“Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.” (John 16:2-3) (ESV)
Another event! Fifty dead this time. More political posturing. More jockeying for political advantage. Fifty dead Americans, lying on the floor of a night club…there to dance and watch the drag-queens show. Not the America I was raised in – an America steeped in public sin, and proud of it – but 50 dead AMERICANS. [I will honor no Rainbow studded memorial – but I do mourn for the dead souls, God’s creatures, Americans…. people.] These are victims of an ideology of hate. Fifty bodies waiting to be identified….lives cut short….cell phones going off from time to time from their jackets in those early morning hours as police and investigators rummaged about for clues. Anxious relatives and friends dialing again and again….summoning the dead to answer. But they don’t answer. And they won’t answer. Islam has answered for them.
The ‘Event’ has several time lines; feeder streams that originate at different points that merge to create a powerful river of chaos. That’s always the objective; chaos, terror, helplessness, hopelessness against an onslaught they won’t understand. Just days before the attack, CBS 12 in Palm Beach reported that a group called United Cyber Caliphate, who had already successfully hacked into US Central Command, released a kill list – names and addresses included – of thousands of American civilians – including 600 in Florida.[i] We were warned. They were going to hit Florida. The first ‘feeder stream’: Isis / Radical Islam. They had targeted Orlando.
The next tributary is Islamic teaching on homosexuality. Jump back to 2013 and a speech given by Islamic law expert Sheikh Farrokh Sekalesh at the Husseini Islamic Center in Sanford, a suburb of Orlando. The Sheikh spelled out very clearly the Islamic teaching on homosexuality. World Net Daily reported. “Sekaleshfar said killing of homosexuals is the ‘compassionate’ thing to do: ‘Death is the sentence. We know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about this, death is the sentence.’” The “the only way gays and lesbians can be forgiven is to die.” He is quoted as saying: “We have to have that compassion for people, with homosexuals, it’s the same….Out of compassion, let’s get rid of them now.”[ii] We may say, well this is Radical Islam. These people have hijacked a great and peaceful religion. But that is not so. This is the mainstream teaching in much of the Islamic world. The death sentence for the sin of homosexuality is based upon an account in the Hadith, Islam’s second holiest scripture, in which Mohammed orders that they be thrown from a high place and then stoned if not yet dead. The method is still used today. In fact, the Washington Post names 10 nations, all Islamic-controlled, in which homosexuals will or could face the death penalty. These include: Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria, Mauritania, Qatar, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the UAE.[iii] These are our Allies. [And it is now emerging that these are nations that have contributed to the Hillary Clinton campaign or the Clinton Foundation to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. But that is another story.]
The Israeli paper Haaretz gave an account of a recent sentencing in Palmyra, Syria. The “Islamic State group judge read out the sentence against the two men convicted of homosexuality: They would be thrown to their deaths from the roof of the nearby Wael Hotel. He asked one of the men if he was satisfied with the sentence. Death, the judge told him, would help cleanse him of his sin. ‘I’d prefer it if you shoot me in the head,’ 32-year-old Hawas Mallah replied helplessly. The second man, 21-year-old Mohammed Salameh, pleaded for a chance to repent, promising never to have sex with a man again, according to a witness among the onlookers that sunny July morning who gave The Associated Press a rare first-hand account. ‘Take them and throw them off,’ the judge ordered. Other masked extremists tied the men’s hands behind their backs and blindfolded them. They led them to the roof of the four-story hotel.”[iv] Aaah, the beautiful price of forgiveness! The Religion of Peace….Allah the Compassionate!
The next ‘Stream’ is more complicated; harder to comprehend. It turns out that the shooter, Omar Mateen, was a frequenter of the Pulse nightclub where the attack occurred. There were accusations that he was gay. A gay dating app was found on his phone. His ex-wife suspected he had ‘tendencies’. Some called him a regular who used to sit in a corner by himself getting drunk. [Mmmm, a drunken, religious, gay Muslim, executing the dictates of Allah – and gaining forgiveness in the process?] Toss into the mix a couple of suspicious – and expensive – ‘religious’ trips to Saudi Arabia that the FBI is looking into. We’ve got quite the little soup here. And he may not have been acting alone. First there is his wife who may soon face charges as an accessory says that her husband became radicalized in the last year and admitted to accompanying him to Pulse on “at least one occasion.”[v] Yet somehow he had been investigated by the FBI on multiple occasions and deemed to be ‘not a threat’.
The next stream needed little investigatory digging. Mateen gave us that one when he called 911 as the attack was unfolding and pledged his allegiance to ISIS. [I have heard that is part of the required process of this type of Jihad….to pledge allegiance to Islam as you undertake your act of Jihad.] Now police say that there was no one else involved in the attack. However one witness, giving his story on ABC News, was mysteriously cut off just when he said that another man was holding the door shut so patrons could not escape. Another witness offered that he could hear more than one weapon going off at the same time. Activist Post ran an article quoting several witnesses who claimed the same as well as the man blocking the door who said that he did it to prevent the shooter from escaping. Still, none of the witnesses actually saw another shooter and were basing their conclusions on their subjective ‘take’ of the situation. More than one gunman has not been proven.[vi]
THE MEANING
President Obama was quick to find the meaning of the event. It was all about gun control. In his first remarks, nothing at all was mentioned about Islamic-inspired terror – or – Radical Islam – or – anything of the sort. Stricter gun laws would fix it. When it comes to gun control: To “actively do nothing is a decision as well.”[vii] Presumptive Dem nominee Hillary Clinton of course jumped on that bandwagon. Ignoring the elephant dominating the political discourse, her escapist remarks reminded us of the quote from her November 2015 speech which she proudly tweeted. “Let’s be clear: Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.” It is this claim, that divorces the religion of Islam – the Religion of Peace – from any connection to terrorism – that must be examined. This is not to say that the majority of Muslims are not peaceful. Yet polls have found a great majority favor Sharia law. And Sharia law is inherently at odds with the US Constitution and the freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. And their ‘peacefulness’ is an irrelevant fact. The majority of Germans were not Nazis. Yet as a people they waged war against the United States, Great Britain, most of Europe and were part of the effort to eliminate the Jewish People. We understood they were our enemies. [And that flight from reality on the part of both the President and Mrs Clinton brings in to question their qualifications to serve in leadership roles for this nation.]
This is deeper and more organic than just Radical Islam. The fault may lie with Islam itself. Let’s start with this. In just 30 days from the middle of May to the middle of June, there have been 219 terror attacks initiated by adherents of the ‘Religion of Peace’ against their perceived enemies. These have occurred in 31 separate countries and taken 2,209 lives. An additional 2,124 have been wounded in the attacks. Here are some examples. On June 5th a church is rocketed in Syria. The day before a mass grave of 400 ISIS victims is discovered. On June 6th “Nineteen Yazidi girls are put in cages and burned alive for refusing sex with caliphate members.” On the third, 17 females are blown up at a Yemeni market. June 1st marks the day that 16 hotel guests are murdered by Islamists in Somalia.[viii] It goes on and on. [But ask Mrs Clinton: None of these attack by Islamists in the name of Allah have anything to do with Muslims or Islam!]
So the question becomes: Is that Islam….or is that a corruption of the faith. As we begin to look into that we see that there is much in Islamic scripture that would give permission if not encouragement to the true acolyte of Allah to act violently against those not of the faith. Take Quran 5:33 for instance. “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.” Quran 8:39 reads: “And fight with them until there is no more fitna (disorder) and religion is all for Allah.” The Islamic justification for suicide bombers is found in Quran 4:74. “Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward.” This is unlike Christian martyrdom where the victims accepted but did not seek their fate with quiet meekness. The Muslim is encouraged to violently take the lives of unbelievers in the cause of death. It is Quran 9:5 that encourages offensive war. “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.” Those who have catalogued them, say there are over 100 other violent verses in the Quran.
Now some might argue that there is little difference between the violence talked about in the Koran and that found in the Bible, especially the Old Testament. But a closer look at these shows a vast difference. Any violence God commanded in the Old Testament was historically limited in scope. It was meant for a particular enemy and in a specific time frame. Almost without exception it was against peoples that demonstrated such fine traits as child sacrifice and other occult-driven behaviors accompanied by a refusal to repent – often practiced over hundreds of years. It was never a general command to advance the cause of Christianity or Judaism. The oft-mentioned Crusades were an aberration; a departure from the teachings of Jesus. [And even these, in their origin, were a response to the ‘convert or die’ conquests that characterized the spread of Islam by the sword in the centuries following its birth.] In contrast, the Koran asks just that of its adherents. Muslims are commanded by their scriptures to promote Islam through military jihad. And that is just how the Islamic faith was spread at its inception. It’s a faith that has often extended its influence through forced conversion.
The argument is often made that Muslims, Christians and Jews all worship the same God. The truth is that there is a world of difference in how they understand the nature of God. Islam is a religion born of violence, and spread by violence. This is reflected in the Muslim holy books, the Koran and the Hadith (commentaries), as well as in the nature of its’ founder, Mohammed. It would be helpful to look at some of the stark contrasts between Mohammed and Jesus, between Islam and Christianity. Islam tells us that Mohammed received the Koran through an other-earthly visitation that he at first believed was demonic in nature. Jesus was never uncertain of His relationship with the Father.
- Islam is militaristic in nature. Mohammed led 83 military expeditions, – about 83 more than Jesus.[ix]
- In Islam the ends justify the means. Mohammed taught that it was permissible to set up a Hudna or ‘False Peace’. History records that he signed a treaty he had no intention of keeping. Later he broke the truce when he had become the stronger party, slaughtering his enemies in the process. Modern day Imams routinely interpret the Koran to justify hostage taking and the murder of civilians, – so long as it advances the cause of Islam.[x]
- Lying, called Taqiyya is permitted in Islam in order to advance the cause of Islam. They can also practice Taqiyya to “persuade a woman into a bedroom.”[xi]
- The rewards that Muslims will find in paradise are carnal in nature. Martyrs are promised 72 virgins and an unending supply of wine. Yet both practices are forbidden here on earth.
- Islam is not a religion of compassion. The Hadith tells us that Mohammed too, had a woman caught in adultery brought to him, much as Jesus did in the Gospels. She repented and much like Jesus, he forgave her. He sent her off until the baby was weaned, after which he ordered her buried and stoned to death. So says the Islamic holy book, the Hadith.[xii]
- Islam tells us that Allah hates the sinner. The Bible tells us that God sent His only Son Jesus to die for us while we were yet sinners.
- Islam teaches that separation from God is normal. The Bible tells us that God is seeking a relationship with us. He wants to be our Father. In Islam, there is no concept of God as Father.
In their respective scriptures and in practice, the two faiths reflect the characters of their founders. Their very natures are different. It should be no surprise then that the nature of Islam when practiced should reflect the nature of its founder and the circumstances of its founding. Islam has set itself up, not as a “Religion of Peace”, but instead a “Religion of Violence”. We must recognize that this is a religious war that we are fighting; – not against all who call themselves Muslim, – but against this ‘Theology of Violence’. Some would have us believe there is a moral equivalency between Islam and Christianity, between this culture and the culture of the West. There is not! – This is an ideology of hate – justified in the name of religion. The killings of the Nazis and the Communists were cold and impersonal, – bureaucratic in nature. Fundamentalist Islam offers a unique hate that is more personal, warm and passionate. In the words of Srdja Trifkovic, “Islam …has created jihad and remains defined by jihad…a quasi-religious ideology of cultural and political imperialism that knows no natural limits.”[xiii] This is the force that has been raised up in opposition to the God of the Bible and the civilization once founded on the Judeo-Christian ethic.
Islam Expressed
Now some may deem this criticism unfair. But I offer this in response. In America, Canada, Europe, a Muslim can openly attend services, express his faith. Can a Christian do the same in Saudi Arabia, or Qatar, or Iran? We see the Christian Palestinians driven out of Bethlehem. Christians are imprisoned in these countries for their faith. Where is the equality of treatment here? And what of terrorism? Should we sample the list of Islamic terror that has characterized the last several decades. There is Fort Hood, the USS Cole, the London Subway, Entebbe, Pan Am Flight #93, the Israeli Olympic Team, the World Trade Center I & II, Mumbai, the Boston Marathon, Mumbai, the Iranian Embassy takeover….and the list goes on.
But President Obama sees through a glass darkly…very darkly….or he strives to show us a world that is very dark indeed. He tells us that “Islam has always been a part of America’s history.” Yet I’ve not read of the Muslims at Jamestown, or Plymouth, or fighting in the Revolution, or cobbling together our founding documents, or joining the fight to either free the slaves – or protect States Rights during the Civil War. [No, Islamists lead the world in slavery today – including sex-slavery in Iraq and Syria.] And while Americans fought and died to take on the Nazis in WWII, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the organization that turned into the Muslim Brotherhood was conspiring with Hitler to kill Jews in the Middle East and serving in Nazi formations in Eastern Europe. And when most Americans cried on 911, many Muslim communities celebrated, more were silent – and a brave few mourned with the nation. And in the present day we watch Europe invaded by refugees, disproportionately male and of military age, and the incidence of rape and other crimes explode – and the authorities there sweep it under the rug with the silence of political correctness; the silence marking the suicide of their own culture and what’s left of the Judeo-Christian foundation on which it once stood.
Yet there is an official blindness about all of this. Obama & Hillary embrace gun control as the solution to problem. [It should be noted the Pulse nightclub was a gun free zone. Didn’t the gunman know that? If it hadn’t been a ‘gun free zone’ the results may have been quite different.] But there is a great deal of misdirection that is going on in the aftermath of the event. The President and Hillary point to the guns. One month after the San Bernardino massacre by another crazed Muslim extremist [who of course, had nothing to do with Islam] Obama’s DHS head Jeh Johnson asserted “that the threat from right-wing extremists domestically is just as real as the threat from Islamic extremism.” The minutes of one committee meeting go on to note that Muslim American “Secretary Johnson agreed and noted that CVE [Subcommittee on Combating Violent Extremism], by definition, is not solely focused on one religion.”[xiv]
So we find that policies have been put in place at the highest levels- in the Justice Department, in the investigating agencies that forbid agents from looking into the Muslim communities in which terror grew. That would be politically incorrect. They could not use the term “jihad”. They could not talk about Muslim extremists. In San Bernardino, in Orlando, they viewed social media posts in which the shooters incriminated themselves – but they could not act on them. A retired DHS agent by the name of Philip Haney offers damning insight into the workings of our government and the state of what is a very feckless and suppressed war against terror in this country. Dave Hodges of The Common Sense Show reports that the mosque attended by Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen several times a week “is the exact same mosque protected by Hillary Clinton’s State Department Muslim protection policy after the Islamic terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California which was carried out by Syed Farook.” Hodges goes on. “Haney previously made the case that the mosque was an object of deep concern regarding radical terrorism. However, Haney’s work drew concern and criticism from Clinton’s State Department and the DHS’s Civil Rights and Liberties Office because ‘they believed it unfairly singled out Muslims.’ Subsequently, Haney’s report was heavily edited and tossed.”[xv]
In his new book, See Something, Say Nothing, Haney recounts the story of a case being built by a special unit in DHS against a movement called Tablighi Jamaat, that was involved in financing high-level Islamic terror organizations like Hamas and al-Qaeda. However, within “a few months, the case drew the ‘concern’ of the State Department and the DHS’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Office because the Obama administration believed it unfairly singled out Muslims.”[xvi] It was in that atmosphere that Mateen was investigated three times by the FBI and yet ignored. He had cheered at 911. He had declared his desire for martyrdom. And he even had a connection through the Fort Pierce Mosque to a man who later became a Syrian suicide bomber. Evidence is developing even now that shows that Disney security officials had warned that Mateen had been casing Disney during its ‘Gay Days’ in the weeks prior to the shooting – but still no action was taken. To act on any of this would have been too politically incorrect.
So we have chosen this blindness – and we must free ourselves from this prison of political correctness. And we must recognize that our weakness lies in our separation from the things of God….the ways of God. This then is not a call to hate….but to love; to pray for and reach out to the individual Muslim, the follower of Allah – just as we would to anyone without Christ in their life. Good sense may tell us to limit and control the access our declared enemies may have to us. Yet it is not a call to hate those that are here. Neither does it ennoble the practices of the victims. It is a tragedy that this slaughter has visited a particular community. But the loss we all feel doesn’t justify or excuse the practices of that community. Nor does it lessen the horror or the loss. The blow was against the entire American community. As Americans we feel that loss. As human beings we mourn the souls no longer with us. As a nation we are called to turn….to seek God….to repent….to seek His Face. We are not called to justify our sin. But as in the times of John the Baptist and the times of Jesus, the call is the same. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)
[i] ISIS ‘kill list’ targets Palm Beach, Treasure Coast residents: Ex-FBI agent, CBS 12, June 8, 2016
[ii] ‘Gays must die,’ says Muslim at Orlando mosque, World Net Daily, June 12, 2016
[iii] Here are the 10 countries where homosexuality may be punished by death, Washington Post, June 13, 2016
[iv] ISIS Targets LGBTQ Individuals With Brutal Public Killings, Haaretz, December 2, 2015
[v] Orlando killer’s wife says she tried to stop attack, CBS News, July 14, 2016
[vi] Media Refusing To Cover Numerous Witness Accounts Of Multiple Shooters In Orlando Massacre, Activist Post, June 14, 2016
[vii] Solemn Obama calls for gun control action, Daily Mail (UK), June 12, 2016
[viii] https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/attacks.aspx?Yr=Last30, viewed June 15, 2016
[ix] Les Kinsolving, Mohammed’s child wife, World Net Daily, June 18, 2002
[x] Chechens: Islam justifies killing prisoners, World Net Daily, October 25, 2002
[xi] Dr Don Boys, Islam Permits Lying to Deceive Unbelievers and Bring World Domination!, Muslim Fact, viewed June 17, 2016
[xii] Hadith Abu Dawud, #4428
[xiii] Dr Tawfik Hamid, An Arab Muslim Challenges CAIR, The Free Copts, March 9, 2006
[xiv] DHS SECRETARY: RIGHT-WINGERS POSE SAME THREAT AS ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS, Infowars, June 15, 2016
[xv] Dave Hodges, Plan B Is Going Into Effect to Stop Trump, The Common Sense Show, June 16, 2016
[xvi] Hillary Clinton’s Connection To Orlando Terrorist Has Been EXPOSED!, The Political Insider, viewed June 16, 2016
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