The Eastern AntiChrist, A Christian Heresy
Part 1
“As Mahomet says that his Al-Coran is the sovereign wisdom, so says the Pope of his own decrees.
For they be the two horns of Antichrist”
John Calvin
Sermons on Deuteronomy (18:15 & 33:2)
Table of Content
A Note about why I use Muhammadanism instead of Islam or Muslim
The Origins of Muhammadanism
The Christian Heresy of Muhammadanism
The Roots of Arianism, Nestorianism, Ebionitism and Gnostism
The Gospel of Barabbas
The Little Horn
Ancient Babylon, Sun and Moon Worship
Allah, what is in a name?
The Eastern AntiChrist
The Locust Coming out of the East
The Final Battle
Islamic Peace versus Christian Peace
Muhammadanism and Reformed Christianity
The Westminster Directory of Publick Worship
The True Shahada or Confession
Conclusion
A Note about why I use Muhammadanism instead of Islam or Muslim
Throughout this article I have selected to use the term Muhammadanism instead of Islam or Muslim. My reasoning is that first the sect was started through Muhammad and thus it rightly should be called Muhammadanism. Secondly, In Arabic, the word “Islam” means submission or surrender – however, it was derived from the root word “salam”. From this root word, you can also derive the words peace and safety. The Arabic word “Muslimeen” is equivalent to the Hebrew word “Meshalomim” which Christ used in the beatitudes to refer to the Peacemakers. Neither terms correctly define this sect nor it’s doctrines. The Orthodox people of the East refuse to refer to Muslims as Muslims because they DO NOT submit to God through Jesus Christ but refer to them as Ishmaelites. Thirdly, Muhammadanism has been largely used throughout the centuries by true believers to describe this sect. Muhammadan is the modern rendering of the word so you will see other historic renderings of this exact word throughout this article in the quotes of various commentators. I have chosen to use the modern rendering in my own writings. Other terms that have been used for Muhammadanism is Saracen, a word derived from Sarah exiling Hagar; Hagarenes, a word derived directly from Hagar their mother; Ishmaelites, the children of Ishmael the son of Hagar; Turks, a term derived from one of their tribes that came to occupy Anatolia. Muhammad is also the modern rendering of their prophets name. Therefore you will encounter other varient forms of his name as it appeared throughout history including Mahomet.
Introduction
“A cask by losing centre-piece or cant Was never shattered so, as I saw one Rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind. Between his legs were hanging down his entrails; His heart was visible, and the dismal sack That maketh excrement of what is eaten. While I was all absorbed in seeing him, He looked at me, and opened with his hands His bosom, saying: See now how I rend me; How mutilated, see, is Mahomet; In front of me doth Ali weeping go, Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin; And all the others whom thou here beholdest, Disseminators of scandal and of schism While living were, and therefore are cleft thus. A devil is behind here, who doth cleave us Thus cruelly, unto the falchion’s edge Putting again each one of all this ream, When we have gone around the doleful road; By reason that our wounds are closed again Ere any one in front of him repass. But who art thou, that musest on the crag, Perchance to postpone going to the pain That is adjudged upon thine accusations? Nor death hath reached him yet, nor guilt doth bring him, My Master made reply, to be tormented; But to procure him full experience, Me, who am dead, behoves it to conduct him Down here through Hell, from circle unto circle; And this is true as that I speak to thee. More than a hundred were there when they heard him, Who in the moat stood still to look at me, Through wonderment oblivious of their torture.” Dante’s Inferno, Canto 28
Dante encounters a man walking with his torso split from chin to groin near the bottom of the pit of hell, his guts and other organs spilling out. “See now how I rend me” the man shrieks. “How mutilated, see, is Mahomet;” Dante is not in a circle of false religion but in a circle reserved for those who tear the body of Christ. Like many medieval Christians, Dante views Muhammadanism less as a rival religion than as a heretical form of Christianity.
It may come as a surprise to many modern Christians (even those within modern Reformed circles) that the Reformed Faith has always held that Islam is the second horn of Anti-Christ with the Papacy being the first horn. Some may even bulk at the idea since in their mind the Anti-Christ must declare himself in the Temple and how can Islam do that if it has not been part of the church? Today, I am only going to write about the second horn. My excellent friend Carlos Gonzalez has already written a solid series of articles on the first horn being the Anti-Christ which is the Papacy which can be read here @ https://covenanterreformation.wordpress.com/2015/04/17/the-pope-the-man-of-sin-part-1/ . If you have not already done so I highly recommend reading his articles on his blog regarding the Papacy being the Anti-Christ.
“The nations of Christendom have given their power to Antichrist, “the man of sin and son of perdition,” and thus do homage to God’s enemy. ” -Subjection of Kings and Nations to Messiah, 1819
So the question arises, how can Islam be part of the Anti-Christ if it has never been in the church? We must first explore the beginning history of Islam.
The Origins of Muhammadanism
To understand what Muhammad’s influences were and the spiritual background of what would become Islam, it is essential that we understand the religious landscape of Makkah and the rest Arabia just prior to Muhammad and the rise of Islam, paying particular attention to the Christian communities. In addition we must understand particular people that influence Muhammad including members of his own family.
The Christian Church in Arabia had always had a severe problem with various different arch-heresies that were anathematized by the Church. This is why it’s no surprise that the pre-Islamic Christian church in Makkah was a hotbed of heresy. The Nestorianism practiced by the Church of the East was one of the most prominent of heresies in Arabia. Nestorianism and other Christological heresies would become the backbone of Islamic doctrine concerning the Lord.
Two schismatic heretical Christian monks were foundational in Muhammad’s spiritual formation. The first was an Arian monk, Bahira, or Sergius according to some sources.
The most influential was Waraqah bin Nawfal, a high profile heretical Christian priest who was the influence from Muhammad’s own family. Waraqua was a priest within the Roman Catholic Church of the West. He was sent by the Pope to Arabia to evangelize the Arabs and bring them into the Church of Rome. Waraqua was also a cousin of Muhammad’s first wife. What the Pope did not realize was that Waraqua was secretly an Arian Ebionite and Gnostic and held heartily to the Gnostic book ‘The Gospel of Barabbas’.
Waraqah held a very complex heresy based on Ebionism and Arianism with added elements of Nestorianism. He was very well versed in the Old Testament and the Gospels and Jewish Halakha law.
The Ebionites were a small sect of Judaizers who while accepting the Christ as Messiah, rejected his divinity and continued to follow Jewish Halakha law. They held to aspects of the oral law of the Jews as well as Ceremonials laws of the Tanakh that was outwardly abrogated at the first advent. Ebionites also held to Arianism which completely denies the Trinity as well as aspects Nestorianism. Ebionism would become the basis for Islamic Shari’ah law.
Waraqah’s heresy is especially important because his heresy would become the basis of Islam as he was a very close companion of Muhammad.
The second great influence on Muhammad was a man named Sergius who was also known as Bahira. Sergius was a minister of the christian church who had fallen into the serious error of Nestorius and also fallen into immorality of the deepest kind.
“Sergius, called, by the Arabian writers, the monk Bahira, was a minister of the christian church, who had fallen into error and immorality of the deepest kind. He had belonged to that class of people, who in those days of dissention were called Nestorian from the celebrated bishop Nestorius, of Constantinople.” -Alexander Mcleod, Lectures on Revelation
Sergius came forth to Muhammad with a copy of the Gospel of Barabbas and was the angel Gabriel who helped Muhammad write the Quran.
“Friar Richard, and several other historians, speak of this fallen Monk, both under his proper name, and that of Bahira, which he assumed in Arabia as the agent in composing the Koran. He was the Gabriel of Mahomet. When Sergius had finished his task, he was sentence to death by his patron, for fear he should afterwards betray the imposture. … It was in the year 606, Mahomet commenced his imposture by retiring, under pretense of extraordinary sanctity, to the cave of Hera. In 612 he appeared as the apostle at the head of his disciples, publicly to propagate the new doctrine.” -Alexander Mcleod, Lectures on Revelation
Thus is the origin of Muhammadanism, the influences of Muhammad’s life that shaped this sect that would become in centuries to come a very dangerous sect that would play a very important role in Redemptive history.
The Christian Heresy of Muhammadanism
Muhammadanism does not claim to be a new religion but the church continued by further revelation. Muhammad believed they were a Reformation of the church and not a new religion. Muhammadans believe that Muhammad superseceded and abrogated both the Jewish dispensation of Moses and of the Christian dispensation of Christ and that Muhammad is the last great prophet. The Quran even tells us that the Scriptures are to be regarded as the Word of Allah (God) and to be respected and read but with the light and revelation of the writings of the Quran. They believe they are now the new church and seat in the temple of God. Muhammad claimed to be an apostle and prophet and superseceded the previous apostles and prophets of the Old and New Testaments.
Muhammadanism to this day embodies many aspects and practices of the early Christian world now lost in modern Western-based incarnation of Christianity. When the early Byzantines were first confronted by the Prophet’s armies, they assumed that Muhammadanism was merely an heretical form of Christianity, and in many ways they were not so far wrong: Muhammadanism accepts much of the Old and New Testaments and venerates both Jesus and the ancient Jewish prophets.
Amazingly, one of the great and most subtle theologian of the early church (although he sometimes went to far in the opposite direction as a knee jerk reaction to Muhammadanism), John Damascene commonly known as John Damascus was convinced that Islam was at root not a separate religion, but instead a form of Christianity. John regarded Muhammadanism as a form of Christian heresy related to Arianism: after all Arianism, like Muhammadanism, denied the divinity of Christ.
Muhammadanism is a perversion, a monstrous mutation of the Christian faith. Muhammad started with that important Christian doctrine, the unity and omnipotence of God. He also drew from Christian doctrine the attributes of God- the fact that God is eternal. The fact that He was all provident, all good as well as being the creator and sustainer of all things. The fact that Muhammadanism believes in angels and that they believe in demons. They also derived from the church the immortality of the soul, the equality of all men as well as responsibility of one’s action coupled with rewards and punishments after death. Furthermore Christ teaching about the poor, forgiving debts, condemning all usury. Muhammad gave Christ very high honor calling him a great profit who would come on the last great day to judge the living and the dead. Through Catholic influence Muhammadans have an extremely high devotion to the virgin Mary. Muhammad calls her in the Quran the first and best of all womenkind. Muhammadans even suggest that Mary was conceive without sin.
If you happen to spend anytime in the Christian communities of the Middle East, the more you become aware of the extent to which Eastern Christian practice formed the template for what were to become the basic conventions of Muhammadanism. The Muhammadan form of prayer with its bowings and prostrations is derived from the older Patristic tradition of the early church that is still practised in pewless churches across the Levant. Muhammadan maqamat or tonal chant tradition is a combination of Syriac Christian maqamat, Byzantine Christian maqamat which is rooted in the plain chant of the Patristic church. By which they use the Zabur of Dawud. The term zabur is the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew zimrah (Hebrew: זִמְרָה), meaning: “psalm or chant.” Musical Instruments are strictly hareem but not just in worship but also in all of life. The Qur’an refers to the Zabur of Dawud (David) as one of God’s books revealed to four selected messengers.
“…And to David We gave the Psalms.” -Surah 4:163
“And it is your Lord that knoweth best all beings that are in the heavens and on earth: We did bestow on some Prophets more (and other) gifts than on others: and We gave to David (the gift of) the Psalms.” -Surah 17:55
“There will be people of my Ummah who will seek to make lawful; fornication, wine-drinking and the use of ma`aazif (musical instruments)” – Narrated Abu ‘Amir or Abu Malik Al-Ash’ari
The architecture of the earliest minarets, which are square rather than round, unmistakably derive from the church towers of Byzantium. Even the Niqaab (face veiling) was a universal practice of the church 500 years before the advent of Muhammadanism. In fact Muhammadanism did not accept the veiling of the face until the fall of Byzantium where they adopted the practice. Predestination was a strong belief of the early church rooted throughout all the Scriptures and it is still a strong and important belief within the Reformed Church.
Muhammadans do have a postmillenial view of eschatology. And like Gary North has always said. “You hit what you aim for” and they are advancing. Unfortunately for them, Christian postmillenialism is actually true….and so they will lose. God’s law will be established and Muhammadanism will be just another leg on the footstool of Christ.
This is just a taste of what more could be added to the list of attributes showing the similarities between Muhammadanism and Christianity. But in spite of its Christian influence Muhammadanism is still a heresy and a very dangerous one at that. Today the West Church often views Muhammadanism as a religion and civilization very different from Christianity.
“I cannot deny that the Turk holds the four Gospels to be divine and true, as well as the Prophets – and also speaks very highly of Christ and His mother. But at the same time, he believes that his Mohammed is above Christ — and that Christ is not God….” -Martin Luther
Jonathan Edwards said,
“If we consider the propagation of Christianity as a doctrine or belief of wonderful divine facts, Mahometanism is not set up in opposition to it; because the Mahometan religion itself acknowledges the principal facts of Christianity, though it has no facts of its own to urge. And so Mahometanism rather confirms than weakens Christianity; and the propagation of Mahometanism itself may be considered as one thing belonging to the propagation of Christianity, and as a part of that propagation, in so far as it consists in a propagation of a professed belief of those facts. It is so far an instance of the propagation of that which is the foundation of Christianity, that it proves all the rest. The Alcoran owns Jesus to be a great prophet; “the messenger of God,” (Surat. v. 84) that he wrought miracles, healing a man blind from his birth, and the leprous, (Surat. v. 119.) also raising the dead; and that Jesus as born of Mary was himself a miracle, (Surat.xxiii. 52.) He often speaks of Jesus as the servant and messenger of God; (Surat. iv. 158. iii. 152. iv.169, 170. v. 84.) Now, owning this, is in effect owning the whole. This is the foundation of the whole, and proves all the rest. It owns that Jesus was miraculously conceived and born; (Surat iii. 47. xix. 20, 21.) and without sin. (Surat iii. 36. xix. 19.)—Mahomet owns Jesus, and ascribes the conception of Christ alone to the power of God, and the inflation of his Spirit.—In Surat xxi. 19. are these words, as the words of God: “And Mary was a chaste virgin, and We inspired her with Our Spirit, and set up her and her son as a miracle to all ages.”—He owned Jesus to be the Messiah foretold in in the law and the prophets; Surat. iii. 45. “When the angels said, O Mary, certainly God declares to thee his own word; his name shall be Jesus Christ, the son of Mary:” Surat xix. 29 Surat iv. “Certainly Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, is the ambassador of God and his word.” He owned Christ’s ascension into heaven. “God raised him (Christ) to himself;” iv. 157. Concerning Christ’s miracles, Mahomet says, Surat. iii. 45. v. 119. “God says, O Jesus, the son of Mary, I have strengthened thee by the Spirit of holiness; and thou shalt, by my leave, heal a man blind from his birth; and by my leave thou shalt raise the dead from their graves.”
In this respect the great propagation of the Mahometan religion is a confirmation of revealed religion—and so of the christian in particular, which alone can have any pretext to be a religion revealed by God—as this is a great demonstration of the extreme darkness, blindness, weakness, childishness, folly, and madness of mankind in matters of religion, and shows how greatly they stand in need of a divine guide, and divine grace and strength for their help, such as the gospel reveals. And that this gross delusion has continued so long to so great an extent, shows how helpless mankind are, under ignorance and delusion in matters of religion; and what absolute need they have of extraordinary divine interposition for their relief. And besides, such a miserable, blind, helpless, state of mankind, is also exactly agreeable to the representation made in the christian revelation.” -Jonathan Edwards. 1879. The works of Jonathan Edwards, A.M., rev. & ed., Edward Hickman, 2:491-3, 12th edition. London: William Tegg & Co.
Covenanter Alexander McLeod wrote,
“The impostor of Mecca admitted the divine origin of both the Old and the New Testament, and gave out that they both predicted his own mission, as superior to Moses, and even to Jesus Christ. In the sixty-first chapter, the Koran has these words, ” Remember that Jesus the Son of Mary said to the children of Israel, I am the messenger of God ; he hath sent me to confirm the Old Testament, and to declare unto you, that there shall come a prophet after me, whose name shall be Mahomet.”* Four texts of scripture are employed to prove that the son of Abdallah was a teacher sent from God, Deut. xxxiii. 2. Psa. 1. 2. Isa. xxi. 7. John xvi. 7. I shall not however, take up your time by repeating the argument or the criticism upon these passages.” -Lectures in Revelation
Dutch Reformed Theologian Abraham Kuyper wrote,
“That is the reason Muhammad connected to earlier revelations of Monotheism. He did not consider his a new religion. Neither was it a religion that syncretistically was cobbled together by mixing existing religions. Allah had always reigned, had all the while revealed His will and had from the beginning counted in history. It is just that mankind was not capable of comprehending the full mystery of Allah’s rule all at once. Hence Allah revealed Himself gradually, progressively, step by step. The prophets of all the ages were the vehicles for these revelations. They numbered in the thousands, but most of them were of minor significance. Some were mere sparks that flamed up quickly but extinguished just as quickly. A few among them became leading vehicles in this development of the service of Allah. Adam was the first in that series. The series includes Noah and Shem. After them, especially Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ. All of these not only struggle zealously for Monotheism and proclaimed the majesty of Allah, but in their successive appearances they formed an unbroken chain, a continuous progressive revelation from Allah. Jesus was the last among them before Muhammad, and the highest. However, even Jesus Christ was merely one of the many prophets, the latest in order and the highest, but no higher than Moses and other predecessors in rank and kind. That is why even in Jesus, divine revelation had not yet come to a close. Did the Gospels themselves not predict that after Jesus there would be another Comforter? That final closure to revelation came in the person of Muhammad. He completed what was begun with Adam, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Muhammad received the closing revelation. At the eschaton, that is, the end of all things, at the closure of world history, there will be more appearances, but these will no longer belong to history, for that history will also have come to its close. From now until that ending, that is, during this present dispensation, there will not come any further, higher or more complete revelation after Muhammad. What began with Adam or, if you prefer, with Abraham, is one single unified process that found its finale in Muhammad. That is why all faith comes down to two articles: first, the confession that Allah controls all things; second, that Muhammad represents His full and closing revelation. But now, according to Muhammad, that revelation is complete. That is to say, that revelation, being the final revelation of God’s will, must have priority over the law and rule over all other things. Here is where the Qur’an came in and then, next to it, a variety of sources of orthodoxy. There are the Hadith [the Traditions or record of individual actions and sayings by the Prophet as reported by his Companions], the Sunnah [the sacred collection of the Hadiths, the second highest Islamic authority next to the Qur’an] and the Ijima as the vox populi [the voice of the people] comprising the entire body of learned Islamic scholars and their output.” Abraham Kuyper, The Mystery of Islam
Kuyper continues,
“Muhammad and his followers definitely did not place Christians and Pagans on the same level. They distinguished sharply between those who bowed before idols and those who stood by the revelations of Moses and Jesus. After all, according to Islam, Moses and Jesus also honoured Islam. Their revelations are all recognized as being of divine origin, the difference between them being that the revelation to Muhammad was higher, came later and went further. Thus Christians were viewed as knowing Allah at an earlier period and were walking the right path. They only went wrong when they refused to accept the later and higher revelation. This and this only was their offence. It is similar to the way Christians honour the Jews in so far as they follow Moses, but we fault them only for being blind towards the later and fuller revelation that came in Christ. So Muslims judge that Christians did indeed obey the revelation that till that point was the highest, but they willfully closed their eyes to the even higher light that came with Muhammad. Here they determined the limits of the Holy Book. Jews had the Holy Book of the Old Testament; Christians honoured the Holy Book of the Old and New Testament, but both rejected the even holier Book of the Qur’an. But even though, according to Muhammad’s judgement, the others were at a lower level, they could be tolerated as backward or deficient kindred. That is why all Christians were not only tolerated but were given a degree of freedom of worship, on condition that they acknowledge the authority of the Muslim ruler, if not in religion, at least in politics. From the beginning this demand for nations and non-Muslims to acknowledge the superiority of Islam governed their relationship. Since Allah is omnipotent over the entire world, His faithful warriors are automatically entitled to control that entire world. Strictly speaking, only the followers of Islam have a right to exist or human rights.” Abraham Kuyper, The Mystery of Islam
“Mohammedanism was a : that is the essential point to grasp before going any further. It began as a heresy, not as a new religion. It was not a pagan contrast with the Church; it was not an alien enemy. It was a perversion of Christian doctrine. It vitality and endurance soon gave it the appearance of a new religion, but those who were contemporary with its rise saw it for what it was_not a denial, but an adaptation and a misuse, of the Christian thing. … He took over very few of those old pagan ideas which might have been native to him from his descent. On the contrary, he preached and insisted upon a whole group of ideas which were peculiar to the Catholic Church and distinguished it from the paganism which it had conquered in the Greek and Roman civilization. … Mohammed did not merely take the first steps toward that denial, as the Arians and their followers had done; he advanced a clear affirmation, full and complete, against the whole doctrine of an incarnate God. He taught that Our Lord was the greatest of all the prophets, but still only a prophet: a man like other men. He eliminated the Trinity altogether.” -Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies
The Roots of Arianism, Nestorianism, Ebionitism and Gnostism
Muhammadanism is a complex compound of various Christian Heresies combined together. It combines Arianism, Nestorianism, Ebionitism, Gnostism and Neonomianism along with various other heresies together for a system of one super arch-heresy sect combining the worst all of all major Christian heresies.
Arianism
Arianism is a nontrinitarian belief that asserts that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, created by God the Father, distinct from the Father.
Martin Luther distinctly declared that Muhammadanism came out of this sect,
“Augustine held that [the A.D. 320f] Arius’s punishment in hell becomes greater every day, as long as this error lasts. For Mohammed came out of this sect.” -Reformer Martin Luther
Nestorianism
Nestorianism is a Christological doctrine that emphasizes the disunion between the human and divine natures of Jesus. It was advanced by Nestorius (386–450), Patriarch of Constantinople from 428–431.
A brief definition of Nestorian Christology can be given as: “Jesus Christ, who is not identical with the Son but personally united with the Son, who lives in him, is one hypostasis and one nature: human.”
Nestorius and his teachings were eventually condemned as heretical at the First Council of Ephesus in 431 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451, leading to the Nestorian Schism, in which churches supporting Nestorius broke with the rest of the Christian Church. Many of Nestorius’s supporters relocated to the Sasanian Empire. Over the next decades the Church of the East became increasingly Nestorian in doctrine, leading to it becoming known alternately as the Nestorian Church.
Both influences in Muhammads life, Waraqah bin Nawfal and the monk Sergius were Nestorian.
Ebionitism
Ebionitism was an early church heresy that were Judaizers. They were condemned in Acts 15 at the council of Jerusalem. They denied that Christ was divine and believed that Christ was a mere prophet like Moses, continued to believe in the continuation of the sacrificial system (i.e, the Ceremonial law) as well as the additions of the law of the Pharisees commonly known as the oral law of Moses. But they also owned the Gospels. They also adhered to Justification by Works.
“What [the Judaistic] Ebion began, Mohammed continued. Thus, all the throngs of heretics…rise up against Christ…. But to John, they are all liars…. Mohammed came and led nearly the whole World in the East astray and away from Christ.” -Martin Luther
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: γνωστικός gnostikos, “having knowledge”, from γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge) whose adherents shunned the material world and embraced the spiritual world. But how does this tie into Muhammadanism? The Gospel of Barnabas is considered a Gnostic and perhaps Ebionite origin which we will see the Quran was largely taken from.
The Gospel of Barnabas
The Gospel of Barnabas not only mentions Muhammad by name, but including the shahadah (chapter 39). It is strongly anti-Pauline and anti-Trinitarian in tone. In this work, Jesus is described as a prophet and not the son of God, while Paul is called “the deceived.” Furthermore, the Gospel of Barnabas states that Jesus escaped crucifixion by being raised alive to heaven, while Judas Iscariot the traitor was crucified in his place. These beliefs—in particular, that Jesus is a prophet of God and raised alive without being crucified—conform to or resemble Islamic teachings which say that Jesus is a major prophet who did not die on the cross but was taken alive by angels to God.
“The Muhammadans have also a Gospel in Arabic, attributed Barnabas, wherein the history of Jesus Christ is Gospel of related in a manner very different from what we find in the true Gospels, and correspondent to those traditions which Muhammad has followed in his Quran.” George Sale in The Preliminary Discourse to the Koran, 1734
The Gospel of Barnabas claims that Jesus predicted the advent of Muhammad, thus conforming with the Qur’an which mentions:
“And remember, Jesus, the son of Mary, said: O Children of Israel! I am the apostle of God (sent) to you, confirming the Law (which came) before me, and giving Glad Tidings of a Messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad. But when he came to them with Clear Signs, they said, this is evident sorcery!” -Sura 61:6
According to the Gospel of Barnabas, Jesus foresaw and rejected his own deification:
“And having said this, Jesus smote his face with both his hands, and then smote the ground with his head. And having raised his head, he said: “Cursed be every one who shall insert into my sayings that I am the son of God.” -53:6
“Jesus answered: “And you; what say you that I am?” Peter answered: “You are Christ, son of God”. Then was Jesus angry, and with anger rebuked him, saying: “Begone and depart from me, because you are the devil and seek to cause me offences.” -70:1
Ancient Babylon, Sun and Moon Worship
The Papacy and Muhammadanism are both rooted from ancient Babylonian. They are the Sun and Moon religions of Babylon and both are in a true sense dopplegangers of True Christianity. They are in a really real sense the AntiChrist. The vision is found in the Apocalypse ‘a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.'”
Even the celebration of December 24 and December 25 has it roots in Babylonian Sun and Moon Worship. Alexander Hyslop wrote, “Among the Sabeans of Arabia, who regarded the moon, and not the sun, as the visible symbol of the favourite object of their idolatry, the same period was observed as the birth festival. Thus we read in Stanley’s Sabean Philosophy: “On the 24th of the tenth month,” that is December, according to our reckoning, “the Arabians celebrated the BIRTHDAY OF THE LORD–that is the Moon.” The Lord Moon was the great object of Arabian worship, and that Lord Moon, according to them, was born on the 24th of December, which clearly shows that the birth which they celebrated had no necessary connection with the course of the sun. “ -The Two Babylons
Hyslop continues, “It must have been the birth-day of the Lord Moon, therefore, and not of the Sun, that was celebrated by them on the 25th of December, even as the birth-day of the same Lord Moon was observed by the Arabians on the 24th of December. The name of the Lord Moon in the East seems to have been Meni, for this appears the most natural interpretation of the Divine statement in Isaiah lxv. 11, “But ye are they that forsake my holy mountain, that prepare a temple for Gad, and that furnish the drink-offering unto Meni.” There is reason to believe that Gad refers to the sun-god, and that Meni in like manner designates the moon-divinity. “ -The Two Babylons
So just as the Papacy celebrates the ancient feast of Saturnlia that stems back to Babylon and is tied to the sun, the Arabians also celebrated the birth of the Moon on December 25th through their god Meni.
The Little Horn
The Horns comes from Daniel. A Big Horn and a small horn that grows out of the Big horn.. The Reformers saw this as the two great arms of the AntiChrist which was why in the Westminster Confession of Faith they labelled the Pope as THE AntiChrist. He was the first horn and was a manifestation of THE antichrist. This was the Sun Worship of Babylon. Out of this Sun Worship of Babylon and the papacy would grow a little horn that would spread over all the earth, The Moon Worship of Babylon- Islam.
In Daniel 7:7 & 7:20, the Prophet predicted the rise of a ‘little horn’ within the Roman Empire. Though first but ‘little’ — that horn would later become very ‘stout’ and arrogant.
In his Commentaries on Daniel (7:7-18), Calvin explains that “in this Fourth Monarchy those who are endued with moderate judgment confess this vision to be fulfilled in the Roman Empire…. What is here said of the Fourth Beast — many transfer to the Pope, when it is added that a ‘Little Horn’ sprang up. But others think the Turkish kingdom is comprehended under the Roman. The Jews, for the most part, incline this way…. “
“Christ’s Kingdom was erected by the overthrow of the Roman dominion. The Jews…join the Turkish monarchy with the Roman…. There are some of our [Christian] writers who think this image ought not to be restricted to the Roman Empire, but ought to include the Turkish….”
“The Little Horn in Daniel . . . Mahomet the great destroyer, as his name signifies.” -Alexander Ross, “Alcoran of Mahomet” (1649)
Allah, What is in a name
Allah is not an Muhammadan concept. It’s Arabic for God. Etymologically related to the Hebrew El and Elohim.
The Aramaic word for “God” in the language of Assyrian Christians is ʼĔlāhā, or Alaha. Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word “Allah” to mean “God”. (1)
The Aramaic singular for “god” is alaha, the plural for “gods” is alahe.
“Elaha” and “Alaha” are the same word, they mean the same thing. The only reason it is pronounced differently is because of the dialect, Elaha is Western Aramaic while Alaha is Eastern Aramaic. Both are acceptable in Aramaic.
The word ‘El’ is an ancient proto-Semitic root and predates both Hebrew and Aramaic, the Aramaic ‘Alaha’ is the emphatic form of the root ‘El/Al’ (Aleph-Lamed). It is found in Akkadian as well (Babel/Babylon = “bab-ilu”, “gate of god”). Ugaritic, Phoenician, Arabic and all the Semitic languages use this root.
Allah is a generic word for the God Almighty in the Arabic language.
Edward Lane (A Christian Arabic Scholar) will tell you this and Abdul Omar Mannan has perfectly stipulated this in their lexicographic works.
The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for “God” than “Allah” (2) Maltese speakers call God “Alla,” and the Orthodox in the middle East use the word Allah as well
Furthermore NO Arabic lexicon that exist says to the contrary.
Some archaeological excavation quests have led to the discovery of ancient Pre-Muhammadan inscriptions and tombs made by Arabic-speaking Christians in the ruins of a church at Umm el-Jimal in Northern Jordan, which contained references to Allah as the proper name of God, and some of the graves contained names such as “Abd Allah” which means “the servant/slave of Allah”. (4)
The name Allah can be found countless times in the reports and the lists of names of Christian martyrs in South Arabia, as reported by antique Syriac documents of the names of those martyrs from the era of the Himyarite & Aksumite kingdoms. (5)
A Christian leader named Abd Allah ibn Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad was martyred in Najran in 523 AD, and he had worn a ring that said “Allah is my lord” (6)
In an inscription of Christian martyrion dated back to 512 AD, references to Allah can be found in both Arabic and Aramaic, which called him “Allah” and “Alaha”, and the inscription starts with the statement “By the Help of Allah”. (7)
In Pre-Muhammadan Gospels, the name used for God was “Allah”, as evidenced by some discovered Arabic versions of the New Testament written by Arab Christians during the Pre-Islamic era in Northern and Southern Arabia. (8)
Pre-Islamic Arab Christians have been reported to have raised the battle cry “Ya La Ibad Allah” (O slaves of Allah) to invoke each other into battle. (9)
The Diatessaron (c 160–175) is the most prominent early Gospel harmony; and was created by Tatian, an early Christian Assyrian apologist. The Diatessaron was first written in Aramaic and later translated in Arab. It used Alaha in the Aramaic and Allah in the Arabic translation.
Early Aramaic Christians and Arab speaking Christians have used two forms of invocations that were affixed to the beginning of their written works, The bismillāh. In addition to an invocation it was used as a blessing and many times as opening to prayer. They also created their own Trinitized bismillāh as early as the 8th century A.D. after the rise of Muhammadanism (3)..
This article Syriac version Bismillahirrohmanirrohim ;
ܒܫܡ ܐܠܗܐ ܪܚܡܢܐ ܘܪܚܝܡܐ
ܪܚܡܢܐ is MRaKHMaNaA and means most compassionate (Arabic: Al-rahmān)
ܘܪܚܝܡܐ is warHiyme and means most merciful (Arabic: al-raheem) aRKHiYMeA
ܐܠܗܐ is Alaha
ܒܫܡ is bishm and means In the name of
Recently Father Pecerillo, a famous Franciscan Archeologist, found more than twenty churches in Madaba at the south of Jordan. From the Forth Century we found houses in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine with this inscription in Arabic :”Bism il-Lah (Allah) al Rahman al Rahim” that showed that Christians were the first to use this name so as to indicate their belief in the Holy Trinity, more than two hundred years before Islam.
Christians had church all over the region of Arabic speaking countries. All over the Iraq, Syria Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia: (Mekka itself), Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Palestine, etc. you can find the sites of churches, convents and Christian centers and schools. Today, archeology tells us a lot about these monuments. Recently a convent was discovered in Karbala (Iraq) that returns to the 1st century of Christianity. The oldest one that was discovered ever since was in the Forth Century.
In šāʾ Allāh is a term that means ‘Allah Willing’. InsaAllah is also common in Christian groups in the Middle East, in parts of Africa and by some Portuguese and Spanish-speaking people. A term that gives an understanding of the Absolute Sovereignty of God over all His creation, and that nothing happens apart from His ordaining it to come to pass.
The Epistle of James in the New Testament Scriptures tells followers of Jesus: “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” -James 4:13-15
Footsnotes for this particular chapter at the end of the article
The Eastern AntiChrist
To many people the AntiChrist is a singular person who has not yet come. But that is not what the Scripture teaches nor is it the view of the historic Reformed Protestant church. The AntiChrist is not a person but a system. A system that has two horns consisting of Western and Eastern AntiChrist and is namely the Papacy and Muhammadanism. The AntiChrist system is not something we are still awaiting but is already at work in the world during this time of Great Tribulation. It is a system that will engulf the entire Roman Empire both of East and West. We have already shown how Muhammadanism is not just another religion but is nothing more then a Christian heresy.
In Calvin’s 1551 Commentary on the First Epistle of John 2:18-23 — on Apostle John’s words ‘even now many antichrists have arisen’ — Calvin comments that “here, all the marks by which the Spirit of God has pointed out Antichrist — appear clearly in the Pope…. Those who think that he would be just one man, are dreaming!”
Within the same century of Muhammad there was a Christian theologian by the name John Damascus. He was intimately associated with Muhammadanism because he not only lived in the East but also lived under the Dynasty. John Damascus calls them a heresy and shows how they are tied in with the Old and New Testament and conversed with an Arian monk,
“There is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this day prevails and keeps people in error” John Damascus, The Fount of Knowledge, Peri aipeseon (Concerning Heresies)
John Damascus continues,
“They (Muhammadans) are descended from Ishmael, [who] was born to Abraham of Agar, and for this reason they are called both Agarenes and Ishmaelites… From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration.” -John Damascus, The Fount of Knowledge, Peri aipeseon (Concerning Heresies)
Again he continues,
“Moreover, they call us Hetaeriasts, or Associators, because, they say, we introduce an associate with God by declaring Christ to the Son of God and God… And again we say to them: ‘As long as you say that Christ is the Word of God and Spirit, why do you accuse us of being Hetaeriasts? For the word, and the spirit, is inseparable from that in which it naturally has existence. Therefore, if the Word of God is in God, then it is obvious that He is God. If, however, He is outside of God, then, according to you, God is without word and without spirit. Consequently, by avoiding the introduction of an associate with God you have mutilated Him. It would be far better for you to say that He has an associate than to mutilate Him, as if you were dealing with a stone or a piece of wood or some other inanimate object. Thus, you speak untruly when you call us Hetaeriasts; we retort by calling you Mutilators of God.’” -John Damascus, The Fount of Knowledge, Peri aipeseon (Concerning Heresies)
Finally, John Damascus said,
“He says that the Christ is the Word of God and His Spirit, but a creature and a servant, and that He was begotten, without seed, of Mary the sister of Moses and Aaron. For, he says, the Word and God and the Spirit entered into Mary and she brought forth Jesus, who was a prophet and servant of God. And he says that the Jews wanted to crucify Him in violation of the law, and that they seized His shadow and crucified this. But the Christ Himself was not crucified, he says, nor did He die, for God out of His love for Him took Him to Himself into heaven. And he says this, that when the Christ had ascended into heaven God asked Him: ‘O Jesus, didst thou say: “I am the Son of God and God”?’ And Jesus, he says, answered: ‘Be merciful to me, Lord. Thou knowest that I did not say this and that I did not scorn to be thy servant. But sinful men have written that I made this statement, and they have lied about me and have fallen into error.’ And God answered and said to Him: ‘I know that thou didst not say this word.” There are many other extraordinary and quite ridiculous things in this book which he boasts was sent down to him from God. But when we ask: ‘And who is there to testify that God gave him the book? And which of the prophets foretold that such a prophet would rise up?’—they are at a loss. And we remark that Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai, with God appearing in the sight of all the people in cloud, and fire, and darkness, and storm. And we say that all the Prophets from Moses on down foretold the coming of Christ and how Christ God (and incarnate Son of God) was to come and to be crucified and die and rise again, and how He was to be the judge of the living and dead. Then, when we say: ‘How is it that this prophet of yours did not come in the same way, with others bearing witness to him? And how is it that God did not in your presence present this man with the book to which you refer, even as He gave the Law to Moses, with the people looking on and the mountain smoking, so that you, too, might have certainty?’—they answer that God does as He pleases. ‘This,’ we say, ‘We know, but we are asking how the book came down to your prophet.’ Then they reply that the book came down to him while he was asleep. Then we jokingly say to them that, as long as he received the book in his sleep and did not actually sense the operation, then the popular adage applies to him (which runs: You’re spinning me dreams.)” -John Damascus, The Fount of Knowledge, Peri aipeseon (Concerning Heresies)
Martin Luther who ignited the Protestant Reformation declared the following,
“The Turk and the Pope,” explained Luther, “do not differ at all in the form of religion; they vary only in words and ceremonies. For the Turk observes his and Moses’ ceremonies; yet the Pope, partly Christian ceremonies and partly such as were born of his own brain…. Just as the Turk violates the washings of Moses, so the Pope [too] does violence to Baptism and the Sacrament [of the Eucharist]. And just as the former does not stay with Moses, so the latter does not stay purely with Christ.”
We already know that the Papacy is the AntiChrist, it is declared in every Protestant Confession of Faith including the Westminster Confession. Here Martin Luther explains that the Turk and the Pope do not differ at all in the form of religion and therefore they too are the AntiChrist.
Again Luther said,
“To us Germans and to the Italians, He gave the Pope and with him all sorts of horrible things.” Yet “the wrath of God has brought Mohammed and the Pope into the World.”
Regarding the prophecies of Daniel, Martin Luther speaks of the Fourth Beast as well as the Little Horn that grew out of the first and he declares that little horn Muhammadans who will knock off three of the top ten horns of nations.
“The fourth beast, with the iron teeth, is now the really guilty one! This is the last, the Roman Empire…. Daniel [7:19-21] here…portrays this Roman Empire in such a way that it should first be broken up into ten kingdoms. These are the ten ‘ horns’ : Syria, Egypt, Asia [Minor], Greece, [North] Africa, Spain, Gaul, Italy, Germany, England, etc. He (Daniel) also indicates that one small horn shall knock off three among the top ten horns – meaning Mohammad or the Turk who now holds Egypt, Asia, and Greece…. This same little horn will fight the saints and blaspheme Christ — something that we are all experiencing and seeing before our very eyes…. The Turk has had great victories against the Christians, yet denies Christ while elevating his Mohammed.”
Dr. Luther believed that the “two regimes, that of the Pope and that of the Turk, are no doubt the true Antichrist”
Luther elaborates that “the Antichrist is at once the Pope and the Turk, because a human being is made up of body and soul.”
“And St. Paul in Second Thessalonians [speaks] of the Antichrist who comes with all kinds of lying-signs and [lying-]wonders and with all kinds of deceit unto unrighteousness etc….. This has occurred powerfully in the Papacy — and also in Turkey where such [Moslem] ‘clerics’ and exceptional ‘holy men’ are many….”
After John foresaw the fifth angel sound his trumpet, John recorded, “I saw a star fall from the sky…and he opened the bottomless pit. And there arose a smoke out of the pit…. And out of the smoke, locusts came upon the Earth…. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the Earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those who do not have the seal of God upon their foreheads…. Then the sixth angel sounded [his trumpet]. And I heard a voice say…’Loosen the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates!’ Then the four angels were unleashed…to slay the third part of men.” Revelation 9:1-13f.
Dr. Luther explains that “in chapters 9 and 10 the real misery begins.” In Revelation 9:1-11 “is Arius, the great heretic and his companions who plagued the Church so terribly everywhere” — and who was the unitarian forerunner also of the equally-unitarian Islam. In Revelation 9:12-13, “the second woe is…the shameful Mohammed with his companions the Saracens, who inflicted a great plague on the Church – with their doctrines and with the sword.”
Luther continues “Here now the Devil’s final wrath gets to work. There, in the east — the second woe: Mohammed and the Saracens. Here, in the west — Papacy and Empire: with the third woe!”
Luther concludes his treatment of the book of Revelation: “We can profit by this Book…. We can know that neither force nor lies neither wisdom nor holiness, neither tribulation nor suffering, shall suppress the Church. But it will gain the victory, and overcome at last…. Great and perilous and manifold offences come upon the Church…. This has happened before now, under the Papacy and Mohammed…. Our time is a golden age, compared with those that have gone before….
The great Reformer John Calvin in his 1556-57 Sermons on Deuteronomy (18:15 & 33:2), explains:
“As Mahomet says that his Al-Coran is the sovereign wisdom, so says the Pope of his own decrees. For they be the two horns of Antichrist”
Both “Mahomet” and “the Pope” John Calvin called “the two horns of Antichrist.” They correspond to the two legs of the later Roman Empire – Islam and the Papacy.
John Calvin in his Sermons on Deuteronomy (4:8), he frankly enjoined his Christian addressees: “Look upon the Turks [The Muhammadans]! They have some reverence to their religion…. So have the Papists also…. Still, both of them are cut off from the Church of God — through their own fault.”
The Lion of the Covenant, Cameronian Covenanter Richard Cameron in a sermon delivered in Lanarkshire had compared the ‘Turks’ Alcoran’ to the ‘Pope’s Conclave’ and the ‘Council of Britain’ as the Antichrist enemies who would perish at the Lord’s hand. -The information about the sermon is in Renwick, A Choice Collection, 422.
In his book A History of the Work of Redemption, Jonathan Edwards wrote: “The two great works of the devil which he wrought against the Kingdom of Christ are . . . his Anti-Christian (Romish or Papal) and Mahometan (Muslim or Islamic) kingdoms, which have been, and still are, two kingdoms of great extent and strength. Both together swallow up the Ancient Roman Empire; the (Papal) kingdom of the Antichrist swallowing up the Western Empire; and Satan’s Mahometan kingdom the Eastern Empire . . . In the Book of Revelation (chapter 16-20) . . . it is in the destruction of these that the glorious victory of Christ at the introduction of the glorious times of the Church, will mainly consists. And here let us briefly observe how Satan erects and maintains these two great kingdoms of his in opposition to the kingdom of Christ.
With respect to the kingdom of Antichrist. This seems to be the masterpiece of all the contrivances of the devil against the kingdom of Christ, and is evidently so spoken of in Scripture. Antichrist is that man of sin, (2 Thess. ii. 3.) emphatically, as though he were so eminently. He is called Antichrist, which signifies the opponent or adversary of Christ, not because he is the only opponent of Christ; for the apostle John observes, that in his days there were many Antichrists. But yet this is called the Antichrist, as though there were none but he, because he was so eminently, and above all others. So this contrivance of the devil, is called the mystery of iniquity, 2 Thess. ii. 7. We find no enemy of Christ one half so much spoken of in the prophecies of Revelation as this; and the destruction of no enemy is spoken of as so glorious, and so happy for the church.
This is a contrivance to turn the ministry of the christian church into a ministry of the devil, and the angels of the churches into fallen angels. In the tyranny, superstition, idolatry, and persecution, which he sets up, he contrives to make an image of ancient paganism, and more than to restore what was lost by the overthrow of paganism in the time of Constantine. By these means, the head of the beast, which was wounded unto death in Constantine, has his deadly wound healed in Antichrist, Rev. xiii. 3. And the dragon, that formerly reigned in the heathen Roman empire, being cast out thence, after the beast with seven heads and ten horns rises up out of the sea, gives him his power, and seat, and great authority; and all the world wonders after the beast.
I am far from pretending to determine the time when the reign of Antichrist began, which is a point that has been so much controverted among divines and expositors. It is certain that the twelve hundred and sixty days, or years, which are so often in Scripture mentioned as the time of the continuance of Antichrist’s reign, did not commence before the year of Christ four hundred and seventy-nine; because if they did, they would have ended, and Antichrist would have fallen before now. The rise of Antichrist was gradual. The christian church corrupted itself in many things presently after Constantine’s time; growing more and more superstitious in its worship, and by degrees bringing in many ceremonies into the worship of God, till at length they brought in the worship of saints, and set up images in their churches. The clergy in general, and especially the bishop of Rome, assumed more and more authority to himself. In the primitive times, he was only a minister of a congregation; then a standing moderator of a presbytery; then a diocesan bishop; then a metropolitan, which is equivalent to an archbishop; then a patriarch. Afterwards he claimed the power of universal bishop over the whole christian church; wherein he was opposed for a while, but afterwards was confirmed in it by the civil power of the emperor in the year six hundred and six. After that he claimed the power of a temporal prince, and so was wont to carry two swords, to signify that both the temporal and spiritual sword was his. He claimed more and more authority, till at length, as Christ’s vice-regent on earth, he claimed the very same power that Christ would have done, if he was present on earth reigning on his throne; or the same power that belongs to God, and was used to be called God on earth; to be submitted to by all the princes of Christendom. He claimed power to crown princes, and to degrade them at his pleasure; and this power was owned: yea, kings and emperors used to kiss his feet. The emperors received their crowns at his hands; and princes were wont to dread the displeasure of the pope, as they would dread a thunderbolt from heaven. If the pope was pleased to excommunicate a prince, all his subjects were at once freed from their allegiance to him; and obliged not to own him any more, on pain of excommunication; and not only so, but any man might kill him wherever he found him. Further, the pope was believed to have power to damn men at pleasure; for whoever died under his excommunication, was looked upon as certainly damned. Several emperors were actually deposed, and ejected, and died miserably by his means; and if the people of any state or kingdom did not please him, he had power to lay that state or kingdom under an interdict, which was a sentence pronounced by the pope against that state or kingdom, whereby all sacred administrations among them could have no validity. There could be no valid baptisms, or sacraments, or prayers, or preaching, or pardons, till that interdict was taken off; so that that people remained, in their apprehension, in a miserable, damnable state, and therefore dreaded it as they would a storm of fire and brimstone from heaven. And in order to execute his wrath on a prince or people with whom he was displeased, other princes must also be put to a great deal of trouble and expense.
And as the pope and his clergy robbed the people of their ecclesiastical and civil liberties and privileges, so they also robbed them of their estates, drained all Christendom of their money. They engrossed most of their riches into their own coffers, by vast revenues, besides pay for pardons and indulgences, baptisms and extreme unctions, deliverance out of purgatory, and a hundred other things.—See how well this agrees with the prophecies, 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4. Dan. vii. 20, 21. Rev. xiii. 6, 7; xvii. 3,
During this time also superstition and ignorance more and more prevailed. The Holy Scriptures by degrees were taken out of the hands of the laity, the better to promote the unscriptural and wicked designs of the pope and the clergy; and instead of promoting knowledge among the people, they industriously promoted ignorance. It was a received maxim among them, That ignorance is the mother of devotion: and so great was the darkness of those times, that learning was almost extinct in the world. The very priests themselves, most of them, were barbarously ignorant as to any commendable learning, or any other knowledge, than their hellish craft in oppressing and tyrannizing over the souls of the people.—The superstition and wickedness of the church of Rome, kept growing worse and worse till the very time of the Reformation, and the whole christian world were led away into this great defection, excepting the remains of the christian church in the Eastern empire that had not been utterly overthrown by the Turks. The Greek church, and some others, were also sunk into great darkness and gross superstition, excepting also those few that were the people of God, who are represented by the woman in the wilderness, and God’s two witnesses, of which more hereafter.—This is one of those two great kingdoms which the devil in this period erected in opposition to the kingdom of Christ, and was the greatest and chief.
The Mahometan kingdom is another of mighty power and vast extent, set up by Satan against the kingdom of Christ. He set this up in the Eastern empire, as he did that of Antichrist in the Western.
Mahomet was born in the year of Christ five hundred and seventy, in Arabia. When he was about forty years of age, he began to boast that he was the great prophet of God; and proceeded to teach his new-invented religion, of which he was to be worshipped as the head next under God. He published his Alcoran, which he pretended he received from the angel Gabriel; and being a subtle crafty man, possessed of considerable wealth, and living among a people who were very ignorant, and greatly divided in their opinions on religious matters, he by subtlety and fair promises of a sensual paradise, gained a number to be his followers. He set up for their prince, and propagated his religion by the sword, and made it meritorious of paradise to fight for him. By such means his party grew, and went on fighting till they conquered and brought over the neighbouring countries; and so his party gradually increased till they overran a great part of the world. First, the Saracens were some of his followers, who were a people of Arabia, where Mahomet lived, and who about the year seven hundred, dreadfully wasted the Roman empire.—They overran a great many countries belonging to the empire, and continued their conquests for a long time. These are supposed to be meant by the locusts mentioned in the 9th chapter of Revelation.
And then the Turks, who were originally different from the Saracens, became followers of Mahomet, and conquered all the Eastern empire. They began their empire about the year of Christ twelve hundred and ninety-six; began to invade Europe in the year thirteen hundred; took Constantinople, and so became masters of all the Eastern empire, in the year fourteen hundred and fifty-three. And thus all the cities and countries where stood those famous churches of which we read in the New Testament, as Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, &c. now became subject to the Turks. These are supposed to be prophesied of by the horsemen in the 9th chapter of Revelation, beginning with the 15th verse. And the remains of the Christians in those parts of the world, who are mostly of the Greek church, are in miserable slavery under these Turks; are treated with a great deal of barbarity and cruelty, and are become mostly very ignorant and superstitious.
Thus I have shown what great works of Satan were wrought during this space of time in opposition to the kingdom of Christ.
- I come now to show how the church of Christ was upheld through this dark time.
- It is to be observed, that towards the former part of this space of time, some of the nations of Christendom held out a long time before they complied with the corruptions and usurpations of the church of Rome. Though all the world wondered after the beast, yet all nations did not fall in at once. Many of the principal corruptions of the church of Rome were brought in with a great deal of struggle and opposition; and particularly, when the pope gave out, that he was universal bishop, many churches greatly opposed him in it; and it was a long time before they would yield to his exorbitant claims. And so, when the worship of images was first brought into the churches, there were many who greatly opposed it, and long held out against it. And so with respect to other corruptions of the church of Rome. Those who dwelt nearer to the city of Rome complied sooner; but some that were more remote, were a long time before they could be induced to put their necks under the yoke: and particularly a great part of the churches in England, Scotland, and France, retained the ancient purity of doctrine and worship much longer than many others who were nearer the chief seat of Antichrist. …
Assuming very much to himself: (2 Thess. ii. 4.) “That he should exalt himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.” So Rev. xiii. 5. “And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies.” Dan. vii. 8, 20. the little horn is said to have a mouth speaking very great things, and his look to be more stout than his fellows. This also was verified in the pope, and the church of Rome.—It was also prophesied, that Antichrist should be an exceeding cruel persecutor, Dan. vii. 21.
Rev. xiii. 7. “And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.” Rev. xvii. 6. “And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” This also came to pass in the church of Rome.—It was foretold, that Antichrist should excel in craft and policy: Dan. vii. 8. “In this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man.” And “Even of that horn that had eyes. “This also marks the church of Rome.—It was foretold, that the kings of Christendom should he subject to antichrist: Rev. xvii. 12, 13. “And the ten horns which thou sawest, are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but received power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” This also came to pass with respect to the Romish church.—It was foretold, that he should perform pretended miracles and lying wonders: 2 Thess. ii. 9. “Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders.”
It was foretold, that Antichrist would not suffer the bodies of God’s people to be buried: Rev. xi. 8, 9. “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, —and they—shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.”
To this end he set up those mighty kingdoms of Antichrist and Mahomet, and brought in all the heresies, superstitions, and corrupt opinions in the world. But when he sees all begin to fail, it will rouse him exceedingly. If Satan of old dreaded being cast out of the Roman empire, how much more does he dread being cast out of the whole world!
It seems, in this last great opposition, all the forces of Antichrist, and Mahometanism, and heathenism, will be united; all the forces of Satan’s visible kingdom through the whole world of mankind. And therefore it is said, that “spirits of devils shall go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them together to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. 641 “ And these spirits are said to come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet; i. e. there shall be the spirit of popery, the spirit of Mahometanism, and the spirit of heathenism all united. By the beast is meant Antichrist; by the dragon, in this book, is commonly meant the devil, as he reigns over his heathen kingdom: by the false prophet, is sometimes meant the pope and his clergy; but here an eye seems to be had to Mahomet, whom his followers call the great prophet of God. This will be as it were the dying struggles of the old serpent; a battle wherein he will fight as one that is almost desperate. We know not particularly in what manner this opposition shall be made. It is represented as a battle; it is called the battle of the great day of God Almighty. There will be some way or other a mighty struggle between Satan’s kingdom and the church, and probably in all ways of opposition that can be; and doubtless great opposition by external force. The princes of the world who are on the devil’s side shall join hand in hand; for it is said, “The kings of the earth are gathered together to battle,” Rev. xix. 19. And probably there will be great opposition by subtle disputers and carnal reasoning, persecution, virulent reproaches, craft, and subtlety. The devil now doubtless will ply his skill, as well as strength, to the utmost; and those who belong to his kingdom, will every where be stirred up, and engaged to make an united violent opposition against this holy religion, which they see prevailing so mightily in the world.—But,
- Christ and his church shall in this battle obtain a complete and entire victory over their enemies. They shall be totally routed and overthrown in this their last effort. When the powers of hell and earth are thus gathered together against Christ, and his armies shall come forth against them by his word and Spirit, in how august and glorious a manner is this advance of Christ with his church described, Rev. xix. 11. &c. And to represent how great the victory they should obtain, and how mighty the overthrow of their enemies, it is said, (Rev. xix. 17, 18.) that ” all the fowls of heaven are called together, to eat the great supper given them, of the flesh of kings, and captains, and mighty men,” &c. and then, in the following verses, we have a distinct account of the victory and overthrow.
In this victory, the seventh vial shall be poured out. It is said, Rev. xvi. 16 of the great army that should be gathered together against Christ: “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue, Armageddon ,” then it is said, “And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. “ Now the business is done for Satan and his adherents. When this victory is obtained, all is in effect done. Satan’s last and greatest opposition is conquered; all his measures are defeated; the pillars of his kingdom broken asunder, and will fall of course. The devil is utterly baffled and confounded, and knows not what else to do. He now sees his antichristian, Mahometan, and heathenish kingdoms through the world, all tumbling down. He and his most powerful instruments are taken captive. Now that is in effect done, for which the church of God had been so long waiting and hoping, and so earnestly crying to God, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true? “
The kingdom of Antichrist shall be utterly overthrown. His dominion has been much brought down already by the vial poured out on his throne in the Reformation; but then it shall be utterly destroyed. Then shall be proclaimed, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen. “ When the seventh angel sounds, “the time, times, and half a time, shall be out; and the time shall be no longer.” Then shall be accomplished concerning Antichrist the things which are written (Rev. xviii.) of the spiritual Babylon
Satan’s Mahometan kingdom shall be utterly overthrown. The locusts and horsemen in the 9th of Revelation, have their appointed and limited time set them there, and the false prophet shall be taken and destroyed. And then—though Mahometanism has been so vastly propagated in the world, and is upheld by such a great empire—this smoke, which has ascended out of the bottomless pit, shall be utterly scattered before the light of that glorious day, and the Mahometan empire shall fall at the sound of the great trumpet which shall then be blown. ” -Jonathan Edwards, History of Redemption
Covenanter Alexander McLeod in his Lectures in Revelation wrote,
“THE ANTICHRISTIAN SYSTEM. It includes, the beasts of the pit, of the sea, and of the earth; the head, the horns, the image of the beast; the mother of harlots, and all who are drunken with the cup of her intoxication. It is not precisely the emperor, the kings, or any of the kings, nor the people, nor the pope, nor the Roman church, nor the territorial dominions of the pope, or of the emperor; but it is all these, combined by a corrupt religion, embodied with despotic power, in opposition to the public social order which Christianity demands of the nations of the world, and which shall be actually established in the millennium.
…
Antichrist Signifies an opposite Christ, from over, against, and against, Christ. AntiChrist, the opposer of Christ, under pretense of being himself appointed or anointed of the Lord. Thus, the grand opposition to the Christian system is personified according to the prophetic style of king, horn, beast, etc. for kingdom, power, empire. In this sense, the antichrist is generally understood by all writers, and while agreeably to the apostle John’s declaration, 1 John ii. 18. there are many antichrists many opposers of Christ, it is not doubted that prophecy directs to one great system of opposition which should arise under the Christian dispensation, as pointed out by this name.”
Alexander Ross wrote in 1658,
“Yet I cannot deny that he was Antichrist, in broaching a doctrine repugnant to Christ’s divinity, and in persecuting Christ in his members. Besides, number of the Beast, 666, is found in his name.”
— Alexander Ross, “A View of All Religions in the World, pp. 162-179 (1658)
The Locust from the East
After John foresaw the fifth angel sound his trumpet, John recorded, “I saw a star fall from the sky…and he opened the bottomless pit. And there arose a smoke out of the pit…. And out of the smoke, locusts came upon the Earth…. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the Earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those who do not have the seal of God upon their foreheads…. Then the sixth angel sounded [his trumpet]. And I heard a voice say…’Loosen the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates!’ Then the four angels were unleashed…to slay the third part of men.” Revelation 9:1-13f.
The Arabs have an Islamic tradition that goes back to one of their ancient schools of Hadiths, which says “Locusts fell onto Mohammed’s hand, and on the wings of the locusts it was written: “We are the army of the Great God“
Dr. Albert Barnes — nineteenth-century Pastor of Philadelphia’s famous First Presbyterian Church comments on Revelation chapter 9: “With surprising unanimity, commentators have agreed in regarding this as referring to the empire of the Saracens, or to the rise and progress of the religion and the empire set up by Mohammed…. Mohammedan tradition speaks of locusts having dropped into the hands of Mohammed…. Nothing would better represent… the Saracenic hordes that came out of Arabia and that spread over the East, over Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Spain — and that threatened to spread over Europe.”
Dr. Luther explains that “in chapters 9 and 10 the real misery begins.” In Revelation 9:1-11 “is Arius, the great heretic and his companions who plagued the Church so terribly everywhere” — and who was the unitarian forerunner also of the equally-unitarian Islam. In Revelation 9:12-13, “the second woe is…the shameful Mohammed with his companions the Saracens, who inflicted a great plague on the Church – with their doctrines and with the sword.”
The Reformed Dordt Dutch Bible of 1637 rsays that at Revelation 9:1-11, many here understand “Mohammad with his followers who around the year 620 cobbled together his ungodly doctrine… and was brought forth to appear from the bottomless pit. Thereafter, it was propagated throughout a large part of the World by his Arabs and Saracens, who looked like armed locusts.”
Abraham Kuyper speaking on the Locust wrote,
“The ruins tell you that this was once the land of Christians, but provide no clue about that past. As a swarm of locusts descends on an orchard and devours all the leaves and blossoms to leave only bare branches, so has Islam in those countries totally devoured and dissected the Christian orchard till nothing was left.” Abraham Kuyper, The Mystery of Islam Covenanter Alexander McLeod wrote in his Lectures on Revelation,
“Trumpet V.—Being the First Wo Trumpet.
Verses 1—11. And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth; and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it nets commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And lo them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it: and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from, them. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on
their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
And they had tails like unto scorpions; and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
We have already assigned our reasons for laying the scene of these events in the eastern empire: and the interpretation must proceed accordingly. In the progress of my exposition abundant internal evidence will be furnished by the prophecy itself, which, independently of the introductory argument, will prove that we have not misunderstood the scene of the vision.
The sounding of this Wo Trumpet announces an approaching judgment; and a hieroglyphical representation of the particular agents and events, is immediately made to the apostle, and, by him communicated to the church. The principal objects of attention to the expositor, in this representation, are The fallen star opening the pit—The locusts issuing from the smoke of the pit—Their king Apollyon— The depredations which they committed —
And the time of their depredations.
- The fallen Star.
This symbol has been already explained.* A star fallen from heaven to earth, signifies either a civil or theological character degraded from the political or ecclesiastical heavens. I cannot, therefore,
conceive of a greater perversion of figurative language than to apply it, with Dr. Johnston, to the exaltation of Pope Boniface III. to the bad eminence of universal bishop, by the emperor. The application of it to Mahomet, whether considered in the light of the founder of a religion, or the head of an army, is also incorrect. Not degradation^ but elevation and success, characterized this eminent impostor.
He never fell from either an ecclesiastical or political heaven. The contrary of being a fallen star was the case both with the eastern impostor, and with the Pope of Rome. They rose from obscurity to eminence.
This fallen star, with a key bestowed on him), opened the bottomless pit—in the providence of God he is permitted to promote the purposes of fallen angels. Instantly a smoke ascends from the pit, the place of impiety and suffering, that obscures the sun and the air. Truth is light. Error is darkness. A system of misrepresentation and falsehood, originating from the father of lies, and deceiver of the nations, is the smoke of the pit by which the sun and the air were darkened.* Such are the doctrines of the Koran. The fallen star, is in plain terms, a degraded “man, who is instrumental in contriving a system of delusion, of which hell approves, and by which moral darkness is spread abroad among the nations. The description suits the monk Sergius.
We shall as yet only name this man, and proceed,
- To take a view of the locusts issuing from the smoke of the pit. Their appearance is formidable in a high degree. They are compared to a troop of horse prepared for the battle. Adorned with crowns, with a manly countenance,
* By SMOKE, in the figurative language of Scripture, are denoted (dark confused doctrines clouding the light of pure revelation.
Appearing as effeminate ornaments, as the hair of women, with breastplates of iron, with scorpion stings, the sound of their ravings was as the sound of chariots, and they had the teeth of lions to devour their prey.
The natural locusts are flying insects very destructive to the fruits of the earth. They abound in Asia, and sometimes fly in astonishing multitudes, like an immense cloud which darkens the air, threatening destruction wherever they light. They constituted one of the plagues of Egypt, Exod. x. 14—19. and are used by the prophets as the symbol of a destroying army, Joel i. 4. and ii. 4—6. The symbolical locusts under consideration, issued from the figurative smoke, that is, were excited to their destructive excursions by hellish delusions.
We are, therefore, to look for the fulfilment of this prophecy, to some fierce and barbarous people, who appear after the close of the 61h century, in the eastern empire, influenced to cruel warfare in immense multitudes, under the auspices of a system of false doctrines contrived by the instrumentality of some ” fallen star.” The history of Arabia, the natural seat of the locusts, furnishes the interpretation of the prophecy in the conduct of the Saracens.
The locusts had a king over them. He was a messenger of hell, the angel of the bottomless pit.
His name is Abaddon, or Apollyon. Both these words signify a destroyer. This king is the personage, who acts as chief over the destroying armies, who are permitted in the providence of God to inflict judgments upon the eastern Roman empire.
- The power with which this new foe is invested appears to he placed under restrictions. The depredations of the locusts are limited to that class of people who have not the seal of God on their foreheads. … This trumpet must be accordingly explained of the WO caused by the Mahometan Saracens, for the space of one hundred and fifty years after the rise of their false prophet.
The events of that period are so interesting a part of the history of man, and had such an effect upon the christian churches of the east, that they ought to be known to intelligent men, and undoubtedly merit a place in the sacred system of prophecy.
That great peninsula, which is washed on the south and east by the waves of the Indian Ocean, and Persian Gulf, and on the west by the waters of the Red Sea, has since the remotest ages been known by the name of Arabah or Arabia. This name it received from the most distinguished of its original settlers, Yarab* the son of Joktan, and the fifth in descent from Shem the son of Noah. Ishmael, the son of Abram by Hagar, settled with his family in this country; and his descendants were mingled with the former inhabitants. It was not long before the idolatry of the Sabeans, who derive their name from Saba, the great grandson of Joktan, became prevalent through the greater part of this extensive territory.
But of its internal history from the time of Moses until the commencement of the christian era, we know very little. From the Greeks and Romans we have derived our knowledge of ancient nations; and as Arabia defied the power of these conquering empires, they have not been at the pains of describing its geography, or recording its history. … In the year 579 was born at Mecca the celebrated Mahomet, the king and apostle of the Arabs; or to use the words of the sacred text, Apollyon the destroyer, king of the locusts. He was descended from one of the most ancient and powerful families. His father Abdallah was the favourite son of Motalleb, a man of great opulence and liberality, who succeeded his father Hashem in the principality of Mecca, and custody of the Caaba. The aged Motalleb outlived his son, and took under his protection the orphan grandson. In the eighth year of his age, however, Mahomet was deprived of this guardian; and came of course under the immediate protection of Abu Taleb his uncle, who, himself a merchant of the first rank and wealth, now succeeded to all the dignities of his deceased father. It appears to me altogether improper, therefore, to represent this imposture as rising from obscurity to eminence. He was left indeed in early life an orphan without a patrimonial inheritance: but he had no alliance with poverty. He was educated in the first families of the age: his connexions were the first in power and rank: he travelled along with his uncle through Syria and Egypt, while engaged in mercantile pursuits: he was early made acquainted with the absurd mysteries of the prevailing religion; and under Abu Taleb, the victorious general of the Koreish, he served in a successful war, in which he acquired the rudiments of the science in which he afterwards became so famous in the east. In the twenty-eighth year of his age, Mahomet found himself possessed of independent property: and to his aspiring mind the most flattering prospects began to be unfolded. This state of things was brought about by his marriage with Cadigha, an opulent widow of Mecca, whose extensive mercantile concerns he had, for three years from the death of her first husband, conducted to great advantage.
He now began to cherish the hope that he might repair the loss incurred by the death of his father Abdallah, who, had he survived his grandfather, would have been the heir of his fortunes; and would have of course transmitted to his son the first, dignities of Mecca. His intercourse with men of different nations and religions, was sufficient to convince him, that, in that age, there was no possibility of acquiring influence over the minds of men, with; out some show of religion. That of the Caaba was evidently declining; and, in its present state, the chief office of the system was lodged in other, and very powerful hands, from which he could have no hopes of wresting it for himself. The Christians were greatly divided; and the Jewish system was not well adapted to the condition of the Arabians.
New sects of different descriptions were frequently springing up with various success. He resolved to become the prophet and apostle of a new religion. Intelligent, wealthy, courageous, crafty, ambitious, and eloquent, he had much to expect from his influence with the people; and the patronage of his powerful relatives promised him in the beginning protection from danger. He was in short remarkably qualified to be the king of barbarous fanatics, or an angel of hell. All that was necessary was to open the pit, that the smoke which generated the locusts might issue forth—that a suitable system of religion might be contrived for the deluded inhabitants of Arabia, a mongrel race of idolaters, half convinced of the folly of their present faith, of Jews, who knew but little of their own Bible, and of professed Christians, without understanding or piety. Mahomet now felt one deficiency which was likely to prove irremediable. He, with all his natural talents and acquirements, lived in a society into which literature had never been introduced ; and he could not himself either read or write. The Jews and the Christians were commonly designated as that people of the book; and no new system could be reasonably expected to prove successful without it were placed in that respect upon a footing with others. Without the smoke of the pit nothing could be done. The Koran must be contrived and executed; and to this task the son of Abdallah is entirely unequal. He had not the key of the abyss. The Koran is the smoke from which the locusts spread over the land; and the author of the Koran, whoever he is, (and it is certain it could not be the pretended apostle himself,*) is the person designated in the prophecy as the fallen star, unto whom was given the key of the bottomless pit. This man is Sergius. To him must be ascribed the work of composing the religion of the Musselman. The histories of that age appear, it is true, at a loss whether to ascribe the work to a Jew, a Persian, or a monk ; for each of those three were associates of the impostor: but internal evidence is furnished by the Koran itself that it owes it’s origin to some one acquainted with Christianity; and undoubtedly the Apocalyptical prediction determines the question.
It was a from star that opened the bottomless pit, and set loose the smoke of impost me, from whence issued the Arabian locusts under their king, the destroyer. Sergius, called, by the Arabian writers, the monk Bahira, was a minister of the christian church, who had fallen into error and immorality of the deepest lie. He had belonged to that class of people, who in those days of dissension were called Nestorians from the celebrated bishop Nestorius, of Constantinople. The dispute between this arrogant Prelate, and the still more haughty Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, had more of ambitious policy than of religion to give it origin and support. It began about the titles of the Virgin Mary: and the question was, whether she ought to be honoured with the epithet , or mother of God. Nestorius, in adopting the negative, was upon the side of truth. This dispute, however, continued until, in vain attempts to explain the union of two natures in Jesus Christ, the Nestorians asserted that there were two persons* united under one aspect. This fixed upon them the charge of heresy; and their enemies triumphed. To this sect of Christians, spread over Persia and Arabia before the time of Mahomet, Sergius, the intimate associate of Mahomet, and the principal contriver of the system which bears that impostor’s name, belonged. He had contracted an intimacy with the youthful and engaging nephew of Abu Taleb, whom he first met at Bostra, a city on the confines of Syria;* and it was further cherished by the particular attention afterwards bestowed upon him, by the elegant husband of the opulent Cadigha, when he revisited that city, or when they met at Jerusalem.
Shortly after this, Sergius for high crimes was degraded from his ministry, and became a ” fallen star.” Excommunicated from the church, and expelled from the monastery, he fled to Mecca. A man of genius and literature, suited to the purposes of Mahomet, and now reduced to the necessity of labouring for his bread, he entered readily into the views of the grandson of the famed Motalleb. Both were unrestrained by moral principle: the one was needy; and the other a splendid merchant, of uncommon address and boundless ambition. This will account for the connexion which they formed. Theophanes, Zonaras, Cedrenus, Anastasius, the author of the Historia Miscella, Friar Richard, and several other historians, speak of this fallen Monk, both under his proper name, and that of Bahira, which he assumed in Arabia as the agent in composing the Koran. He was the Gabriel of Mahomet. When Sergius had finished his task, he was gut to death by his patron, for fear he should afterwards betray the imposture.
The new religion progressed after a few years with extraordinary rapidity; and in its progress became the way announced by the fifth Apocalyptical Trumpet which fell upon the eastern empire, and ravaged the adjacent countries, tormenting men for one hundred and fifty years of Saracenic invasion and conquest.
It was in the year 606, Mahomet commenced his imposture by retiring, under pretense of extraordinary sanctity, to the cave of Hera. In 612 he appeared as the apostle at the head of his disciples, publicly to propagate the new doctrine. Then did the locusts issue from the smoke of the pit, opened by the excommunicated monk, under their king Apollyon. In the year 762 the Caliph Almansor built the city of Baghdad, and called it “the city of peace.” A stop was then put to the devastation of the locusts. The Saracen empire continued for a longer time, but after this period it lost the disorderly locust character, and became a more regular commonwealth. Between the years 612 and 762, during the five months of prophecy, or 150 years, the Saracens overrun and subdued with terrible depredations, Syria, Persia, India, Egypt, and Spain. … I have already in this discourse given my reasons for applying the first and second woe to the Christian empire, as it still remained in the east, Constantinople being the seat of power. The Arabian locusts’ under Mahomet, gave to this power a shock of great violence; but it is under the sixth trumpet that it is completely overthrown. History so minutely describes this overthrow, and the means by which it was effected, that their is no avoiding the application of the second woe, to the Mahometan conquerors of the empire of the Cesars.
The text itself too, is so obviously descriptive of these invaders, that almost every Commentator of celebrity explains it of the followers of the impostor of Mecca. Mede, and Newton, and Faber, particularly, have so correctly illustrated the judgment of this trumpet, that I deem it sufficient to refer you to these writers for a satisfactory discussion. The objections of Mr. Woodhouse to this part of the scheme of interpretation are eventually superseded by the considerations already submitted. Even he, however, is constrained to acknowledge the application of the sixth trumpet to the Mahometan devastation. The objects which, in this part of scripture, require the attention of the expositor, are the Euphratean angels—the specified time of their conquests— and, the character and consequences of their warfare.
…
THE CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS respect, The nature of the Mahometan religion—The progress of the great power which is its principal support— and the necessity of carefully distinguishing from every other religion, that personal piety, which, through the faith of the gospel, prepares for eternal life.
- The Mahometan Religion, The creed of the Mussulman is essentially the same with that of the Sociniaus which they presumptuously denominate Unitarian, as If they alone worshipped one God.
The coincidence between the religion of the Mahometan, and that of the modern Socinians, has been distinctly perceived by respectable writers of different countries, and has been acknowledged by Socinians themselves. Professing reverence* for the christian scriptures, these Unitarians quote them, reject them, and pervert them, at pleasure; and pretend to found upon them their own incoherent and impious dogmas.
The impostor of Mecca admitted the divine origin of both the Old and the New Testament, and gave out that they both predicted his own mission, as superior to Moses, and even to Jesus Christ. In the sixty-first chapter, the Koran has these words, ” Remember that Jesus the Son of Mary said to the children of Israel, I am the messenger of God ; he hath sent me to confirm the Old Testament, and to declare unto you, that there shall come a prophet after me, whose name shall be Mahomet.”* Four texts of scripture are employed to prove that the son of Abdallah was a teacher sent from God, Deut. xxxiii. 2. Psa. 1. 2. Isa. xxi. 7. John xvi. 7. I shall not however, take up your time by repeating the argument or the criticism upon these passages.
The Final Battle
“We are assured that Satan will be dispossessed of that power over this world, which he usurped when man fell, and which he has since been permitted, for wise purposes, to exercise. His kingdom will be destroyed, and he will be shut up in hell. The great, immoral empires, symbolized by the four beasts of Daniel’s vision, are to be destroyed. That is, there will come a time when civil governments of an immoral character, shall cease to exercise tyranny over the nations. Their downfall will be succeeded by the setting of kingdoms established upon holy principles, and administered by godly men, The kingdom of Christ, in other words, will then be fully established.” -The Two Sons of Oil, 1773-1852
Rev. Dr. Luther wrote, “While all this is happening, there comes in chapter 20 (vv. 7-10) the stirrup-cup” alias the final draught of the wine of the wrath of God. “Satan… brings up – God and Magog; the Turks; the ‘Red Jews’ …. But they are soon to go with him, into the lake of fire.”
“This picture… has been put in because of the Turks…. The thousands years are to begin…. After the Turks, the last Judgment follows quickly – at the end of this chapter [20:11-15], as Daniel 7 [vv.7-8 cf. 12:13] also shows”
Islamic Peace versus Christian Peace
The word Islam is derived from another Arabic word meaning peace, this is perhaps part of the explanation of the term “Dar Al-Islam”, or Land of Peace. “Peace” has an entirely different meaning in Islam; only a society completely dominated by Dar Al-Islam is “at peace”. Individual personal peace is attained by utterly submitting to Allah.
“Peace” has an entirely different meaning in Christianity, only a society completely dominated Christ and His laws as the supreme laws of the land is “at peace” and is considered the “land of peace”. Individual personal peace is attained by utterly submitting to the Triune God through our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.
Reformed Christianity and Muhammadanism
Some people have tried to say that the Reformed doctrine of the Second Commandment is totally Muhammadanistic. That we have been influence by Muhammadanistic Doctrine. We can not portray images of the Godhead! We can’t even portray a hand, or a light signifying His presence. Nor are we permitted to have mental images of any person of the Godhead. Nor should we portray images of heavenly beings that we do not know what they look like nor any of the Apostles of Prophets as taught by Wilhelmus A’Brakel. And when we mention the symbol of the Cross they really get upset.. But Muhammadans do have a legitimate reason why they call us Christians ‘cross-worshippers’ in their materials.
To many modern Christians all of this sounds like some of the worst of Muhammadan doctrine and sometimes the most radical forms of it in the Taliban and Daesh (I have been called more than once Tartan Taliban). But this is not so. Christianity has always believed these beliefs. And many other issues that get called Muhammadan Doctrine (Predestination, Veiling, Chanting the Psalms, etc).
They also like to call Covenanter Theonomy a type of Sharia law and that the Reformed doctrine of Postmillennialism all stem from Muhammadanism.
But who do think Muhammad and his followers got these ideas, practices and doctrines from? Muhammadanism is a Christian heresy. It took ideas; doctrines and practices from Christians twisted them and then corrupted them for their evil wicked designs.
So in reference to the Second Commandment and the total absence of any image of any person of the Godhead including mental images, images of apostles and prophets (Ninth Commandment issues), images of heavenly beings, images of the cross and that our places of worship are totally devoid of any artistic representation and is bare is not because of Muhammadanism but that we originated it from the Scriptures and Muhammadans borrow and stole the views from us.
Reading through Faith No Fancy, a Treatise on Mental Images by Seceder Ralph Erskine. It is a 500 page book and I am looking forward to finishing it but so far it has been excellent and I highly recommend everyone to read it.
So let them call us Islamic. My faith and doctrine is Reformed and it is to the true Reformed Religion that I firmly hold to and am bound.
The Westminster Standards, The Directory of Publick Worship and our Duty regarding Muhammadanism
The Directory of Publick Worship, part of the Westminster Standards commands us that we are “To pray for the propagation of the gospel and kingdom of Christ to all nations; for the conversion of the Jews, the fulness of the Gentiles, the fall of Antichrist, and the hastening of the second coming of our Lord; for the deliverance of the distressed churches abroad from the tyranny of the antichristian faction, and from the cruel oppressions and blasphemies of the Turk; for the blessing of God upon the reformed churches, especially upon the churches and kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland, now more strictly and religiously united in the Solemn National League and Covenant; and for our plantations in the remote parts of the world: more particularly for that church and kingdom whereof we are members, that therein God would establish peace and truth , the purity of all his ordinances, and the power of godliness; prevent and remove heresy, schism, profaneness, superstition, security, and unfruitfulness under the means of grace; heal all our rents and divisions, and preserve us from breach of our Solemn Covenant.”
The Apologetical Declaration declares our apocalyptic role to ‘display Christ’s standard … against all opposition’ and to ‘declare war against the bloody and whorish beast, and all his supporters, whether right, or left hand enemies’ in ‘long and costly warfare’ against ‘all the courts of the Antichrist’”
Martin Luther wrote in his “Treatise on Good Works, “O God, how blind – nay, how insane – we Christians have become! … If the Turks destroys cities, country and people’ and ruins churches – we think a great injury has been done Christiandom. Then we complain – and urge kings and princes to war. But when faith perishes, love grows cold, God’s Word is neglected and all manner of sin flourishes – then, no one think of fighting…” -Works, VI: 486
The True Shahada or Confession
The true Shahada or confession of faith is the Shema for all true believers,
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”
Shma Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad. The Lord our God (Plurality) is One (Unity) Lord.
This is the Tri-Unity of our God and our true Shahada.
With regard to the revelation of the Trinity in the Old Testament Francis Turretin puts forward the following (Third Topic: Question 26):
“Can the mystery of the Trinity be proved from the Old Testament, and was it known under it? We affirm against the Socinians”
Turretin also states,
“He (Christ) must necessarily have been revealed to the Jews as such and known and worshipped by them. Otherwise they would not have worshipped the true God who is no other then the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (because he who has not the Son has not the Father either, 1 Jn. 2:23).”
Do Mohammedans submit to the one true God through Jesus Christ our Lord? The answer of course is no they are not!
“Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah. Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison: Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.” -Psalm 83:1-10
Conclusion
I am more than certain that after this gets published and disseminated a Fatwa will most likely be declared on my head. But the truth must be told. We must prepare ourselves for the growth of Muhammadanism on a world scale. It will be a time of the blood of the martyrs where the saints will have their heads cut off. And the souls of the martyrs will cry “with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”
I do not write this article to be mean or hateful. I have a great desire to see the Arab people come to Christ. I have much admiration for the culture, a culture that is deeply rooted in the early traditions of Patristic Christianity. I love for the art, the music, architecture, language, the literature, food, and just the general environment of the Middle East. So again, this is not about hatred. This is very much in fact a call for the Arabian people to come out the heresy that they are in, leave the Eastern AntiChrist and join the true Religion of God- the Reformed Faith.
Part 2 that will be written will include the following
Muhammadanism and Neonomianism
Further details on The Gospel of Barabbas
Mystery Babylon
The Accumulation of the Great Tribulation Period
Footnotes for Chapter
(1) Columbia Encyclopedia, Allah
(2) Lewis, Bernard; Holt, P. M.; Holt, Peter R.; Lambton, Ann Katherine Swynford (1977). The Cambridge history of Islam. Cambridge, Eng: University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-521-29135-4.
(3) Thomas E. Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, Brill, 1994, p. 103
(4) James Bellamy, ‘Two Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions Revised: Jabal Ramm and Umm al-Jimal’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 108/3 (1988)
Enno Littmann, Arabic Inscriptions (Leiden, 1949)
Rick Brown, Who is “Allah” ? – International Journal of Frontier Missions, (23:2 Summer 2006), page 80.
(5) Ignatius Ya`qub III, The Arab Himyarite Martyrs in the Syriac Documents (1966), Pages: 9-65-66-89
Rick Brown, Who was ‘Allah’ before Islam? Evidence that the term ‘Allah’ originated with Jewish and Christian Arabs (2007), page 8.
(6) Rick Brown, Who was ‘Allah’ before Islam? Evidence that the term ‘Allah’ originated with Jewish and Christian Arabs (2007), page 8.
(7) Rick Brown, Who was ‘Allah’ before Islam? Evidence that the term ‘Allah’ originated with Jewish and Christian Arabs (2007), page 8.
Adolf Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II: Das Schriftwesen und die Lapidarschrift (1971), Wien: Hermann Böhlaus Nochfolger, Page: 6-8
Beatrice Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts: From the Nabatean Era to the First Islamic Century according to Dated Texts (1993), Atlanta: Scholars Press,
(8) Rick Brown, Who was ‘Allah’ before Islam? Evidence that the term ‘Allah’ originated with Jewish and Christian Arabs (2007), page 10.
Frederick Winnett V, Allah before Islam-The Moslem World (1938), Pages: 239–248
Michael Macdonald, Personal Names in the Nabataean Realm-Journal Of Semitic Studies (1999), Page: 271
(9) Irfan Shahîd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University-Washington DC, page 418.
Mint, Anise, and the Cumin 