go in the path of thy commandments,
for therein do I delight."
However, Isha and Ahmad did not know in which village
the man of God lived,
nor the street location of his dwelling.
But praise be to God
for it says,
"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet
and a light unto my path."
THE MIRACLE OCCURS
On the very night before the miracle happened,
Ahmad and Isha happened to take a room in a hotel
a very short distance from the place
where the man of God dwelt.
On the very morning
when the man of God
was petitioning تيتراغراماتون
so earnestly to send more people,
Isha had taken her baby for a walk
and she was going down the street.
She was walking along,
and when she came to the building
where the man of God was on his face
crying out to God
(even though there was no sign on the building
nor any way in the world to know
the man of God was inside)
Isha stopped and asked a lady passer-by
if she knew of any jami' (gathering)
for du'a (free-prayer) in the area.
The lady passer-by happened to be a murid (novice believer) who
belonged to the persecuted flock of God
that met in the dwelling of the man of God.
Not only that,
the women happened,
in the providence of God,
to pass each other
right in front of this very house masjid (place of prayer)!
"The Lord orders the steps of a righteous person"
is the saying.
Many err with their doctrine
knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God,
nor the love of God, which passes all understanding.
What تيتراغراماتون
foreknows He forewills
"to work together for good for those
who love تيتراغراماتون
, who are called according to his purpose,"
who are blessed, because they "are not offended at His Word."
At this exact moment, then,
just as the man of God finished his petition
with the words, "Send us more people, Lord"
--there was a knock on the door!
The man of God had no idea who Isha was.
"Do you know where my husband and I
could find a congegation?" Isha asked.
"Yes," the man of God said, flabbergasted.
"Praise to Him," Isha said,
"because we've been seeking
to find a certain man of God,"
and then she gave his name.
"Do you know where I could find him?"
"I'm he," the man of God said.
"Oh..." Isha was shocked.
So the man of God saw his prayer
answered so suddenly and miraculously.
God had led the woman to the man of God.
Al-Hadi (The Guide) knew where he lived!
For Al-Hadi is Al-'Alim (The All-Knowing).
Right after that the congregation started to grow again,
despite the opposition of the godless.
And both Isha and her husband Ahmad
submitted to the death ghusl
of New Creation Islam in the ocean,
calling on تيتراغراماتون
to cleanse their inner being
with "the wudu (washing) of tajaddud (regeneration)
and the renewing of the Eternal Spirit of تيتراغراماتون
."
That was nearly ten years ago.
Then the man of God moved to another place.
YEARS LATER ANOTHER MIRACLE HAPPENS
Would it take a miracle
to show you the difference
between a true Islamic teacher
and a pseudo-Islamic teacher?
Very recently Ahmad called the man of God
long distance on the telephone to tell him
that Isha wanted a divorce.
They had been having marriage problems
and she had turned to a man for help,
a fraud who claimed to be a good murshid (spiritual guide) but
who was in reality
a pseudo-Islamic shaman
trafficking in the realm of spells
and charms and sorcery,
witchcraft, talismans and familiar spirits,
divining, saint worship, and demons,
fortune-telling, incantations and the evil eye.
It says somewhere,
"Acquaint now thyself with Him (God)
and be at peace;
thereby good shall come unto Thee."
But some people want to get more acquainted
with jinn or demons rather than the Word of تيتراغراماتون
,
as it says,
"My people perish for lack of knowledge of Thy word,
for they have rejected the knowledge of thy Word."
The haram (forbidden) demon procurer
whom Isha consulted
promised her peace
and even dramatic out-of-the-body psychic experiences;
he claimed to offer her direct access
to "Spiritual Masters" who make their appearance
as "light-being entities."
Such counterfeit guides, as this man, are like
the devils with whom they commune.
They are unclean religious peddlers
disguised as servants of تيتراغراماتون
.
There is nothing unexpected about such frauds
if, as it says,
"Shaitan himself goes disguised as an angel of light
seeking whom he may devour."
THE MAN OF GOD DECIDES TO TEACH ISHA AND AHMAD
ABOUT MARRIAGE IN TERMS OF THE KINGDOM
"Blessed be He in whose hands is the Kingdom......" (15)
And blessed indeed are the hands of Him
into whom all the power of the Kingdom
is given: the Word of تيتراغراماتون
.
Yet the Kingdom of God
is not in word,
but in power
--not the words of dying men,
nor the might of fleeting worldly power.
Did not the living Word of تيتراغراماتون
himself declare,
"My Kingdom is not of this world;
if my Kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight jihad." (16)
The Kingdom of God is in the power of His Word.
And what does His Word say?
The whole story swept through the mind of the man of God...
تيتراغراماتون
HAS ACTED MIGHTILY TO BRING US TO HIS
KINGDOM
From the good beginning
mankind has swerved
from the straight path
of تيتراغراماتون
and his Word.
From the first commandment
given beneath the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil
mankind has acted shadily
toward تيتراغراماتون
and his Glory.
And what is تيتراغراماتون
's Glory
if not the Word of his Power?
And what is his glorious Power
if not the Word of his Presence?
One of your prophets has said rightly:
"The Messiah, Isa, Jesus son of Mary,
was the Messenger of تيتراغراماتون
, and his Word
that he bestowed on Mary." (17)
But His Word that He bestowed on Mary
went forth from His mouth
at the creation of the world.
For in the beginning
was the Word
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God. (18)
The Power and the Presence was
تيتراغراماتون
's Only Eternal Word;
and everything was made
by the Word,
and without the Word
was nothing made.
Then the Word
came on the scene
as a human being
who is true Man
on the straight path
to the tree of life.
And his disciples beheld his glory,
glory as of the only
personal and eternal Word of تيتراغراماتون
,
full of grace and truth. (19)
What blasphemer would breathe the name of Mary here
as one of the "gods in derogation of God"? (20)
Are you so slow in understanding
that you think we believe تيتراغراماتون
got married?
What blasphemy!
Who could believe that تيتراغراماتون
would take a wife?
Do you think we mean that the Word of تيتراغراماتون
is His Son in that literal sense?
Not at all!
Mary was nothing but a loaner of flesh! (21)
For تيتراغراماتون
has neither wife nor mother nor partner
nor did He ever need a human being at all
to be what He has always been--one!
God always existed with His Everlasting Word
and His Everlasting Spirit as tawhid (one).
What blasphemer would assert otherwise?
Would you be so foolish as to say
that تيتراغراماتون
once existed without His Eternal and
Living Word and
without His Everlasting Spirit?
Would you have تيتراغراماتون
at one time mute
and unable to utter a living Word?
Would you have Him at one time Spiritless,
without His Eternal Spirit?
Such blasphemers would do to the imaginary God they worship what
they would not dream of doing to themselves
--namely, cut out all living utterance and life
to be left with a mere speechless, lifeless being.
If only these dreamers would wake up from such nonsense
and shut their mouths to save their souls!
Instead they pride themselves
that their speechless, Spiritless deity has no 'partners'!
When تيتراغراماتون
speaks His mind He speaks His Word,
for His Word is the revealed mind of تيتراغراماتون
.
And we can have His mind in all things
if we die to our own way of thinking
and come alive to His living Word.
The man of God reflected on Isha and Ahmad
and how they must learn
to think the thoughts of the mind
revealed to us in the sacred pages of the Word.
For it was in His image that we were created
and it is from His glory that we have fallen,
having become futile in our thinking
and darkened in our senseless minds.
But if we are now more like brute beasts
(because of the ignorance that is in us
and the blindness of our hearts),
it is not because He made us so.
For God gave us not an animal mind
but a mind like His,
a rational and a creative mind
capable of communion with Him in Holiness.
OUR RELIGION CLOAKS OUR DARK GUILT
However, our sinful nature has separated us
from our Holy God
and, obeying the voice of the Evil One,
we ourselves have become evil,
though we love to hide our guilt
under the cloak of religion.
But تيتراغراماتون
is not mocked.
All things are naked and opened
unto the eyes of Him
with whom we have to do.
He who made the eye,
can He not see?
And even the scoffers know
that we are of our father the devil
if the lusts of our father we do.
Only the Word of God
can speak into our hearts
a new creation nature!
As long as we place our trust
in anything apart from the living Word,
that "anything" becomes our real god
and we become its slaves.
No matter how religiously
we observe religious rules and laws,
that idol "anything" has usurped
the living Word's place in our hearts
and will lead us to corruption.
Now religious do's and don'ts
were the rudimentary guardians
of our spiritual childhood, it is true.
But the time has come
for us to outgrow the tutelage
of mere religious formalism
and to receive the spiritual adoption
of mature heirs.
When the living Word
takes up residence within us,
we receive a filial spirit of obedience;
we become the spiritual people of Ibrahim,
and God becomes our Father.
For God sent his living Word
into our hearts to restore us
in his likeness and for his fellowship,
that we might walk naturally with Him as our Father,
and not hobble like aliens under the cold prod of laws.
THE MAN OF GOD THINKS ABOUT HOW TO SAVE ISHA'S
MARRIAGE
The man of God thought about Isha
and how she must learn to understand God's forgiveness.
It is not that we love God and serve him with such grace
that we can be assured of forgiveness
based on what we have done for God.
No, it is that God loves us and has served us with such grace
that the Judge of sin has taken the whole weight
of our guilt and condemnation upon Himself.
The Word of تيتراغراماتون
's eternal Judgment became also
the Word of His eternal Mercy!
But how?
In the person of His Word, Isa al-Masih.
Thus it is that we can be assured of forgiveness,
based on what God has done for us
in giving us a new mind with His Word,
and a tender conscience with His Eternal Spirit.
تيتراغراماتون
has always reflected upon Himself with
His wisdom,
and His wisdom is His Word. (22)
Isa al-Masih Himself is that Word!
He is the everlasting Word
whose words will stand forever. (23)
The Kitab (Book) of Isa is Genesis to Revelation,
infallibly accurate in its teaching about him,
and Isa is the hidden source and subject of each sura (chapter)
for those who can read with the eyes of the Eternal Spirit.
As a word reveals the hidden mind of a father,
so تيتراغراماتون
intended this mind to be in us
that was also in his Word. (24)
But the mirror of our reflection of His holiness
has been shattered,
and the whole human race has distorted itself
in mocking pride and rebellion
against the humble and obedient Word.
As a sin-fallen race
we still possess a vestige of the mirror of conscience.
Like a looking-glass before the mind,
the conscience tells the human race
how good we might have been
had Man not warped himself
in the refractive beams of Man's proud self-love.
Therefore, we are without excuse when we reject
any measure of truth we receive.
Our sin-prone race is like someone
who once was commanded to peer
at his Ideal in a full-length mirror
and then disobediently walked away
and forgot what he looked like.
Isa the Word of تيتراغراماتون
is that Ideal.
And the fatherly heart of تيتراغراماتون
out of whom the Word spoke in the beginning
has been stirred to speak again
to the lost family of Adam:
"I reared sons, I brought them up,
but they have rebelled against me."
For the Word became
the One who was to come,
the heavenly Son of Man,
the Bar Nasha (Aramaic for Son of Man). (25)
The prophet Daniel saw him
in the clouds of glory and wrote:
"After this I saw in the night visions
and, behold, one like the Son of Man
came with the clouds of heaven...
and he was given ... a kingdom...
that all people, nations, and languages
should serve him." (26)
The Word that was in the beginning with God,
the Word that was God,
this same Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us,
telling his disciples,
"Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Hereafter you shall see heaven open
and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.,,(27)
For the Word of تيتراغراماتون
had come
to speak into a new existence our dying humanity.
And just as Man had gone down to death
in the Garden of Eden
as one conquered by Satan and sin,
so now Man may ascend again to life from the empty Garden tomb
through One who overcame for us,
through One who conquered as our imam (leader),
our representative,
our exemplar,
-a human being who is that
and yet more than human,
sharing in the wholly other quality of God,
the eternal personal Word of تيتراغراماتون
,
God the Word from God the Lord,
Light from Light,
Very God from Very God.
Since this is true
-that the Word who is
and was
and is to come,
the Word who is
the express thought of God,
the perfect image of God,
the creative voice of God
-since this very Word
descended so that He might dwell
in our hearts by faith
and make us like Him,
restoring us in the image of His Father
that we might call on His Father as sons,
that we might ascend with Him,
passing beyond the angels
(Do you not know that we shall judge angels?)
-since this is true,
should it not teach us that,
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,
we should live sober,
righteous, and godly lives
in this present world?
Since the Word Himself revealed to us
perfect surrender to تيتراغراماتون
and
total submission to His will,
only through Him and His iman (faith),
once for all delivered to the holy ones,
do we know what is possible to man
in the path of obedience to the one true God.
Thus the man of God reflected on the straight path
and on Isha and Ahmad and
on their battle against Shaitan.
تيتراغراماتون
BOUND UP THE EVIL ONE
The man of God knew that the Kingdom of God
is an ummah, (community) (28)
a house to be entered
by the narrow gate and the narrow door,
But a "strong man" has usurped power in God's House.
Iblis (an evil prince) has held men captive
in the house of God,
and Iblis must have his goods plundered
before men can be set free from his sway.
The power of Iblis is death,
for all men who are tempted and sin
die as punishment.
Sin pays its fearful wage--death.
Death is the fearful wage of all those
whom Shaitan has led to work for him in sin.
Therefore, only by plundering the goods of the strong man:
that is, by taking away his power
to enslave men in the fear of death
and his power to tempt men to destruction,
according to the law of sin and death
-only by plundering these goods
could the Word of تيتراغراماتون
defeat Iblis.
Thus it says of the Word of تيتراغراماتون
, Isa,
that "by his death he could take away all the power of the devil,
who had power over death."
"The Good News that the man of God proclaimed
is this very power,
the power of spiritual life over spiritual death,
the power that delivers us from every evil
and will soon rescue us from the presence of wickedness
when all things shall be subdued unto the Word of تيتراغراماتون
and the Word Himself also shall be subject unto Him
that put all things under His Word,
that تيتراغراماتون
may be All in All exalted. (29)
But when the Word of تيتراغراماتون
, Isa, returns,
shall He find faith on the earth?
For many of the Jewish people did not believe his report; and
since the Word of تيتراغراماتون
did not reign in their hearts he
was
despised and rejected as their king,
and they esteemed not his kingdom.
"But when they said (in boast)
'We killed Isa al-Masih,
the son of Mary,
the Messenger of God,'
they killed him not,
nor crucified him,
but so it was made
to appear to them..."(30)
It only appeared
that men and not God determined His death.
For "it pleased the Lord to crush Him!"
God it was "who caused him to suffer,"
as the prophet foretold. (31)
Isa al-Masih Himself confessed and denied not,
"No man taketh my life from me,
but I lay it down of my own free will,
and as it is in my power to lay my life down,
so it is in my power to take it up again."(John 10:18)
Did you not know that the Word of God willingly died?
For this end was He born
and for this cause did He die
and for this alone did God send Him into the world.
God so loved the world
that He gave His only living Word
as a sin-covering sacrifice,
"a momentous sacrifice,"
as it reads in the saying,
"Behold! God said:
'O Jesus! I will take thee
and I (raise) thee to Myself...'" (32).
Have you not read that the Jewish people
promised تيتراغراماتون
"not to believe in a Messenger
unless He showed us a sacrifice" (33)?
And have you not read that تيتراغراماتون
who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us
even when we were dead in sins
(like sheep led to the slaughter,
like Ibrahim's son led to the slaughter),
that تيتراغراماتون
so loved the world
that he ransomed Ibrahim's doomed progeny
--"and We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice"? (34)
Are you ignorant of the prophecy of Isaiah
(sealed incorruptibly in the Dead Sea Scrolls
and fulfilled 700 years later
in the death of Isa al-Masih):
"Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him
and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life
a sacrifice offering for sin,
he (the Masih) will see his (spiritual) progeny,
he shall prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord
will prosper in his hand.
After the suffering of his soul,
he (the Masih) will see the light of (resurrection) life
and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant (35)
will make many just,
taking their faults on himself (36).
Are we, then, not that doomed progeny of Ibrahim?
"No indeed.
تيتراغراماتون
raised him (Jesus) up unto Himself...(37)
And تيتراغراماتون
has brought us
spiritually alive together with Isa
(by grace we are saved)
and has raised us up together
as the spiritual progeny of Ibrahim
and made us sit together
in the triumph of his eternal ummah (community).
Therefore, when the iniquity
of this present world is complete,
this same living Word
who was taken up to heaven
shall also come again
in like manner as He went.
And then it shall be as it says,
"The Day the heaven is split asunder with the clouds,
and the angels are sent down in ranks,
that day, the kingdom, the true kingdom, shall belong
to the All-merciful, and it shall be a day
harsh for the unbelievers"...(38)
"And (Isa) shall be
a Sign (for the coming of) the Hour (of Judgment):
Therefore have no doubt about the (Hour)"...(39)
"And thy Lord shall come with angels,
rank on rank." (Daybreak 89:22)
On that day the Word of God will fight.
That will be the day of his jihad, his holy war.
And the Word of God will slay al-Masih al-Daajjal,
the False Messiah, and his lying prophet,
together with all who have lying visions
and all who consult them
or have come bringing a different doctrine
that is not the teaching of Isa al-Masih.
On that day it shall be as was seen
by Yahya, (John) one of Isa's hawari rusul (apostles):
"And I saw heaven opened,
and behold a white horse;
and He that sat upon it was called
Faithful and True,
and in righteousness He doth judge and make war.
His eyes were as a flame of fire
and on His head were many crowns;
and He had a name written,
that no man knew, but He Himself.
And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood:
and His name is called
The Word of God." (Revelation 19:11-13)
This same Word is coming again
with the armies of the angels of God.
He is coning to punish the unbelieving wicked
and to save the faithful who endure to the end.
So then the Kingdom will be the Lord's.
Therefore, if death entered humanity
by the sin of the first man,
life from the dead entered humanity
by the righteousness of the new man,
the Word of God,
who came as a man
to bind Shaitan and plunder his goods
by offering a death that would free all men
from the fear of death,
from the power of death,
from the realm of death,
from the law of death.
For whoever believes in Isa the Word of تيتراغراماتون
will not see the death
reserved for Shaitan,
the second death,
in the lake of fire.
For since one man died in the place of all
all then died in that one man,
and Shaitan now has no dominion over those
who overcome him by the blood of the Word of تيتراغراماتون
,
Isa al-Masih.
Such are they who overcome Shaitan by the good confession
of their testimony to the grace of Isa al-Masih
who saves us from the second death in the lake of fire.
It was then that the man of God saw the mystery
of how to fight Shaitan.
This is the mystery of the narrow door
into the House of تيتراغراماتون
.
This is the small gate
into the Kingdom of تيتراغراماتون
.
It is the blood of the Word,
it is the death of Isa al-Masih
and few there be who find it.
For Isa himself said,
"Enter through the narrow gate.
For wide is the gate
and broad is the road
that leads to destruction,
and many enter through it.
But small is the gate
and narrow the road
that leads to life,
and only a few find it." (Matthew 7:13)
تيتراغراماتون
SHOWS THE MAN OF GOD HOW TO FIGHT
SHAITAN
After Ahmad telephoned the man of God
to tell about Isha consulting the false murshid (spiritual guide)
and his "Spiritual Master light beings,"
the man of God went to bed and fell into a deep sleep.
About three o'clock in the morning
a voice spoke to the man of God.
It spoke so loud the man of God woke up instantly
and was wide awake.
It was a deeply resonant, masculine,
and yet feminine-sounding voice
and it said only one short syllable,
an ugly little word
the man of God didn't recognize.
Nevertheless, it blasted in his ears
and woke him up.
The man of God opened his eyes,
and the whole room where he had been sleeping
was pulsating with a scarlet light,
as brilliant as a strobe light.
The room was normally pitch black
at three o'clock in the morning
but now everything in the room was brightly visible.
The man of God stood up
to make sure he was awake.
The awesome light of this
definite supernatural visitation continued.
Then the Lord seemed to speak
to the man of God in a very still small voice,
"This is the demon she prays to.
Cover yourself with the blood of my Word Isa." (40)
The man of God instantly saw the nature
of the spiritual struggle:
the demon was attacking the man of God
because Isha was his property
and this devil was protecting his goods.
The man of God said these simple words with faith,
"I cover myself with the blood of Isa."
Immediately the pulsating light faded."
"Resist the Devil," it says somewhere;
"overcome him by the confession of your faith in Isa
and by the blood of Isa,
and he will flee from you."
The man of God lay down and closed his eyes.
Immediately he saw
with the vision given him by the Eternal Spirit of تيتراغراماتون
a package in the house of Isha and Ahmad.
The indwelling Spirit of God
impressed on the mind of the man of God
that he should call Ahmad on the telephone right then
and tell him to go back into his house,
taking dominion over it room by room,
covering the realm of his dominion
with the blood of تيتراغراماتون
's halifa (agent in charge),
Isa the Word of تيتراغراماتون
.
It was especially impressed on the man of God
that Ahmad was to cover his wife Isha
with the blood of the Word of تيتراغراماتون
and get that horrible package of occult materials
out of their house.
Whatever was in that package,
whether it was charms made out of pieces of writing
or hair-cuttings or nail-trimmings or the hand of Fatima
or knots or magic or material for sorcery
or any other wicked thing,
whether it was any curse or blessing
thought to ward off the evil eye,
any practice or object that grieves the Eternal Spirit of تيتراغراماتون
--these must all be curtailed and destroyed;
as it says,
"...Thou canst not stand before thine enemies,
(until) ye take away the accursed thing from among you." (41)
Whoever puts his hand to the plow
but then keeps looking back at this Satanic wickedness
is not fit for the Kingdom of تيتراغراماتون
.
It would be better to enter heaven with nothing
than to enter hell with all these filthy possessions.
For without holiness no man will see God.
And if you leave the door open by keeping this filth
in your possession,
any demon that is cast out will go and find seven other demons
and come back to drag you down to hell.
The man of God obeyed the Lord.
Even though it was not yet four o'clock in the morning,
the man of God called Ahmad and woke him up.
The man of God covered him
with the blood of the Word of تيتراغراماتون
and called out to God, interceding for him on the telephone.
When Ahmad heard what had happened to the man of God
he realized that this demon who had taken over his house,
who was destroying the peace of his family
and unsettling his children,
this demon who was oppressing his wife,
this same demon was trying to frighten the man of God
away from saving their home.
Ahmad also promised the man of God
that he would not sign the divorce papers
that very day as his wife had requested.
The admonition is clear:
"Pray at all times in the Spirit."
To pray in the Spirit means to pray in the power of the Spirit,
with the gifts of the Spirit potentially in evidence.
When the man of God saw the package,
it was by means of a gift of the Eternal Spirit of تيتراغراماتون
;
namely, supernatural "knowledge" (42)
--that is, supernaturally provided knowledge
that he could not acquire by means of his natural mind.
"For we are not battling
against personalities made of flesh and blood,
but against beings without bodies
-the evil overlords of the unseen world,
those mighty demonic beings
and great evil rulers of darkness who dominate this world; and
against hordes of wicked spirits
in the spirit world."(43)
HOW TO ADMIT THE INFALLIBLE RELIABILITY OF THE WORD
We must receive a new spirit,
a spirit like the Eternal Spirit.
For God will be faithful
only with the faithful (44) and His pure light
will shine forth from the Word only for the pure.
With the wicked who fail to tremble at His Word,
God is angry every day. (45)
Like many long ago who were quick
to accuse Isa al-Masih of error
but were slow to see error in themselves,
so today these vile unbelievers are quick
to do the same with His written Word.
The natural man cannot understand the words of the Spirit;
they are beyond him,
they are foolishness to him.
How can anyone understand
what is eternal and spiritually discerned
if he lacks the Eternal Spirit?
Reading is not enough;
the words are straight but the reader is crooked.
The reader must be reborn
and be set on the straight path
not by mere human resolve
but by the will of God. (46)
A WORD ABOUT JUDAS AND THOSE LIKE HIM
How can anyone read what is godly
if he himself is devilish?
Could Judas "read" Jesus?
Even though Judas sat next to the Word of تيتراغراماتون
eating his bread at the Last Supper,
all Judas could read were "errors."
Judas had frequently heard Jesus say
that it was necessary for the Messiah to die
as a sacrifice for the sins of the world,
but Judas "read" this solemn declaration as an error.
"The Messiah must be strong to rule us,"
Judas thought, "not weak."
"How can he be anybody important
if he's going to die instead of lead an army?
His errors will get us all killed, not just himself!"
Isa had enough love to die for Judas' sins
but, like the rest of unregenerate humanity,
Judas saw error in this and in everything else
except in his own black heart.
Bitter sons of the devil!
Black-hearted traitors against God
who take sides with Judas
against the infallibly accurate Word of تيتراغراماتون
!
But some fools are even more perverse!
Who is more truly a liar
than the one who would make this devil Judas
who committed suicide in shame and utter ignominy
the one who was crucified in Isa's place? (47)
Such a one will surely go the way of Judas
for agreeing with him
that God's account of things cannot be trusted.
Only a good man like Isa could cry out
while hanging on the khashabah (wood) in the agony of death,
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
A traitor like Judas would know the answer to that question!
Isa said of Judas, "It would have been better
if that man had never been born."
And if like Judas we think ourselves wiser
than the Word of تيتراغراماتون
,
it would have been better
if such an error as us had never been born!
Isa was willing to die that same day for Judas
but Judas refused to pick up his cross and die,
if necessary, with Isa.
Judas saw an error in that.
What craftiness this fool had!
He saw he could save his own life
and even make some money
just by betraying Isa
to the wicked priestly rulers who were looking to kill him. But
whoever tries to save his life will lose it (48)
Only those who lose their lives in "Islam" ("Surrender") to Isa
will find their lives and keep them for eternity.
Judas was the first apostle to lose his life,
and he also lost his soul,
as it says,
"Let his habitation be desolate. (49)
He missed seeing the Messiah's resurrection by only a few hours!
But his fall was predicted
by the prophet Da'ud (David) in the Zabur (Psalms)
as part of the sufferings to be endured by the Messiah:
"Yes, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted,
which did eat of my bread,
hath lifted up his heel against me."(50)
But the Word of تيتراغراماتون
who delivered this prophecy to Da'ud
a thousand years before it happened
also knew that Judas would fulfill it.
Isa al-Masih the Word of تيتراغراماتون
said,
"I assure you, one of you will betray me,
one who is eating with me." (51)
Over 500 years before this,
the Word of تيتراغراماتون
had enabled the prophet Zechariah
to foresee what God would cause to happen:
Isa would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver; (52)
which actually happened
when the priests paid Judas that amount of money
to purchase unwittingly
the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
"I am going to strike the shepherd
and the sheep will be scattered," Zechariah predicted.
The Word of تيتراغراماتون
had even inspired
the prophet Daniel to foresee
not only the death of the Messiah
but also the subsequent destruction of the Temple:
"After this period of 434 years, the Messiah will be killed, but
not for himself, and the people of the prince that shall come
shall destroy the city and the sanctuary." (53)
The manner of the Messiah 's atoning death
which will not be "for himself" (54)
but for the sins of the whole world
is clearly described in the Zabur (Psalms):
"They pierced my hands and feet." (55)
But Judas had no taste for the word of God.
He did not treasure these words in his heart.
Isa warned that man cannot live by bread alone
but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Yet Judas thought he could mock the grace of the Lord
and lie to the Eternal Spirit of تيتراغراماتون
.
Judas fooled only himself.
The Word of God could read the traitor's inmost thoughts.
Isa didn't need anyone to tell him what was in a man.
Isa knew what Judas would do.
He allowed him to do it
so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.
But woe to the man who fulfilled them!
Judas didn't run far.
When all his treachery was over,
he found himself totally alone
and only Satan wanted his detestable company.
So Judas committed suicide.
Now he is in hell.
How do we know?
Because Isa said it would have been better
if he had never been born.
Never having been born
would be like annihilation in hell;
but there is no annihilation in hell,
only conscious eternal anguish,
as it says, "And these shall go way
into everlasting punishment.." (56)
Isa himself warned about the eternal reality of hell
more solemnly and emphatically than anyone.
Therefore, if you want to think like Judas
and harbor treacherous thoughts that the Word of God is error
and harden your heart's gratitude
against Isa's sacrifice for you to save you from hell,
then there definitely will be room in hell for you with Judas.
But it would be better for you if you had never been born.
The moral judgment of God will require
that every living rebel
will be abandoned forever in the conscious state of his rebellion
as eternal just retribution.
Who could be a bigger fool
than the one who scoffs
at the sacrificial love of the Word of God
who died and rose
to speak eternal life into our hearts
and to breathe on us the Eternal Spirit?
This state could have been avoided
had he judged himself and repented of this wickedness,
believing that the Word who is the Judge from تيتراغراماتون
came to die to take the penalty for our crimes.
Who is more worthy of judgment
than the one who rejects the Judge's merciful act
of taking, though himself innocent,
the culprit's penalty of judgment on himself?
Who is more worthy of judgment
than the one who would have the Judge
thus suffer and die in vain?
Who is more worthy of judgment
than the one who would go on, his life unchanged,
wickedly refusing to believe
even after he had heard
of this merciful and loving Judge from تيتراغراماتون
?
Who could be a bigger fool than the one who,
being on the side of men and not God,
sells his own soul to eternal torment
for a few fleeting rags in this life?
Judas was an apostle!
He was among those selected for the privilege
of governing the Kingdom of تيتراغراماتون
at the side of the Messiah Himself!
But an upright man can in fact give up
his privileged status before God
and can choose to enjoy for a time the pleasure
of not listening to the true Isa,
of not sharing in the sufferings
that arise because of Isa's words.
(The true Jesus is that one who bled
and died for sin and rose again!).
Any Judas can choose to avoid the trouble that comes
because of the Word of His blood
and of His Judgment
and of His giving of the Spirit.
Any privileged man can betray his own integrity
and can copy a devil like Judas.
Who does this more truly
than the one who has no respect for God's law
and says the Book is now a corrupt pile of errors
and not to be trusted or taken seriously?
Is God's Book in error?
Is it not rather you who are in error,
you who know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?
Will you judge the Word in error
or will the Word of God judge you in error?
Which will it be?
The folly of your judgment of the Word?
Or the judgment of the Word on your folly?
Oh the horror of this betrayal of the Word of God!
The horror of hell is that God allows us
to attain what our wicked hearts demand:
the lie of al-Dajjal (Anti-Christ) which we love
rather than the truth of Messiah
which we love
to call error.
Judas wanted it this way
and the horror is that God allowed him his way.
Only God can take this treachery out of our minds;
it was there from the time that the first human being
rebelled against the holy commandment.
That spiritual treachery is still there today
when the Word of God is read by skeptical rebels.
Only the Lord can remove this treachery from our hearts.
The Lord did this for Peter,
an apostle who also denied the Lord
and also refused to die with him.
The Lord removed Peter's treacherous unspiritual nature
and gave him a new spirit,
so that he would never deny the Lord again
but would take up his cross
and even be willing to die for the Lord.
Only the Lord can remove this treachery
and He does it when we turn to him.
But if we refuse, note well:
fury grips the Lord when He sees
the wicked treacherously abandoning His Word.
Do you want to call His Word error and make him angry?
Are you stronger than the Lord?
Some declare they have light
but it is in fact a false knower's light,
like the light in the ancient heresies.
And if the light within you is darkness,
how great is that darkness!
These "knowers" in their wicked pride
go beyond what is written
and boast of "knowledge" higher than
the faith once for all delivered to the holy ones.
With brazen tongues and dead-looking eyes
these self-willed souls
refuse the knowledge that could bring them life.
Their arrogance knows no bounds;
like a raging wind that swirls and casts up dirt
wherever it flies,
so their minds rush
to call error the Word
and the Word error.
(Who are you to interpret the true Word,
you without true faith from تيتراغراماتون
's Eternal Spirit?)
THE NEED FOR A NEW HUMAN NATURE
From such thinking came
the Primal Lapse:
when the first human ears
were tickled with the taunt,
"Hath God said...?"
It was then that Shaitan (Satan)
that ancient Gnostic (57)
boasted of knowledge higher than
the Word of تيتراغراماتون
and tempted mankind to islam (submit) to his will
rather than to the will of تيتراغراماتون
.
Thus mankind gave up
the true and living Eternal Word
for a death-dealing Satanic caricature
a false Word,
a devilish Word,
another Message.
It was then that a heart,
made good by God,
turned devilishly perverse.
It was then that humanity,
by presuming it could know good and evil
and find life
by some means other than islam (submission)
to the true and living Word of God,
fell.
Yes, humanity fell,
and how great was the fall of it!
So great indeed
that those with fallen minds
unrenewed by the Eternal Spirit
and the personal Word of تيتراغراماتون
are themselves blind to the Fall,
even though their own warped thinking
is part of the Fall's debris!
What more evidence for the Fall do I need
than my own fallen life?
The heart of man is desperately wicked,
who can know it?
For the honest man who looks
within the depths of his soul
will say this:
I fail to carry out the good I know I should do
and I find myself doing the very things I hate.
When I act against my own intention
that means that I have a self that knows the good,
and so the thing behaving wickedly in me
must surely be my fallen nature.
I know of nothing good living in me.
My lower nature is my unspiritual self,
possessing only a faint and fickle wish
to do what is good
but not the effecting will
(only those who are new creations in Isa the saving Word
have the effecting will
with the tender conscience.[58])
What is the result then?
Instead of doing the right
I want to do,
I carry out the wicked wrong
I do not want.
When I act against my intention, then,
it is not I alone who am the agent,
but the fallen nature
that lodges in me.
Wretched rebel that I am,
who is there to rescue me out of this fallen flesh (59)
this treacherous will,
this rebel nature doomed to death?
How can I become a true muslim (submitter) to تيتراغراماتون
and receive a new creation nature?
This is the question of all questions.
THE HARDENED HEART WITHOUT THE NEW CREATION IS
SHAMELESS
But some don't even ask the question.
Some people have no sense of shame.
The man of God learned this when,
having helped Ahmad save his marriage,
the man of God himself had marital tragedy.
We will call the name of the man of God "Hosea"
though he lived in modern times.
This is a true story.
One day the man of God stood up in the house of God
to preach.
But a supernatural word came to him,
not from the words of a paper book (60)
but from the Eternal Spirit of تيتراغراماتون
.
What came to him is best described as supernatural knowledge.
The living Word that spoke to his heart
was as urgent as a shout
and as vivid as a vision.
The man of God saw in this miraculous manifestation
materializing before the eye of his mind
his wife in a bedroom many miles away.
The person he saw with her was in the act
of committing adultery.
The man of God stood before the congregation
and he could not begin the khutba (sermon),
because in his spirit he was in the bedroom
horrified at the sight of this evil
تيتراغراماتون
was showing him.
(When تيتراغراماتون
gives supernatural knowledge
He never contradicts or goes beyond
His infallible written Word.)
The next morning the man of God
wanted to make sure this vision was true
and not just his own imagination.
He traveled to the house
and, finding no one home,
was able to examine the bedroom privately.
The evidence left by the careless lovers
(who thought the man of God would have to be preaching
at the hour of their rendezvous
and therefore could not possibly catch them)
showed unmistakably that the vision was from God.
The man of God confronted the adulterous woman.
She had no sense of shame.
"Why should she?" she thought.
No one had caught her in the act,
and as far as the man of God was concerned,
she thought his vision was probably just a lucky guess.
But had not God himself caught her?
Had he not used a gift of His Eternal Spirit,
the gift of supernatural knowledge,
to show the man of God
what only three in the world
--that is, the adulterous woman, her lover, and God--knew?
Had not God himself caught her in the very act of adultery, a wicked
act of treachery worthy of death?
But the woman had no sense of guilt before God.
تيتراغراماتون
was very far off to her, baaeed (very
remote and separate)
and often the thought of God left her cold,
like the thought of her husband.
THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD,
EVEN THE RELIGIOUS PEOPLE,
ARE LIKE AN ADULTEROUS WIFE
The adulterous wife of the man of God
might speak of God in passionate terms
as she might speak of her husband,
but her rebellious heart was always sneaking off
after that which really excited her.
No, it was no part of her religious experience
to ever feel caught in shame before the believers
or to feel guilty of sin before God.
Her reasoning was that she was no worse than any one else.
Besides, she thought, couldn't she always do good
to counterbalance her sins?
She never thought of herself
as having a "fallen nature."
And since God did not seem close at hand
to catch her in this treacherous state,
this adulterous nature,
this unregenerate whorish heart,
she never felt a guilty dissatisfaction
with her own unspiritual self.
Nor did she ever feel a burning need
for a clean, new creation nature.
Just a bit more religion would do the trick, she thought.
For when she was with her co-religionists
involved in religion,
she could see she seemed to be at least
as good as those who did
her same supposedly merit-earning religious rituals.
Some people have no sense of shame.
They do not ask the question,
"Who can rescue me from this rebel nature?"
They do not ask,
"How can I become a muslim (true submitter) to تيتراغراماتون
and receive a new creation nature?"
They are like this woman,
without a sense of being caught in shame before a holy God,
a God who finds you guilty in your very nature,
not just in your sins
--a God who wants to give you a new holy nature,
one that has an effecting will not to sin;
with his Eternal Spirit giving you
the tender conscience of His Word.
But you say, "I am not like her.
I don't commit adultery.
I don't need a new nature."
Have you ever looked with lust at another person?
Don't you know that such looks
come out of an adulterous heart?
Don't you know that God wants to give you
a new spiritual heart,
one that recoils in revulsion at even the thought of sin,
a heart where the mind of تيتراغراماتون
Himself is mindful?
Stop being satisfied with your unspiritual self
disguised under robe upon robe of religion!
Don't you know that you too must become a new creation?
Those who do supposedly merit-earning religious rituals
without a new creation nature from تيتراغراماتون
,
and think they are pleasing تيتراغراماتون
,
are going to be eternally surprised.
Somewhere He has called
such religious people "an abomination" (61).
Unless your righteousness exceeds people like this,
you will not enter the Kingdom of تيتراغراماتون
.(62)
For God is a covenant-loyal God,
a faithful and a holy husband,
but the people who are not a new creation
and are merely religious
are to Him those who have an adulterous heart worthy of hell.
They have the nature of a rebellious wife that makes God angry.
For the burning lake of hell fire and brimstone
is reserved for these:
those who claim to believe
but who are offended when persecution comes,
those who are untrustworthy in holding forth the true witness,
those who are morally unclean in any way
or detestably idolatrous,
those with murderous hatred in their hearts,
those who are sensually fixated
or practice sex disallowed by تيتراغراماتون
,
those involved in magic charms,
degraded religion or the occult,
those who are covetously idolatrous or consult false prophets,
those who do not live and tell the truth. (Revelation 21:8)
God takes no pleasure in the torment of the wicked in hell,
and neither does a true prophet
take pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Who can preach these things without tears?
Yet they must be proclaimed,
for how can any be saved from destruction
without a new creation nature spoken into existence
by the living and eternal Word of تيتراغراماتون
?
Please understand that the intention
is not to demean anyone,
but to awaken everyone and see everyone delivered
from the coming fury and the anguish that is forever.
We treat all people with reverence and humility,
and we discern in them some vestige of the image of تيتراغراماتون
,
not entirely faded, even from the vilest.
For a glimmer of the goodness of the God who made him
still shines from every man,
making all accountable when,
even though they hear,
they refuse to obey the Word.
We treat all people with reverence,
knowing that the Word of تيتراغراماتون
himself
thought every soul worth dying for
and has ascended to the right hand of God
where He is the universal Leader
of our congregational prayers,
our Imam (Leader),
who makes intercession for the elect.
And how can we be irreverent toward one
about whom our Imam, Isa the Word of تيتراغراماتون
,
may Himself be interceding?
Oh the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and power of God!
Our God is a consuming fire!
As His salvation is endless
so is His just judgment of torment for the wicked!
If you feel absolutely no shame or guilt before God,
not just because of the sin you have done,
but because of the sinner you are by nature,
then you may rest assured
that you are like the woman in this true story.
Why?
Because she feels exactly like you,
without shame or guilt before God.
For her, merit-earning religious ritual is enough,
because she has a corrupt mind and counterfeit faith,
having seared the tender conscience
the Eternal Spirit would give her.
She presumptuously thinks she can live any way she wants,
without a new nature,
and be continually forgiven as
she salutes a few religious rules
yet remains in her unregenerate, rebellious state.
Are you going to be like her?
--Not guilty or shameful enough
to feel the need for a new creation nature?
She thinks تيتراغراماتون
will be pleased with her when she dies.
But that day will not mean what she thinks.
It will be a day of darkness and not light.
This deluded woman thinks her life is her own
to do with according to a few religious rules
(which she secretly breaks from time to time)
and she's very happy with herself
and with the rules she agrees to go by
and with the life she has made for herself,
with the life she has found for herself.
But whoever finds his life
will lose it;
Whoever loses his life
and receives the gift of a new creation nature
will find his life again
and keep it for eternity.
Does not the very honor of the husband
require that this adulterous woman
should be punished?
Or should she be allowed
to go on like this,
smugly thinking God does not see her,
even when a man of God
supernaturally tells her that God can see her?
Does not such ignorant stubbornness make you angry?
God has given her years to repent and reform,
but she has abused His patience and tolerance,
refusing to own up to the fact that His goodness
is meant to lead her to repentance.
She thinks God is like her,
and so she defiantly puts God's honor to the test.
With her brainless lovers and her inexhaustible adulteries,
she continually brings dishonor
not only on her husband's house
but also on her father's household,
and even on the household of God.
She and her lovers are a brood that God detests.
They are one-of-a-kind with the accursed children of Adam.
The first man, Adam, and his wife
were attracted and satanically seduced
by their own wrong desires when they believed Satan's lie
that the Word of تيتراغراماتون
is error.
When they hardened their
hearts against تيتراغراماتون
and His Word,
they gave birth to a breed more wicked than themselves.
When they rebelled against His Word,
deciding they knew more than God,
they fell from the glory of His likeness.
Now the human race,
although it pays lip service to religion,
is steeped in unrighteousness, war, wrangling, murder,
depravity, maliciousness, arrogance, self-seeking,
vile speech, and treachery of every sort
--a community of snakes coiling around snakes!
And the leaders are the worst vipers in the pit!
They have hardened their hearts against the love of God,
and their wicked pride shuts up all remorse for their sin. Sin?
Their minds are always enterprising in it!
Fierce wolves in sheep's clothing,
the religious teachers
publish empty dreams and lying visions
that lead the Lord's lost sheep astray.
Not content with that,
they persecute the true shepherds
and murderously eat the flesh of the little lambs
and tear off their hoofs.
Don't they know that God loves people?
God wants all people to know who He is
and who they can become as submitters to Him!
Do these sleek religious wolves know God
or even care to know Him?
They do not!
Like Balaam's ass (that donkey prophet),
they see an angel and give a message.
And if even a man supported by a woman declares himself
to be the Messianic Prophet,
these wolves will become his fast friends
and sing his praises,
and want to kill anyone
who disagrees with their authority to be his butchers!
These false prophets preach a tinsel word,
an ear-tickling word,
a bloodless word
that cannot save.
Who is more wicked than the unregenerate prophet
who will not tell the way to regeneration?
They themselves will not venture out into the breach,
yet these butchers pour out the blood
of their own people without a qualm
and even dare to do this in the name of God!
Will the adulterous hypocrites who follow them
not be made as guilty and ashamed
as the treacherous hypocrites who lead them?
Does not the very honor of تيتراغراماتون
require that this pretentious brood
all be thrown into hell?
Yes, a rebel prophet with a lying vision
and all the rebels at heart
who love to listen to lies
will burn together.
A darkened race!
We cry out to تيتراغراماتون
when in need,
but we forget Him as soon as He answers,
greeting His speedy abundance
with our not-long-in-coming pride.
He shows us great signs and wonders,
but the spiritually dense
are more impressed with themselves.
Be warned, you impotent leaders of the world,
you set of rebels ruling rebels:
submit to the Word of تيتراغراماتون
and kiss His death-conquering feet
or, despite the massive mutiny you mount against Him,
the blast of His anger will be a flame
you can never put out.
For the furious anger of تيتراغراماتون
has been revealed from heaven
against all the ungodliness of men
who hold the truth down
in their unrighteousness.
These enemies of God claim to serve Him,
but in the name of truth and religion
they crucify al-Haqq (the Truth) Himself
and, if possible, hold Him down forever
--but it is not possible, because تيتراغراماتون
himself
has raised His Truth triumphant
over death, hell and murderous false prophets!
Such liars widen the mouth of hell
to gulp those like them down the more,
and so they cause in the land
a famine
of hearing the true Word of تيتراغراماتون
.
تيتراغراماتون
is angry with the whole race of Adam.
He has vowed such accursed children of Adam
to His Word for destruction
and marked them down to His Truth for public execution.
Are you ignorant that تيتراغراماتون
decreed
the death and rebirth of the whole human race?
Did you not know that the
Word of تيتراغراماتون
Himself
brought the decree?
The old race تيتراغراماتون
nailed up naked and dying
and the new race He raised up clothed in glory.
The decree of death to the sinful dying race
and decree of life to the glorious holy race
came through the Word of تيتراغراماتون
Isa al-Masih!
Did you not know that al-Haqq (the Truth)
came as Truth to bear witness to the Truth?
A Roman governor (Pilate) who put Isa (Jesus) on trial
asked him,
"What is Truth?"
This wicked soul did not know it was he who was on trial
and it was the whole brood of such as he
that Isa the Word of تيتراغراماتون
would doom
in His own sacrificial flesh.
How, then, has God revealed his anger?
God sent His flaming Word
who will one day finally
remove the anguished wicked from His Presence;
God sent His burning, pure and sinless Word
into our fallen and wicked world
in a body as physical as any sinful body,
in order to publicly condemn
our fallen nature in the flesh.
God thus summarily put to death
the race of Adam,
and has been replacing it
with the new creation ummah (community)
of the Word of تيتراغراماتون
,
as each new believer
hears, believes, repents,
and is spiritually born from above to have a holy nature
like that of Isa the Word of تيتراغراماتون
.
For God is not willing that any should perish.
God is holding open the opportunity
for many to die
to their faithless life in Adam's race
and to come alive
to their pure and holy new life
in the race of the Word of تيتراغراماتون
.
Why is the death and rebirth of the whole race of Man
necessary?
God could not let our sinful will go unpunished.
His honor could not allow it.
His justice demanded punishment
for our wickedness
and his honor demanded death
for our sin against His holiness.
However, God loves the world
and, like a heart-broken husband of an adulteress
wooing back his faithless wife,
God by no means wants to destroy His creation.
So with an open palm of heavenly reconciliation
held out in the one hand,
and with a fist of hellish reprisal
threatening in the other,
God comes to this adulterous world
to get her decision:
will she or will she not
let Him make her into a new creation
and take her back honorably,
in covenant faithfulness and loyalty to Him,
her death-deserving sin and its blood debt paid.
He sent the Bridegroom of His Honor, His Word,
to enrobe Himself in our humanity
and to serve the death warrant of تيتراغراماتون
on our sinful race.
This was to save the honor of
تيتراغراماتون
.
Then His Word came to life again
to vouchsafe تيتراغراماتون
's promise to a new forgiven humanity
who would leave their old corrupt minds
and receive the mind of Isa
to be spiritually raised to life with him.
This was to save the honor of believers.
Praise be unto تيتراغراماتون
for His Eternal Word Isa!
Then, honorably unburdened of their wicked past,
all those who had longed to obey the Word of God
could be given the gift of a blessed future
and, as new creations, could become true submitters to تيتراغراماتون
.
If the honor of تيتراغراماتون
or the honor of your own life before تيتراغراماتون
means anything to you,
you can come today to the kind of godly shame
and righteous sorrow for sin
that leads to salvation.
You can receive the living
Word of تيتراغراماتون
through faith
by calling out to Him now.
You can become part of His new humanity today.
But you say,
"I have many questions.
You have discussed evil at length;
why does تيتراغراماتون
tolerate the wicked at all?
Why are they allowed to prosper?"
Since the present is but a brief preparation
for a more demanding future,
the seeming prosperity of the wicked
is really their curse,
in that he who is muddled by money
is ill-prepared for imminent coming judgment,
and so his "prosperity" seals his doom.
We are just one heart-beat away
from death and eternal judgment.
When we die we will become aware
of standing before the judgment throne
of the eternal Word of تيتراغراماتون
--the Word who took the judgment
(by his death in our place)
of those who have faith in him
and forsake all boasting
in dead religious works.
The more wickedness a man does
and the more reward he seems to acquire from it,
the more lulled he is into being caught
in his wicked condition,
which is a state worthy of eternal damnation.
THE MERCY OF THE MESSIAH TOWARD THE UNFAITHFUL
The following true story
illustrates both the justice and the merciful love
of تيتراغراماتون
's eternal Word, Isa al-Masih:
"At daybreak Isa appeared in the Temple again;
and all the people came to him,
and he sat down and taught them.
The legalistic teachers and some members of the legalistic sect
brought a woman along who had been caught
committing adultery
and, making her stand there in the middle, they said to Isa,
'Teacher, this woman was caught
in the very act of committing adultery.
Now in the Taurat (Torah) Musa (Moses) has ordered us
to stone women of this kind.
What do you say about her?'
They asked him this as a test,
in order that they might have some charge
to bring against him.
But Isa bent down
and started writing on the ground with his finger.
And as they persisted with their question,
he straightened up and said,
'Let him who is without sin among you
be the first to throw a stone at her.'
Then he bent down and continued writing on the ground.
When they heard this they went away one by one,
beginning with the eldest,
until the last one had gone and Isa was left alone
with the woman standing before him.
Isa again straightened up and said,
'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?'
'No one, sir,' she replied.
'Neither do I condemn you' said Isa.
'Go and sin no more.' " (63)
The woman in the story knew that she was as good as dead
because two witnesses (the prescribed number)
had caught her in the very act of committing adultery,
of which the Torah's penalty was death.
Isa could have treated her with loathing,
as men all too often act toward women.
Instead, he gave her new life and enabled her not to sin anymore
but to surrender to تيتراغراماتون
as a New Creation Muslim.
This is God's will for all people, male and female,
for تيتراغراماتون
is the merciful giver of new life.
THIS IS THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER
In the beginning God
thought
and by His creative Word spoke.
The divine Word called forth a universe out of nothing.
And by nothing but His Word
are the revolving stars held together.
Of all the created beings,
man alone has a reasonable word,
an utterable word,
a human word
--and a self-seeing spirit.
For humanity is not made in the likeness of an animal,
but in the likeness of تيتراغراماتون
who is
Eternal-God-with-His-Eternal-Word-and-His-Eternal-Spirit.
He it is who is the true God.
And this one God alone
makes mankind into a new creation
that reflects His glory
because the mankind He makes new
is Man-with-renewed-mind-and-regenerated-spirit.
We lose the old rebellious selfhood but not the self.
We lose our old independent identity but not our identity.
We are not swallowed up into religious mysticism.
We need no occultist
techniques or exercises to approach تيتراغراماتون
.
All we need to do is to repent
and bring every thought captive to obey the Word
by yielding to the power of the Eternal Spirit,
so that the mind that was in Isa al-Masih is in us
as we live and speak and act in inner communion with Him.
THE TARIQA (WAY) FOR NEW CRFATION MUSLIMS
Shaitan (the Devil) is ultimately not able
to overpower a person
who is on the right path.
The beginning of the right
path is تيتراغراماتون
's living Word,
not a paper book sent down to be worshiped as a fetish,
but a living personal Word sent down
that we might have life
and have it more abundantly
through a new and living tariqa (way)
found only in Isa's inerrant written words.
Isa said, "I am the tariqa (the right path),
the haqiqah (truth),
and the hayat (life).
No one comes to the Father
but by me"
(there is no other mediator,
no prophet who can supercede him,
no other name under heaven
whereby we must be saved).
The center of the right path is Iman (right Faith)
not in a righteousness of our own
which is of law-keeping and works,
nor of din (religious practice) nor ihsan (rightdoing),
but that which is through iman (faith) in the Word himself,
who comes to us from تيتراغراماتون
in the power of the Spirit
both to will and to do his good pleasure,
effecting in us a righteousness which is of God
by faith and not by works,
lest anyone should boast.
The beginning of the way through is tawba (repentance).
This means continually confessing and putting to death
what is prone toward evil within us,
that is, the qalb (heart) of a fasiq (sinner).
If we say we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just
to forgive our sins,
and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
The inclination of all humanity
not individually necessitated by تيتراغراماتون
but nevertheless personally and freely chosen
by all Adam's children--
is to sin and therefore to die.
Thus, we must die to self (al-Junaid-fana).
We need to put to death in ourselves that which
shares the same sin-prone nature as the old mankind
(we need to die to the umma, community, of Adam),
and we must be recreated by the Word of God
(we need to be born anew
into the spiritual ummah of the Word of God).
The mystery of the right path
is that the Word of تيتراغراماتون
who is the likeness of the invisible God (Col.1:15),
became al-Insan al-Kamil (the Perfect Man) Isa al-Masih
and died a death to cure the guilt
of the qalb (heart) of every fasiq (sinner),
so that we can become assured
of our eternal inheritance as new creations,
being daily renewed and perfected.
This mystery is تيتراغراماتون
's temporary secret
now made publicly known,
that is, that Isa al-Masih
is the past, present and future pattern of mankind,
and whatever utopia or myth men hope for is unreal
except as the real is seen in Him alive from the dead.
The center of the way through is inaba (returning)
to al-Insan al-Kamil (the Perfect Man).
To as many as received him (Isa)
to them gave he power to become the heirs of تيتراغراماتون
,
and we know that when he shall appear
we shall be like him.
The end of the way through is to submit
in total obedience to تيتراغراماتون
in the marifah (knowledge)
of His costly and holy ishq (love)
with which He has loved us,
even with the love of a Father.
This is the love God has for us,
the same fatherly love He had for Ibrahim
(whose former name Abram means 'Exalted Father').
Ibrahim himself returned this type of love to تيتراغراماتون
by his willingness to sacrifice to God
his only heir.
The end of the right path
is daily to do the al-arkan (right duties)
by the direction and empowering of the Eternal Spirit.
This step is ubudiyah (service)
and cannot be done by might
nor by power,
but by His Eternal Spirit.
YOU CAN PRAY THIS PRAYER
"تيتراغراماتون
, the merciful and forgiving One,
I confess and agree with your Word
that I have had a sinful will
and have sinned
and need a new will.
I believe the Word of God who is Isa,
is the very expression of your will and can make me pure
as, by the power of your Eternal Spirit,
I am enabled to be like him.
May I never forget the great cost of his blood
to effect the atoning sacrifice
that takes away the penalty for my sins.
I call on you now and every day
to deliver me from my sins,
which offend you and have caused
the separation between us.
Come into my heart and life,
Isa, the risen Word of تيتراغراماتون
,
and fill me with your love
that I might submit to
and follow your commandments
sent down through you
in the Taurat and the Injil
by the inspiration of the Eternal Spirit.
Lead me on the straight path to the new creation.
On the basis of what Isa al-Masih has done,
I offer this request to you, praise be unto you,
and believe in my heart that through Isa your Word
it is granted. Amen."
THE PRAYER LIFE OF A NEW CREATION MUSLIM
We who are new creation Muslims
have already tasted of the world to come,
and therefore this present world hates us. (64)
In our spiritual beings we have already passed
from spiritual death unto spiritual life,
and Shaitan (Satan)
and the evil jinn (demons)
and the people of this present world,
because they have not experienced the new creation
through the Word of تيتراغراماتون
, who is Isa,
sometimes lash out at us with hatred and persecution.
The spirit that is in them
hates the Spirit that is in us.
But "greater is He (Isa al-Masih) who is in us
than he (Shaitan) who is in the world (65)
And تيتراغراماتون
works all things together for good for
us.
Therefore, we do not grow weary in well-doing,
or in praying for our enemies,
or in cautiously reaching out to them in love,
or in joyfully suffering for the sake of God's message
of a servant's love for a needy world.
We need only put on the spiritual armor of
the One who is within us
and we can stand victorious in prayer (66)
as more than conquerors
against our spiritual enemy, Shaitan.
This is spiritual jihad. (67)
We praise تيتراغراماتون
's Word (68)
who loved us when we were yet his enemies,
and who gives us wisdom and power
to show his love in countless ways,
even for our enemies.
PUT ON ARMOR FOR THE BATTLE
In the daily Islamic prayer
one finds the ejaculation:
"I seek refuge from God
from the cursed Satan."
Five times a day,
we who are New Creation Muslims
pause to put on our spiritual
armor and pray in the Spirit.
Since we have "no lasting city" (69)
in this old creation world of sin and death,
the real direction of our prayer
is not toward anything in this visible world
but toward God,
who has triumphed over principalities and powers.
We tear down strongholds of Shaitan
and war in the Eternal Spirit
in the ministry of intercession,
pointing our prayers toward Isa and toward those in Mecca as we
pray that in Him they may find the True Way.
Isa al-Masih, the Word of تيتراغراماتون
, is the true light
of true submitters to the straight path.
Who has تيتراغراماتون
appointed but his Word
to be the world-ruler of the new world, the new creation?
And there is no other name under heaven
that has been given among men
by which we must be saved
from the coming wrath (70)
A discipline which does not earn merit with تيتراغراماتون
but may be an effective means of identifying with Muslims (71) is
to put on the protection of our spiritual armor
in all five daily prayers:
Subh or the morning prayer,
Zuhr or the noon prayer (72)
'Asr or the afternoon prayer,
Maghrib or the evening prayer,
and 'Ishaa or the night prayer,
We pray without ceasing (73)
and we do not, in any case, make of prayer a good deed
calculated to earn God's favor.
We pray to تيتراغراماتون
as though He were our gracious Father.
We pray so freely to Him not to win His favor
but because we have His favor,
not by our good works but by faith in His good works
--that He alone has the power to make the wicked righteous
and He alone has turned us from wickedness
to righteousness,
not by our dead religious works but by the works
of Himself and His Eternal Word and His Eternal Spirit
who has made of our old being a New Creation.
THE WUDU (CEREMONIAL WASHING)
In the Muslim manner we wash before we pray (74)
We have water available (75)
so that believers can prepare themselves before going into the
room we have set aside for prayers.
We remove our shoes before going into the room (76)
and we wash our faces and our hands up to the elbows
and our feet up to the ankles.
As we wash we say:
I wash my hands
from the evil things that I did
so that I can do only those things you want me to do, Lord.
I wash my eyes
so that I can see only those things you want me to see.
I wash my ears
so I can hear your voice,
and not the voice of the world.
I wash my feet so that I can walk in your path (77)
THE ADHAAN (78)
The Muaadhdhin (Caller to prayer)
in our messianic mosque services
stands to make the announcement to pray (79)
and in so doing recites to the congregation
our Al-'Aqeedah (creed):
Allaahu Akbar, Allaahu Akbar God is greater, God is greater.
Allaahu Akbar, Allaahu Akbar God is greater, God is greater.
Ash hadu allaa ilaaha ill تيتراغراماتون
, I bear witness that there is
nothing worthy of worship but God.
Ash hadu anna Isa Kalimatu'llah I bear witness that Isa is
the Word of God
hooah yellkee al-ruah al-abadeeah Who sendeth forth the Eternal
Spirit (80)
al-moonthick min amr rabbi Proceeding from the command (Amr) of
my Lord (81)
Isa al-Masih, Kalimatahoo Isa the Messiah, His Word (82)
wahfadah keel awlad Ibrahim the ransom of all Ibrahim's heirs
b'zabahen ahzeemin and our momentous sacrifice (83)
wahrahfahahoo تيتراغراماتون
eelyihee Raised to God (84)
leeyoonzeerah yeowma althuhlach As a warning of the day of
meeting (85)
innaa annafs laaahnrahoo beesooch bell hooah zellah annefs
alchadeem leenachoonah chahleekah djadeedah That He might put
away our evil-prone flesh and bring a new creation (86)
leeanna hahteh al-sahllech yahtahbarrar beelman Even
righteousness by faith alone. (87)
Hayya 'alaa Salaah Hasten to prayer Hayya 'alal Falaah
Hasten to real success Qad qaamatis Sallaah Prayer is ready
Qad qaamatis Sallaah Prayer is ready. Allaahu Akbar,
God is greater. Allaahu Akbar God is greater.
Laa ilaaha ill تيتراغراماتون
There is nothing worthy of worship but
God." (88)
A KHUTBAH (SERMON) ENTITLED "GOD'S PLAN FOR THE
CHILDREN OF
ISRAEL AND ISHMAEL" --SUITABLE FOR A MESSIANIC ISLAMIC
JUM'AH OR
FRIDAY SERVICE
"In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
Praised be God. Praised be the God who has shown us the way, the
straight path through His Word.
I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship
but God.
I bear witness that Isa is the Word of God.
Fear God, O you people,
fear that day,
the Day of Judgment,
when a father will not be able to answer for his son,
nor the son for his father,
when an Imam will not be able to answer for a Muslim,
nor a Rabbi for a Jew.
O you people who have believed,
turn you to God,
as Ibrahim did turn to God.
Truly God is One and forgives all sin through His Word.
Truly we know His Word.
I bear witness that Isa is His Word of forgiveness.
Through Him تيتراغراماتون
is merciful,
the forgiver of sins.
Through Him تيتراغراماتون
is the most munificent,
and bountiful, the King,
the Holy One, the Most Merciful."
(The preacher or khatib or muzakkir then descends from the
pulpit, and sitting on the floor of the place of prayer, offers
up a silent prayer. He then again ascends the minbar or pulpit,
which may be nothing more than a small three step riser in
smaller mosques and proceeds.)
"In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
Praise be to God."
He who has the living Word of God for His guide
is never lost.
If we have truly died with His Word
and have truly been brought to live again by His Word,
then we truly passed from death to life.
There is a text in the Quran that refers to this:
'Or (take) the similitude
of one who passed
by a hamlet, all in ruins,
to its roofs. He said:
'Oh! how shall تيتراغراماتون
bring it (ever) to life,
after (this) its death?'
Then in that same text (Cow 2:259)
it says:
'Look further at the bones,
how We bring them together,
and clothe them with flesh!'
Many commentators believe this text
is referring to Ezekiel 37:1O,
which says,
"The hand of the Lord was upon me (Ezekiel),
and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord,
and set me down in the midst of the valley
which was full of bones,
and caused me to pass by them round about:
and, behold, there were very many in the open valley;
and, lo, they were very dry.
And he (God) said to me,
'Son of man, can these bones live?'
And I answered,
'O Lord God, thou knowest.'
Again he said unto me,
Prophesy upon these bones,
and say unto them,
O you dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones;
Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you,
and you shall live:
And I will lay sinews upon you,
and will bring up flesh upon you,
and cover you with skin,
and put breath in you,
and you shall live;
and you shall know that I am the Lord.'
So I (Ezekiel) prophesied as I was commanded:
and as I prophesied,
there was a noise,
and behold a shaking,
and the bones came together,
bone to his bone.
And when I beheld, lo,
the sinews and the flesh came up upon them,
and the skin covered them above:
but there was no breath in them.
Then said he unto me,
'Prophesy unto the wind,
prophesy, son of man,
and say to the wind,
Thus saith the Lord God;
Come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain, that
they may live.'
So I prophesied as he (God) commanded me,
and the breath came into them,
and they lived,
and stood up upon their feet,
an exceeding great army."
What is this passage talking about?
Is there somewhere a great army
of those who were once dead
but are now being brought to life again?
Are we who are New Creation Muslims included or excluded
from that prophesied army?
We Muslims are always asking questions like this.
We always wonder if God is including us.
The most pressing problem we Muslims have
is our spiritual identity.
The solution to that identity problem
has been given to us in the ancient past
through Ibrahim and Ishmael.
But many anti-Muslim teachers and preachers
use the Bible to teach political interpretations
about the promise of the land to Ibrahim
and negative interpretations about Ishmael.
So many Muslims ask,
"Why is it asserted that
تيتراغراماتون
loves the Jews
as his chosen people more than he loves us Muslims?
Why do so many want to twist the Scriptures
to make us feel rejected?"
But if we begin with the Taurat,
B'raisheet (Genesis) chapter 15,
we return to the cornerstone of our faith
as new creation submitters to تيتراغراماتون
and that cornerstone is Ibrahim.
It says, "Ibrahim believed God,"
and consequently it says that it was credited to him
that he became a righteous submitter to the true path.
THE GOD OF ISHMAEL BE PRAISED
In Genesis chapter 16:10
we see that God had a special plan for Ishmael
and his descendants.
In the Scriptures,
the Angel of the Lord appears only
when God has a special plan;
and in 16:10 Ishmael's mother, Hagar,
is told by the angel of the Lord,
"I will so increase your descendants
that they will be too numerous to count."
The last part of 16:12
says that Ishmael will live
"in hostility toward all his brothers."
The reference to Ishmael (the father of the Arab peoples)
and to his hostility "toward all his brothers"
(referring to Isaac, the father of Israel)
is a prophecy very much fulfilled today in the Middle East.
In Genesis 21 God acts to save Ishmael
and his mother,
just as God is saving many Muslims today.
21:19 says "Then God opened her (Hagar's) eyes
and she saw a well of water."
Today God is opening the eyes of many of Ishmael's descendents
and they are coming to the Word of تيتراغراماتون
who said,
"If any man thirst,
let him come to me and drink."
Unfortunately, the sons
of those feuding brothers Ishamel and Isaac
have forgotten that their fathers wept together
when they buried their father Ibrahim,
as it says,
"in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre" (Genesis 25:9).
In Isaiah 42:10-12
we see another prophecy,
that the sons of Ishmael (Kedar--see Genesis 25:13)
will come back to God and will
"proclaim his praise in the islands."
We believe this refers to the messianic Islamic du'at,
those new creation muslim missionaries
who will be sent out to make the call,
the invitation to submit to تيتراغراماتون
and His Word Isa our Deliverer ('Asim).
Again, look at Isaiah 60:7:
"All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered
together unto thee,
the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee:
they shall come up with acceptance on mine altar,
and I will glorify the house of my glory."
How much clearer can God make it
that a revival is coming among the Muslims?
In Acts 2:9-11 we see much of the modern Muslim world
represented when the Injil was first proclaimed
at al-Quds (Jerusalem);
notice the text lists "the Arabs,"
it lists "Mesopotamia" (Syria and Iraq),
"Libya," "Parthians and Medians"
(part of Kuwait and the Kurdish)
--all sons of Ishmael who are among those
that will come in the last days
as new creations to glorify God.
God has a plan of salvation for them
and wants them to be saved
from his own holy hostility against unholiness
just as he wants Jew and non-Jew to be saved
from the murderous hostility that is between them.
IN THE NEW CREATION, WE LIVE TOGETHER IN PEACE
That hostility has been put to death (Ephesians 2:16)
by the Word who broke down all hostility
in his body on the tree of hostility
when he rose from the dead
to assure us of our triumph with him over all hostility