Transcription
Ladies and gentlemen, Reverend Cunningham, who is now fondly known as brother Jalaludil, will address you. Whereafter, he will introduce the next speaker.
Asalam alaikum. Before I start saying what I have to say, if anybody wants refreshments, they're on my right at the back. They are available to you. Alhamdulillah. That means all praise is due to Allah. I am a revert. You may wonder what that is. Every child is born a Muslim. According to our holy prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam, every child born is born a Muslim. And so I too was born a Muslim. But sadly my folks, my parents who didn't know any better taught me the faith of their fathers. They taught me Christianity. And I came to love the church that I belong to. I came to respect them. And I was raised up a Christian. And all my life I cherished the thought that one day I would pray and work for the church. I would become a priest. I worked hard. I studied hard. And I eventually did go to Rome.
But as a young cleric, as a young seminarian, you question a great deal. You learn a lot of dogmas. I learned a lot of philosophies and I began to question all the time about the oneness of God, the creator of this universe. But I still did not get enough information. I sometimes was a little bit of a headache to my professors, but alhamdulillah they put up with me.
On my return after my ordination to the diaconate, I came back to South Africa and one of my dearest friends was not at the airport to meet me. I was a little surprised and naturally disappointed. And when I arrived at the airport, my parents said they hadn't seen this fellow. His name was Carl. He was also going to become a priest in the Catholic church. So I went around to see him and he told me that he and I could no longer be friends. So I said, "What's preventing you and I becoming friends or remaining friends?" He said, "Well, I'm no longer a Catholic." I said, "Fine. If you're no longer a Catholic, that shouldn't prevent us from remaining friends, but if you're no longer a Catholic, what are you?" He said, "I'm a Muslim."
I was stunned. I said, "A Muslim? They're heathens. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in Christ. Peace be upon him." He said he wasn't prepared to fight with me. He wasn't prepared to argue with me. He said, "Go along to the people who have taught me Islam and talk to them." So I said, "Who's done this to you?" He said, "Ahmed Datad." I said, "That does it. I've had enough of this man. I'm going to see him." Which I did. Mr. Datad and Mr. Vanker and Mr. Khan were in the office in Madressa Arcade and I went along, but it was an encounter of the best kind. I hadn't anticipated such a man and within a short period of time he proved to me step by step that there isn't a trinity. He revealed to me the simplicity and beauty of Allah's word in the holy Quran. And eventually, one Jumu'ah on Friday, which is our congregational day, I was the reciter of "La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah," which means there's no object worthy of worship except Allah, and Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam is the messenger of Allah.
It's very difficult when one becomes a revert and to get back to the revert. Very often we imagine or we think that people are converts. Nobody converts to Islam. I said originally everyone is born Muslim. We just go off the straight path. So I reverted back onto the path of Islam. It was difficult, very, very, very difficult. The community I had left were not too happy with me. My family persecuted me. But it's understood. I think if I had a son or a daughter and they were to revert to another religion or convert other than to another religion other than Islam, I would naturally be upset. But alhamdulillah I found a new life in Canada. I went to live in Canada for a time and started a new practice. I had new friends. I had this new religion. But I was destined to come back. But in all this time that I was away, I wasn't practicing this new religion, this Islam. I was a Muslim. I'd recited the Kalima, but I wasn't practicing it. But now, alhamdulillah, I'm a five-time namazi. That means I make my salah five times a day. And I am full-time with the Islamic Propagation Center. I'm a missionary for Islam.
Having gone to Canada and seen a very beautiful country, it draws my attention to our guest speaker today, Gary Miller, who comes from Toronto in Canada. He's a Canadian citizen. He's a husband and father of two children, and we're indeed very, very fortunate to have him with us to spend this short period of time he is in South Africa because he has a very busy schedule. He travels a great deal throughout the world. In fact, he's on his way to Australia for the second time. And we have much in common. Canadian backgrounds, both Catholics, previous Catholics. He had the desire to become a priest, Catholic education. He had Jesuit education. I was also educated by the Jesuits in Rome. He was an altar boy. I was an altar boy. So he really had a lot to talk about yesterday when I met him, and we found out this common denominator. But I had gone from Catholicism to Islam. But Gary here went from Catholicism to something else. And I'm going to get him to tell you about that shortly. And I would like you to give him a good hearing. His credentials are varied. He's a broadcaster. He appears on TV, appears at public lectures and on radio. He's an author. He's deserving of a good hearing. I'd like you to listen to him. I'd like you to ask him as many questions as you'd like. And now I call upon you, Gary Miller, to meet the people of Durban.
Jazak to my Muslim friends, assalamu alaikum. To Christian friends, peace be with you. They both mean the same thing, as it happens, to everyone in general. Welcome. Mr. Datad spoke, and of course, he said some things that, um, Christians probably don't like to hear. Not necessarily because they're not true things. I mean, it is true that many of the bishops of the Church of England have said, uh, Jesus is not divine. That, that's a fact. They have said that. What is annoying to many Christians is to say, "How could a man who calls himself a Christian say that?" In any case, I too will say some things that will annoy people. Some things that maybe Muslims don't want to hear, some things that maybe Christians don't want to hear. But ask yourself, is it because it wasn't true, or why does it bother me if you don't like to hear what I've said?
As, uh, my friend has said, we just got into a discussion. I met him for the first time, I believe it was only yesterday. We found out that we did at one time live within a few hundred miles of each other in Canada for a period of about six or eight years. But unless I bumped into him on the street, I don't remember ever meeting him until yesterday. He said that he went from Catholicism into Islam. I went from Catholicism toward the Protestant churches. Now, I have to clarify though, first. Don't misunderstand where we're going. I didn't come here at the invitation of a church. Mr. Datad asked me to come here. Didn't pay me to come here. A couple days after I got here, I asked him, "Who's paying for this trip?" He said, "We can't afford it." All right, that's the end of that. So, nobody paid me to come here. I am invited from time to time to speak in churches, and sometimes I speak in mosques, and most often I simply speak at universities in open forums. You see, a lot of churches like what I say, and a lot of churches don't like what I say. Recently I was speaking in Vancouver on the west coast of Canada, and when I finished my speech, somebody came up and told me how horrible it was. He said, as a Christian, he was very offended by what he heard and he was very upset. And another man, right behind him, came up, and he was a minister in the United Church of Canada. That's the largest denomination in Canada. He shook my hand. He said, "That was beautiful. I want your name and address. I like what you said." So, you see, you can't ever paint all Christians with one brush. They come from one extreme to the other. Any two differences you can think of, there'll be people in between those two extremes. So, please understand, some churches appreciate what I say, some do not.
To clarify some terminology, I was surprised to find this morning I looked in the newspaper talking about things going on in the city today, and it said Gary Miller is going to be speaking, an evangelist. Well, for years in doing evangelical work with churches, preaching on the street corner or in a church or anywhere that I went, people would tell me, "That's evangelism you're doing. You're an evangelist." And I used to tell them, "I prefer you wouldn't use that word." Because as carefully as I've ever looked through the Bible, I never found the word evangelist on the lips of Jesus. I'm not saying it's a bad word. You want to call yourself an evangelist, be my guest. Me, I prefer not to. Always preferred not to because I didn't see Jesus use that word. That doesn't mean it's wrong. I'm just trying to take only what I ever saw that he said, and he never used that word.
I was surprised to hear yesterday that, where did he go? My friend here told me that he got a phone call from somebody who wanted to know my credentials. "By what authority and power did I speak about Islam and Christianity?" I was kind of surprised to hear that. The caller said he was a Christian. It's a very un-Christian thing to do. That's what the Jews and the Romans and so on used to ask about the disciples of Jesus. You find in Acts chapter 4, among other places, when the disciples would try to preach, the Romans or the Jews would say, "By what authority do you preach? What school did you go to? You're just a fisherman. How do you dare to speak?" So, I'd hope that's not typical of most people, that they seem to think a Christian today has to be like a Pharisee. He has to go through the school and get a certificate and he's approved. I can give you credentials like that if you want, but I'd be ashamed to lower myself to that level.
Now, please understand, no matter what you think, you hear me say, I am trying to help the Christian missionary. All right? Somebody told me a few minutes ago, "You can't help the Christian missionary if you stand on the same platform with Ahmed Datad." I'm trying to help the Christian missionary. Listen carefully. A lot of people don't see it that way, of course, because a lot of people, Muslims and Christians alike, they want to drink milk all their lives. See, if you give a baby milk and you keep giving him milk, he'll get bigger and bigger. But suppose you never gave him anything else but milk. After some time, he starts to get sick. There comes a time when you need meat and fruit and vegetables. Paul wrote that in one of his letters. It's in the Bible. He said, "Let's go beyond the milk." Said, "We've got to get into the meat." See, most of the the Christian community and the Muslim community alike, they want to come and go to their meetings on a weekly basis and hear the same old thing over and over. "Don't forget to pray. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah." And so on. They never want any meat. You see, this is milk. We all know this. Have to go beyond this.
Sometimes when I say I'm trying to help the missionary, I'm talking about this. I'm saying to the missionary, you want to convert the Muslim to Christianity, but look what you're doing instead. You say you're trying to convert the Muslim. You write books, you have speeches, and so on. You want to convert the Muslim instead of converting the Muslim. Look what you're doing because of what you say. You see, the missionary wants the Muslim to start thinking. So, he asks him some questions. He has discussions and so on. He plants little seeds. He wants the Muslim to start thinking. But the missionary does not tell the Muslim what to think. He just wants him to start thinking. He doesn't tell him what to think because the missionary usually hasn't thought about it himself.
Now, if that sounds serious, let me illustrate what I'm getting at by a few examples. The missionary says to the Muslim, "Does the Quran say that Jesus was sinless?" The Muslim says, "Yes, perfect man, never sinned." And the missionary says, "Does the Quran tell Muhammad to repent?" And the Muslim says, "Yes." He tells him to repent. That's all. Missionary doesn't say anything else. He hopes now the Muslim is going to start thinking, "Well, now wait a minute. Jesus never sinned, but Muhammad was supposed to repent. Maybe Jesus is better." He's hoping, but he doesn't dare say that. Because if he says that, if he says, "Do you know a sinless man is better than a repentant sinner?" If he dares to say that, he goes exactly against the teachings of Jesus. If he's foolish enough to say that, he goes exactly against the teachings of Jesus.
My advice to Muslims, if somebody asks you those questions, you ask him to tell you the story of the prodigal son. Everybody knows the story in the Bible. You say, "The story of the prodigal son, the young man who told his father, 'Give me the money that I would get when you die. I want it now.'" And then he ran away and he spent it on terrible things. Ask him to tell you that story and tell you what is the lesson of that story. Because the lesson of that story involves the complaint of the other brother in the family, the good son. When the evil son came back and repented, the father welcomed him. And the good son complained. He said, "I've never done anything wrong." And yet look how you treat my brother who was so bad. And his father told him how wrong an attitude that was. He said, "Your brother was dead. Now he's alive." You see, the perfect man does not have any preference over the sinless man or the repentant sinner.
In Christianity, make the missionary tell you the story of the lost sheep. Jesus said, Matthew 18:12, it starts. Jesus said, "What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the hills and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray." Jesus was trying to hammer that point home to his disciples, saying, "Don't you dare say because, for example, you've been a faithful follower for many years that you're better than this one who just became a believer yesterday." The perfect man has no precedence over the repentant sinner. In fact, this whole argument would not exist if both Muslims and Christians were better aware of the meaning of the word sin. But that's another story we don't have time for.
To illustrate again, the missionary says to the Muslim, "Was Jesus the Messiah?" And the Muslim says, "Yes." And the missionary says, "Was Muhammad the Messiah?" The Muslim says no. There he stops again, hoping the Muslim will go away and think, "Now wait a minute. Jesus is Messiah, but Muhammad isn't. Maybe Jesus is better." Well, what you want to ask the missionary is about this word Messiah. Ask him, "Jesus was the Messiah, but were there any other messiahs besides Jesus?" Now, you find out how well he knows his Bible, because there were many. David, Solomon, even Cyrus the Persian were called Messiah. It's hard to find that in the Bible because the translators cover it over. They translate the word. Messiah means anointed. Somebody picked to do a job. Somebody singled out, said, "You are the one." Every king of ancient Israel was called Messiah. Now, the name doesn't look quite so special anymore. It is a title, but it does not particularly elevate to some divine status.
I'm trying to show you that the arguments are not good enough that are being used, and I see in print all the time. The missionary asks the Muslim, "Where's the body of Jesus?" And the Muslim says, "God took it." And the missionary says, "Where's the body of Muhammad?" And the Muslim says, "It's in Medina in the ground." Missionary stops, hoping the Muslim will go away and think, "Now that's interesting. The body of Jesus is gone. Muhammad is in the grave. Maybe Jesus is the true messenger. Muhammad is false." He's hoping you'll think that. But he dare not say it. Because what you want to ask the missionary is, "Is that what you mean to say? Do you mean that a dead and buried prophet is a false prophet? Is that what you mean?" Make him finish it. Because if that's what he means, what does he say about Abraham, for example? Or in Arabic, they say Ibraim. Jews and Muslims till now still go to the place where he's buried to visit his grave. Is he a false prophet because he's dead and in the ground? For that matter, where is the body of Moses? The Bible says God took it. He sent an angel to take the body away. What does it prove?
What disturbs me most, I guess, because even now we're seeing finally a turnaround in the Pentecostal churches where for years the Pentecostals insisted you're saved not by works but by your faith. Pentecostal churches are starting to finally put the two together. No, it's faith and works side by side. What the missionary has always accused the Muslim of is to say, "You people believe you're saved by works alone." And they quote the Quran. In the 32nd chapter of the Quran, the 19th verse or ayah, it says, if you'll excuse my terrible Arabic, which means, "And for those who believe and do good works, for them gardens, a refuge and entertainment for what they used to do." They quote this verse saying, "You see, Muslims believe they're saved by works alone." Somehow the word is there in print. They don't see it. It says, "They believe and they do good works." They believe and they do good works. The two are together. You see, in the Arabic language, the word only has to change a little bit and it becomes a different part of speech. "Amanu" means they believe. "Iman" made from the same letters means what you believe, your belief, your faith. What this verse is saying is you've got to have faith and works side by side, not one, not the other, but both. Which is exactly what is found in the Bible in the little book of James, especially the second chapter of the little book of James.
Now, the Protestant reformers at first didn't like James very much. Martin Luther said it was an epistle of straw. "Blow it away." Didn't like it. In the second chapter of James, he makes the point several times, particularly in the 26th verse. He says to the Christian community, "For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead." It's not faith or works. It's faith and works together. That's what the Muslim believes. That's what the book of James says. Don't tell the Muslim he believes he's saved by works alone. He doesn't believe it. And he only thinks you're foolish because you think that's what it says in the Quran when you quote it to him.
So far, my points are simply these: that discussions about the sinless Jesus, or Jesus the Messiah, or Jesus taken into heaven, or faith and works, don't prove anything. They're not arguments that are going to lead somewhere. The complaint I have against Muslims is sometimes you let yourself be led around by the nose. Think. Don't just say, "Well, a man's an expert. I don't know." Think. It's not how much you know, it's what do you do with what you know, how much you use your head. Even the Bible tells people, "Let's reason together." God says, "Come, let us reason together." In the first chapter of Isaiah.
Now, it is true that the Quran is very critical of some Jews and Christians, not all. Some Jews and Christians, the Quran is critical of them. In the third chapter of the Quran, the third surah, beginning about the 77th verse or ayah, it speaks of some among the Jews and Christians. It says, "There is among them a group who distort the book with their tongues. You would think that it is part of the book, but it is no part of the book. And they say that is from God, but it is not from God. It is they who tell a lie against God." And well they know it. Now, the Muslim is familiar with this scripture. From his book it says, "Look, some of the Jews and Christians lie about the contents of their book. They distort it." The Muslim has every reason to believe this is true. When he just looks at what is offered in literature, he goes into a bookstore that sells Bibles, and he finds out there's so many different versions. And if he looks carefully, he sees that the newer Bibles leave out some of the words that are in the older Bibles. And the newer Bibles have some words that aren't in the older Bibles. Something's going on that looks funny to him. And he thinks of this verse.
Now, of course, someone is going to go away. Many are probably going to go away and say that I stood here and I insulted Bible translators because it's the translators of the Bible that do that. I'm not. I'll be happy to insult a few because they do this kind of thing. They're guilty of manipulation. But just as Jesus used to talk to a crowd of people, he told them what he wanted to tell them, and every so often he'd see someone in the audience, a Pharisee or somebody that was misleading the people, and he'd point him out and say, "That one is a liar." He was not diplomatic. That's why he got into so much trouble from place to place because when he saw a liar, he pointed him out as such. I'm not going to do that, but I'm just showing you if you speak harshly of someone, you're only following the example of Christ. He found that there was a time and a place to single out the people who led others into unbelief.
You see, some translators of the Bible are honest and they fight with their contemporaries over the proper translations to say, "You've changed that. It should be this." They fight about it. Two of them, for example, are Goodspeed and Moffett, whose Bibles are printed under their own names because no church would back them up. They were too honest.
As I said, the Quran is critical of some Jews and Christians. It says in the third surah that the Quran is "Furqan" in Arabic, it means criterion. It explains in the third verse that the Quran is supposed to be used as the basis of judging which is true and which is false in their scriptures. It says in the fifth surah, "Quran reveals much of what the Jews and the Christians used to hide." Now, of course, the Jew and the Christian doesn't like to hear that, but they do quote some of the Quran back to the Muslim, but they do it badly, is what I'm trying to tell you. They quote it back badly in this way. They try to make it serve their purpose. There's no escaping it. The Quran says the Jews and the Christians hide things. They change things and so on. So there's no sense in trying to find a verse somewhere that to prove that. No, no, the Quran says that everything in the Bible is true. But that's what people do.
In the fifth chapter of the Quran, they quote a verse again, if you excuse my Arabic, which says, "They quote this and it says the translation is speaking of the Quran that it is sent down to the prophet. It says, 'And we sent down to you the book in truth, confirming that which they possessed of the book before you.'" You see, the Christian says, "You see there, the Quran says the Bible is true. It says the Quran was sent down to confirm, to say it's truthful what they have in their book." That's what that sentence says if you stop there. But that's the middle of the sentence. There are two more words in the sentence. They are "muhayminan." You see, the whole text says, "We have sent down the book in truth, confirming that which they had of the book before this, and as a watcher over it." Their book, "muhayminan" is the Arabic word. "Muhayminan" is an interesting word. It means quality control. You'd use a form of that word to designate the man in a factory who stands at the end of the assembly line and finds the rejects and throws them out. The whole text, that whole verse from the Quran says the Quran confirms that which is truthful in their book, and it's the quality control agent. It's the thing that shows you which parts are not true. You don't fool a Muslim by quoting that if he goes and looks it up himself and realizes you only read half the sentence. It's a dishonest quote.
Now, of course, some missionaries respond with great pain on their faces. They say to the Muslim, when the Muslim says, "You have changed your scriptures." He says, "Oh, how can you say that? How could you, as a Muslim, change the Quran? You couldn't do that. How could I change the Bible?" Well, the answer is very easy. Very easy. The Bible is not the same thing as the Quran for at least three reasons. The Quran has always been in the hands of the people. Always. From the time of the prophet, people wrote it down if they could write and they memorized it and so on. It's always been in the hands of the people. Nobody ever disagreed on what were the contents. The prophet died, his friends met, and they agreed by gathering all the writings they had, said, "This is the Quran." And nobody disputed it. Nobody said, "No, you left something out. No, this doesn't belong." Nobody argued from the beginning. The Bible doesn't have that history. The Bible has been the property of the church, not the people. The first table of contents to the Bible that reads the same as the contents of the Bible now dates from the year 367, more than 300 years after Jesus. Finally, they decided which books belong in the Bible. It's point one.
Point two, the Bible is in dead languages. The Quran is in a living language. 120 million people speak Arabic, the language of the Quran. The Bible is written in ancient Hebrew, ancient Aramaic, and ancient Greek, which nobody speaks. A handful of scholars know it. So that to change it is an easy thing if you're a translator to read one thing and tell somebody something else. That's easy.
Third point, there has never been so much as a letter in dispute about the Quran. No one has even so much as said, "This letter is wrong in your copy of the Quran," unless it's a misprint. But nobody ever disputes it should be this, it should be that, and we have a battle over it. Whereas the Bible has come down from many, many manuscripts. Any Bible that's worth buying is filled with footnotes. Almost every page will have a footnote. So you read the verse, footnote, read down here it says, "Or this verse might be," and it gives you an alternate translation or what some other manuscript says. So when somebody says, I mean, it's a shallow argument. If somebody says, "Look, Muslims can't change the Quran, how could Christians change the Bible?" It's because they're two different kinds of thing.
Now, to doubt the authenticity of the Bible is not a Muslim idea. It's not Muslims who became the enemies of the Bible somehow. They're not enemies of the Bible. The doubtful authenticity of the Bible is an old idea found within the Bible. It's a biblical idea. See, if you ask the question, "Who wrote the Bible?" I mean, who took the ink and the pen and put the words on the page? Who did that? The answer: the scribes. That was their job in ancient times. The scribes meant they wrote the scriptures. Well, in Jeremiah 8 and verse 8, it talks about the scribes. Now, some Jews will tell you that Jeremiah is the only authentic book left in the whole Bible. I don't believe that myself, but that's how sure they are about Jeremiah, the most authentic book in the Bible. They say Jeremiah 8:8, it says, "How can you say we are wise and the law of the Lord is with us? But behold, the false pen of the scribe has made it into a lie." You see, in this place, God is telling you, don't be so sure that everything you have in your hands is scripture. The scribes write lies with their pens. Watch out. Where are these lies if everything in the Bible is legitimate?
So, what I'm trying to get at is that the Muslim agrees with most churches. Most churches say, "Yes, the Bible contains the words of God and some other words besides that." The Muslim agrees the Bible contains the words of God and some other words. It's only a minority Christian position who will say, "Every word in the Bible came from God. None of it came from man." That's a minority view. But it seems to be the view that the missionary feels he has to sell, even if he doesn't believe it himself.
There are many ways of establishing that fact. But a basic point is made in Isaiah 40:8. This is a verse that some people like so much. The Bible I have there is a New American Standard. They put it on the inside front cover. They like this verse so much. Isaiah 40:8, it says, "The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." It's saying if it's the word of God, it doesn't get lost. It stands forever. God says it, it will always be there, according to this verse. But the churches which say the Bible is totally without error will always modify that by saying they believe the Bible to be inherent, that is, without error, inherent in the original manuscript, not the manuscripts we have today, in the original. So that if you show someone, "Look, this disagrees with that, or this is incorrect," and so on, he can tell you, "That's true, that's a mistake, but that mistake was not in the original." Ask him, "How did the mistake get here?" He'll tell you, "The original got lost." Well, then the original was not the word of God. If it got lost, was it? Isaiah 4:8 says, "If God says it, it doesn't get lost." The verse doesn't say, "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever, except for a few little details." There's no qualification. And books have been written documenting the errors. And yet this excuse is still offered.
You see, if the missionary would only make this concession, if he would only say, "All right, not all of the Bible came from God," he'd be more believable. I have a Muslim friend of mine in Toronto, who was besieged by a missionary group there, the Fellowship of Faith, whose whole goal in life is to convert Muslims, surrounded by them constantly. Gave him all kinds of literature. Then finally he told me, he said, "You know, the miracle of this book," he meant the Bible, "is that people believe it came from God. That's the miracle." Because on the one hand, people are trying to tell him it's perfect, and on the other hand, they'll tell you, "Well, except here it's not perfect," and so on, "but that's because it got lost," and so on. It's an excuse that's inconsistent with the claim. If the missionary would say, "Not everything that we call scripture should be called scripture," if he would only say that, he'd be more believable.
Now, as I said, I know some of that probably is upsetting to some people. If it's upsetting, ask yourself why. Did I make a mistake? Did I say something that is not true? If so, what is it?
My own personal experiences are not particularly exciting or anything, but maybe they illustrate a course of events that you might find interesting. You see, when I was in high school, taught in high school by Franciscans, later in university by Jesuits, I got the highest grades they ever had in religion. They used to write A+ plus across the front of the page. Great praise. The teacher said, "Never had a student like this. These terrific grades in religion." But it occurred to me one day after two or three years of this, it somehow it registered on my mind. The reason the grades are high is because I remember everything the man said. When it comes time for an exam, I can write down everything I heard him say and give it back, so I get a perfect mark. That doesn't mean it's true. That was my frustration. But I took it with my teacher saying, "I can tell you all of this. I know the whole explanation. What is the proof?" You see, we have to always decide when somebody's having a conversation with us, are they explaining it or are they proving it? People usually fool themselves. They explain it and they think they're proving it.
If you ask somebody, "How do you know Jesus died for your sins? What's the proof?" He starts to tell you about, "Well, you see, God is holy. Man's a sinner. Jesus has to die." And so on. That's not the proof. That's an explanation. That's how it's supposed to work. I know that. How do you know it happened? You see, it's the proof you want. In the Catholic Church, I couldn't find that proof because they tend to look to authorities other than the scripture, the Bible. Don't be confused. If there's one thing I wish I could hammer into everybody's head, it's this idea. Explanation is not the same as proof.
I asked a man the last time I was in Australia, the same thing. I said, "How do you, how do you know man has to have his sins redeemed?" And he said, "Well, God is 100% holy. 100% holy. You are a sinner. God cannot deal with you directly because he is 100% holy. You are a certain percentage sinner." It's an explanation. It's an explanation. But is it true? See, think about it. If I told you that in New York City is the holiest man that ever lived, I could talk about him for an hour maybe, and I build up a great reputation. I say he's the holiest human being that ever lived. Finally, maybe you'd say, "Well, I'm going to save my money. I want to go to New York City and meet him. I want to shake his hand." And I'll tell you, "No, no, no. He won't even let you come in the same room with him. He's too holy. You can talk to his secretary, but he couldn't stand to look at you. He's too holy." Now, what do you think of this man? Is he holy or is he crazy? You see, an explanation is an explanation. It may or may not be true. It's proof of something else.
What I wanted was proof. Did Jesus say so? I got into a discussion with a man who used to have a radio program on the Bible. And so I asked him if he could prove to me some of the things he believed. He said, "I don't have a Bible." I said, "I have one here. I put a Bible, which is called a red letter edition. They put all of the words of Jesus in red ink. And I'd ask him, 'Do you believe such and such?'" And he'd say, "Certainly. Here's the proof." And he'd open up the Bible, and he'd read me something from the black ink. And I kept saying, "No, show me in the red ink. Did Jesus say that thing?" I said, "I know Paul said it. I know this and that and the other thing. Did Jesus say that thing you tell me you believe?" Well, he kept stroking my Bible like it was a pet cat. Was very fond of it. But I kept pushing that way and pushing. I kept saying, "Did Jesus say it?" Suddenly, he didn't like the Bible anymore. And he threw it back in my face. He said, "You know what your problem is? You won't believe it unless Jesus said it." Yes, that's my problem. It should be his problem. How does he dare to teach something if he can't and call himself a Christian if he can't show you that Jesus said this thing he's talking about? It should be easy to find. If Jesus said some of the things people say he said, it should be easy to find.
Do you know if you took all the words of Jesus reported in the Bible and eliminate the duplications, because you have the same story basically told four times. If you eliminate the duplications, the total of all the words of Jesus do not even fill two columns of a newspaper. There are not very many words. So if he said these different things, you don't really have a lot of work to look down and find them.
So, as I say, among Protestant churches, I have been involved with the Church of England, the Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians, you name them. You probably can't name one I haven't heard of unless it's something local here, to be involved with them for nine years. I read their books and visited, took part in their meetings, used to teach some of their Bible classes. They kept coming back to this: "What proof do you offer? What proof?" So they bring out a handful of their favorite verses. John 3:16, 8:58, 10:30, 14:9, 20:28, and so on. But for every one of those verses, there's another verse which, if you put it right beside that verse, you find out what they were trying to say won't work. Hebrews 11:17, Exodus chapter 3, uh, uh, John chapter 17, John chapter 5, and Exodus chapter 6, to go in the order of the verses I named you there. You put those beside those verses, and the argument dissolves, among others. They don't prove the divinity of Jesus. Doesn't mean he's not divine, but these things don't do the job. That's the problem. I'm not saying he's not divine. I'm saying I still want to see the proof. Did he say so?
Then the real test of sincerity was what disappointed me. You see, you can take one of these verses. Somebody shows you, um, John 14:9, for example. Jesus said to Philip, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." So I asked them, "How is it he said in this other place to a group of people, 'You people have never seen the Father'?" Don't tell me in this place he means he's God. When in this place he told some people who were looking at him, "You've never seen God." He must have meant something else. You tell somebody that, and they'll say, "Okay, you have a point. What about this verse?" And they go to another verse. That's fine. But next week, somebody will come to that same man and say, "Where's the proof that Jesus said he was God?" He will read John 14:9, right back where he started from. A verse which a week ago he told me wasn't good enough. It'll be good enough for somebody else because he hopes he doesn't know the response I had.
Beginning about 1969, the same story I seem to get when I go from church to church, I'd ask them, you know, if you took all the words of Jesus and you cut them out of the Bible with scissors, and then I gave you some paste and told you, "Put them back together any way you like. Take all these words, put them back together, paste them together how you like. You still can't make him spell out the Trinity." He still doesn't say anything about it, no matter how you change these words. And so they tell me, "It doesn't mean it isn't true. The Trinity is an evolved understanding. The church didn't understand this deep thought at first. The understanding evolved over the centuries. It was discussed. People came to understand it and believe it." Fine. But if that's what you say, you shouldn't say on the other hand, "Jesus used to preach it." If you tell me people didn't figure it out for 200 years, don't tell me Jesus preached it. And so they would say, "No, no, he preached it, but it's not in the Bible. He used to preach it to his disciples. He told them about it." Well, in the 18th chapter of John, Jesus says very clearly, "I taught nothing in secret." Said, "Everything I had to say, I said in the marketplace." He didn't tell his disciples any secrets.
More solutions are offered to me. People told me, "Your problem is you're not spiritual enough. Believe." Then it's easy. Believe. But you see, a person can't make themselves believe if they know better. What sometimes happens to human beings? They get a pain. So their head is hurting. They go to a doctor. They tell them, "I've got this pain. It won't go away." The doctor makes some tests, a full examination, maybe some x-rays, and he finds there's nothing wrong. So, he realizes the man's problem is mental. It's an imaginary pain. He doesn't tell the man that. He gives him a placebo. They are things that look like pills, but they're only milk sugar, just sugar. He goes to his patient and he says, "We've made some tests. This is the medicine you need. Take these pills and in one day your pain should stop." It almost always does because the man thinks he's getting some medicine, and so his mental abilities get rid of the pain. That's a placebo. It works that way. I can't do the same thing with belief though. I can't manufacture it.
He, the doctor, came to me and he said, "You know, your problem is mental. I have some sugar pills here. Believe that these are medicine with all your heart. Believe they are medicine. Try very hard. And when you believe that they are medicine, the pain will go away." I can't do it. He told me they're sugar. I know better. So in the same way, it's not satisfactory that somebody comes and he says, "Believe, believe, believe." How can you believe if you know better?
Faith overcomes. People told me, "Faith overcomes. You must be born again." And that I took a real interest in. "You must be born again." I want to know how does this work? Where's the proof in the scripture? They brought me Romans chapter 8. It's very interesting. Romans chapter 8, Paul says, if you are born again, what happens is the spirit of God comes into you and it tells you that God is now your father. And so you cry out, "Abba, Father." So this is how it's supposed to work. It's fascinating. I gave that a lot of thought, but I got to thinking about this word "Abba." It's unusual. Means father in Aramaic. So I looked up the word "Abba." Where else is it in the Bible? Well, there's only one other place that Paul talks about "Abba." I'll let you find it for yourself. One other place he talks about "Abba." And in this place, he also talks about how it is that this thing works. He says, "The spirit of God comes within you. You become a child of God. You call out to God, 'Abba, Father.' Now God is your father." And he goes on to say, "Now you have a new mother also, a new mother. God is your father and you have a mother." Since 1969 till now, 15 years, I have yet to meet someone who's born again and ask them, "Who's your father?" They say, "God." I say, "Who's your mother?" They don't know. Why not? It's in the Bible. Says you have a new mother if you're born again. Why did the spirit of God, when it came within you, forget to tell you who was your mother? It's there. Let you find it. It's there. It's important.
You see, in Islam, if you call a man a liar, you better have proof, or you're the one that's in trouble. If somebody over there calls me a liar, he better have proof. You see, unless he's not a Muslim. If other religions permit you to call that name without proof, that's their business. Now, as I say, for many years, I went directly to priests and ministers from about 1969 till '77, thereabouts, and round and round we go. I don't want to bore you with a lot of the conversations, but they go around in tiny little circles, and it's disappointing.
People ask me, they say, "Who was the father of Jesus?" I say, "He didn't have a father." And they say, "Well, then you see, Mary is the mother. God is the father." So I would ask, "You mean Mary is the wife of God?" "No." They're horrified. "No, no, no, no, no. God is the father. Mary is the mother." And I'd ask, "You mean his his parents weren't married, though?" "No. God doesn't take a wife." So I go on to something else. They say, "But Jesus called God Father." And I always
Ask people who tell me that. I say, "What do you call God?" Probably it's Father. People who say that, they pray "Our Father." But he called himself Son of God. They say, "And I tell them, yes, and he called lots of other people sons of God. He said, 'Blessed are the peacemakers. They shall be called sons of God.'"
I became very frustrated on the crucifixion. I believed that the crucifixion happened, but I wondered why. I asked so many people, said, "Why did God have to become a man and die? If a price has to be paid for our sins, why can't we just go find a sinless man and execute him and say, 'There, the price is paid.'" To which people always said, "No, if a man dies, it's not enough. It has to be someone who is God and man." And so I'd always asked them, "Do you mean God died?" "No, no, no. Only the man died." We're back where we started from. If the man dies, it isn't good enough.
See, that's a that's not a novel idea on my part. The church is still discussing that till this day. They're still not sure who died on the cross. Was it God, or was it man, or was it the God-man, or what was the deal? Because it can't if God doesn't die, because that means changing from one state to another, and God doesn't change from one state to another. He's supposed to be immutable and so on. They're still discussing that.
They say, "Jesus paid a price for your sins. Paid a price." Could never understand that. In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus taught his disciples how to pray. He said, "Pray like this." And one of the lines he told them, he said, "Pray to God. Say, 'Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.'" More modern translations say, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." How do you forgive someone who owes you a debt? Do you say, "You know that money you owe me? Forget it. Now give me the money." If you forgive it, it's that there's no price. Nothing is paid. You say it's forgiven. So the Lord's Prayer says, "Forgive us our sins the same way we forgive someone who sinned against us." If someone slaps you and you forgive him, that's the end of that. But you don't say, "I forgive you for slapping me. Now come here. I want to slap you." You see, you don't do that.
About what would it be, 500 years ago, there was a Jew in Europe. Spinoza was his name, Baruch Spinoza, a philosopher, and he wrote a great deal. And he made the same point that people were making 500 years before him. He was frustrated when the Christians would come to him and say, "God became man." He would say, "What do you mean God became man? See, I know what is God and I know what is man. And I can imagine that what was God turned into a man. He's not God anymore. Used to be God. Now he's a man. I can understand that. That at least makes some sense." But that's not what the church teaches. They say, "God became man, but he was still God." And that causes a problem. You see, if I have a ball of clay and I squeeze it and I put corners on it and I make it into a cube, I can tell you, "See, the ball became a cube." But I can't tell you, "Don't be fooled. It's still round." See, if it was one thing, it became another thing. It's not that thing anymore. They solve that by putting a label on it. They call it diophysitism. Doesn't prove anything. Means two natures. Diophysitism. That's an old trick. When you don't know the answer, put a label on it.
In ancient Greece, the Greeks 25 centuries ago came to their scientists with a question. They'd observed that you eat food, it goes through the system, and some of it comes out. They wanted to know which part of what I take in is the part that feeds me, because evidently I don't need all of it. You see, want to know which is the nutritive faculty of the food. And the scientists didn't know. So they said, "The part that feeds you is the nutritive faculty of the food." That's like saying, "The part that feeds you is the part that feeds you." That's all. It's a label. Doesn't answer anything.
I say, I could talk to you for hours about experiences. About 1977, I decided to have a look at the Quran. I never met a Muslim. I lived 100 kilometers from the nearest Muslim. See, what interested me was what non-Muslims said about Muhammad. There are books and books written about Muhammad that tell you, "One thing we know for sure about this man, he had an outside source of information." One book I've got says the Quran was written by a committee because they've established so well that there's information in there that an Arabian shouldn't have known. He must have had someone from the outside bringing him this information. So they say, "One thing we know for sure, he had an outside source of information." Now, he said this book was a revelation. So they say, "You see, he was a liar. He got it from somewhere. He put it in a book and he gave it to someone telling them it was from God. He was a liar."
Other people write books and books on the subject of Muhammad and they say, "One thing we know for sure, he thought he was a prophet. He was crazy." Because they look at his life very carefully and they see episodes like, for example, when he hid in the cave with Abu Bakr. He was running from the whole city who wanted to kill him, and he hid in the cave. And when the Meccans came running up to the cave to kill them, what did he say to his friend? Did he tell him, "See if you can find a back way out of the cave?" What he told his friend was, "Relax. He was telling him, you know, I see what you see, but he said, 'God is with us. God will save us.'" So people on that basis, they say, "You see, he thought he was a prophet. He thought God was with him because he said things like that. He wasn't a liar." They never seem to realize that one man can't be both. So you can't be a liar and a crazy man at the same time.
If you think that an angel gives the words of God in your ear, and somebody says, "I have a question for you. What does God tell you about this thing? I want to hear an answer tomorrow." If you're a crazy man, if you think an angel whispers in your ear, then you don't sit up that night thinking, "What will I tell him tomorrow? What can I find? Who knows the answer?" You're crazy. You think the angel will tell you the answer. You don't go and look it up somewhere. You see, you can't be a liar and a crazy man at the same time. You can be one or the other, or neither, but you can't be both.
You see, I read two non-Muslim biographies of Muhammad. One was by Rodinson, who's an atheist, who hated the man. But many interesting things come up about his life that I had to wonder about. One story that's told is that when he was an older man, he had a son named Ibrahim. Abraham. The son died when the child was 2 years old. The same day the boy died, there was an eclipse of the sun. Sky went dark, and the Muslims came running to their prophet and said, "Look, it's a miracle. Your child died, and the sky went dark in sadness." It occurred to me, see, if he was a crazy man, he'd probably believe what they said. He'd probably think, "Yes, it's a miracle. My child died. The sky is dark. Yes, it's a miracle." If he was a crazy man. If he was a liar, he would have taken advantage of it. He would have said, "Yes, right. My child died. The sky is dark. You tell everyone. It proves I'm a prophet. It's a miracle." But what did he do? He became angry with the Muslims. He told him that was nonsense. He was angry with them. "How dare you say that?" He said, "The sun and the moon are signs of God, and they don't worry themselves about the birth of a man or the death of a son of Muhammad." Doesn't look very crazy. Doesn't look much like a liar.
Now, you have a third alternative, of course, which people tell you all the time. You say, "No, he was not a liar. He was not a crazy man. He was deceived by the devil." Deceived by the devil. It's an interesting idea, but whatever you say, you better be ready to back it up. There's a lot of difficulties with that idea. For example, there is a verse in the Quran which tells the reader about a good habit to develop. It tells him, "Before you read this book, always say, 'A'udhu billahi minash shaitanir rajeem,' which means, 'I take refuge in God from Satan the rejected.'" Is this Satan who wrote this? Who said, "Before you read my book, ask God to save you from me?" Is that Satan who wrote that? As Jesus said, "If Satan is divided against himself, then his kingdom will fall." He's fighting against his own interests.
So, let me finish with a point that a story that illustrates a point. As I said, there's many theories and many explanations around, many explanations. But an explanation, something somebody tells you, is just so much air coming out of his mouth, unless he has proof. And unless he offers you something that you can use to falsify it. You see, there's many theories of how do the planets go around the sun, and how do the stars burn, and all the rest of it. Many theories. Most of them are just so much wind. Scientists pay no attention to them because they don't contain something that could be checked to prove it false. You see, Einstein was considered an intelligent man because when he offered his theory in 1905 and again in 1915, he didn't just offer a theory. He said, "Here's three ways to prove I'm wrong. Now, it's worth listening to." He's told me, "Here's three different things you can do. If you can do this, I'm wrong. Here you are."
Is there anything like that in Christianity? Has the Christian ever said, "You want to prove I'm wrong? All you have to do is this." Has he ever done that? The Quran is filled with that kind of thing. Filled with it, saying, "You want to prove this book is wrong? Do this. Prove it. Go ahead. Do it." Filled with that kind of thing. There's an example of it that made a big impression in its day during the lifetime 14 centuries ago of the prophet of Islam. You see, he had an uncle named Abu Lahab. That was his nickname, Abu Lahab. This man hated Muhammad. He hated anything the man said. He used to watch him going through the city. And if he saw him talking to someone, he waited till they split up, he'd go after the man he spoke to and take him and say, "What did Muhammad tell you? Whatever it is, it's a lie. Did he tell you day? It's night. Did he say black? It's white." Exact opposite. Whatever he heard the Muslims say, he said the opposite. That was the way his mind worked.
There's a little chapter of the Quran called "Lahab," and it says about this man that he'll never change. It condemns him to hell. Jahannam. You see, if the man had ever become a Muslim, the Muslims would believe, "Well, now he's not condemned anymore." You see, for 10 years before Abu Lahab died, that was a part of the Quran. And the Muslims could come to Abu Lahab and say, "Do you know it's been revealed to us in your in our book that you will never be a Muslim? God says you will never be a Muslim." For 10 years they told him that. All he had to do was say, "Well, your book is wrong. I want to be a Muslim. What do you think of your book now?" That's all he had to do. He had 10 years to think about it. And that's the way he was.
See, if somebody is your enemy, you don't come to him and say, "You want to prove I'm wrong? Here, say this. Come on, say it. If all you have to do is say the words and I'm wrong, you finish me." He never did it. See, this is one of many cases of something that was offered that could have been falsifiable.
So, it was, as I say, in 1978, after how long would it be? 15 years of arguing with the church authorities one place or another, I got the idea, I'm going to argue with some other people. I'm going to read the Quran, see how much of it is any good, pick out the true, pick out the false. Thought it'll take a few years, it'll take some serious study and so on. I read through it. About 3 days later, I finished it. I said, "This is what I've been saying for 15 years."
So, I went to find some Muslims. I don't want somebody to feel you've been tricked into something. I haven't said anything about Christianity that isn't true. I haven't said anything about Islam that isn't true, unless it was a slip of the tongue or something. I'm simply trying to remind an individual, don't close your mind before it's too late. Don't make up your mind before you have all the facts.
Most people who used to be Christians and become Muslims will tell you, "I am a better Christian than I used to be. Now I follow Christ. I didn't before." That's what I would tell you. Bible says Jesus told his disciples when you greet one another, let your greeting be, "Peace be with you." He set the example, "Peace be with you." Who says that today? Christians once in a great while, maybe. Muslims, whether they speak Arabic or not, they say, "As-salamu alaykum," peace be with you. Jesus, when he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, put his forehead on the ground. Who prays like that? Christians or Muslims? Jesus used to fast for more than a month at a time. Who fasts today? Christians or Muslims? Who really is trying to imitate Jesus?
Somebody said to me before coming in here, they said, uh, "The Muslims make Jesus out, they insult him and so on and so on. How possibly do they insult him?" They lift him up. They can't tolerate anything bad said about him. They would just as quickly tell you that, you know, the the they'll say, "Muhammad Rasul Allah," means Muhammad is the messenger of God. They will just as quickly say, "Isa, Jesus, Isa Rasul Allah," no problem. Just as quickly tell you that, because it's true. They occupy the same place. If God himself wants to make distinctions among his prophets, that's his business, not ours. Treat them all with the same amount of respect. May God guide us always closer to the truth.
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Mr. Gary Raymond Miller. Thank you, sir.