Question: We had a young Muslim man view the Jesus video...He was greatly impressed by the “values” and “human rights” taught by Jesus....He is troubled now [by Israel's history]. How do we counsel him? | thebereancall.org

TBC Staff

Question: We had a young Muslim man view the Jesus video and we read the Ten Commandments to him. He was greatly impressed by the “values” and “human rights” taught by Jesus. Eventually he was baptized. Through his witnessing to other Muslims via internet chat rooms, he learned of the slaughter of the Canaanite women and children by the Jews in the Old Testament....He felt this was the origin of the Israeli current “slaughters” and now rejects parts of the Old Testament as Jewish perversions while accepting the New Testament. He is so troubled now and seems to have lost “the joy of his salvation.” How do we counsel him?

Response: Being impressed with “values” and “human rights” taught by Jesus and being baptized does not save anyone. I will assume that this young Muslim knows the Lord, though you’ve given no evidence. There are some killings in the Old Testament by Israel that were never commanded by God and were in disobedience to Him.

Beginning with Muhammad, Muslims have killed millions of men, women and children to spread Islam in the name of Allah and continue that slaughter today. The 3,000 killed in the name of Allah by the 19 hijackers last September 11 were a drop in the bucket compared to those millions killed by Muslims throughout history. In just the last decade 2 million have been killed in Southern Sudan by the Muslim government in the north, and thousands are still being killed by Muslims there and in Indonesia, Nigeria, Algeria, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere. We have dealt with this in the past.

Genesis:15:13-16 explains that God could not give Israel the land of Canaan for another 400 years because “the iniquity of the Amorites [and other Canaanites] is not yet full.” But the day came when the perversions and sins of these people were so great that God was forced by His righteousness to annihilate them—and He used Israel to execute that judgment. In contrast to the slaughter over the centuries in many countries by Muslims as they forced Islam upon those they conquered, Israel was given a specific land with defined boundaries (vv. 18-21). They were not to take over the world or to convert anyone at the point of a sword. Israel’s conquest of Canaan was a special situation for which we must trust God’s judgment that the commanded extermination of its inhabitants (which Israel failed to accomplish) was necessary.

Every word in the Bible is inspired of God, is true, and the Old Testament history is recorded for our understanding. If this former Muslim rejects some of the Bible, Old or New Testaments, then he, rather than God and His prophets, has become the authority instead of the Bible. The New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old, so if there were errors in the Old, then the New would be also in error. The Bible must be taken as a whole because every part testifies to the truth of the rest of it.

Find out, first of all, whether he truly has believed in the Christ of Scripture.