The Chasm Is Wide Between Islam And Christianity--One Is Hate: The Other Is Love

When the Son of Man comes

in His glory, and all the holy angels

with Him, then He will sit on the

throne of His glory. All the nations

will be gathered before Him, and He

will separate them one from another,

as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

And He will set the sheep on His right hand,

but the goats on the left.

Matthew 25:31-33

     Notice that this separation of the sheep and the goats occurs when the Son of Man, Jesus, is sitting on the "throne of His glory;" not before this is there a separating by God as with the Islamic religion that determines to either accept you as you convert to their religion or suffer the consequences that may, and often is, death due to your not converting to Islam. It must be remembered that Islam is not just a religion, it is a religio/political ideology that controls every part and parcel of a persons life. The judgment that Jesus imparts to the people occurs on the Last Day, not before, there is no rapture, as some teach, there is only the Last Day when Jesus comes to separate the sheep from the goats. We await that Day, we live for Him until that Day, and we do what a sheep does and not a goat. How do we know that we are a "sheep?" Jesus answers that question: The the King will say to those on His right hand, 'come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in'.....And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to y9u inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you do it to me" (Matthew 25:40). Christians do not make laws to control people, such as the Shiara Law of the Muslims, whereby women must wear shawls that cover their face, the burka a full body cloak worn by some Muslim women;or that you must pray towards Mecca five times a day, on a rug, and if you are not doing these things, and more, then you are subject to some form of punishment. The difference between Christianity and Islam is a wide chasm and the two are not compatible for Christians it is love that drives their lives: "For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another" (1John 3:11). John adds: "My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth" (1John 3:18). No where does the Scripture, Jesus, the Apostles, the writers of those Scriptures teach us that we are to go and win others by conquering the people and forcing them to believe in the Scriptures. This is not true of Islam, for the fight to win the nation and then because there are religio/Political, they form laws that fit the Qur'an and force people to obey those laws. 
     From the beginning in Acts when 3,000 people converted to Christianity by hearing the word of God preached to them, not forced by some armed fanatical army, rather by God giving to them the faith to have the ears to hear the truth that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, is the Son of God, and is the Savior that takes away the sin of the world, then spread the Gospel into Africa, Egypt, Europe, Turkey, and into India, and even China, with missionaries taking the Gospel to those people, the Gospel of love, that due to the love of God Jesus came and died for them, the world, and is calling out His people. But this is not true of Islam for they forced by armed men to conquer lands, and peoples, even to attempt to conquer Spain, but lost at the Tours:

October 10, 732 AD marks the conclusion of the Battle of Tours, arguably one of the most decisive battles in all of history. A Moslem army, in a crusading search for land and the end of Christianity, after the conquest of Syria, Egypt, and North Africa, began to invade Western Europe under the leadership of Abd-er Rahman, governor of Spain. Abd-er Rahman led an infantry of 60,000 to 400,000 soldiers across the Western Pyrenees and toward the Loire River, but they were met just outside the city of Tours by Charles Martel, known as the Hammer, and the Frankish Army. Not only did this prove to be an extremely decisive battle for the Christians, but the Battle of Tours is considered the high water mark of the Moslem invasion of Western Europe.The Islamic ideology warred and won the Arabian peninsula fighting into Turkey and into Spain making Baghdad the center for Islam. Christians that attempted to go to Jerusalem were killed or persecuted. Yes, there was attempts by Christians to retake Jerusalem, and there was splintering of the Church by the Eastern Orthodox divines, and the Roman Catholic Church divines, and the invasion of the Visogoths and Vandals that eventually captured Rome, and in all this the Muslims attempted and won in Arabia, and in the Turkish regions the lands and the peoples. Christians were teaching the Gospel; this is not to delve into the many things that the Church was doing that was wrong, (this is for another study), and many such men as was Augustine and others who held to the teaching of the Scriptures, holding fast to what the Bible taught, and not what the Church was teaching, and fought to teach love and truth. This was and is not true today of the Islamic faith. Their goal is total global submission to Islam. They will do whatever they need to do to win this war; sometimes openly fought, other times subversive, such as send many Islamic people into a nation and then have many children, and take over the rule of the city, and then the nation, make then laws that fit the Qur'an. 
     Yes the chasm is wide, but not impossible to traverse. We as Christians live our lives according to the Scriptures, and preach the Gospel whenever, or wherever we can, but we do not force anyone to become a believer in Jesus Christ. God chose before the foundation of the world who would be His children, and He uses common sense, and everyday circumstances to bring about His will, for He does not take away our humanity, only our humanity becomes in conformity with Him. John gives to us how we are to be: "Beloved, if God so loves us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God" (1John 4:11-15).
     While there is this great ideological and religious chasm between Islam and Christianity, this chasm can be transverse by the Gospel, teaching love, and living a life of love, and allowing the Holy Spirit to call out from among the world His children. We are to preach and teach, to make disciples, and this we do with the help of the Holy Spirit who goes before us and leads us, showing that our truth is not a forced truth but a truth from God through the death, resurrection, and ascension of God, the Son, who died to save all that the Father would give to His Son. 
     There is more to write, and this I will do in the next blogs, and to show the contrast between Christianity and Islam. 


You believe that there 
     is one God. You do well,
Even the demons believe--and tremble!
     But do you want to know,
O foolish man, that faith without
    works is dead?
                                James 2:19-20


Pray not just for yourself, for others by Intercession


Richard L. Crumb