Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20111211.htm

CHRISTMAS INTERLUDE
The TRUE Angel Gabriel's TRUE Christmas Message Of Hope
Part II: God's TRUE Kingdom For ALL TRUE Believers
(Luke 1:26, 31-35)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    The Angel Gabriel who appeared to Mary to announce the birth of Jesus that first Christmas plays a key role in three major world religions -- in Christendom, in Islam and in Judaism, but beliefs about Gabriel's actual role and words are a big concern to millions of people:

    For example, Islam's holy book, the Qu'ran at Surah 2:97 claims that Gabriel spoke the words of the Qu'ran to Muhammad by the permission of Allah, Islam's deity. (load-islam.com, Ansar Al-'Adl, "Angel Gabriel and the Holy Spirit.") However, the Qu'ran claims the kingdom of Islam's deity will one day be purged of Jews, Christians and all others who refuse to adhere to Islam, that it will be a worldwide kingdom of Islam (as we can document as follows):

    (1) Surah 5:51 of the Qu'ran commands Muslims: "Take not the Jews and Christians as friends." (Al Hil-ali, v. 54, Jusuf ali as cited in Dave Hunt, The Berean Call, February 2000, p. 3)

    (2) Also, Islam's hadith, a collection of Muhammad's traditions that were written by early Muslims to "provide context for the Qu'ran" (Robert Spencer, The Truth About Muhammad, 2006, p. 24), asserts: "The last hour will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims kill them." (Mishkat al Masabih Sh. M. Ashraf, 1990, pp. 147, 721, 810-811, 1130, etc. as cited in Hunt, loc. cit.)

    (3) Surah 9:5 of the Quran bids: " . . . fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them. And seize them, beleaguer them and lie in wait for them, in every stratagem (of war)." (Don Walker, "Is Islam a religion of peace?" [chalcedon.edu/articles/walker011011.html])

    For this reason, "fundamentalist" Muslims practice jihad, "holy war", carrying out terrorist activities against Jews, Christians or other "infidels" so called because they do not adopt the Islamic faith all to set up a world Islamic kingdom run by Muslims under Allah.



    Thus, we must ask, "Do the Angel Gabriel's words predict a future eternal world kingdom only of Islam, meaning we must become Muslims in order to gain eternal life? How do we know?!"

    Need: "Do Gabriel's words predict a future world Islamic kingdom, that we must become Muslims to be saved? How do we know?!"

  1. What the QU'RAN'S Gabriel said about Jews and God's Kingdom CONTRADICTS what the BIBLE'S Gabriel said: Islam's Gabriel via the Qu'ran along with Muslim writers call for the destruction of the Jews (see our introduction), but Luke 1:26-33 claims Gabriel said Jesus would forever rule an endless Israel on David's throne!
  2. What the QU'RAN'S Gabriel said about Christians and Christianity CONTRADICTS what the BIBLE'S Gabriel said:
    1. Islam's Gabriel differs with the Bible's Gabriel on "the Holy Spirit":
      1. Surah 2:97 of the Qu'ran claims Gabriel brought the words of the Qu'ran to Muhammad by Allah's permission, Ibid., Al-'Adl.
      2. Then, Surah 16:102 claims: "Say: Ruh-ul-Qudus (the Holy Spirit) has brought it (the Qu'ran) down from your Lord . . ." (Ibid.)
      3. Though the Qu'ran thus makes Gabriel identify himself as the Holy Spirit, Luke 1:35 shows Gabriel strongly countering such a claim:
        1. In Luke 1:26, 35 NIV, Gabriel said the Holy Spirit would come upon Mary, and the power of the Most High would overshadow her so the holy one born of her would be called the Son of God.
        2. This term "Son of God" meant God, for when the High Priest, Caiaphas asked Jesus if He was the "Christ, the Son of God," and Jesus said, "Thou hast said", Caiaphas charged Him with blasphemy for claiming to be God, Matthew 26:57, 63-66.
        3. Gabriel spoke of the Holy Spirit in the third person as one who was not himself, and since the Holy Spirit's overshadowing of Mary was the overshadowing of the Power of the Most High, the Bible's Gabriel saw the Holy Spirit as God, not himself.
    2. Islam's Gabriel differs with the Bible's Gabriel on the "Son of God":
      1. The Qu'ran at Surah 19:35 claims Muhammad objected to the term "Son of God" as "(i)t befitteth not (the Majesty of) Allah that He should take unto Himself a son.'" (cited in Spencer, Ibid., p. 114)
      2. Yet, the Bible at Luke 1:26, 32 and 35 NIV cites Gabriel as saying that Jesus was the "Son of the Most High" and the "Son of God"!
  3. Thus, we TEST the CREDIBILITY of the QU'RAN'S Gabriel and of the BIBLE'S Gabriel, and find the QU'RAN'S Gabriel and the whole Islamic faith to be FALSE and the Bible's Gabriel and his message to Mary to be TRUE (as follows):
    1. The character of Islam's Angel Gabriel is very sinful:
      1. When Islam's Gabriel first appeared to Muhammad, Gabriel pressed him so hard to make Muhammad read when he could not do so (Surah 96:1-5), Muhammad wondered if he was demon possessed, and "contemplated suicide." (Ibid., Spencer, p. 41-42, citing the hadith [Muslim traditions of Muhammad] at al-Bukhari, vol.9, book 91, no. 6982 and the sira [Muslim biographies of Muhammad] at Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah , 106)
      2. When Muhammad taught idolatry, Islam's Gabriel objected, but made light of the matter and slandered all of the Bible's prophets and apostles, saying they too had to be corrected of Satanic words. (Ibid., Spencer, p. 79-80, citing the sira [Muslim biographies of Muhammad] at Ibn Ishaq, Ibid., 166 and the Qu'ran's Surah 22:52)
    2. Yet, the character of the Bible's Angel Gabriel is very righteous:
      1. The Bible's Gabriel fittingly said Zacharias would be unable to speak for a time for not trusting God's word that he would have a son in his and his wife's old age after the known Biblical precedent of Abraham and Sarah, Luke 1:11-20. Such discipline was all the more just since Gabriel came to Zacharias at the altar of incense in a once-in-a-lifetime service opportunity via divine lot (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, ftn. to Luke 1:9; Prov. 16:33), a clear setup by God!
      2. So, unlike Islam's Gabriel, the Bible's Gabriel (a) did not unjustly so pressure Zacharias to do what he could not do that he thought he might be demon possessed, (b) making him suicidal, (c) nor did the Bible's Gabriel excuse sin, but justly said Zacharias would be unable to speak for a time for not trusting God's words through the angel, Luke 1:18-20. (d) Also, the Bible's Gabriel unlike Islam's Gabriel did not slander all of the Bible's prophets and apostles by saying they had to be corrected of Satan's words; no, he reproved Zacharias for not trusting Moses' Genesis 18:11-12; 21:1-7 words of precedent that the elderly Abraham and Sarah also had a baby.
Application: (1) May we trust in Christ as Savior from sin for eternal life and so enter God's true, eternal kingdom, John 3:16; Luke 1:31-33. (2) May we then live uprightly, (3) looking for Christ's sure, righteous, just and fair eternal kingdom of blessing!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

 The Angel Gabriel's prediction in the BIBLE that God's eternal kingdom of righteousness will occur under Jesus' rule on the Davidic throne over an endless nation of Israel sound all the more true, and Islam's prediction of a kingdom of Islam sound all the more false just from news about current events.

Saba Farzan, an Iranian-born journalist based in Germany wrote the article, "Iran's Real Hostages," in The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2011, p. A19, and there explained that "what happened at the British Embassy in Tehran" with the overrunning of the embassy by mobs "is 1979 all over again," recalling the storming of the U. S. Embassy in Tehran during the Carter administration. Ms. Farzan added, "The Iranian regime has returned to its major business of attacking the West."

" . . . So let me be clear about those who attacked the British Embassy," she wrote. "They weren't students. They were terrorists." She identified them as Iran's Islamist terrorists. (Ibid.)

However, most interesting was this addition: Ms. Farzan wrote, "Friends asked me after Tuesday's news: Why now? My answer is that the Islamic Republic is weaker now than anyone has imagined. It is weakened inside the country. It is weakened because the end of Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad is near. It is weakened by isolation in the international community."

Thus, the intrinsic nature of the Islamic Republic's own evil actions sabotage its power to rule, and exposes it to be an evil regime. This is where Proverbs 12:7 NIV applies when it claims: "Wicked men are overthrown and are no more, but the house of the righteous stands firm." Evil is its own innate self-destruction as seen in Iran's current government, so it is doomed eventually to fail. Conversely, those who do the will of God belong to an eternal kingdom, and will abide in it forever according to 1 John 2:17 NIV.



May we trust in Christ as Savior and live expectantly this Christmas for the true, righteous kingdom of the true God as revealed by God's righteous, holy Angel Gabriel in the Bible.