How the Bible Led Me to Islam – 1of2

Bismillah

MI, Nikita buena Daffy, who then

Salam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah he was happy he

was

the hula Sharif.

Abu rasuluh

insha Allah, I'm going to try to do the best job that I can to tell my story in leave enough time for q&a. And also understanding that tomorrow is a work day. I'm going to try to compress the story as much as possible for brevity sake, because anyone who's actually seen the full story, maybe on YouTube or on the dean show, it can go well over an hour and a half to two hours. But we will compress it in Sharla. Just to let you know,

I was born and raised in the East Coast of the United States in South Carolina, in a in a very small town called Greenville, Greenville, South Carolina, which is in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, very close to North Carolina. I was raised by my grandparents. My mother had stepped out my father was working two jobs between South Carolina and New York. So my grandparents raised me my grandmother is a descendant of Irish immigrants and my grandfather, full blooded, Native American Indian.

They were both very religious in the sense that we were raised Methodists, and we were very involved in the church involved in Sunday, Sunday evenings, Wednesday was the evenings, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day services, thanksgiving services, Easter Sunday, Sunday services, whatever services they're really going on. We were there. The church was at the end of my road, which wasn't very hard. There were two churches on both ends of my road.

And growing up, I really knew most of what most people know about Christianity growing up, which are the stories such as Noah and the ark, and Abraham and his sons and the story of creation, Moses and the children of Israel and Pharaoh and David and Goliath and Jesus and feeding the multitude with the fish in the loaves of bread, the Sermon on the Mount the Bua tides, the, the trial, death, crucifixion or crucifixion, death, resurrection story of Jesus, the writings of Paul the travels of Paul, you know, all of these well known stories throughout the Bible. I also understood the concept of Jesus being the Forgotten Son of God, why didn't maybe didn't understand it, but knew the concept

of Jesus being the son of God who was given as a sacrifice as a perfect sacrifice for the sins of humanity, which those sins being inherently born into every human being due to our forefather atoms fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, so on and so forth. This is what I knew about Christianity growing up.

When I started becoming involved in Christianity was when I turned 14, and started attending the youth services, our church, because the youth services were completely different than normal Methodist services, Methodist services. You know, were very boring to me as a child because all you did was listen to the preacher you stood up and sang you listen to the preacher, you stood up and saying, and that was pretty much the gist of it. But in Sunday, sir, Saturday evening, Youth Services, we played games and volleyball and basketball than this, the youth pastor who lived across the street from me, would give us a 30 to 45 minute sermon, you know, relating to youth issues,

something that we could understand in languages that I understood with context that I understood. And then when I started going to high school, I started to go to school with the youth pastor, the youth pastor was a senior in high school and I was a freshman did not have my license yet, but I started getting a ride with him to school, due to my grandmother having cancer.

And we became very good friends. And he started to take me to other things called young life. Young Life is

a Christian youth organization run by youth put on by youth, completely evangelical, more Pentecostal more, you know, holding his preaching, you know, speaking in tongues, you know, all of these things healing and

at this point, I would say that I kind of fell in love with Christianity, and became emotionally attached to the religion. And I decided at this point in my life, that I wanted to do what I saw my friend, the youth pastor doing, I wanted to minister the Word of God. I wanted to go on to become a youth minister, an ordained minister, a missionary. I wanted

Do what I saw those young men and women at young life doing, I wanted to help people. Because I saw how much they were helping me.

It wasn't until the summer of 1996, that things kind of changed. In 96, my friend had graduated high school, and he went on to attend a Bible College in my hometown. Now, even though Greenville is a small town in a small state, the Bible College is known worldwide amongst Christian academia, and it's called Bob Jones University. And Bob Jones University is well known even amongst the academic here, such as an Oxford and Cambridge, etc, which I've had the opportunity to go and lecture there and speak with some of the professors and they know about Bob Jones University is world renowned for its academia. When it comes to Biblical Studies. His field of focus was textual criticism, and

textual criticism is a field that would really take me an hour just to kind of brush it over. But basically, to for all of you to understand all of my Muslim brothers and sisters, a textual critic can be compared to a Muhammad death, in a sense, because what does it have to do? a hadith is someone who seeks to understand the statements of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, and find out about their evidence and chains of transmission to really the real goal is to find out whether the Prophet peace be upon him really said this or not. And there are different There are over numbering over 50 sciences to verify one single narration, a text a textual critic of the Bible

attempts to do the same thing, which is to find the validity of biblical documents. The problem with textual criticism is unlike the muhaddith. The muhaddith has a science known as the science of is not following the chain who is who said from who said, from who said, when it came when it comes to the Bible, there is no from who said who did who said there's no internet whatsoever.

And there is no real science. Other than you know, we study them from the original document and what we're not original documents, but the documents that we have leftover. And those documents the oldest exists existing documents which the total cat tally is held in Germany, it's numbering over 6000, over 6000 documents of the what is now known as the Bible. And they are not in a full agreement with one another no matter who tells you that amongst weak Christian academics who have some

muster about themselves will agree with you that they are not in congruent with one another. They are variances, differences, opinion there are contradictions there are misunderstandings about what is said and who said it and how he said it and what was meant and so on and so forth. So the textual critic basically does the best that they can do to derive what may have been the author's original thought when they wrote down the book. That is a textual critics job.

And when he decided to become a textual critic, he told me it was because if I'm going to preach the Word of God, I want to preach it with authority. And the best authority I can have this to know the book at its source to know the book at its source. And so being that I was his apprentice in every respect of the word, I decided that I wanted to go to Bob Jones, I wanted to study textual criticism, I wanted to become a biblical scholar, I wanted to preach the gospel of Jesus with authority, I wanted to know the word of God in and out left and right forward and backward, from the linguistic point of view, from the historical point of view all of these things.

So for the next three years, I told them, you're going to tell me everything that you know, everything that you learned, you're going to pass it down to me, so that when I go to Bob Jones, I will be three years of heavier than everyone else, because I have always been somewhat of a perfectionist. And it's my wife says it's an OCD that I have, and oh, an excessive compulsive disorder of perfection. And it drives her absolutely nuts, that I have to have things perfect. I have to do everything to the best of my ability. And if it's not the best of my standards, I get very frustrated. And I get very annoyed. And it's just the way I am. So I wanted to do things to the

best. I wanted to be three years ahead of everybody else in my freshman class when I went to Bob Jones. In the summer of 96. My friend came to me the youth minister.

And he asked me a question that would change my life. He asked me Joshua, which I was born Joshua, and I'm still Joshua, the name you Shara is just the Arabic equivalent of Joshua. I don't know why when they changed all of the names to Anglo Saxon, they replaced all of the wise with Jays. But he told me Joshua, have you ever read the Bible?

Now this was a very silly question at this time, because not only was I helping him do his job, I was also taking over part time for him as a youth minister. So for him to ask me am I have I ever read the book was a pretty silly question. I said, Of course I've read it. He said, How have you read it? So what do you mean have I read it? He said, Have you read it? And I asked him, I said, just get to the point. He said, Have you read the Bible the same way you will

read a novel. If you read a novel, where do you start?

You start at the beginning. And when do you finish? When you get to the end? Do you skip from chapter one to chapter six to chapter two to chapter 15? No, you read it from beginning to end. And when you finish the book, you can pretty much tell me what the story is about who are the major characters? What is the the the the plot or the subplot? how it comes, you could summarize it, you could write a report about it, you could you could sum it up for me, you know the book pretty well. He said, Have you ever read the Bible like this? And I said, Absolutely not. Because this is not the normal way. Most people read the Bible, because the word Bible is derived from the Latin biblio,

which means a collection of books. It's a lot of books put together. So to read a lot of books put together, one after another after another. It's it's somewhat of a tough read, especially when you start getting into the middle of the Old Testament, you start getting to some of the historical kings of Israel and things of this nature, it is a very tough read like that.

So I told him, I've never read the Bible like this. I have read the New Testament and fiddled around in the Old Testament where I needed to be I had a Scofield Reference Bible at the time, which gave me all the reference points that I thought to be necessary. He said, I have a challenge for you. Let's take the summer of 96. Let's start in Genesis and read Revelation, and see what God says to us. Because at this point in my life, I truly had believed that God was one, but in three unique percentages, meaning God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, these three were one, and that the Holy Spirit was the gift given to every believer who believed in Christ's sacrifice on

the cross. And that was part of God that dwells inside of every believer. Therefore, if we had the Holy Spirit, living in us, the Bible, which we thought to be the inerrant Word of God, at this time, should be able to speak to me. So he said, let's see what the Bible says to you and I, and we'll come out of the end, and we will compare. I said, Okay, so I started the summer of 96. This lets you know how much of a nerd I was in the summer of 96. And 96, I started to read the Bible in Genesis. And if I were to tell you everything that I saw, that led me to make such life changing decisions, I would keep you here for hours and hours and hours. That's why there's a table of DVDs in the back,

which I have authored many DVDs on these various subjects, which are not even half through, I'm not even halfway done yet. And I'm at 25 DVDs, so it's quite a lot. I'm going to give you the highlights. You guys know what the highlights are. You watch football, right? highlights, they show you the amazing plays that happened what was really a game changer. And so I'm going to give you the game changers in sha Allah.

The biggest thing that really affected me was more or less the stories of the prophets were the biggest things that really started to affect me. Now my friend Benjamin was learning the Hebrew and Greek at the time he was studying these languages because a textual critic has to know the languages of Hebrew, the ancient Hebrew, what is known as koine. Greek, he has to know Latin, Syriac, Aramaic is a subject that a proficient textual critic should know, but is a very difficult language to learn. Because there are really only two villages in Syria that speak pure city, earth, Pete speak pure Aramaic anymore. He will show me things in the language perspective that caught me my

attention, but we're going to leave them out for now just for the sake of the lack of time, the stories of the prophets really caught my attention. And what do I mean by the stories of the prophets? Well, growing up, you know, I had this image about the prophets of God that you know, these are good people. These are people God sent to humanity, to teach them the Word of God and teach them God's way of life and to tell us what we need to know.

When I read the stories of the prophets in the Old Testament, it was a quite a stark contrast to what I had always assumed. And of course, I'm giving you my story assumptions I'm giving you it personally. When I read the story of Noah, how many of you here know Noah? How many of you know know, if you don't know that we have some work to do.

He said, and peace be upon him, the first prophet and messenger of God, preach for almost 1000 years, very few people listen to him. Same story you'll find in the Bible, there's a different story of finding the Bible. And just for a disclaimer, I have to because of the fact we have children in the room, I have to summarize some of the stories because they're not PG. They're not rated for young ears.

There's one story about Noah after the flood,

that he found out that if you take grapes and put them in a container and let them from it, whatever, they become a very delicious drink that makes you feel very lovely, called wine. And there's a story about Noah becoming intoxicated, to the point to where his two sons went to look for him. And you will find these and I don't want to give you every single point in reference that want you to go do a little bit of homework. You'll find these stories in Genesis not going to tell you the chapter verse number, go do some looking, go do some searching a little bit of effort.

The stories are found in Genesis, his two sons came to look for him. And they found their father, as it says in the Bible, passed out on the floor, completely intoxicated, and completely enclosed, completely enclosed, so much that they had to turn their faces. One of them took his outer garment and covered their father and then they both ran away.

So I stopped for a moment I said, Hold on a second, you know, wait, just wait a minute. You know, this just seems to be a little bit unbecoming of a prophet of God, you know that. Okay, maybe wine, you know, Jesus turned the water to wine. But, you know, we don't see a story of Jesus becoming drinking wine to the point where he's, you know, drooling on the floor, you know, completely unclothed, because that type of person, someone who drinks alcohol to the point of, apparently, at some point getting on the floor and taking off all their clothes, that person, you know, he had a little bit of a wild night. And for that same person to come to you the next day, and tell you God

has sent me revelation and told me that you need to do this, you need to do that. Wait a minute, are you sure? That is God speaking to you? Because when you get really intoxicated, a lot of things can speak to you. Let me tell you, a lot of things can speak to you and you really intoxicated, are you sure that was God? Or was it your camel? Or was it you know, the stool on the floor, because when you're intoxicated, you don't know what's really going on.

So it just caught my attention for a little bit, but I really didn't let it affect me. Because I also was trying to remind myself of the sin nature that human beings were born with. And this was the entire reason Jesus had to be sent.

And this wasn't that serious, you know, maybe he just never maybe alcohol it never been consumed before, maybe drank a little bit too much and didn't realize it. Then we go on to the story of law, which is very not far along in Genesis, the story of law. Now a lot of you know, looks right, looks really he said him. Now lot is not mentioned as a prophet in the Bible. And most Christians and biblical scholars do not look in reference, not as a prophet, though we in Islam, we do consider him to be a prophet. Nevertheless, his story was important enough to become a major story in the Old Testament, a major story about a lot in Sodom and Gomorrah. There's another story about life that is

so bad that I really have to find a way to kind of, you know, summarize it. The story is about lightnings, two daughters, that he was an old man, and he had no sons, he only had daughters. Now, a man who dies with no sons, he dies without What?

Without lineage, she dies with no lineage. And also the daughters do not have a caretaker after their father. Correct. If they're unmarried, they have no one to take care of them after the father dies, because it's the oldest son's job to take care of the daughters in the absence of the Father. So they were very worried about this. So they decided to fix the problem. And the way they decided to fix the problem was that the oldest daughter got there and father intoxicated, and she laid with him and hopes to have a son. And then the youngest daughter did the same thing the next night. Now, okay, maybe the Bible does not consider that to be a prophet. But there is something majorly wrong

with the story. For this story to even be in the Bible is starting to worry me because this story has no moral behind it. There is no moral that comes right after it. And this is a story that you won't hear from any pulpit on Sunday. And I had never heard this. And I've seen challenges made for the pastors to read, just read it to your congregation. This is not a children's story. Let me tell you that it's x rated. You know, it's one of those top shelf stories, you guys know the top shelf stories, right? Top Shelf story. So I went and asked Benjamin, I said, Hold on a second, there's some there's some weird things starting to happen here. He told me just keep reading. Just keep

reading. I said, Well, that's not making sense. He said, keep reading. Don't worry about it. Just keep reading right now. So I continued to read and I saw many things. But there's I'm going to get to the two major ones. I'm gonna get to the two major ones for the sake of brevity, the last major ones, they really really caught my attention were the stories of Solomon, or Solomon, peace be upon him and the wood, or David lay slam father and son prophets. And these will you will find their stories in Kings in the Book of Kings, go look in Kings, and you'll find these two stories. Without a doubt. The story of Solomon is that Solomon was one of the great kings of Israel, establish the

Temple Mount, which you know, was a Masjid and there's still a Masjid there. So I don't know what's the whole problem with trying to destroy what was once there and is there now to rebuild something different, but anyway, it's a whole nother ball of wax. But Solomon was one of the great king prophets of Israel. But there's another story about Solomon that runs parallel. There's nowhere near his great story of Solomon and one of his wives. Because the Old Testament says that Solomon had a great number of wives, and a great number of concubines, which means slaves that that he was with, and one of them was an idolatrous, she was a moussaka. She worshipped idols. And her attachment to

Solomon, Solomon loved her and she

Convinced Solomon to worship idols with her. And not only did Solomon give in to worship in these idols, but he then built temples to these gods so that other people could worship them. Now, I understand the whole kingdom was taken away because of his sin and all that. But hold on a second, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, does this just step back a moment? Is not Solomon the prophet of Israel sent to them? Yes, not we're not the children of Israel commanded to obey their prophets. Yes. So there's a conundrum here. Either, they should listen to their prophet in worship idols, which is completely detrimental to the entire message of God hero is your the Lord your God is one

that shall have no other gods before me, I am an angry God, I am a jealous God, this goes completely in contradiction to all of this. So to the tune of is you will follow in that, or do they break the commandment to obey their prophet and say, hold on a second, you lost your mind want to continue to do what God says? So what they do? Or would they be wrong? If they worshipped idols? How could God punish them for doing something that their own Prophet was that was sent to them is doing? So there's a unique conundrum here. And then we go on to the story of David. And this is actually one of the worst ones, even though worshipping idols is the worst sin in the eyes of God. When it comes

to human beings. David commits some of the worst ones. Now David being

another great king, prophet of Israel.

And then we know the story of David in

the old world, right?

Are David and Goliath correct? We know the story of David and Goliath or diwata loot. Their story is very beautiful in the Bible, as well. But there's another story about David with a woman named Bathsheba in the Old Testament. And this woman, Bathsheba, she was a very beautiful woman. And David saw her one day, and he decided that he had to have this woman, so he forced himself with this woman. And the problem was not just that he forced himself with this woman, but the fact that she was already married. And her husband was a commander in his army named Uriah. So David has number one, committed a cardinal sin according to the very law, he himself is supposed to be instituting

adultery in Judaic law is punishable by death. He has committed a sin that is punishable by death. He realizes this and decides he needs to fix the problem. Now, how does he fix the problem?

He doesn't repent to God at this point, maybe later on in Psalms, there's some they say that he repented. But at this point, what he does, is he decides to write a letter to his army. And he writes the letter to his army saying that when the battle becomes very fierce, I want all of you to step back and abandon Uriah, leave Uriah out there on his own, so that he will die. And then he can cover up this whole load of thing. Now, what's even more treacherous than this plot to kill Uriah, is that David calls for Jaret come back from the battlefield. And when Uriah comes back from the battlefield, he says, go be with your wife. Why, so that if a child comes, we can attribute it to

him. And then after I tell him to go be with your wife, he takes the letter

and gives it to Uriah. To deliver it to his commanders. Basically, he sends him with his own death sentence tells him Do not open it give this directly to your commanders. So I'm saying to myself now, just hold on a second, this is getting ridiculous out of hands. You know, we're not only we have God's prophets who are, you know, getting completely unclothed? Or you know, we have lots sleeping you know, with his, you know, what, we have Solomon worshipping idols, now we have David committing adultery and then covering it up by the, by the sin to commit murder or conspiracy, however you want to call it. And then not only that, he's being so treacherous that he gives it to

the very man he's going to kill and making him delivery. Now, this is the worst of people worse than worse. So I have a problem now. So I go to my friend, vision mentor, I'm looking at Hold on a second, don't tell me to keep reading, because this is getting out of hand. This is ridiculous. Not only are these prophets, not the best of mankind, they are some of the worst of people. I mean, these are people whom you would not trust with anything. I would not leave my five year old son alone with Noah, I would not let lotton anywhere near my daughter.

And if David, I wouldn't even let him come to my house because I'm afraid maybe he's going to you know, be attracted to my wife, and then my whole life might be in jeopardy. So you know what, you guys you stay over there. Just keep your whole little thing and I'll stay over here. I don't need that type of religion. You understand what I'm saying? No matter how good how many blazing miracles you can do, you know, we don't need that. There's no good from you. So he told me keep reading again. I said, Look, I don't want to keep reading because this is getting out of hand. I said the story is not making any sense. And I went to some of my pastors and asked them and you know, I was

told the same thing by the pastors, the pastors told me Look, Joshua,

do not let a little bit of knowledge, wreck your faith because you're not justified by knowledge.

You're justified by your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His shedding of blood into the redemption of the sins. That's what justifies.

You're not, not not. And you're also dealing with the children of Israel, they had the unique covenant with God, they have their own problems.

But Benjamin told me something very unique. He told me, sometimes the story doesn't make sense, until you get to the end. Sometimes you may think you have a story figured out in the middle. But it really will not reveal itself until the end. Correct. You guys have read mysteries before you've seen you know, these crime shows on TV NCIS, CSI law and order all of this. And throughout the story, you might think five times you know who did it, he did it, she did it, and they did it. And at the end, what happens, it turns out to be completely somebody else that you would have never thought if the if the writing was good. So you might not really know what happens until you get to

the end. So finish the story. If you have confusion, then come back. So I decided to just go ahead and just suck it up and finish the entirety of the Bible and not really continue to ask questions, but kind of just take it in, take it in. So I finished the Old Testament. And when I got to the end of the Old Testament, there were a few things about the Old Testament that were planted, clear, no ambiguity about these whatsoever. The first thing that was clearly

clearly crystal clear about the Old Testament was who God was. There is no ambiguity about who God is throughout the entirety of the Old Testament. God is one in the most unique of senses. The Hebrew word that God uses for himself as one is a unique oneness, a oneness that cannot be added to a oneness that cannot be subtracted from a oneness that is one alone. When God says here, O Israel, the Lord your God, and one, it's not numerical one, it's a unique one. Also, what God wants from humanity is very clear. And that is, he wants their worship, he wants to be worshipped, he deserves to be worshipped. And he wants obedience that is very clear from the Old Testament, he wants to be

obeyed, and obeying Him will receive you reward in this life and the next. And this obedience to God will receive punishment in this life and punishment, even worse in the next life.

And there was a very beautiful verse at the end of the New Testament, and a book called Old Testament and a book called malikai. malikai is the last book of the Old Testament, there's a verse where God says, supposedly to Israel,

I do not change, I do not change. Therefore, the sons of Jacob, meaning the children of Israel have not been destroyed. what God has basically saying to the children of Israel is that I have made a covenant with you, and I am going to continue to uphold my end of the bargain, I don't change. That's the reason I have that destroyed every single one of you for your disobedience. It's kind of like a forewarning. To them to look, I am still standing here with my covenant intact with you. It is you who have broken it, but I'm not going to change I'm still going to be here. And that is very beautiful, because we see in the opening chapter of the Quran after the hand sort of the bhakra,

Allah reminds them of the same thing. Remember the covenant that I have made with you, he is still upholding that covenant with him to this day, never broken his covenant with the children of Israel, it is they were broken. So this is what I have going over to the to the New Testament, the understanding of God being one, the understanding of God wanting worshipped obedience does not want to be disobeyed, it doesn't change. But my concept of the prophets is completely destroyed is completely warped. So I really don't know how to reconcile these two. So I decided my pastor told me, he said, If you really want to understand God's relationship with humanity, you have to

understand Jesus Christ. If you want that perfect example that you looking for, it's only found in life of Christ, the unblemished sacrifice the unblemished lamb. So go study the life of Christ, and you will find the answer to what you're looking for. So when I get to the New Testament, the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john, I can't even I don't even have time to start to get into the authenticity of these four books. And that's a whole subject altogether. But let's just go with what we have the math Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john, what I came to find in them was I found that Jesus, who number one preached the exact same thing that the God of the Old

Testament preached that was here, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. This was what Jesus said to the children of Israel, here, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. And when Jesus was asked about the commandments, because he was coming, he had come to the children of Israel, Jesus himself that I was not sent, but to the last house of the sheep of Israel. That's it said I was sent to the children of Israel, when one of them came to him. And this is a trick question, by the way, which I don't have time to get into the whole entirety of the relationship between the children of Israel and Jesus. But this is a trick question. Someone came to Jesus, that old good Master, we know that they are a

good teacher. So teach me what is the greatest commandment? So Trick question, what is the greatest commandment they want him to say something they can use against him? He said, I cannot tell you the greatest commandment without telling you first Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one and you should love that Lord your God with all

Have your heart with all of your mind with all of your strength. And then you should love your neighbor as you love yourself. He said the rest of the prophets, or the rest of the teachings hang upon these two understandings. Now this is where I'm going to take a small side note to show you something. What did Jesus does teach us, he taught us his aqeedah. He's a pita, meaning his belief system. He said his belief system was number one, the pinnacle of all of that is Oh, here, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. Now what is the pinnacle of Islam?

That Allah is one. Now if you wanted to take all of Islam, the entirety of the religion of Islam, as it's always been, and you wanted to divide it into two categories, could you? Can you divide everything about Islam in two categories?

Absolutely. On one side, you have the rights of the Creator, the rights that belong exclusively to Allah. And everything within our Deen can fit into one of two categories, that which belongs to Allah as his right, and on the other side, or the right that which belongs to the creation, yes or no. Everything in Islam goes into one of these two categories, either the right that we give to the Creator, or the right that we give to the creation, which is what Jesus taught love You Lord, your God with all your heart with all your might, with all your strength that's on this side, give Allah His right, give the greater his right which Jesus use the word Allah. And Allah make the word for

God is Allah, the creator. And then on the other side, he said, Love your neighbor as you love yourself, which is the principle rule behind the rights given to the creation. He said, everything else falls into these two categories. They hang up on these two balances.

Another time A man came to Jesus, and I'm trying to pick as many as I can that are explicit, because one thing people have to understand and I know I'm teaching a little bit more, but this is for the sake of understanding. One thing we have to understand about Jesus in the Old Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john as he speaks in two ways, every segment of Jesus you can put into one of two categories. Either he speaks explicitly, meaning statements that cannot be understood in any way other than clearly what he said, like when he said, Here, O Israel, the Lord your God is one that is very explicit. The love though are you got all your heart with all your might low strength that's

explicit. And then also Jesus spoke implicitly, implicitly means implied meaning that he said something that can be inferred many different ways people can interpret it however they want to interpret it, people can interpret it in many different ways. Just like Allah in the Quran speaks clearly, in some verses, and in some verses, he speaks ambiguously. And he says, Those who hearts the deviation, they will chase the ambiguous and try to make the main what they want. So I'm trying to use explicit from Jesus alone right now. In another verse, someone came to Jesus. And he said, Oh, good Master, how do I inherit eternal life? meaning how do I go to heaven? How may I inherit

eternal life? What did Jesus say to the men? anyone here know? Leave everything? First, what did you say the man before that?

before that? This is not not this 140 Where was it?

keep the commandments. The first thing he said to the man, keep the commandments. He didn't say just hold on a little bit. I'm going to sacrifice myself on a cross. I'm going to shed my blood you're going to leave and that and everything is going to be Lottie. Dottie Okay, now, he said, keep the commandments, which meant obey God, obey God's law, Jesus himself was suburbia to the law of God, because he himself said, I have not come to do away with the law. I have not come but to fulfill it. And not one combat, no period, no period, no combo pass from the law until all is fulfilled through me. So he said to the man, keep the commandments. What did the man say I've done that. Basically,

the man said, I am perfect under the law. Jesus said, if you're really perfect, if you're really that good, then what I suggest for you, as you go home, sell everything you have, and then come and join me. I could use another helper, I could use someone else doing this work, come and join my work. And the man then realized he was not that perfect under the law. So he left crying. Now, did Jesus stop the madness? Hey, hold on a second, you know, but all of that law thing is gonna go away here in just a couple of months. You know, I'm going to sacrifice myself on the cross. Yeah, that no, he left the man in this way. Another man came to Jesus that all good master.

Jesus said, Why do you call me good? For there is only one that is good. If you want to properly translate this verse, and is correct connotation. Jesus said, There is only one who is good, and that is God.

Why are you calling me good? I'm not the source of good the source of good is God alone.

Another man came to Jesus. And these are all things that are starting to click in my head to make me realize Hold on a second. What I've always been taught and believed about Jesus, not what I'm saying, Jesus preach. Some man came to Jesus and said,

Good Master, tell me when is the hour and every prophet has been asked this question. When is the day of judgment when is the

We're going to come. And what did Jesus say to the man of that day? No snowman, not even I, only the father was in heaven knows of that. So clearly now I am drawing a logical distinction between Jesus and God. Because God is all knowing, God knows everything. Therefore, if Jesus is saying, he doesn't know the Day of Judgment, then this can be God. Because God can't know everything and not know everything. At the same time. This is, so is he God and half God at the same time are part God and part time God. And so I'm realizing now Jesus starting to distinguish himself from God. Because in another place, Jesus said, and this is in john, Chapter 17.

This is life eternal. And this is a beautiful, explicit verse, this is life eternal, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, not be gotten, not given birth do not, you know, Father, listen.

And then another verse, we see where Jesus peace be upon him.

They came to him and asked him,

when when he was supposedly accused of being calling himself God, do you call it you, you know, called, are you calling yourself God? He said, that's what you say. That's what they say. He said, That's what they say. That's what you were saying. Now, to me, this does not sound like a person who is committed to this idea. If someone came to me and said, Are you Joshua? And I just say, well, that's what they say, that's not really an answer. They're gonna ask me again. Okay, well, that's what they say, but are you in? So if someone was committed to the fact that I am God, then of course, now is the perfect time to be very clear about this? Because one thing we notice about God

of the Old Testament, he's not he doesn't play around. He doesn't beat around the bush. He doesn't use allegorical understandings to get you to grasp what he wants. No, he's very clear, very clear what he wants, who He is such on and so forth. And Jesus was very clear to that he was the one who was sent.

Now, how did this whole thing come to grasp about Jesus being crucified and this and then the other, this is where I'm going to finish up the whole New Testament and get on with getting on about it and finish in the next 20 minutes. inshallah.

Jesus came to a people who were very far from God, the children of Israel, the time of Jesus were very far from God. And Jesus came to bring them back to that. And there was a group of people, there was a couple of groups that had broken off within the children of Israel. And the two that had risen to the top, we're known as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. These were the people who wrote the Torah. And the people who knew the law, the law of God, they were the holders of the law, and they were the teachers of the law. And the others were the holders of the Torah. And they were the ones who wrote the Torah and passed on. These two people had become like a hierarchy. And they were the

only exclusive ones that had all of the rights and knew all of the ways to God and everyone else was subservient to them. You just did what they said do if they said step left, you step left, and they said, take two steps back, you took two steps back, you paid them your money, and they went to God on your behalf. And that was it. And it was it had become very distinct class system between these two, you had the ignorant and the poor, then you have the hierarchy, who knew the law. And Jesus came to put people back on an equal footing, he came to put everything back in its place. And there were some things that the law he came to fix for them, he came to revise for them, we see that with

him walking through the field on the Sabbath day, which the Jews, you know, accused him of breaking the Sabbath. He said, Hold on, the Sabbath is not meant for men. But my man is not meant for the Sabbath, the Sabbath for man basically telling him that the law was not meant for you to put stipulations on God, but the law was sent by God to you to put stipulations upon you. And I am the one here to teach you the law. So you know, who are you to teach your own Prophet, your own messenger the law, basically what he was trying to tell them, they look, the law is sent by God not you don't send God the law.

But the problem with these two people was that Jesus was challenging a system that had been set up by a group of people who did not want to see it changed. I don't know if this starting to sound familiar to you. He was challenging a system that was set up by human beings, and they did not want it to be changed, no change was going to come to this. And Jesus real crime was not that he was a preacher, a teacher, they know what he was teaching was correct. They know what he was teaching was righteous. And just the problem was the implications behind it. Jesus is system made into their system, and a minute into their hierarchy and an end to them. And Jesus publicly challenged them on

many occasions. He called them hypocrites, people who stand on street corners to pray so that people can watch them. He called them a wicked, this wicked and adulterous and murderous nation. I mean, Jesus directly challenged them, and I don't care who you are. I don't care what message you have how beautiful it is. How

Good is for humanity, if it directly contradicts, and challenges the status quo system of the day, you're going to become a public enemy, you're going to be a nuisance that must be dealt with. So Jesus became a nuisance that had to be dealt with. So they tried to deal with it. In many ways. They tried to trick him, as I showed you some trick questions. Another trick question that is very clear. The Old Testament was a man came to Jesus, and he told Jesus, should we pay taxes to Caesar? Because the Jews were under Roman control at the time they were allowed to live within their little society in Jerusalem, but they paid taxes to the Roman Empire. So someone asked Jesus, should we pay taxes

to Caesar? Now this is a very serious question.

Because what do you think would have happened to Jesus has he had he said, No, don't give taxes to Caesar.

Caesar would have killed them. I don't know if any of you studied the the life of Caesar Caesar was not known for playing around with people who challenged him, even his own family members he would put to the sword. So Jesus would have he the children of Israel would have said, Oh, think that Henry LA, you know, Caesar is going to take care of him for us. We just going to send a letter to Caesar, you got this guy here, Jesus, and don't give you any more money. But you know what Jesus said, He tricked them aback. He said, pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God, leave me alone. So they tried to trick him. And when they couldn't trick him, they

decided to use things he had said implicitly and say that he was meaning something else. Because when they took Jesus initially the pilot that the the the

they did not take him to Pilate and say, he's calling himself God. Because Pilate would have cared less Pilate was a Roman Romans had how many gods so many? If they would have said Jesus God, and he's performing miracles, they said, okay, you know, welcome, we could use another God in our little system, why not? Why not? So that would have been a challenge to him. What they said was, he is calling himself the King of the Jews. He is saying that he is our Messiah, and our Messiah. This was their understanding our Messiah is a god King, who will come and sit on the throne of David and rule over the entire world with the book of gods. So if he is the Messiah, as he is claiming to be, he is

in direct challenge to the throne of season. This was the accusation, because this is an accusation Pontius had to take seriously. But again, when Pontius interviewed Jesus,

when Pontius initially interviewed Jesus, he said, I don't see any fault in this man. Because this Jesus was saying that my kingdom is not the kingdom of this world, The kingdom of God is in the next life. God has no Kingdom here. There's nothing for you here. It's in the next life. But the Jews could not understand that, because the only thing that they can get out of life they thought was what they could scratch out of the soil, which is still the understanding, as God says about them, they are the most desirous after this life that you will find on earth. And if you were to give one of them a life of 1000 years, it would not be enough for them, they would want another one, and they

still wouldn't be happy. So they initially said Jesus has to go, he has to go. And the real,

the real wisdom, they actually was very smart what they did, they decided we have to find a way to crucify him. Because if they crucify Jesus, and Paul lets this cat out of the bag in Galatians, when he says that Christ was cursed on behalf of the law, to remove us from the curse of the law, for it is written in the law, that everything that hangs upon a tree is cursed, because in Deuteronomy, which is part of the the Jewish law, if you take a criminal and you hang them on a tree, that person is a cursed, that person is cursed by God in this life, and if there's anything of the next life is not for this person, so they said, if we can crucify Jesus, he can't be the Messiah. He can't

because God's Messiah cannot be crucified and cursed according to the very law that he's saying he's coming to fulfill. So it was a very smart thing that they decided to do.

But when Jesus heard about this crucifixion, what did he do? Does anybody know? Did he say Oh, yes, thank you. Thank God. And that's what I'm here for. Now them 7:30pm sunset they can meet me at the town center, will be there and ready to go. Is this the Jesus that we found? What did he do? He fled? He fled to the Garden of Gethsemane. Is anybody here from Philistine? Yeah, the Garden of Gethsemane is outside the old boundaries of Jerusalem. He left the entire city. He ran to the garden that gets him and he and when he went to get the money, what does it say in the Bible that he did? He put his disciples on the gate and he told them watch, watch why. If anybody comes you stuff on

you check them because I need to go and I need to do something else. And it says that he walked down and he fell upon his face, and he prayed. And what was his prayer? Oh, God, let this cup pass from me or let this burden it's not properly translated this cup. That is an improper translation of even the coin

Greek, he said let this burden pass from me. Which means he asked What? Do not let them crucify me? Why? Because he understood that, Dear God, if they crucify me, then I have failed my mission because my mission is to fulfill the law. And if I am crucified according to the law of Moses, then I will never be believed in I would have ruined my entire mission of being here. So he said, Please remove this from me. And when