Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Islam & Christianity

Daniel Scarone

Understanding Similarities & Differences- Part 1

Father in heaven, thank you for your blessing.

For your blessing we are here, for your blessing we are in the church, and for your blessing we are Christians today.

Help us to defend the Bible and the teachings of the Lord Jesus, and be with us in this seminar, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Okay, let me do a start, and I guess this is a good start in a certain sense.

I know several of you do not speak Spanish, but that was my original language, and it is.

So if you feel an accent, it's not, please don't go to the medical doctor to check, if you do have a problem, no, it's myself, so don't worry for that.

But years ago when I was in South America, I've been doing pastoral work, and doing pastoral work I've been called to be an editor, and I've been working as an editor in South America for about 10, approximately 10 years.

I've been in charge of the equivalency of the Sabbath school quarterly and I've been working with Ministry Magazine in Spanish.

Ministry Magazine in those days were a kind of joint service between the Inter-American Division and the South American division.

And of course 1 of the areas in which I've been dealing during my ministry before going to the Buenos Aires Publishing House and working together with a Brazilian publishing house together with the ministry magazine is to provide to the pastors and to the lay people information regarding a variety of things.

For example, doctrines, teaching, theology, and whatever, and also comparative religions.

For, maybe to my background, comparative religions was something that was very attractive for myself because it's going to help you to distinguish Baptist from Methodist and Catholics and Christian science and so on.

So with that kind of background and especially with a person that was a handicapped person in 1 church, I learned a lot of that handicapped gentleman because he was a living testimony, a living witness of the Seventh-day Adventist faith wherever he went in those days.

He was with a small cart, and he pushed the cart with his hands, and he went to the places and gave testimony to Mormons, Catholics, and I learned with him a lot.

And I think for myself, look, maybe in the future, I need to do something regarding this kind of ministry, because it's a kind of service.

Many people, they don't know about how to be dealing with that, and how to be reaching those who are Pentecostals, Catholics, and so on.

So I began to think in a book that helped, and I wrote this.

It is not, I will say it's not in English yet, because I'm thinking in putting it in English in a future, because a friend of me, when I was in Colombia, and this is the first time in which it was printed out, she's from Trinidad and Tobago, and she said, Daniel, this is not in English, and I said, no, well, you need to put it in the language of heaven.

That was the first time I was in touch with a very big theological topic about what language we are going to be speaking in heaven.

And of course, by the way, Trinidad and Tobago, they speak English, a British kind of English, but they speak English.

And I say to my dear friend, well probably it's a challenge for the future and I will try to do it.

But in this book I am dealing with some critical issues regarding the topic of sex.

Do you have in English another word for sex?

I didn't, I didn't, I didn't went too far.

So I was, I was, I was arranging a lot of things like Catholicism, and I put it here because there was a theologian from South America that called Catholics a sect.

You know, the word sect is coming from sector.

It's a portion of the society and this author is catalogizing and identifying, labeling Catholicists like that.

And they were the master cult for Latin America.

So in English, I guess, I have to use the word cults.

It's a better word, I guess, for, yes, I learn a lot.

You know, I was in Arbor, and 1 day we were promoting our church, 70 Atlantis Church, Spanish, and we put cultos in Espanol.

And the pastor approached me and said, you put that, yes, that word, what does it mean, he says, you know, just to approach to the topic, he says, means worship.

There is no other word in Spanish when you are going to worship that call worship in Spanish, culto.

But culto means it's very close to cults.

So sometimes in the intersection of linguistics tension, you need to be very precise, and that's a problem with myself, Katrina, regarding sex.

And remember something, he's from this moment on my lawyer.

By the way, for those who don't know, he is a lawyer.

So in this, what I am doing, or we're doing in Spanish, is to put something like a big picture, general picture, of some comparisons between the views regarding the understanding of God, the divinity, the understanding of the doctrines, the understanding of the practices, and so on.

And when I finish the book, The first person I went to give the book was my father.

Because my father, I was in a tension in my home when I was a kid.

But they took me, being from Catholic background in South America, because Scarone is Italian.

Please, Italian is the lado de la familia que me conecta con la Italia.

It's The side of the family that connects me with Italy is the side of the family that connects me with the insulin in Europe.

And when I was rear as a kid, I was an altar boy.

But my father moved into the Christian signs.

And I was in 1 of the worships of them in South America when I heard the Lord's Prayer that is from Mary Moores Baker Eddy in the book Christian Science.

And they pray, Our Father, Mother in Heaven.

And they pray, our father slash mother in heaven.

So the altar boy that was invited was, you know, what they are saying and it's written.

So when you go there it's quite interesting.

So that kind of environment took me to side by side to search into other religions.

So I wrote this thinking in the pastoral needs, especially for the mission of the church.

And I wrote on Catholicism, Christian science, the universal charge of God, that is moon, and moon has been, excuse me, no, this is unification charge of God, that is moon.

And moon was very well represented in my city to the point in which they call instead of Montevideo Moontevideo.

Because the invasion of the Moonies were so big that changed the panorama that and and the universal Church of God is Armstrong and an Armstrong for me it was an interesting point and I wrote in this book something, this book is from 1995 So you see it's just printed.

In 1990, in 1990 I mentioned that if they were going to change the leadership, they were going to change doctrines and teaching, and in 5 years that happened with that charge.

So in Costa Rica, there were somebody that called me prophet for that.

But I am not a prophet, just an observer.

And I like to do a comparative analysis of the backgrounds of the religious movement.

In those days, when I wrote this, and I'm going to change it, my view regarding Islam was very, very innocent, almost angelica, I would say.

Today, I don't have any longer that view.

And I'm going to tell you from the beginning, because I don't want to lose your time for the rest of the week, that I am not very sympathetic with Muslims, and I am not seeing them as a true religion, and I am going to demonstrate during the week using the Bible and using the spirit of prophecy, and probably you are going to agree with several of the things, but from the starting point, I am going to be very clear regarding these topics.

It's not a very good 1, but how much you know about this land?

Because in a week it's going to be short the time, but I'm going to give you probably the best information that I can do in this time, and I will try to do that kind of approach, but it's important that you answer also the following question.

Is Islam like any other religion, according to your view?

We are going to see, and probably very soon, because here, in the Sahih al-Bukhari, in Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih means the true, the right al-Bukhari.

And al-Bukhari is 1 of about 6, 7 Hadiths.

Understanding Similarities & Differences- Part 2

Father in heaven, thank you for this moment in which we are dealing with a study and comparison between Muslims and Christianity.

Be with us in our presentation and also in outreaching them for the Lord Jesus.

Because Father, this is the main reason of our study here.

Be with us and bless us in Jesus' name, amen.

Yesterday, when we finished, there were some people that approached kindly to me.

And besides the evaluation that normally they perform regarding the presentation, They suggested that we continue doing the presentation in this way if it's possible.

That first of all, we do the presentation, and at the end, if there is time, we are going to open a kind of place for questions and answers.

Because Some of the people that talked to me yesterday said that sometimes some questions or the intersection that the presentation takes after some of the questions guide the presentation in a different direction.

And sometimes the main point is losing or getting loose at the end.

So my suggestion is that several of you made me some very good observations yesterday, especially Cindy, and I'm going to mention and amplify that in the review today, because it's good to share, because by the way, as a presenter, I am very aware of, I don't know everything about the subject, and sometimes we need to interact and be open regarding the topics that we are presenting, especially when we are doing this with different cultures and so on.

Because I've been a pastor for 40 years so far, and in different places, and I've been in touch with several other movements.

So let me do a review, general review, of what we were talking yesterday in the general presentation.

When we are talking about Islam, because yesterday at the beginning, we were asking if the Muslim religion or Islam is a movement like any other movement, like Catholicism, Pentecostals, and so on.

And it's not, because basically, Islam is a theocratic regime.

And this is not from my point of view, it's here.

Islam says it's a heavenly system or regime for all the dwellers of the earth.

And it is a mighty treasure if only mankind realize its authenticity and truth.

Well, I have questions regarding these 2 last things.

However, it's very clear it's a regime and a heavenly.

They answer to Allah, so Allah reveals in the Quran and also in the Hadith that is a tradition.

Yesterday we were explaining about what is the Quran and Hadith, And I'm going to shortly review that.

The Quran is the most sacred book in the Muslim religion or Islam, and is like the equivalent of the Bible.

And if you put another, our movement is like the Book of Mormon, in Mormonism.

And by the way, we do some connections and we are going to make them more extensive in 1 of the presentations in regarding a comparison between the Muslims and the Mormons, and you are going to see fascinating connections among them.

Revelation through an angel, their own book, and the message to all the world, by the way, and with several other things that we are going to compare about that, without avoiding polygamy, of course.

So the second point that is important, it is that the Muslim religion or Islam is coming after Jewish and Christians and absorbs elements from both of them.

So we are going to take a kind of connection with a religious movement that is, in certain sense, indebted to the Jewish and also to the Christians.

But sometimes they didn't use copyright quotations about them.

There are no notes or something like that.

However, we are going to see, and I'm going to explore that probably between tomorrow and Thursday, that there is also an influence coming from other sources than that.

And some, for example, like Apocrypha post-New Testament, or pseudoepigraph writings.

Pseudoepigraph, when we are talking about, pseudo is the Greek word for false epigraph writings.

Like, for example, some of the Timothy gospel or something like that, or the gospel of James or something like that.

There is a letter of James, but not a gospel, you know, and that is pseudoepigrapha, the word that they apply for that kind of apocryphal writings post-New Testament like there were some saying in the Old Testament.

We are going to refer about that in detail more advanced in the presentation.

Quran quotes and refers to the Bible with no specific.

They are not going to say, you know, this chapter and verse, but refers to the Bible.

But it's important to know that the Bible doesn't quote the Quran.

So dependency is coming later, but not before.

And please take into account that, Because if you keep that in mind, it's good for the argumentative and apologetics that you are going to apply in the future.

And some of the things that are important, yesterday we were surveying a little bit how much you know about Islam.

We asked if there is conversion, repentance, pardon, and baptism.

A submission, yes, to Allah and the Prophet, but no repentance, no conversion, no baptism.

No new creature inside the Muslims, and no commandments in the Islam.

They say that there are commandments, but you are not going to quote or see the structure of the 10 Commandments like it is in the Bible.

Because commandments, and probably my friend here is going to help me much more, what we are going to say, because commandments in the Bible influenced the legal writings in our society.

Probably in all the Western judicial system, you are going to see that the commandments establish a pattern of influence regarding the law, regarding the Western country laws.

And that is something that is missing in Islam.

And we were talking yesterday, I'm not going to repeat that, but they are expanding in the Middle East, they are expanding in Europe, they are expanding in Latin America, and they are expanding here in USA.

And I've been telling yesterday that the expansion in the Middle East is something that is fascinating because they not only demolished completely all what is a resemblance of Christianity in the Middle East, But when you cover the space and time in which the former Christian churches were located in the Middle East, they were completely taken and blotted out for history and for the future.

And that is important to take in count because when they put their own culture upon that, the past doesn't exist any longer.

So yesterday, my friend here, Cindy, helped me, and I'm going to share with you this that I've been looking in the internet, and this is a good fruit of the seminar, because interaction always is good.

Yesterday we were talking about September 11th, and I guess who was, Jay Friday night, or who, Saturday morning, that asked us, asked us if we remember where we were on September 11th.

And I, until today, I can say where I was.

I was crossing exit 110 when I received a phone call from my daughter, she was doing the master degree at Andrews University, and she say, dad, they are attacking the Twin Towers.

And I say, I can repeat the complete dialogue.

And the next channel and the next channel were saying the same thing.

And Jay was, because he said, we were with superintendent meetings.

And that's right, in those days I was part of that, even though I was in an arbor.

And we all, quietly, with not knowing what to do, because we were in Lansing, and everything was happening far away, We were watching that and asking us what we can do for that because it was destroyed and after destroyed in that day.

Every 1 of you, I can say, you are going to remember that day and where you were, of course, because it was a big damage.

But yesterday, Cindy told us, if we know the reason about September 11, and researching about this, There is a place, if you have your cell phones and it's kind of a smart phones and you can check on the internet, there is a place called, and the title is, The Top 4 Reasons September 11 is Significant to Islam.

The Top 4 reasons September 11 is significant to Islam.

The top 4 reasons September 11 is significant to Islam.

And you are going to find the first is what she told us yesterday.

That is a kind of situation with the Battle of Vienna that happened on September 11 and 12 of 1683 that happened that.

The siege of Malta that happened in 11, September 11, 1565, and also happened in 1609.

It's September 11, 1609, is the moment in which Spain decreed the expulsion of the Muslims from Spain.

You know, there are places, I don't know if, There are places in Spain that call my attention because a few, what I will say, kilometers out, Madrid, there are reminders of several cultures together.

When you go, for example, to Segovia, Segovia is a very small population outside Madrid and you are going to find that there are an aqueduct from the times of Rome.

And it's still in place, the aqueduct, very big 1.

But also is the Alcázar, and that is not Spanish word, and that is not a Roman word, it's not Latin, that is Arabic and that is the time in which there were in that time in Segovia.

So the stylish of the city you are going to see a picture of the times around from Rome to Christianity.

So, okay, thank you very much for your help.

Understanding Similarities & Differences- Part 3

Father in heaven, be with us in this moment.

We are going to be dealing with this sensitive topic for our Western society and help us to work out because Father we want to fulfill your mission and be with us in this topic in Jesus' name.

Let me, probably we are going to be using some of biblical references in the future and when we were doing some kind of comparison in between the Quran and the Bible.

And until today, what we were doing is a kind of, what I would say, introduction, general introduction, about this topic.

But I am not away from the eyes of the mission that we need to fulfill.

And even though it is dangerous, I will share today something regarding the topic of the mission from the beginning in order that you might have an idea how we might be able to be working with this kind of situation.

Probably tomorrow and Friday in the morning I'm going to be sharing with you several points of view of technicians or technical staff regarding ideas regarding the mission because it's risky by the way.

If you are going to be dealing with the Muslim society in general as a Christian, you need to be very careful, because you are in an enemy territory, land, and your life is at stake.

So in several places, by the way, we were with that kind of stuff.

Let me share with you something that you are going to find in your Bibles in Matthew 28.

The Bible says, "...go ye therefore and teach all nations..." says verse 19.

"...all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

There is a command and there is a promise together with the command.

It's not only the command to go and teach, but also it's a promise that heaven is going to be with us.

But we need to be very alert and very sensitive Because sometimes these people are violent.

And we were exploring in the presentation of yesterday and probably today, I'm going to repeat, because you are going to find in the Quran and in the Hadiths that violence is part of the main teaching of them.

Because the jihad is the way in which they are going to pursue the target.

The jihad for them is our perception of this.

This go to the world, that is the way in which they are performing jihad.

Because this is the way in which they get submission from the people, You understand what I'm saying?

I'm going to give you a hint today, and I'm going to give you a description of something that happened not in Africa or the Middle East or in Indonesia, probably Indonesia is the biggest Muslim country in the world.

And by the way, We have here in Michigan an Indonesian church.

And I was surprised when I've been with them, when they perform the prayers, you are trying to catch up some words sometimes.

And you know how the Indonesian call God?

So we need to be very sensitive about that, how we are going to be dealing with this.

Because sometimes in certain languages that were colonized with a Muslim background, the name of the Lord has been distorted or adapted with the Muslim background, you know.

But we are going to be talking about today, and you are going to get an idea about the topic.

But mission is something that we need to perform, but we need to be careful and sensitive according to the needs of the mission that we need to fulfill.

I do remember 1 incident that happened when I was teaching theology in Colombia several years ago, and some of the students were sent to an area in the suburban neighborhoods of Medellin.

I've been working in Colombia in the times of Pablo Escobar Gaviria.

I don't know if this is ringing a bell in your ears.

He was kind of a couple of a mafia of the narco mafia in Colombia, probably the king of that in that country.

He sometimes entered into the cartels of...

Cartel is the institution that he was ruling.

And there were areas in the city in which you see almost beautiful towers, buildings.

And all of them were built with the money of the drugs.

There were some people looking for how to escape from that.

And I remember once with my wife, there was a lady that come to our institution and request Bible studies at home.

So with Lira we went and we enter in that place and in a 9 level of a beautiful building we enter into a house with a luxury that I never seen in any other place.

And I say to Lira, well, we are entering here in a very delicate situation.

But the wife was very transparent with us.

They want to take out the daughter, and they send the daughter into another college in South America, in another country.

And of course, when they went there, the treasurer approached me and said, Daniel, who is these people?

The treasurer come to me and said, who is Daniel, these people?

Because I told them from the beginning, and you know, I was, when you are telling about money, and they say, how much is a year?

And you say, well, it's about, and I was bubbling the words, about $10, 000.

And they put the $10, 000 over the table.

And I am beginning to describe what I saw.

And he said, I guess I have the same suspicious mind of you.

Okay, 1 day, Saturday, our students entered into 1 of those neighborhoods and a couple of guerrillas stop them.

You know, in a suburban area when you see just casual, well-dressed student, young, with a Bible in the hand, very well combed, very well dressed, you know, And some of our students even used a little bit of perfume, because they are in the time in which they use that kind of things.

And they began to explain what they were doing.

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Islam & Christianity

Understanding Similarities & Differences- Part 5

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Parts

Understanding Similarities & Differences- Part 1

1h 12m

Understanding Similarities & Differences- Part 2

1h 14m

Understanding Similarities & Differences- Part 3

1h 7m

Understanding Similarities & Differences- Part 4

1h 13m

Understanding Similarities & Differences- Part 5

1h 11m

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