5. Questions & Answers – Answering Islam Conference

Transcript

Andy Woods
Answering Islam Conference
Questions and Answers
Andy Woods–Shahram Hadian

Andy Woods: Let’s take a seat real quick. Let’s go ahead and have a seat and there were a lot of really good questions submitted so I kind of divided up the piles into the Shahram pile and the Andy pile, and Gomer’s pile too. [laugher] Shahram might want to kind of dovetail on this because I’m going to answer a couple of questions and he’s going to answer a couple of questions and we’re going to kind of go back and forth here and see how this goes.

But there were a lot of questions submitted about how to you approach a Muslim with the gospel type questions. And Shahram obviously knows Islam, much better than I do, but I would simply say this, kind of by way of summary: when you really boil everything down to its basics there’s only two proposed plans of salvation. Either man is trying to do something to earn favor from God, you know, he’s climbing up some kind of ladder through good works, which is what Islam basically teaches, your good works have to outweigh your bad works to be admitted into eternity. And that’s basically what you get in any religion that’s a non-biblical religion. And Christianity, of course, in that is A. God will never accept you because Isaiah 64:6 says that our works of righteousness are as filthy rags to Him. [Isaiah 64:6, “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”]

So as long as we’re in a mindset where we’re trying to do something to merit God’s favor we can never gain God’s acceptance. And also in that works oriented mindset there’s never any real assurance of salvation. I mean he mentioned it, most Muslims really don’t know if they’re really going to heaven or not so they’re always in a state of fear. And how different Christianity is where it’s not man trying to climb up to God, it’s God reaching down to man in the person of Jesus Christ.

And of course, Jesus’ final words on the cross were “It is” what? “finished!” and that’s a translation from the Greek word tetelestai [tetelestai] which means paid in full; tetelestai is in the perfect tense in Greek which basically means a one-time action in the past with ongoing benefits. So when you’re dealing with a Muslim, just like when you’re dealing with anybody else in a works orientation you want to focus on the singular death of Jesus Christ, and you receive that as a gift or you can’t come to God. And in the mind of God there’s only one way to receive a gift and that’s by what? Faith, because Romans 4:5 says, “To the one who does not work but” what? “believes.” And so, you know, I’ve had a couple of opportunities to witness to Muslims and that’s kind of, even though I’m not an expert on Islam and don’t know all the ins and outs of it the way Shahram does, that’s sort of where I spent my time focusing. And I was actually in the back of a limousine and the driver was Muslim and he could see I was studying my Bible and we got into a religious conversation and he started talking to me about all his works and all these things he has to do and you know, I kind of sat there listening to him politely until he finally let me talk. And by the way, he said he got all this from Jabril, and I couldn’t really understand through his accent who Jabril was, but then I finally figured out it was Gabriel. And you know, how Mohammed got this stuff from Gabriel, dah, dah dah dah dah.

And I said well, let me tell you how it works with my religion, so-called. In my system Jesus did everything for me, all these works that you’re doing he already did for me and He paid the price for all of my failures. And all I do is receive what He has done as a free gift. And he kind of paused for a second, and then he said, well, I think I like yours better. [laughter] So I think that’s the way to do it. But anyway, you want to add something to that.

Shahram: Well, no, again, as I encouraged, and Andy’s right, with Muslims, as I said, because you know, surprisingly there’s a lot of Muslims that don’t like the idea of having to lose their life and so they are always in a works situation; they are always trying to be a good Muslim. And I would say to some extent that was my family, you know, kind of our experience. So it is really important for what I understand in the sharing of the gospel that nothing I view can accomplish reaching God. It actually is a relief, it actually is freedom to understand because I knew growing up that I was really not a good Muslim. In fact, I would say that probably my early 20’s… I became a Christian when I was 28, probably in my early 20’s I would say I was becoming more agnostic, really, because I was witnessing what Islam was doing in Iran, and the more it was coming to me that if that’s God I don’t want anything to do with it, you know, God? And so praise God that that wasn’t the true God. And so the gospel was shared, but that’s very powerful and that’s why when I say Muslims really are under a tremendous bondage because of the fact that they are works oriented, they have no guarantee of salvation, and so they are really hungry, if they’re honest, for that path. And so I just echo what you said and sharing that. So you want to…

Well, a couple of questions that were asked, I thought I’d tackle a couple of these together, let’s see, there’s a couple of questions about global… well, first of all, someone asked a question about do Sunni’s and Shiites believe in Sharia Law? The answer is yes. In fact, in The Reliance of the Traveler, which is accepted, remember, this book is basically a thousand years of case law of Sharia, accepted as Islamic law, put together, and it addresses, even though it’s a Sunni source, this one, but it addresses Shiites in here, and it basically says to Shiites that we do agree on the majors of Islam. So in Iran the governor of Iran is established under Sharia law. And so on the majors of Islam they have a commonality. As I said, there are subtle differences when it comes to the textual aspect between Sunnis and Shiites.

The other question was do you see any kind of relationship between globalism and one-world government and Sharia law and Islam? And there was another question that talked about some of the globalists, like George Soros and the Muslim agenda. And we were talking to some people during the break that you see this connection between communism, between the globalist and between the Islamist, and there is a sort of behind the scenes cooperation working together. I don’t think it’s that the globalists want to become Muslims necessarily, it’s the fact that I think they think they can control the Muslims and use the Muslims in their agenda, because they have to have control and I don’t think there’s anything better on the planet for control than Islam, as far as how it controls. Right? So there is a commonality but I don’t think it’s that, you know, some of these globalists want to become Muslims, however, the question I guess is going to be in those last days which one is going to elevate? Which one is going to rise? Which one is going to be standing? Is it going to be the globalists or the Muslims, or maybe both?

But don’t be surprised at the cooperation, because they’re working hand in hand. I’ve even gotten that question about Obama or about others. Well, they tend to be socialist communists but then they claim to be Muslims; how can the two go hand in hand? Remember, Islam is a totalitarian system. Fascism, Communism, it’s a totalitarian system. So they very much work together; they very much have common ground. So that’s not a surprise and if you look at the United Nations it is very Islamized because of the influence of the OIC, of these Islamic countries. Remember a lot of money is at stake, a lot of power is at stake, and yes, it is about, as somebody said here, is it about destroying America, YES! It is about destroying America, they must bring down Europe, they must bring down America, they must bring down the sovereignty of these individual nations.

Andy Woods: Because my talk dealt with Gog, the Gog Magog invasion I got a few on that. Why do some very good Bible scholars say Gomer is Germany? And the reason largely people do stuff like that is they’re… it’s… I’m trying to collect my thoughts here, it’s taking similar sounding words and putting them together, whether they belong together or not, and that’s really no way to do biblical exegesis. But the other reason is they are kind of looking at the newspapers, so Adolf Hitler came from Germany, he’d be a pretty good antichrist. Gomer kind of sounds like Germany or German, so let’s just connect the two together.

And this is one of the reasons that our side of the ledger has been so criticized on the grounds of newspaper exegesis, where we look at the headlines and read it back into the Bible. There’s nothing wrong with looking at the headlines in the newspaper as long as we look at the Bible first. We need to be getting our ideas from the Bible, not taking our ideas to the Bible. And that’s why I was careful with identifying Gomer as Galatia based on the writings of Josephus. Josephus tells us where the Gomerites settled in his Antiquities. And once you do that analysis and figure out who all of these players are, you know, then it’s appropriate to look at the headlines and see how they fit, but let’s start with the Bible first.

Another question deals with the issue of why doesn’t Israel get it? The question asks: why are they so swept off guard by this battle that’s coming, this Gog/Magog invasion? And the answer to that is they are a nation in blindness as I speak. Now, there are individual Jews that get saved periodically in the church age and it’s wonderful when that happens, but that’s not the norm. Paul is very clear in Romans 11, 2 Corinthians 3, a lot of other verses that the nation of Israel is in a state of blindness. In fact, Paul is grieved by that. In fact, Paul says if I could be cut off from Christ so that my Jewish brethren could be won to Christ I would take that option. It’s an astounding statement.

And you can’t really expect spiritually blind people to have things figured out eschatologically. So they’re going to hitch their wagon to the wrong horse, if I can put it that way. They’re going to hitch their wagon to the antichrist, because when you ask a Jew today how come you don’t believe Jesus or Yeshua is the Messiah, and I’ve asked a lot of Jews this question, the answer is well, there’s no shalom. Now shalom means peace in Hebrew and when they use the word peace they’re not using it the way we as evangelical Christians use the word. When we talk about peace we talk about peace with God, peace in the heart, those types of issues. They’re talking about politics.

And so they look at their own nation in its perplexity and all of the problems they’re having and how they’re being bullied every which way and they say how could Jesus be the Messiah if our nation is in this condition? So God knocks us down so we look up. And that’s how He worked in all of our lives and the nation of Israel is in for a major knocking down. That’s the point of the tribulation period. God is bringing on them discipline. But the discipline that He’s bringing upon them should not be confused with the fact that He’s severing His ties from them. See, that’s the error of replacement theology. It’s just like your own children, right? Whom the Lord loves the Lord what? chastens. In fact, the chastening is proof that He owns us. Right? I’ve never disciplined the neighbor’s kids (I have thought about it on occasion) [laughter] but… I’ve never done that, but you discipline your own children because you love them and whether anybody likes it or not or replacement theologians agree with it or not, Israel, and I’ll talk a little bit about this in my session tomorrow, is the only nation in the history of mankind that has a covenant with God. It’s called the Abrahamic Covenant, and God cannot abrogate that covenant; it’s impossible for God to lie. So eventually they, the remnant, will come to faith, through a time of discipline and He will fulfill every single promise he’s ever made to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

How does Islam fit in with the last days prophecy of a counterfeit Christianity since it does not seem to be reasonable Christianity? Well, the reason Chrislam is taking off today is because we’re living in an era of watered down Christianity, where it’s really not true Christianity, it’s what Paul called in 2 Timothy a form of godliness but denies the power thereof. It’s in this culture spirituality is in, God talk is in, but being a Bible believer, a literal interpreter of the Bible, that’s out. And so the type of Christianity that’s being advocated today is really not Christianity. So as long as we have a spirituality that is not anchored in the Bible you can mix it and merge it with anything you want, including Islam, including this whole idea of Chrislam, you know, as if the two ideas go together at all. They don’t. The more literal you get with the Bible, and I’m looking forward to Shahram’s presentation tomorrow.

And one legal question, I do have a legal background, don’t hold that against me, it says the U.S. does not have a treaty with Iran. A treaty requires a congressional approval. And that’s absolutely correct, there should be two-thirds approval from the Senate, if I remember right, to have a treaty. So our deal with Iran is really not a treaty at all, it was the Corker legislation that got passed, where we were able to enter into this agreement with Iran without going through what the Constitution requires. And so because the Republicans went along with Obama they basically gave away their treaty power on this. And I totally agree with the question that it’s not a legitimate treaty under the Constitution.

And you know, I like the way the talk show host, Mark Levin describes this, we’re basically living in a post-constitutional republic, where the dominant theory that they’re taught in law school, and I’m a graduate of a law school, is that the Constitution is a living breathing evolving document which changes from one Supreme Court opinion to the next. So what is important is not the text of the Constitution in this paradigm what’s important is what the judge has just said. And we saw that just recently, didn’t we, in June with the gay rights decision. All of a sudden there’s this right for gay marriage in the Constitution, despite the fact that nobody ever saw that right in the Constitution before.

Well, how do you get that way? You buy into this living, breathing document idea that a judge can just morph at will and that’s the framework that we’re caught in. That’s the paradigm that we’re caught in. Most Americans, sadly, have bought into this and if you think the Constitution is a living breathing document that can change depending on what mood the Supreme Court happens to be in that particular day, and you only need five justices for a majority vote, then we really don’t have a Constitution. So until we get back to strict interpretation of the Constitution and demand that from our public official we’re really living in a post constitutional republic and things like this Iran deal, even though they’re repugnant to what the Constitution says, they become settled law. So it’s just a very sad state of affairs. That’s why we need more Christian lawyers out there; Nick Vancleave, I saw him in here somewhere, he’s going to be studying to be a lawyer, and we need more Christians going into politics and we need more Christians teaching in the law schools, so we can get back to the foundations of America.

Shahram Hadian: If I could make a quick note on that, the lawyers themselves need to actually read the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. The problem is that in a lot of law schools when I talk to lawyers they barely studied the Constitution, what they study is case law. And that’s what basically the courts have become. And case law is strictly prohibited within the Constitutional boundaries. That’s why the seventh amendment to the Bill of Rights specifically addresses that every decision by every court in the United States is subject to the common law. But the problem was what common law is today is not what it was at our founding. Common law was predicated upon divine law or higher law. That’s why we have the Ten Commandments. Remember those?

And today we’ve kicked them out and it’s on case law, and that’s exactly… I mean, when you look at Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent from the Obergefell decision that Andy’s talking about, he basically said there’s a judicial putsch, he used the word putsch which means a judicial overthrow. So the republic as we know, and I’m so glad you’re bringing this up, the republic as we know is gone because you have now tyranny, judicial tyranny, you have executive tyranny, and I was just talking to someone during the break, when I was running for Governor in 2011 I was telling people we’re on the verge of a dictatorship. People thought I was nuts. And you have the legislative branch that should have the powers to hold both accountable and you have spineless, wimples people… like he says, it’s the Republicans that didn’t stop the Iran deal, they could have easily stopped the Iran deal and they didn’t. This is why, we don’t even know our history of what our… how many of us, we use the term democracy. We were never supposed to be a democracy.

There’s a couple of questions that I got on the immigration issue again. One question was how aware are Muslims of the aspect of the Hijra, that aspect of migrating populating and segregating. If they’re connected to the mosque, if the Muslim is devout enough to go to the mosque they’re very well aware of the call of Hijra, meaning that when the call comes for there to be migration to other countries they’re very well aware of that. Now you could argue again that well, what percentage of Muslims in America understand this. It depends on what numbers you look at. I will argue that over 50% of Muslims in America are fairly secular, fairly agnostic, but most of the people that are in these enclaves that get formed are refugees coming in. They’re not the second or third generation Muslims that have been here and have been more westernized; a lot of them are coming in as refugees, or they’re coming in with that cultural context and establishing their enclave and they know very well what they’re supposed to do which is to not assimilate.

That’s the biggest thing about migration, it isn’t just that they migrate, because they’re going to populate anyway, they’re going to have lots of children anyway, but the biggest thing is that they’re supposed to segregate themselves. And that’s really where doctrine comes in and that’s what’s being promoted from the mosque. It’s the mosque that would tell them listen, be careful not to integrate too much into the culture. Does that make sense? That’s kind of a long-term strategy that we’ve seen. And when you look at Europe, when you look at the fact that you have now… that was another question, was about Europe, let me see where that one was. There was a question about Europe, does Europe know how much in trouble it is?

Well, let me address this. Texas seems to be high on the immigration replacement list, where will these immigrants be relocated, to what size groups of people. The problem is we don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know. The problem is, like in Idaho, when I was in Idaho we got pressure on the Governor’s office to look into this. The Governor’s office then called back and says that some of the State legislatures, we don’t know, call your Congress people. We called the Congress people, we don’t know, it’s the State Department. We contacted the State Department they’ll tell you we don’t know, it’s the United Nations, they’re the ones that are picking the refugees, we’re just tasked with trying to vet them before they come.

So the community, one of the reasons why some of these communities are up in arms, like in Twin Falls, Idaho, is because they have no clue, nor can they get information from the refugee center. In fact, in Twin Falls they did a public information request of the refugee center to look at their contract because the process has to work where these sponsoring agencies, these predominant… these nine major sponsoring agencies, they sign a contract with the federal government to sponsor the refugees coming in. And they can’t operate unless there’s a refugee center. Does that make sense? And the way it works is that the refugee center, they can only place refugees within a hundred miles of that refugee center. So like in Spokane right now World Relief is offering a refugee center. Well, World Relief isn’t telling people that they’re getting over 60% of their budget from federal grant money. So it’s not Christian charity. And they’re the ones who are placing refugees.

Well, they signed the contract and they’re not telling people who are coming in and how many. In Twin Falls they got notice that they’re getting 300 Syrian refugees yet the refugee center refuses to release the information. When the public records request was done they got the notice back from the refugee center and I read the request and the response, and literally the refugee center said to them that we cannot reveal this information because it’s a trade secret. You go WHAT? A trade secret? We can’t find out who’s coming into our community, where they’re coming from? No. Even some law enforcement do not know that. So the answer to that question is can conservative areas expect refugees? Yes. Are you going to get much notice? No. That’s the whole tactic, that’s on purpose. You know why that’s on purpose? Think about it; they don’t want time for you to be able to mobilize a response. They don’t you to have warning because they know that if there’s time for warning the citizens may get together and actually resist it. And they don’t want that to happen. That’s intentional from the White House.

And by the way, one of the things I forgot to mention earlier, the gal that Obama put at the helm of the Refugee Resettlement Program, is the former vice director of La Raza, anybody here in Texas know who La Raza is? That’s the group, the race that believes in open borders, full amnesty, full benefits for illegals, let them be in the military, let them vote, on and on. That’s who’s heading up the Refugee Resettlement Program. And they have literally said, they call it the seeding of communities, that’s what they’re calling it. We’re seeding communities of refugees fully expecting those refugees to seed and grow and take over that community.

So it’s not an accident, it is intentional. And you have to understand that. So you have to put utmost pressure on your State legislature, that’s what we’re trying to do in Idaho, forget the feds, they’re not going to… I mean, there’s a bill that your Congressman Bayven has over here that’s gotten twenty something signatures, but the Republicans in the Senate. But the Republicans in the Senate don’t have the spine to stand for it. Other than Cruz, I don’t know where Rand Paul stands on it. So your fight, I believe, is at the State and local level. Just like Mayor Van Dyne who passed that ordinance banning Sharia law, we have gotten eight states, or nine states I think it is now, where they’ve passed the American Law [can’t understand word] to ban foreign law, but I think that the solution is more at the local level. Really fighting it with your mayors, with your city council, county commissioners. But push pressure on your State Legislature, have them threaten to… listen, you and I know how this works, right? It’s money, it’s money, it’s money. The moment the states stand up to the federal government the threat is money, we’ll cut off your funding for this, we’ll cut off your funding for that.

We need some state legislators and some governors to say to the federal government, go ahead, we could care less, cut off our funding, we’re not going to do this anymore. [clapping] And so that pressure has to come from down up into your legislature.

Let me tell a couple more. What can we expect with mosques; the mosques that’s coming into your community. Well, if a mosque is coming into your community you can expect that it will be a recruiting center, you won’t know about it. You can expect that it is a hub of activity. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood has said according to the explanatory memorandum that the Islamic Center is the access, the central point of their plan for the community. There is their dawa going on, their evangelism, they’re recruiting, they’re staging for going to the next level. You’re going to see increased traffic, a lot of times they try to put mosques in residential areas and if you guys have a chance, really push against that because if you find out there’s a mosque coming into a residential area go and use ordinances that deal with sound, traffic, things like that to push them back out, because you will see that neighborhood change if a mosque comes in. Traffic patterns, sound patterns, a lot of Muslims will buy houses or rent around the mosque. And then the whole neighborhood shifts. So you really have to try to resist it as we can; if we had federal law enforcement that we could actually get some prosecution you could actually go after some of those mosques. But it is unfortunately where it’s their hub and we have to try to pray against them.

By the way, I do believe in actually the power of prayer, right? So if you know there’s a mosque coming in your area, get a prayer team together and start prayer walking that property. You believe in binding, right? Let’s bind, let’s just pray against this spirit and say Lord, if there’s a way, we want to pray against the spirit of Islam in this neighborhood, in this community, I pray this mosque never comes to the light of day, I pray that there’s financing problems, I pray that there are zoning problems. Can we pray that way? Are we allowed to pray that way? Those darn imprecatory prayers, right? And I’ve had testimony where it’s worked. There’s been places where mosques have been standing still, it’s just been an empty lot for two or three years because Christians have actually prayed and asked the Lord to not allow that to go there and their activity.

Let me just take one more here, let’s see. This is an easy one, what is a Muslim? Remember that I said that a Muslim is one who is surrendered to Islam. So Muslim is not a…people say a racist, if you’re against Muslims, that’s idiotic, forgive me, right, because a Muslim is not a race. Does that make sense. A Muslim is a religion, because you have Muslims from all over the world. So a Muslim is one who is a submitted follower of Allah, who is submitted to Islam specifically.

Now people are born into Islam because under Islamic, remember if you’re born to a Muslim father you are a Muslim, not so to a Muslim mother, by the way. But if you’re born to a Muslim father… that’s why, by the way, I was talking, we were talking at dinner, the number one recruiting in America right now is in the prisons. Blacks are getting converted to Islam in the prisons, there’s many reasons for that, spiritually, but also because the Muslim chaplains get way more carte blanche access than Christian chaplains are being given.

Number 2, its Hispanics in prison and the number three demographic for conversions in America are young white women on college campuses, for getting converted to Islam. A lot of times through dating, because under Islamic law the Muslim man can date and marry a non-Muslim women and the children will still be Muslim under Islamic law. It doesn’t matter what the religion of the woman is, it matters what the religion of the man is. And I’ve heard many, many horror stories.

Can you explain the connection between Benghazi, the Brotherhood and our government? And did the Clintons play a role in the PLO? How much more can I say about the Clintons. It’s a matter… as I said earlier, for me it’s not a matter of politics on this issue, folks, it’s a matter of criminality, it’s a matter of lawlessness. It, to me, when I watch Hillary Clinton testify before Congress about Benghazi, claiming that it was a Muslim video, you remember what happened, right? It was the video that did it. When they fully knew, she lied to the family, they fully knew that it was an Islamic element, it wasn’t spontaneous, and as I told you, there’s direct evidence now that it was to cover up funding, whether guns and or money, to the so-called moderate rebels in Syria that is now ISIS. So we funded that but, you know, not only does she lie at the burying of the e-mails, classified mail, I mean, it’s just incredible. To me, as I said, you feel like it’s just a bizarre world we’re living in. We have somebody that should be in prison or at least under arrest and under indictment by the FBI and she’s going to be probably the nominee for the Democrat party. So that’s how I feel about the Clintons.

We don’t think that the Muslim Brotherhood had a direct connection with Benghazi specifically because a lot of the evidence is pointing out to al-Qaeda, however, I’ve talked to some reporters who thought Iran may have played a role in it because the El Kutz Division of Iran, that’s Hezbollah, they’re very sophisticated, they have their hand in many things, including in Venezuela, in Mexico, and working with the cartels I mentioned earlier. But there’s no doubt that our government had a cover-up in that and that’s something that has to come to the light of day at some point, at some way, because it is criminal. The blood of four people there and the blood of all those people. I think that’s it for me.

Andy Woods: I’ll be real quick, I promise. This one: should we hate Muslims when the Bible says to love your brother? And the answer of course is absolutely 100% no, we don’t hate Muslims, we hate Islam which is enslaving people. And I fully understand the temptation to transfer hate of a theology or a doctrine to a person; we all struggle with that. If you struggle with that as we all sometimes do, I would really challenge you to read the book of Jonah a couple of times, because that’s really what the whole book is about. You know, Jonah is mad at God because He dared to have grace to the Assyrians and he pouts and so forth and it’s supposed to be a humorous book to show us how silly we can get. And sometimes I have been guilty of getting my kingdoms confused. You know, my kingdom ultimately is heaven and I love America and if you’d cut me open I’d bleed red, white and blue probably. But ultimately I can’t become so patriotic, you know, zeal for patriotic things that I forget that Muslims are souls for whom Christ died and so we need to keep that straight as we all understand.

Here is a wonderful question: I’m a single person who hopes to one day have children. I want to enroll them in public school since I enjoyed it very much. After hearing about the corruption of public schools do you think it would be unwise to do that? My wife and I have kind of gone thru and odyssey on this. I’m a product of public schools; my wife went to some Christian school and some public school. But the fact of the matter is both of us prayerfully came to the conclusion that what’s being done in public schools today is totally different than what the two of us faced in the 80’s. And a couple of things really convicted us. One was the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6 and verse 4, which is the Hebrew shema, which in Hebrew means listen. And it’s talking there in those verses, verse 4, or 5, 6, 7, about train up your own children.

[Deuteronomy 6:4-7, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is one God, the LORD is one! [5] You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. [6] These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. [7] You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.”]

You know, when you walk along the way, when you rise up, when you lie down, it’s this idea that you’re with them, teaching them spiritual things every moment of the day. And that is a job that God gave to parents. And it’s not a job you can outsource. [clapping] And a couple of things really shook us, the two of us as a couple. In all honesty the first thing that really shook us up was the re-election of our current President. I, in my wildest dreams never thought Obama would get re-elected. I thought he could get elected because anybody can be fooled once, right? Remember Jimmy Carter and all of that kind of stuff. And then the country corrected it. And I honestly thought into that election that the same thing was going to happen, there was going to be a correction. And to see Obama not only get elected but re-elected was really something that was very unsettling for me. And I started thinking very carefully that there’s something going on in these schools where kids spend most of their time, altering their worldview.

And then the second thing that happened, and I think the gentleman over here brought a copy of it, it’s the… and I encourage everybody to watch this video, it’s a video called The Agenda, by Curtis Bowers, and there’s a brand new one that just came out, called Agenda 2 and it documents the shift in our public schools and how public schools are being used strategically by the adversary to alter the worldview of our children.

And so those two things have pushed us as a couple in the direction of home schooling, and I see the sweat my wife, who bears most of that burden, goes through, I know it’s a difficult choice to make but in all honesty, now that we’re into the third grade with our daughter I can it’s one of the single best things we’ve ever done as a couple and it’s paid massive, massive dividends. And I realize that everybody is in a different situation economically, something may work for us but not you, but really think about the direction of our country. Deuteronomy 6:4-7 and what these public schools do to children in terms of changing their worldview. [Deuteronomy 6:4-7, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is one God, the LORD is one! [5] You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you might. [6] These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. [7] You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up”]

And are you willing to stand before God where God says I gave you the most precious thing to be a steward of that I could possibly give, the mind of your own children, that’s your responsibility. What did you do with that?

And then one last question, and with this we’re finished. How are Christians to deal with the refugee crisis in light of, and it quotes a verse here from the Sermon on the Mount, love your enemy, those who persecute you, that kind of thing. What we’re seeing today… you know when I was growing up the big deal was the religious right, and today what we’re seeing is the religious left. I would say the religious left is just as influential, if not more influential, than the religious right was. The religious right was people that took Bible verses to support a right wing agenda and the religious left is a group of people that take Bible verses to support a left wing agenda. And you know you’re dealing with the religious left because they’re always quoting the Sermon on the Mount and applying that to government.

Well listen, the Sermon on the Mount deals with one man’s relationship to another. That’s what all of that stuff about blessed are the peacemakers, turn the other check, is dealing with. It’s not talking about the relationship between government and humanity. And so they’re using the wrong Bible verses. If you want to understand our relationship to government you look at other passages like Romans 13, and this particular questions talks about the refugee crisis. If you want to understand God’s mind on the subject of the nation’s state you don’t go to the Sermon on the Mount, you go to Genesis 11 where God intentionally disrupted world government at the tower of Babel through the confounding of the various languages. And what that brought into existence was the idea of different ethnicities, cultures, nations, countries.

And the reason God did it that way is because absolute power corrupts and absolute power corrupts what? absolutely! So what God did is He divided power up amongst these different nations, which act as a check and balance on each other. And given man’s corrupted nation that check and balance system is the only thing that prevents mad men from gaining control over the whole world. And as imperfect as the American system of government is that’s one of the things that’s kept us afloat for the last 200 plus years, is our founders were smart enough, baaed (I believe) on their study of the Bible and history to divide political power up. So God is pro nation state, He is anti globalism.

The antichrist is pro globalism, Satan is pro globalism, and Satan’s agenda is really to recreate the tower of Babel, where he wants to rule over one man and one man will rule over the planet just like the devil was ruling over Nimrod, the builder at the tower of Babel. Nimrod in Hebrew actually means revolt or rebellion. Satan would rule over him and he would rule over the world and remember what God said there in Genesis 11, I think it’s around verse 4, if this arrangement continues nothing will be impossible for them. [Genesis 11:4, “They said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’ [5] The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. [6] The LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.”]

And it’s not talking about the possibility for good, it’s talking about the possibility for evil. So God disrupted the process by decentralizing power. So when you get into this subject of nations you have to understand that God is the one that worked in history to create different nations as a check and balance on man’s sin nature and his desire to get control of everything, because if one nation goes astray then other nations can arise and oppose the evil in that one nation. So there’s a built-in sort of check and balance system. And given that, and I’m getting close to wrapping up here, but given that fact there are three things you have to have for a nation. Number 1, you have to have a common language. Number 2, you have to have a common culture. And Number 3, you have to have borders. You deny any of those three you don’t have a nation any more. And so what is being challenged with this refugee issues, things that Shahram has been bringing up, is those three basic principles are being attacked over and over and over again. And I look at it as a direct assault on the nation-state.

So I’m not going to the Sermon on the Mount to develop my doctrine of government, I’m going to other passages and I’ve tried to explain where that philosophy comes from. You know, we’ve got to start looking at the right passages to formulate the right thoughts on things.

Shahram Hadian: [can’t understand word] really quick too, because I’ve been asked this question because I’ve been dealing with the refugee situation so much recently and the idea of asylum, the idea of a place of refuge, we could argue that God did establish in the Old Testament the idea that there would be places of refuge. However, as Andy said, when you have a lawless system… so personally I’m not against the idea of legitimate asylum, that a nation would be compassionate to have a system in place where people that are being persecuted and they’re fleeing persecution, would come in a legitimate manner to seek a situation of refuge. That’s not what this is. This is an invasion. Let’s be honest about what this is. Remember I said to you over 75% of the people coming into Europe now are young angry men.

This is not a refuge, this is not about compassion. This is an invasion and that’s so well said, what he just said about those three conditions. I never thought about it that way, that’s excellent. So we have to understand and my challenge to my brothers and sisters in Christ, particularly the liberal ones, is then why are you not upset about the fact that Christians are not being let into the country. If you’re so upset about the Muslims and want me to have compassion about the onslaught of Muslims being dumped in, in an illegal manner, in a manner that has no accountability, with no track of money, no vetting process, it’s a national security threat, we have no borders, we have no laws in place, then why are we not concerned about our brothers and sisters in Christ.

You can’t have it both ways, right? You can’t have selective compassion, you don’t just apply compassion to one group and not the other. If you’re going to use that argument, and I a hundred percent agree with Andy as well as far as understanding civil authority. We, as Christians, cannot operate in lawlessness; you can’t say let’s just open the door and let everybody in. My question to those Christians would be would you open the doors to your house and say I’m just going to let anybody that comes off the street into my house, without a background check, without knowing who they are, without knowing if they have a disease or not, without knowing if they’re a criminal or not, and I’m just going to trust my family into their hands. Would that make any sense?

Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing with our nation and with these communities—let’s welcome them all in and we’ll figure it out later. Please let us not be naïve enough to think that’s what the intention of this government is. It is to collapse the system. Why is Merkel in Germany allowing two million Muslim refugees into Germany? That’s suicide for Germany. One of the questions, the last question we had here was is it true that some of these European countries are revolting? Yes, it’s true. As I said, Norway deporting people, Hungary saying hey, we’re a Christian nation, we’re closing our borders. There are Europeans now that are scrambling, saying how can we defend ourselves? Folks, they’re being assaulted, attacked, raped, murdered.

And can I bring one more verse up, I appreciate Andy’s thoughtful answer about the whole question of education, and my wife and I came to the same conclusion three years ago, to home school our children and it’s been very challenging at times, but it’s been incredibly rewarding. My kids travel with us sometimes, we have so much time together. But the Lord actually brought another verse, interestingly enough to me, to convict me and my wife, and it’s a verse that a lot of times pastors will use to justify us as Christians going along with whatever government does, no matter what they do. It’s Luke 20, talking about rendering unto Caesar. I’ve had so many pastors who tell me, well, Jesus says render unto Caesar that which is to be returned unto Caesar, right? The word there in the Greek, render, implies that which is returned, so something was given to you and you’re returning back, it doesn’t belong to you. And I always ask the same pastor, pastor, what’s the second half of the verse? And then return unto God or render unto God that which belongs to God. [Mark 12:17, “And Jesus said to them, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.’”]

So we have to ask certain questions. For example, does your religious expression, your religious worship belong to Caesar or belong to God. Some of you aren’t sure about that, take your time. God, right, and not only because the first amendment says so, it’s because inherently God commands us to worship Him. Right. If we love Him we obey His commands and one of His commands is to.. the great and foremost command is to “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength.” [Mark 12:30, AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH..”]

Number 2, what about your conscience? Does that belong to Caesar or to God? What about your marriage? So what the Supreme Court did, not only was it unconstitutional, it was against the very laws of nature and nature’s God, which is espoused in the Declaration of Independence which birthed this nation, the aspect of standing on the higher law of God. You see, government has no authority to step into the jurisdiction that God has said don’t touch it. And the moment we do that everything gets messed up and you have tyranny and you have abuse, not just the rights of the people but of God Himself.

And lastly, I ask you, and this is where we got convicted, do your children belong to government or to God? So if the Lord has given me my children to steward, over my dead body am I going to let the government indoctrinate them, personally speaking folks, this is my personal conviction [clapping] and so I know, like Andy said, there are single moms, there are people that work, it’s a difficult situation, but all I can encourage you is pray and ask the Lord, if you have children, grandchildren, if you have to have them in public school you need to have a major support system around them; you need to be on them every day to find out what they’re being indoctrinated in, because you know what, right now the biggest challenge in schools are, beside all the indoctrination into the homosexuality and all the transgender stuff. One of the things I taught at church was the fact that under common core they’re using the gingerbread man to teach trans fluidity, sexual fluidity, they use the mind of the ginger… by the way, is it the gingerbread man, it’s the gingerbread person, and they’re teaching kids that, you know, as far as your intellect there is no absolutes, everything’s fluid, as far as your sexual identity there are no absolutes, everything is fluid. That’s the new term by the way, you guys know that, right? It’s trans fluid, it’s not just transgender any more, it’s now trans fluid.

So, you know, I’m a boy, I’m a girl, today I feel like a boy, tomorrow I feel like a girl, and our government is now saying to the public schools, to the parks, to us as teachers we don’t care about the rights of your children, because some kid wants to come into the girls locker room and believes that they’re a girl on that day, we need to fully accommodate them. In the city of Spokane, we just had this happen last year at the City Council and we went in and testified and saying listen, you know that predators, sexual predators, pedophiles are going to jump on this. Oh, you guys ae so bigoted and backward, and that’s what we got from the city council. That’s what you kids are going to be facing in school.

So, like Andy is saying, what we see in common core, what we see in the education system, what we see in these things it is no longer just, you know, neutrality, it is a blatant mindset to bring everybody under one way of thinking. And that’s why you’re seeing such a challenge with the next generation and with that, you know, I think that it’s a very tough choice. It’s very… and I know, please hear my heart on this, it’s a very personal choice and I know that, but I think it’s something that we really need to pray about and the church needs to pray about, of how to support families, because the upbringing education is foremost. And with that I will turn my time over to you and if you guys, if you have questions, more questions tomorrow we’ll do our best to be at the table a little bit early and we hope you can come back and join us and our card is there.

Yes ma’am. [someone says something, can’t hear] Oh, it wasn’t a CD, it was a tape, it was actually a sermon from a church, the pastor had done a few part series and one part was on why Jesus Christ was crucified, and then the other part was on the need for the resurrection; what was the impact of the resurrection and very powerful, but it was a tape from that church that was given to me.

Andy Woods: I’ve heard also from two Cuban refugees the story that Fidel Castro, when he took over Cuba, targeted the schools and one of his liaisons or henchmen would go into the school and say okay, kids, everybody bow your heads and pray to God for ice cream. And then they’d open their eyes and there’d be no ice cream, and then this same, I guess teacher, would say okay, now bow your heads and pray to Fidel for ice cream, and the ice cream truck shows up. See, that shows you the demonic, wicked targeting of the youth through compulsory education, what it can do. And this is right out of Fidel Castro’s blueprint. And we just have to become more discerning as Christians and start seeing things for what they are. And I just kind of submit that to you for your consideration. Those are very saddening story that shook me up when I heard it from two different individuals.

Well, you guys have been a phenomenal congregation and Shahram has been a phenomenal speaker, let’s give him one more round of applause.

Shahram: thank you… thank you. The Lord gets the credit.

Andy Woods: And I hope you can come back at 9:45 a.m. where we’re going to get two more sessions.

Shahram: I thought tonight we were supposed to be on Persian time, it’s Saturday night, it’s only 10:00 o’clock, you guys are leaving? [laughter]

God bless!