The Lord put on my heart and said, don't pray for revival. Pray for my presence. And that's exactly what we're gonna do on today's Move Your Mountain. We're going to pursue His presence and you don't wanna miss it. We're gonna have anointed worship, the word, take holy communion and pray over your prayer requests today. What in G? All our sins and griefs to bear To care, thing to God in prayer To join us today, Pastor Maribel leading us in worship. I'm Pastor Gary Mitrick, here with Pastor Rebecca Luker, Pastor Jonathan Schaefer. And as we pursue and go at presence today, worship plays such a significant part in that. It truly does, you know, and even hearing a song like that because of who you are, when you start thinking about who God is and how awesome He is, how powerful He is, how He doesn't have to have His presence dwelling with us and being with, but He desires that. He loves having that relationship with us and it should fill your heart to cause you to worship and present. The more we think about the goodness of God, the more we should want to run after Him. Absolutely, and it's the goodness of God that leads men to repentance. It's this reality, this awareness that God does not have to be with us. He chooses to be with us. One of the things that echoes through the book of Revelation is how, and I will be with them and they will be my people and I will be their God. And so God's presence literally shifts the atmosphere. Things change and that's why we open with worship. That's why we get into the word because that's where we find the presence of God, most vibrant and awakens our heart to the reality that not only is God present, but He is there and He is able to help. Well, remember, if you need prayer for anything, anyone that's on your heart today, the number is there on your screen,<PHONE_NUMBER> after the prayer partner agrees with you they're gonna bring all the requests over to the altar where we will conclude our time together in prayer with you. We're also gonna take Holy Communion together so we want you to get your elements, a cracker or a piece of bread, some juice in a cup so that you can join and participate with us. Well, Pastor Myers is gonna come over and join us on the couch. We're gonna get into a great story back in the book of Exodus chapter 33. It says there in verse seven, Moses took his tent and he pitched it outside of the camp, far from the camp and he called it the Tabernacle of Meeting and it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the Tabernacle of Meeting which was outside the camp and so it was that whenever Moses went out to the Tabernacle, that all the people rose and each man stood at his tent door and he watched Moses until he had gone into the Tabernacle and it came to pass that when Moses entered the Tabernacle that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the Tabernacle and the Lord talked with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the Tabernacle door and all the people rose and worshiped each man in his tent door so the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend and he would return to the camp but the servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man did not depart from the Tabernacle.  How Moses just as the leader of the children of Israel had such a desire to just want to pursue God's presence. You know in the Gospel of John in the New Testament the Bible says the word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word dwelt is the word Tabernacle. It means to pitch a tent, to put the stakes down in the ground. God doesn't want a visitation. He wants a habitation. Number one, God desires to Tabernacle with you and with me. I love that verse. Verse 11, it says that God spoke face to face with him as a man speaks to his friend and that's where God wants us to be so close to him and his Tabernacling with us. I think about one of your favorite scriptures, Psalm 91. He that dwells in that secret place of the Most High God shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. God desires to be in you like that. He wants to have his way, wants you to trust him so much that you will just let him do what he wants to do. And the scripture says in 2 Corinthians 5 that we our bodies are earthly tents and God wants to dwell inside of you. The question is, have you established your tent? I love how Moses went outside of the camp because Moses was the leader and that's a fascinating thing too. Was Moses the leader because he met with God or because he met with God? Moses was able to lead. I think it's not either or it's both and but Moses got outside of all of the clamoring voices, all of the voices of descent, all of the other things that were demanding his attention and he said, I'm going to set up a place where I can meet with God and it is so vital. It is so important to this reality that God wants to tabernacle with us. I believe God is waiting for us to set up a tabernacle. He is and how often do we push him aside because we think we have things better to do in our lives. Time doesn't allow us to take that time but he desires to have that time with you.  Why is things seem just so out of hand? I can't control it, you're right, you can't but God wants you to step up as that leader in your home. Maybe you're the wife in the family you're saying but my husband doesn't love the Lord. Then you be that leader just like Moses was and say, I'm going to make it a point. I need time with the Lord. If I'm going to lead my family, if I'm going to lead those that are around me, I need time with the Lord. I know that he wants that relationship with me. I know he wants to dwell in me so I will allow it to happen. Moses had to go out, they had to go out of the camp if they wanted to see God at that moment before he would dwell with them but then they did some things that they had to go out of the camp not to start seeing God. And so sometimes we have to make an effort to go and see God, to have God's presence, to make that time with him in our daily routine. Take that time today. You know, I'm thankful that you are watching today. I'm thankful that you've tuned in because maybe this is the message that you just need at this moment in your life to remind you I need to get back to that relationship with the Lord that I had before that I got away from. God desires to have residence within you. And I love that when Moses went out into the tent, everybody rose and worshiped. Oh, when you worship God, it invites, it puts out the welcome mat for the presence of the Lord. And then I love it says that when Moses came back from the tent, Joshua stayed there. And you know how I could always tell in our services when the presence of the Lord begins to descend, people don't wanna leave. They just wanna linger and stay. Especially, I mean, Joshua represents the next generation. He was a young man, the scripture says. And I believe that this is something that's so vitally important that we have to create environments. Those of us who are the leaders in our family, maybe leaders in church, leaders in work, that we create an environment where the presence of God can be magnified, glorified and manifest. This will cause people to worship. But I believe, I believe that God is calling us in these last days to do this so vitally because he wants to bring the younger generation into a relationship with him. Look, you do not have to manufacture. You don't need video games and pizza parties. You get young people exposed to the true manifest presence of God. They will not ever wanna leave. And I believe that that's what God is calling us to in this day and age. Yeah, and I think about as you were talking, as we set up the landmarks or the way markers, they can see their way to that place where the presence of God is. And he moves and learn from us. This is where we ought to live. This is where we ought to stay. And when they see us in that place all day long, being available to God all day long, every day, just available and in his presence, it is just a magnificent thing. Well, you know, the enemy has targeted our children, our young people. And I think so God has targeted them in this current revival. He's pouring out his spirit on college campuses, on youth groups, on young people, all over the nation and around the world. And you and I need to say to the enemy, you can't have our children. You can't have our grandchildren. They are marked for the presence of the Lord. Let's go on to verse 12. It says, then Moses said to the Lord, see, you say to me, bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, I know you by name, and you have also found grace in my sight. Now therefore I pray, if I have found grace in your sight, show me now your way that I may know you and that I may find grace in your sight. And consider that this nation is your people. And he said, I love this. Here's was God's response. My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. Somebody needs to hear that today. My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. And then Moses said, hey Lord, if your presence doesn't go with me, I don't even wanna go from here. For how then will it be known that your people and I have found grace in your sight except you go with us? So we shall be separate, your people and I from all the people who are upon the face of the earth. Listen, the only thing that separates a believer from a non-believer, a Christian from a non-Christian, a saved person from someone that does not yet know Christ is his presence. It's not that the world has troubles that we don't have. It's not that they go through things we don't have. It's his presence number two that distinguishes us and separates us out.  We're not gonna move. We're not gonna advance. And the people around you will see that because if we're always uptight, if we're always anxious, if we always are living in fear, then maybe we need to reevaluate how much are we depending on God's presence in our lives to direct us and how much are we depending on our own flesh or on other people to direct us? We need to get back to that point where we say, God, I don't wanna move. I don't wanna take a step. I don't wanna make a plan unless I first consulted you and you tell me, yes, this is the way to go. Walk in it. I wanna hear God's voice speaking that clearly to me that I don't have to wonder, am I out of God's will? I wanna know that I am in the will of God because I spent time in his presence.  It is so important in this day and age, in this world that we are rooted and grounded and established in the word of Jesus Christ so that we can grow, so that our families can grow and so that we can be the light in this dark world so that people will see us as a separate people and want what we have because we are not here for our own selves. We are here for the purpose of God and if people don't see the light of Jesus in us, then there's something wrong. We need to go back to the beginning. Go back to the start, Pastor Mary. That's how I start every day of my life. Good morning, Lord. If you don't go with me, I'm not getting out of bed today. Amen, amen. Yeah, and the beauty of it to me, part of the beauty, it's all wonderful, but that he will go with us and we can change the atmosphere no matter where we go. If God says go, and it might be something so general as a wedding, a wedding reception, a family gathering, no matter where it is, God's presence in us distinguishes us such that we can change the atmosphere and then God will give you the signal, okay, now it's time to get out of there. Yeah, because we know when stuff gets ready to go, but God in us distinguishes us. Light and darkness, light and darkness. And if the world sees us doing everything they do, that's right, what's the difference? There is no difference. And sometimes the enemy can, like you said about the flesh, can convince us, well, we don't wanna be so different from, we wanna blend in with, no, God distinguishes us. And we can't be afraid to be distinguished, Mr. John. I think there's a reality too, where sometimes I've seen this in Christian circles where we think that we have to be weird to be distinguished. And that's not the case. I think that Jesus was very different and distinguished, but he wasn't. We're not, blind seeing is weird, right? Walking on water is weird. Feeding 5,000 men plus women and children with five loaves and two fish. That's weird, but it's not strange. It's the type of thing that people say, I want to lean in, not fall back.  I think of Jesus going to the fig tree during Passion Week. And the Bible says it was not the season for figs, but Jesus, being the creator of the universe, there was an expectation that no matter what the season was, if Jesus was there, it was supposed to respond to his presence.  And if it's the latter, I encourage you to set up that tent, like we said in the first point and go out, get away from the crowd, get away from the clamor, get away from everything and spend time in his presence speaking with him face to face as you would speak with a friend. That is the great privilege and honor that we have as his children, because he is the king and he has invited us into his presence. That's good, that's really good.  They may resist you. They may cause problems in your life and you're wondering, wait a minute, wait a minute, Lord, I thought you wanted to bless me today. But listen, when Jesus landed at Gadara and he put his foot out of the boat onto the land, the demons in the man started to act up. Immediately they started to tear him and throw him and do all kind of crazy things. Why? Because I believe Satan knew Jesus had just landed and put his foot down. And sometimes when you show up at work or you show up at a certain place, the enemy knows the presence of the Lord is in you and it may get a reaction that can cause a clashing and a resistance that's not from God. Well, it says in verse 17 of Exodus 33. So the Lord said to Moses, I will also do this thing that you have spoken for you have found grace in my sight and I know you by name. And then he said, please show me your glory. Then he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you and I will be gracious to whomever I will be gracious and I will have compassion on whome I will have compassion. And that third point is Lord show us your glory. The glory is the weightiness of his presence. And if you and I, like Moses, will just ask the Lord for his glory and presence to come, I believe the Lord will not disappoint us. And you know, I think we were talking about that earlier about just remaining and staying where God is so that we can get more of his glory, get more of his presence. I think about the many times that maybe you've experienced being around the altar at a church and having those prayer meetings and interceding and just asking for more of God and how many times maybe your young people were in the pews or in the chairs of the church and they didn't come down and get in with you.  Maybe not at the altar, maybe you can do it right where you're sitting in that service but get them to pray with you. Let them experience the presence of God, the glory of God in their lives and young person, you that are watching, don't worry about the time clock. Mom and dad, don't worry about the time clock. If your kids are down there praying and interceding with the Lord, don't worry, I have to have dinner made. No, let them do that. Let them stay, let them dig in. I encourage you to do that because we want to see the glory of God in this earth and I believe when that happens, lives are gonna change. Those kids that may be not knowing the Lord right now, when they experience the presence and the glory and the power of God, they're not gonna be able to resist it and they're gonna run after him, they're gonna run after his presence. Those that are sick in their body, when they experience the glory and the presence of God and that weight, it will be so thick in their lives and they're gonna experience to the point they're gonna be healed, they're gonna be set free from every disease, every bondage, but we need the presence and the glory of God to be dwelling in our lives every day, not just at a church service, but every single day with us. Yeah, that intimacy, God wants with us to be intimate with him. Sometimes that word intimate can take people places flesh wise. But this is an intimacy where you have no holds barred. I think I got that right. No holds barred. You just let yourself go in the presence of God, being intimate with him. There is nothing shaded or nothing covered. You're open with him, being intimate and we can have what Moses had. You said, well my name is not Moses and I'm not leading millions of people and listen, God put you in the body where it pleased him and you need the intimacy of God. I think about that passage of scripture in 2 Corinthians 3 that says, as we behold like in a glass or in a mirror, the glory of God, we're changed from glory to glory by the presence of God, by the spirit of God, God will show you his glory. God will show you who he is and it is a magnificent, I don't use that word a whole lot, magnificent, but God will show you and it will be so transforming for you that you'll never wanna go back to not being intimate with God. Yeah, and I think that that's one of the things like even from the carnal or earthly sense, intimacy requires time. You've got to, I've got to show affection to my wife as the day goes on and show attention to her and I think we live in a day and age where we don't want to show affection or attention to God and I think that that's something that we've got to wrestle with but there's also this reality between total surrender and demand, right? Like God invites us into relationship and it has to be totally surrendered. It has to be not my will but your will be done but there's also like Moses says, Moses says, show me your glory. Like he placed a demand on God and I believe that we have to learn to live within this tension but it all starts with waiting. It all starts with time, right? Like if you want the weight, you might have to wait and God wants to put that weighty glory on us but I believe that God, the Bible says in 2 Chronicles, chapter 16, 9, the eyes of the Lord search to and fro throughout the whole earth, looking for someone whose heart is fully committed to him so that he might give them strong support and I believe right now God is searching all across the airwaves, the highways and the byways. He's looking for people here. He's looking for people that have established a tabernacle who've said, I'm going to separate myself. I'm going to get away from the noise.  Well, we're gonna invite you to go to the worship set and I just wanna encourage you while Pastor Rebecca is leading us in a time, just get in his presence. Just pause, put aside the distractions right now. Just spend time as she ministers to us. Open up the heavens. We've been talking today about how Moses went out to the tent, the tabernacle of meeting and he met with God there and how all the people rose in worship as they just sought the presence of God. And we're gonna invite you to go to the worship set and we're gonna invite you to go to the worship set and we're gonna invite you to go to the worship set and we're gonna invite you to go to the presence of the Lord and I just want you to know that I pray that as you pursue God's presence and make his presence a priority in your life, that I believe that as you just go after God as a true worshiper, he, as he met with Moses and Joshua and the children of Israel, he will also meet with you. We wanna thank so many of you.  Betty called, she was diagnosed with cancer. She called the prayer line and after she had already been to her doctor, she went back to her doctor and the doctor said, there is no cancer, it is gone, she is praising God. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, Betty, that's amazing.  Hear what God did for Betty and know that he can do it for you. Amen. And then George called from out of state. He had a friend James who was actually dying. The doctor said there was nothing more that they could do for him. But George just called and was believing God for his friend. I love those four friends that led the paralytic, laid him down and the paralytic got healed because of the four friends' faith. And George said, after he called the prayer line, his friend James suddenly sat up. It said, he surprised everybody in the hospital and now he's alive, he's well and God did a miracle. If you are not excited right now after hearing these testimonies, you gotta get a heart check. Praise the Lord. He is still in the healing business. He is still in the delivering business. Whatever you have need of, there's no limits to God. He can do it for them. He can do it for you today. That's right. And Rona called, she also was healed of cancer. What a miracle. And here's a dear faithful partner says, I watch move your mountain all the time. I take communion with you and it just really, really encourages administers to me. Yeah, yeah. We're all in this together. Yes, we are. Distance does not separate us in the spirit. That's a wonderful, wonderful thing. And Pastor Gary, there is somebody watching right now. Your mountain has been that you don't feel worthy. You don't feel worthy. You're looking at the past of what was, but God said the blood of Jesus that we are going to remember as we take communion. The blood of Jesus took away all that past sin. And God is challenging you today to become more and more intimate with him. And as you become intimate with him, you will have boldness to say to that mountain, Jesus Christ giving his life made me worthy. Not of yourself, but because of what God has done in you. It's not by might, it's not by power, but it's by his spirit that he has done these things. So as you move closer and closer to God, God is going to give you that boldness to speak it. He said, if we speak to the mountain with Thanksgiving and no doubt that we can say to the mountain, be removed. And that's what we're here for. To say to our mountains, to encourage you to say to your mountain, be removed, be removed and it shall come to pass. Amen. And as we've been talking about the presence of the Lord, if you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, then you don't know him, have his presence. Because when you invite Jesus to come into your heart, that's how he comes in by the Holy Spirit, by the presence of the Lord. And maybe you're dealing with that shame and unworthiness. Maybe you just, at some point, you were walking with God, but you've drifted away, you've fallen back and God's calling you in these hours to return to your first love again. There is no nothing like the presence of the Lord in our lives. You know, and I believe there's some people watching and you're like, I'm cool. I'm good where I'm at. And I wanna encourage you to take a look around and you may look around and see that everything is great. Everything's hunky dory. You know, a lot of times I see people come to Christ out of a moment of duress or distress. And so it was a, hey, save me for this moment thing, not save me so that I can be with you for ever kind of a thing.  Don't wait for that moment of distress. You've heard about the presence of God, the goodness of the presence of the Lord. And I just wanna, I believe right now, you're hearing in your heart. It's time. It's time. It's not about whether or not you're good with where you are or aren't. It's about God has something better. And it's time. And so I just encourage you before we get ready to take these elements which symbolize the body that was broken for us, the blood that was shed for us, the very historical reality that our faith is centered around the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Before we take these elements, I just wanna encourage you to just take a moment, say within your heart, God, I'm ready to surrender. I repent of my sins. I don't want them anymore. They aren't nearly as good as the goodness that you have in store for me. And so I leave those things behind and I turn to you right now. I give my life to you. I surrender my all to you and I ask you to help me to continue to follow you and serve you. And if you've believed that in your heart, that Jesus Christ is Lord, the death burial resurrection of Jesus and you've confessed that I wanna encourage you right now to pick up the phone, call one of our prayer partners,<PHONE_NUMBER> and let them know because the Bible says that with our heart we believe, but with our mouth we confess and that means to confess to somebody else.  And if you've done that, his presence now has come to take up residence within you. His presence is not a feeling, it's a fact, it's the truth. So just receive now in faith, by faith, the presence of the Holy Spirit abiding, abiding within you right now. Oh, it's so precious, so wonderful. And now as we take communion, you can do it because you have that relationship with Christ. The only thing that separates us from God is our sins. And as you've confessed and repented of your sins, now you're in right standing with our Lord. So would you pray over the bread for us and Pastor, over the cup? Father, we just thank you so much and we, as we reflect on what you have done for us, God, when you went to Calvary, Lord, how your body was beaten for us, God, even before you went to the cross, it was beaten, it was flogged, God, blood was spilled even at that moment, God, before the cross. And Father, we thank you that with every stripe that you took on your back, you said that we have healing, God, spiritual healing, physical healing, emotional healing. Father, we thank you, Lord, that you bore every pain and all the suffering so that we do not have to.  And we also get to take on that fact that you are the healer and you are healing bodies right now. Father, we thank you for your body that was broken for us as we remember your goodness, Jesus. All right, take your cracker, your piece of bread, eat of it now and be healed and made whole in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. For giving your only begotten son and Jesus, we thank you for being willing to give your life. Life is in the blood and you gave your blood for us, for the remission of sins, the taking away of our sins. And we thank you for that. We thank you. It wasn't easy, but you did it for us. And so we remember today what you did for us on the cross. We thank you and we praise you for the blood. All right, take your cup and drink of it now and be washed and cleansed by the blood of the lamb. And now just receive healing virtue, just going through every part of your body, wherever you need healing, just lay hands on yourself and just be healed in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Right now be healed. Pain goes, sickness goes. That shame, that unworthiness, it goes in the name of Jesus Christ. Be set free from addictions and fear, every bondage is broken off of your life now in Jesus' precious name. Thank you Lord, thank you Lord, thank you Lord. There's somebody who's watching right now. Yours has been an emotional disturbance in your history and God is saying to you today, I sent my only son to bind up the broken hearted, to set captives free. He was talking about you. Let him love you, let him love you. You get out of the way and allow God to love you like nobody else can and watch what he does with those emotions. He'll set them in order. He'll set them in order. So many of us have experienced emotional things that have happened and thrown us off course. The course of life, but new life in him. We can celebrate what Christ has done by setting us free and he wants to do it for you. Amen, amen. Well, Pat called from Carlton, Michigan. She was religious, she was in various churches and denominations, but she didn't have a relationship. She accepted Jesus Christ as her personal savior and Lord. Yes, yes, yes. The best decision of your life that will ever happen is you choosing Jesus Christ. So welcome to the family, we love you and we're gonna be praying for you. That's right. Well, we wanna just remind you if you are blessed by programs like Move Your Mountain, we have such a wonderful lineup of programs we produce right here in house. Our flagship program is Hope for Today. We have our Origins program, our sister to sister, today's Nashville Dashing Dish. Of course, Art Lean's program at home, so, so many. But we cannot produce them or provide them to you without your prayers and financial support. We also have our lineup of national programs. I'm sure you have a favorite. I'm gonna give you our address and I'm gonna encourage you to pray about planting a seed into the good ground of Cornerstone Television. The address is CTVN Cornerstone Television, 1-SIGNAL-HILL-DRIVE-WALL-PENCILVANIA-15148-1499. And we're gonna thank you in advance for your faithful and generous support. God bless you. As we go back to Pastor Rebecca, we're gonna go over to the altar to close in prayer with you as she sings, Awake My Soul. It's the sound of the Savior's robe as he walks into the room where people pray, where we hear praise as he hears. There is a sound I love to hear. It's the sound of the Savior's robe as he walks into the room where people pray, where he hears worship, where he hears praise as he does. He hears. God's waking his people up. You're watching, I pray that today as we were talking about the glory of God that you desire that and you dig in over these next few days ahead because God wants to move. He wants to intervene in your lives. Let him do it. Yes, yes. And today's lesson just stirred up in me that we have power with God. We have power in prayer. That's why we pray. You have power with God. When you are intimate with God, you have power. Moses prayed, God was going to destroy Israel. That's right. But Moses said, don't do it, God. They're gonna say, Moses had God's best interest at heart. And when you have God's best interest at heart, God will hear you when you pray. And you know, when it comes to presence, one of the things that I've noticed in my own life is that it's not something that I need to seek to go and get. I have to be aware that I already have it. What I need to do is get rid of some other things in my life. The same way Moses separated himself. I love that point. He separated himself and he prepared a place so that he could maximize the manifestation of God's presence in his life. And so I encourage you to take some time and be mindful and reflective and say, what do I gotta do? What do I gotta eliminate? Right now, I think most people, it's not that you don't have enough, it's that you have too much and you just need to figure out what to eliminate so that you can maximize the one thing that you truly need. When Mary saw it after Jesus in Luke 10, Jesus said, there's only one thing that's necessary. Mary's chosen it. It's the best portion and it won't be taken from her. That's right, that's true. Well, so many have called for prayer. If you've called, your requests are here on the altar of the Lord. We're gonna agree with you. If you haven't had a chance to call, as Pastor Meyer said earlier, there's no distance in the spirit. So just join with us right now. Many of you have written in and we're gonna agree right now. Would you begin? Father, we just thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that we can stand on it knowing that it has full authority in our lives, Lord Jesus. And because of that, God, we come boldly to your throne room today and we ask God that every need that is represented on this altar today that you would meet it, God. There are those that are calling in for salvation for their family members. Lord, there are those that are calling in for healings of their bodies, healings for others, God, they're calling in for. And God, I pray that the miracle worker, that you as the miracle worker would step in, that you would intervene in every bad doctor's report, in every bad counselor's report, God that says that the marriage has ended, that the family is never gonna get back together. Lord, you step in as the one who has the final say and Father, you give them the report of God, you give them your report, Lord Jesus. Lord, heal broken bodies, heal broken marriages, heal broken relationships, bring restoration, God, and give them back even greater than what they had before they were broken, Lord Jesus. Lord, I pray that your people be blessed, God, that we would dig in, that we would desire more and more of you.  Let us be totally and completely filled with you. Lord, do it now, set revival across this nation in Jesus' name. Hallelujah. Thank you, God. Father, we thank you that we can come to you boldly, the throne of grace to get whatever we need. And so we put these before you on the altar and we thank you for victory in each of these situations, all the circumstances, we ask you to be glorified in Jesus' name. Yes, yes.  Just so many needs for family restoration right now, for family reconciliation, for family members who are far from you, for family members who are hurting and broken and in desperate need of your touch. Lord God, we beseech you today on behalf of these people to come and to touch and to move and to shift and to change circumstances right now. And we thank you for God. We thank you right now because you are the miracle working God. And we surrender ourselves to you right now. We place a son's demand upon a holy and gracious father to do what only you can do in Jesus' name, amen. And wherever you're watching today, just invite the Holy Spirit into that room where you are. One thing I love about the Lord, he goes where he's invited.  So let him fill that room, that hospital room, that jail cell, that nursing home room, your living room with his presence today. And just pursue, get into church, go after God. Because when you draw near to Jesus, he will draw near to you. When Laura called our 24-7 prayer line, she had so much fear that she didn't want to leave her house. She had lost her husband of 54 years, just six months earlier. Laura was flipping through TV stations when she came across Cornerstone Television. She felt compelled to call. One of our prayer partners talked, listened, and prayed with her for 45 minutes. At the end, Laura said how much the ministry had helped relieve her fear. Praise God for how he's using CTVN. When you give, you become part of what he's doing. This month, when you give, we'll send Wild Expectance as our way of saying thank you. This book will inspire you to live your life as God intended to give and request your copy. Visit us online at ctvn.org slash donate or call us at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Hope happens here.


Mr. President, I beseech you, stop these people from doing this. They're going to turn the alley into a drug-infested haven.   Oh, let's try this one more time. My sincere apologies.  Before I begin, I beseech you. I ask you, I urge you please, from the bottom of my heart, please, tag Honourable Garing Combo, who is the Minister of Local Government and Housing. Tag the Mayor, Ms. Chitangala. Tag your local Councilman. Tag the President. Because I'd like to talk about something that is deathly important. I think that I speak on behalf of every member of the business community when I say that the things I would like to share with you today are not only weighty, they are critical. During the NPF, during the reign, the tyrannical reign of the PF, there was an unwritten rule that was not to frequent this area. There was an unwritten rule that HH should not, could not come to this area. And there was a call sent out, and I'll never forget that, that was during Vardeva Smila. He was the Secretary General of the NPF at that time. And he sent out a command. He said that HH was never to step foot in the CBD, in particular, was never to step foot in city market. If he does that, then there would be wrath and hell to pay. Of course I'm paraphrasing, but he meant the same. Now, had HH decided to be boisterous, if he decided to be the starring, if he decided to exert and sort of push his weight around, and had he been defiant and come to city market during the time of the NPF, my brothers and sisters, hundreds upon hundreds of people would have died. That's not an exaggeration. That's not a fallacy. That's not something that I'm talking about from thin air. That is a fact and I know it to be true because I have been here for 33 years. I know the ecosystem of this area. And through his wisdom, HH decided to stay away. Why? Because he put service above everything else. He set aside his ego. He set aside his bravado. And he said I would rather look ashamed than to hear and see that hundreds of people were slaughtered on the count of me showing up at a market. Now, I said all of that to say this. We've come from a mighty long way as a people. That dark, dense part of our history is a part of history that we look upon and we shudder to think. We say to ourselves in the most silence, in the most silent of nights, we say to ourselves never again, never again should we ever live under an iron fist of tyranny. Never again should we ever be subjected to that type of humiliation where people that call themselves paticadas seem to have the upper hand and that no law applies to them, that they are law unto themselves, never again. And so when we ushered in this new administration, one of the first things that HH said was that there would be no catarism. Of course, we know that catarism still exists, but in the tepid form, it's not as concentrated and as dense as in the PF. But what is beginning to happen now is worrisome. And I'm going to share this with you now. Symoson Building.  I know many of you call it names and you're fine to do that. But Symoson Building is not really worth a lot of money. What's worth the money is the location. Our location is worth a lot of money. It's not the building. And because our location is so attractive, it attracts the wrong type of people.   I've never claimed that.  I don't. I'm just a member of the business community in this area. And as such, all I ever want to do is to have a clean environment. If you've ever been to Symoson, you know very well what we do here. We have four cleaning cycles. We make sure that the front, the inside of our building is litter-free. We do our best to do that. And we're very proud of that. But here it is, in the last several weeks, we've seen vendors move from Lumumba Road, Cairo Road, Chacha Road, Freedom Way, and they have come here. And from the very beginning, I asked, why? Why is that? Why can we not make sure that all of our vendors, all of our traders are pushed into the markets? Why must they come to Simon Moir Lane? I have asked that question to every counselor, to every government official. Not a single person can give me a reason why. I have just discovered that this whole operation was applied by UPND cadres to make money off of street vendors. Are you hearing this? The UPND cadres have misled the local authority. The UPND cadres have misled the local authority. They told the local authority that let's move the street vendors from Simon Moir Lane into the alleyways of the business community so that we free up Simon Moir Lane. I, from the very beginning, have been opposed to that suggestion. Why? Because I've always maintained that alleyways are not designed for street vending. Alleyways are not designed for trading. Alleyways are service lanes where you bring heavy equipment or things that you want to offload, you go to the alley.  But here it is, these UPND cadres who are led by a man by the name of Michelo, a man by the name of Oga, a woman by the name of Veronica. And these are people that always frequent Simo-San. They walk into Simo-San like they own the place.   One of the things I said to the local authority and I imposed myself in that meeting, I said there's not a single business owner in this meeting where you are deciding that street vendors should move from Simon Mualane into the alleyways. There's not a single business owner in this meeting. This meeting is full of cadres. Cadres who own no property. Cadres who pay no council rates. Cadres who have no employees. This meeting should be full of stakeholders, myself, Baba, everybody that owns a business in this community should be in this meeting. But they're not here. Instead, the local authority invited cadres to determine the destiny of this community. No, sir. We're not going to have that. That's not going to happen.     These guys that I've mentioned to you, they're all criminals with records as long as my arm. And these are the people that you're going to allow in our stead? No, sir. We've come a long way. 33 years I've been sitting here. I've seen it all. I'll be very frank with you and I'll be honest with you. I'm getting old. My body is tired. My soul is weary. How much longer are you going to fight with cadres?  How long? I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm not ashamed to tell you, but I'm tired. I'm tired. I don't want to fight cadres anymore. I'm tired. I want to be able to come to work and just enjoy my work. Earlier today, these UPND cadres stormed my office and they warned me. They said, if I keep pushing this agenda, they will beat us up.  I'm tired. Gary, listen to me. Stop these people from doing this. Mr. President, I beseech you. Stop these people from doing this. They're going to turn the alley into a drug-infested haven.   Stop it. We don't want cadres in the alleyway. We don't. We want the alleyway to be used for what it's supposed to be used for. Deliveries and garbage collection.


Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Wa alaikum as-salam MashAllah Interesting, we're gathered here on Christmas Eve Talking about Isa alayhi as-salam You know when the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam When he entered into Medina to Munawwara He noticed that the Jews were fasting on Yomiya Ashura And he asked them why they were doing that And they told him that this is to commemorate Our master Musa alayhi as-salam The Prophet Moses, peace be upon him That Allah SWT Saved the Mani Israel from the Fira'un The Prophet sallallahu alayhi as-salam He said we have a greater right upon Musa alayhi as-salam We as the Ummah, the Ummah of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi as-salam Have a greater right over Musa alayhi as-salam So he also fasted on Yomiya Ashura But also to differentiate His Ummah from Mani Israel Also the fast before after So Sunnah fast And I would say also that And I think And I'm not a scholar, but all scholars would agree with me that That we have a greater right to Isa alayhi as-salam As well As Christians are gathering tonight In various churches around the world And the next day Worshiping Isa alayhi as-salam As-Ghāt What does the Qur'an say? It's very interesting How ironic the first words of Isa alayhi as-salam In the Qur'an On the day of his Mawlid Right So we're told So we're told that She brought the newborn Isa alayhi as-salam Within the sight of her family And then her family says Oh Maria This is a strange thing that you have A strange thing that has happened Or that you've brought Right So they're insiduating something About her You can imagine If you have a If you know a woman Who's saintly in your eyes Never done anything wrong And she says to you I heard voices And I was impregnated Miraculously A baby It would be very very difficult For you to believe her Right So something has to happen here Something out of the ordinary Right What we call Qawārik-ul-Ad-Dāt Breaks of natural law Or breaches of Physics As we know physics So Fa'ashārat ilay Fa'ashārat ilay She pointed to The baby How can we Talk to someone Who is a child in the cradle A newborn infant And we're told in the Qur'an That miraculously This is a miracle That Isa A.S. He spoke Qāli-unni Abdullāh Tāni al-kitābah Wa ja'alani nabiyyah Wa ja'alani mubāra Kana inama kuntū Wa awsāni Wa ṣ-ṣalātī Wa ṣ-ṣalātī Wa ṣ-ṣalātī Ma duṭhāiyyah So Isa A.S. He says Indeed I am The servant of Allah He has given me revelation And has made me a prophet And has maybe blessed Wherever I am These are the first words Of Isa A.S. According to the Qur'an And we're told in the Qur'an That Allah A.S. On the Yom al-Qiyamah He will ask Isa A.S. In front of the whole of humanity Ya Isa A.S.  And the Immediate respect And of course Allah A.S. Knows the answer Right This is to establish So Imam Suyuti he says This is out of Tawbiq Out of centering The Nasara Right Not his Ummah Because the Christians are not The Ummah Of Isa A.S. He is in our Ummah Right Isa A.S. Is a companion Of the Prophet Muhammad He is a Sahabi by definition Right What is a Sahabi So a Sahabi is someone Who the Prophet Layed his blessed eyes On this person Because they were blind to him Right While they were both alive So You might have a dream In which you see The Prophet A.S. And he is looking at you Right And that is a true dream Because shaitan cannot imitate The Prophet A.S. But this is during his life Right His life in the dunya He has a different life now It's called Hayat Bar-Zakhia He has a different life In a different sense Right And then This person Who the Prophet A.S. Looked at Or gazed upon Believed in him At that moment So we know that Isa A.S. Did not die Right This is a major point Of contention we have With Christians But the Quran states it As a matter of fact The Quran We believe the Quran The author of the Quran Is Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Was direct access to history And he is simply telling us That this did not happen Something Something happened Right And we have Alama that Theorize What could have happened There is nothing definitive From the Prophet A.S. What I can show be Allah Something happened It was made to appear so That Isa A.S. Was crucified Wa ma'a ta'aloo wama salam But he was not killed or crucified What I can show be Allah Right But it was made to appear so So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala So he is a Sahaba in our Umma Isa A.S. Right And we believe in the second Coming of Isa A.S. This is something that has Stated in multiple hadith Over 20, 25 Sahaba relate this So the response of Isa A.S. On the Yom Al Qiyamah His initial response is Subhanak Right Which is to say Glory be to thee Imam Al-Haddad He mentions And others mention Imam Al-Razi mentions that Just the question itself Was Is very difficult Is going to be very difficult For Isa A.S. Even process Even here So he is going to start Sort of writhing And shaking So he says Subhanak Um So he says Glory be to you It was never for me to say anything That you did not command me I only said what you commanded me to say Right And you were the knower of Everything that is unseen I only said to them what you commanded me to say Glory be to Allah Glory be to your Lord Glory be to Allah Glory be to Allah He is my Lord And your Lord So The theology of Isa A.S. Is Renewed in a sense By the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam He He revived the true teachings Of the Prophet Isa A.S. Right And the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam He is a universal messenger So Isa A.S. We have to also understand this contextually He is dealing with a certain mentality at his time Right So some of his teachings Are not universal In some aspects Right So I remember Because it was Maybe 20 years ago Me and Abdul Rashid here Seedy Abdul Rashid This was after 9-11 Right There was a lot of sort of Interest in Islam And so And so We would literally Drive around and go to churches Right Just knock on the door And Sometimes they let us in Some I mean we look like We're friendly guys right Let us in the door And We talk to the pastor And we get different responses But There's one pastor I don't know if you remember Fremont Community Church He looked at us and We sort of said We want to have a dialogue with you The status of Issa Alayhi Salam And just You know sort of Teacher congregation about Islam And he said Yeah well You know You know what the word pastor means And I said Yeah it means a shepherd He said Very good It does mean shepherd So I'm a shepherd And I have to protect my flock From the wolves Yeah at least you're honest I don't want to show long But So I remember one night I was watching TV And there was this Story And it said that So there was this Herodium Christian pastor Apparently an apostate From Islam Who was going to give a He's going to give a lecture At a church The next day on Sunday And the sermon was called Why I'm not a Muslim Maybe I told the story before If you've heard it It's okay I could ask my wife I repeat a lot of things It's okay So anyway Why I'm not a Muslim So I said oh that's interesting So I called this brother here And we said let's Let's go with this Let's go to the sermon That he's going to give He said okay And there was maybe like Five or six of us actually I think Abdul was there A few of the brothers were there So we go to this church And remember we walked in And the pastor I'm not going to say his name Because Um Anyway Different issue But anyway he was there And I remember he looked up on us And he was His face went blank Like What are these guys doing here So you can tell they kind of You know Kind of change things up On the fly a little bit You know Kind of do some quick edits Right He was very uncomfortable He was sweating through his suit But we were there smiling And so anyway I said to him after I said Uh Do you want to do like a debate Um I think it'd be interesting Because you're a former Muslim And You know I'm Muslim And Maybe we can have like a debate And let people know what happened And let people judge You know the Quran tells us To engage in Jidal Right So I'm going to tell you About the wisdom And the wisdom of Hassana To engage in debate With the people of the book And the people of the book Which is the best With With With With wisdom Which you know What it means here With academic rigor sophistication And The wisdom of Hassana And with beautiful exhortation Or preaching Or they say You're with a good character Right This is the sunnah way Of making dawah Right Is to have a good Lagos Is Aristotle would say Good logic Right To have to be intelligent To use reason But also good ethos Or ethos Which means To have good character For sun Kholo khosun Uh Kholo khasun So he said Uh Yeah let's Let's discuss that It's okay So we I didn't think I'd ever hear from Again I mean I hear this all the time But lo and behold You know He called me And he said Let's meet at this restaurant That we can talk about The debate And the parameters And whatnot I said Great Uh So we go there And Um So I'll never forget He looked at me You know This Christian pastor Former Muslim Apparently And he said And he started speaking Farsi to me To you know To get on my First and foremost I'm a businessman Okay He said We can make A lot of money doing this So I guess I'm sitting there And I'm Clueless right And he's like I'm not hip to the game Apparently I'm uninitiated And he said And I said So he said What topics are you thinking About To do this topic this day You'll say this I'll say this We'll go back and forth We won't reveal too much And then the second debate You know We'll get more people We'll charge prices This and that I said Oh okay And then he kind of looked at me And he said You know sometimes They still recite the Quran So Okay And then suddenly It clicked in my mind I said to him Are you Muslim? And then he went like this Thanks I said So how Wow He said This is a very good job He said He had like a hummer outside You know And he lives in like Ruby Hills or something like that Wearing a harmony suit You know The prosperity gospel This is a very common Version Perversion I should say Of the message of Islam Even as it exists in the New Testament This idea And Christians in these countries This is really an American phenomenon They fill up Baseball stadium Basketball stadium The Staples Center It's filled up on Sunday Listening to the prosperity gospel This idea that If How do you know God loves you? He gives you money That's basically what it comes down to The more money you have The more God loves you It's very interesting You know Because if you read the New Testament What does Islam say in the New Testament? Of course There's no senate for these things Right So this is just sort of They're basically Very very weak hadith Many of them are Moldova But just for the sake of argument You know Because this is their hoodjah This is a text That they believe is sound You know Islam says It's easy for a camel To pass through the eye of the needle But for a rich man To enter paradise Right And some of the uremahs say This You know The needle There was like You know cities were gated And there was a little door Called the needle And you have to push the camel through This is a This is much later Aquinas mentions this And he Attributes it to Ambrose From the 11th century So this is a very late Sort of interpretation But if you look at earlier Like Jewish Like the Talmud Things like that Much closer to Issa Like Issa They always use this expression Sometimes an elephant Through a needle A donkey Through a needle A camel So this is Very literal This is what he means Quite literally It's easier for a camel To pass through the eye of the needle Than for a rich man To enter paradise Meaning it's impossible For a rich man To enter paradise And interestingly enough The analogy Or the parable Is in the Quran Right Allah SWT says Allah SWT says Those who rely Are signed And are arrogant towards that These The heavens will not be opened For them Nor will they enter paradise Into the camel Capacity of the eye of a needle Right So what does this mean I mean it means Again We take it literally It has two meanings That a rich man Has to give everything away Before he dies Or else he's in trouble According to the teachings Of Issa A.S. Or It could mean That the rich man Cannot let even One dinar Into his heart That if he were to Lose everything It would make no difference To him Because everything belongs To Allah SWT And this is the essence Of the teaching Of Issa A.S. This is something that The Christians just They got some things right But the major things They got wrong And Allah SWT He tells us In the Qur'an He says We made a covenant with them But they disregarded A portion of what we gave to them This is the true essence Right In the Prophet Who is Sunnah Is more universal He said There's nothing wrong with the rich man As long as he has Taqwa Allah SWT In his heart But then he said Every Ummah has a fitna Has a trial or tribulation And the tribulation Of my Ummah Is wealth Right That wealth prevents one From the zikr of Allah SWT Once starts to think of himself As independent Mustaghnan Right Allah SWT Is Al-Ghani Everything belongs to Allah SWT Is completely independent This is the teaching Of Issa A.S. In our tradition We have hadith of Issa A.S. In our tradition Some of them are strong Some of them are weak But they're in our tradition They're not in the New Testament Some of them have parallels Of the New Testament Right Like what I was mentioning earlier About on the Yom Luka Yama There's something similar to this In the Gospel of Matthew Matthew chapter 7 And we don't want to get too much Into the sort of Source criticism of the New Testament But many scholars believe that This section in the New Testament Actually comes from A much earlier source That predates Paul Because much of the Gospels In the New Testament Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Have been sort of Inspired Or I should say They've been sort of Tainted with Pauline theology Because Paul was the first writer Of the New Testament The Gospels came about 20, 30, 40 years later But in this section in Matthew 7 It comes from an independent source That Matthew had access to That's probably pre-Pauline But anyway Scholars call it special M Or mythian material But anyway Jesus says according to this Matthew chapter 7 verse 21 He says not everyone who says To be courier courier Which means rabbi rabbi And Christians They translate this as Lord, Lord, capital L Courier Rabbi means rabbi Rabbi, you ever thought about that?  Of course not They're completely ignoring the context So it's in Greek though Courier Rabbi, rabbi Not everyone who says to be rabbi rabbi I should enter the kingdom of heaven Only those of you The will of God On that day Many will come to me and say Courier courier Master, master Did we not prophesize in your name Cast out demons in your name And in your name Perform many miracles Right? This is in Matthew 7 Chapter 21 to 23 So who is Esa Aesada According to this source Which is very close to his life Again, it's very, very weak It's in the wrong language But it's pre-Pauline And that's very important If you know anything about New Testament studies That's very, very important Who is he talking to? Is he talking to Who? Is he talking to Jews? Is he talking to Christians? Is he talking to Hindus? So he's talking to It looks like Jews That kind of Did things in his name Kind of deified it, right? Who does these things In the name of Jesus In the name of Jesus Exorcisms In the name of Jesus So he's clearly talking about Christians Whether they're Jews or Gentiles He's talking to Christians What is his response? Right? So in the Qur'an His response is Subhanak Glory be to you And then he says To Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala According to the Qur'an Into adhidhum If you punish them They're your slaves And if you forgive them You are the great and wise Now a prophet would never ask Something from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala That is impossible Because that is that adab Musa A.S. What is Anvur Ilaik He said to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Reveal yourself to me So that I might gaze upon you Lan Tarani You will not see me In Imam Suyiti says That Allah did not say Lan Tarani Lan Tarani Lan Tarani Lan Tarani Lan Tarani Allah did not say Lan Ura I cannot be seen He said You will not see me Right? Say there's a possibility It's Munkin That in the Qur'an says this In different ayat We will see Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Ila Kaifiyah On the Day of Resurrection And in Jannah The people of Jannah We'll see Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Without any type of modality There's no how to it Right? There's an utter mystery It's called a beatific vision So here In essence In the Qur'an Is making Dua To Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala That if people Considered me to be Some sort of divine being But they did it out of ignorance They were misinformed If you forgive them Right? Making Dua for people And this is part of our theology Right? And this is Orthodox Normative Sunni theology This is not Berkeley theology Surfer theology Is that if Imam Ghazali says Imam Ghazali The champion of orthodoxy The Mujad did of his time Recognized the world over You know He says If someone is not Atal or Balad He doesn't have Salamat or Hawas Wa Balaghatu Ad-Dawatu Sahiha There's no tech leaf established on person In other words Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Will not put someone into hell Who did not Who was not reached With a sound prophetic summons Right? A message of Tuhid In a good form Must have reached this person And this person Understanding that message Rejected it Like for example Abu Jahl Right? Some people say Abu Jahl He was also a very gifted poet Al Waleed ibn Mughail See Dr. Rashid He mentioned Al Waleed ibn Mughail Incredible poet Why didn't he Become Muslim He doesn't Recognize The Quran is a Sui generous It's a one of a kind Of a masterpiece Of course he does It's because the Quran Is calling to a certain way of life Right? It's calling to a certain morality Of certain theology This is difficult for people Right? So anyway In the Bible In Matthew Going back to Matthew 7 What is the response Of Isa A.S. In the Greek he says He says He says He says He says He says He says The Greek is very very strong It's very difficult to translate But basically he says Never did I know you And then he says Like this Like get away from me And then he says He says You workers Very interesting wording Right? So usually this is translated as You workers of iniquity Get away from me You workers of iniquity But the actual Greek says You rejecters of Sharia Because nomos What does nomos mean? Nomos means law And in Greek Nomos Right? Like an antinomian Pauline Christianity Is antinomian They reject the Sharia Except for a few of the commandments So you see Christians are eating Pork Right? They're eating it Like it's water You know Why are you eating pork? Leviticus says don't eat pork I said no There's a new covenant New covenant Blood covenant New testament Did you ever eat pork? No Strange Are you followers of Isa? Who are you following? Who's your real lord? Paul That's what it is It's Paul Pauline Christianity This is very very interesting So The Torah in the Quran says Quoting Isa Musattikalimabayna yadayimina Torah I confirm the Torah But then he says I also Make certain things Halal That were haram Quoting Isa In other words And that's the affair of the Rasul He's the Rasul He can make amendments and addendums To the Sharia of Musa Isa Because he has the maqam of the Rasul Right? So certain things he did Make adjustments So So basically Isa Is confirming theology Theology never changes Theology is never opened To naskh or abrogation Aqida never changes Our aqida is exactly The aqida of Adam Isa Nothing changes in aqida Because Allah swt Is immutable But Sharia can change According to the circumstances But major principles of the Sharia Like maqasah and things like that Those things don't change The fundamentals of the Sharia Right? So in the Torah it says Lo yish el vichazeth Numbers 2319 Which means God Is not A man That he should lie Right? And at the college I have my students Memorize this verse in Hebrew It's not that long Lo yish el vichazeth God is not a man That he should lie Do you have it? Do you have it? Do you have it? Have you guys memorized it? Maybe not Maybe I skipped a couple God is not a man So what does this mean? God is not a man That he should lie It's very strange And again A lot of these translations Are very cryptic And it's hard to know What's happening here And the Qur'an actually says this The Qur'an says that There's a section from the people Of the book They twist their It literally says They twist their tongues Around the book They tahsabuhu min al-kitab Right? Twist their tongues Around the book What does that mean? Al-sina Means the literal physical tongue But in Qur'anic Arabic It's also the word for language Lisan Means language In the Qur'an The Qur'an doesn't use the word loha Loha is probably from Greek Logos Right? It's a lone word From Greek probably Lisan is the Semitic word And it means language In other words They're messing with translations Right? The people of the book They mess around these translations So what does this verse mean?  What else does the Old Testament So-called Old Testament In Torah teach? It says every man shall be put To death for his own sin This is Deuteronomy 2417 In other places as well Ezekiel chapter 18 The entire chapter A very sustained argument Against inheriting sin Nobody inherits your sin You might inherit the circumstances Of your parents' sin The circumstances But not the sin itself You're free from that sin For example If your father shoots someone And goes to prison And your mother can't afford To take care of the kids And has to move in to release All the apartment While she's pregnant with you And then you're born In this small apartment You've inherited the sins Of your father The circumstances of his sin But not his literal sin You didn't commit murder That's not on your scroll On the Yom Kiyama Right? So this is a theology Of the Old Testament And in the Gospel of Luke Jesus Bees Be Upon Him Apparently says Have you ever heard of The prodigal son parable? Have you ever heard of that? The prodigal son The prodigal son returns Right? Hope you've heard this somewhere This comes from Luke 15 So what is this?  And then so eventually He says I need to go home And apologize to my father So he starts walking back Towards his home And the father's sitting With his good son They're just sitting And they're chatting And then suddenly He sees his prodigal son Returning And he completely ignores His good son And he sees his son from afar And they run towards each other And they fall on each other's necks As it says That means they're hugging And they're crying Right? And that's the end of the parable What is he teaching? What is the epora Of this parable Of this method In the Gospel of Luke? Is he teaching Blood Covenant By vicarious atonement? Did the father slaughter his son When he saw him suddenly?  He's teaching toba This is the entire moral The epora The lesson of this parable Is toba And toba is a very important Theological virtue Again, at the heart Of the true inji levitice So every man Is put to death for his own sin And then it also says Whoever is hanged on a tree Is accursed by God Is also in Deuteronomy Whoever is hanged on a tree What does hang on a tree mean? Again, it's like What are they talking about? They're talking about crucifixion Whoever is crucified Is accursed by God And what else does it say? Leviticus 3.17 You shall not drink blood An everlasting statute Throughout all your generations Everlasting statute So there are certain things In Jewish law Like I said, fundamental principles Or certain ceremonial laws That are never abrogated They're never open to nusk One of them is drinking blood Because it's a pagan practice Right? So what do Christians believe then? They believe God became a man Right? Who died for your sins That's breach number two How did he die? He's hanged on a tree And how do they commemorate this event? They drink his blood Right? And this is literal in the Catholic Church Literal they believe You know I don't know if they're going to do that Usually you have the Christmas Mass Live from the Vatican They're probably just going to start in a few hours Very strange but They believe that they have the wine And the Holy Spirit comes And magically transforms The essence of the wine Into the literal blood of Jesus Literal blood The accidents remain It looks like wine Smells like wine, tastes like wine The essence has changed The essence Right? So you can see now How the Quran Is correct In its Christology Right? That Isa al-Isra'an These cannot be the teachings of Isa al-Isra'an If Isa al-Isra'an is a rabbi Claimed to be God in the first century Why would he Expect any Jew to believe his claim? He says, whoever commits blasphemy Has to be stoned If you ask Christians Why did the Jews in John 8 Pick up stones to Stone Jesus? Christians will say he committed blasphemy He claimed to be God And then if you keep reading that section He says to the Jews that picked up stones You're children of Satan So let me get this straight then So Jesus who is supposed to be Of the many Israel at the time of Musa al-Isra'an Whoever claims to be God Has blasphemed and stoned them And then he Becomes a man And blasphemed And so the Jews are following What he had told them During the time of Musa al-Isra'an And then he calls them children of Satan And then he expects them to believe his claim And go against what he had already said He's setting them up for failure So the New Testament Jesus The New Testament Jesus The Christmas bells I take that as an exclamation to my point The New Testament Jesus Cannot be a true prophet Cannot be a true prophet Islam The Quran Redeem And give us the true teachings Of our Master Issa al-Isra'an So this is a very important point to make Right? I'll stop here But let's maybe have some Questions and comments And I want to open it up Inshallah Questions, burning questions you've always had It can be anything Like, you know, well, what's a Mormon Or yes, yes, brother Joseph, Inshallah We refer to Matthew, Martin, and John And I'm always in the office That they're referred to the riot As Paul We refer to Some writing from Matthew Can you explain How that was a pre-falling? Very good question So, when we look at Matthew and Luke's gospel Matthew and Luke definitely Have mark in their possession Using mark as a primary source But, Matthew and Luke If you can just imagine this Matthew and Luke are writing after mark Matthew and Luke also have Material in common That is missing from mark Okay? And it's verbatim It's word for word the same Which means Matthew and Luke have another document In front of them That Mark did not have access to And scholars believe the reason why Mark did not have access to it Is because it wasn't around at the time of Mark Who was writing around 70 In this document they call it The Q source document Or the sayings gospel Historians they call it the first gospel And this And it's a hypothetical source document So they don't have an actual manuscript of it But you see how they can reconstruct it In other words, whatever Matthew and Luke have in common Missing from mark, that's from Q And it's pre-falling even According to most scholars It's written before 50 And it's a Risaleh Salaam So when you isolate the Q source material Just put it on the board and you read it None of it disagrees with this law This is amazing They can reconstruct Q Jesus is a prophet He's a healer It talks about John the Baptist There's teachings about the coming kingdom of God The coming son of man Risaleh Salaam is prophesizing Someone's going to come called the Baranash The son of man with power on earth The kingdom of God on earth Right And nothing Let me quote John Dominic Crossan Who is one of the greatest historians Of the New Testament He says there's nothing, nothing, nothing There's a direct quote There's nothing, nothing, nothing About the crucifixion of resurrection In Q source document Nothing So whoever wrote this Q source document Obviously were Christians Christians Nazarenes Who believed in Risaleh Salaam If they believed that Risaleh Salaam was crucified It was of zero importance To them But what seems more logical is that They didn't believe it was crucified Yes Could you Do a wonderful thing about him? Yes So Risaleh Salaam He was born Around 4 BCE actually According to most historians He was born in the north of Palestine Sorry He was born in Judea in Bethlehem That's the dominant opinion There's a hadith that mentions this as well The hadith is a solitary hadith There's a hadith that mentions That on the night of the Isra He was on the Burak And he dismounted at certain locations And one of the places where he dismounted Was in Bethlehem Which means a house of bread Or a house of meat That's a place where Animals were raised Bread was made So he was born there And then he was raised in the northern In a city called Nazareth And Palestine at the time Was under Roman occupation In the colony of Rome And you have different groups of Jews In that area That's what the treat historian Describes these Jews So in the north In Galilee It was sort of the stronghold Of the zealots The zealots were basically Theocratic nationals Nationalists Who basically wanted to Cleanse the Holy Land Of the pagan Roman occupiers So depending on your perspective They're either terrorists But they would commit excesses So they would kill Jews Through that didn't believe So they had these sort of harajie type Tendencies So this is where Issa A.S. Was basically raised In this area And then you have Pharisees The Pharisees are sort of the The girl of his time And so they learned Doctors and lawyers of the law And In the gospels Issa A.S. Was constantly butting heads With the Pharisees He basically calls them Wotorah Sibun Like Vahiriah You're just sort of exotericists He says to them He says to them You overlook the way to your demands Of the law Justice, mercy, and good faith He says You strain at the nat You swallow the camel He says Why did sepulchres On the outside You're washed, but on the inside You reek of death In other words, he's calling them hypocrites He's saying you don't practice what you preach He's saying you only word about the Vahiri, the Vahir You don't work on the ball tent You don't work on the inside So the essence of the teaching of Issa A.S. That we can draw from this Similar attestation in our sources Is that Issa A.S. Is essentially teaching them To ski to the nafs This is the essence of his teaching The essence of the Injil Is Tasawwuf That's what it is It's establishing a relationship With Allah SWT By mastering the self But following the Shari'ah And pseudo Sufis That would reject the Shari'ah Right? And just sort of do these weird Things and expect to get closer To Allah SWT Right? But true Sufism To use a different term True Sufism True Sufis They are Completely indebted They're completely grounded And Issa A.S. Even according to the Gospels Is a practicing rabbi Right? So like Imam al-Junaid Who is Sheikh Al-Ta'ifa The Sufis He said Our knowledge This sacred knowledge that I'm teaching Is grounded and tied To Islam This is the true Sufi Right? So Issa A.S. message What does the Injil mean? Good news Right? That's what it means Good news Good news of what? And they give you So Children of Israel And notice Issa A.S. says children of Israel They didn't say He is a Sahaba Sahabi in the Ummah Of the Prophet Muhammad SAW I am the messenger of God sent to you I am the messenger of God sent to you Confirming the Torah And they give you glad time Gospel of a messenger to come after me His name is Ahmed And Ahmed according to the Ulama Is the name of the Prophet Muhammad SAW In the Celestial realm In the world He also In the Celestial realm as well But Issa A.S. has given this baby knowledge Of the name of the Prophet SAW Unlike the Yom Al Fiam So this is his teaching Right? In our tradition Issa A.S. He is Teaching them the deception of this world Not to be fooled By this world So he says the similitude of this world Is like a man lost at sea Right? He is lost Imagine someone who is lost at sea on a boat And he says he starts taking Seawater into his mouth The more he drinks The thirstier he gets And then he dies from it This is the nature of the dunya He says the nature of the dunya Is like an old haggard prostitute Who has to Hide in alley ways And she sticks her hand out And it is bejeweled With rings and bracelets and so on and so forth And she waves men into the alley way And the men come And then she slaughters them Such as the dunya Issa A.S. said In our tradition He says to his disciples So the disciples come to him and say How is it that you can walk On water? And he said bring me three objects And they said what? He said gold Stones and dirt And they bring me these three objects And he says put them here What do you say about these things And they said the gold is better than stones And stones are better than dirt He says they're all the same to me If you can understand the secret of that You can walk on water You can break customary physics He was walking with his hawariyun And he was walking Like the prophet said he would actually walk behind the sahab He said leave my back for the malayika So Issa A.S. was walking behind the hawariyun They're walking sort of in a barren wasteland And they notice as the disciples They stop and they're looking at something And they start covering their mouth Like this, their noses Like this And they look and it's a decomposing carcass of a dog Right And they say how revolting And Issa A.S. looks at it and he says Ma apya da asnana And he walks away How white are its teeth What does that mean It means that Issa A.S. He saw the beauty He managed to find something beautiful Even in this very, very ugly Nasty rotting thing Like in our tradition We don't have this idea of him Attacking the Pharisees and things like that Probably something like that Inevitably happened Because he would engage in debates No doubt But in our tradition we have The Pharisees walking by him And they start saying something about him They start saying something about his mother Mariam A.S. And then Issa A.S. He looks at them and he just says Wa alaykum as-salam And they say Why don't you defend yourself And he said A vessel only overflows its contents It's like I don't even Because they were insulting him You can imagine what they were saying So that's not a civil debate I don't have that in me I can't even do that Right? So this is the essence of his teaching And unfortunately the essence Of his teaching is completely corrupted For the most part, I should say completely Is there, sorry It went on too long Yes, sir I attended the Shumah prayer In a big residence Last week and the topic Was about Muslims And effects on Christmas On Muslims Effects of Christmas On Muslims And the I felt the entire speech was About Issa A.S. It was sort of us Versus them And My question, I have to question What is The entire speech about Muslims identity And so I want A definition of a Muslim identity Living in a Muslim society Knowing the fact that A story from the brother He talked about that they are Some of our families are Christians Yeah, that's a very, very good question Very good The second part of the question Is about He mentioned that During our prayer We say And he mentioned The Christians And And I wanted to make sure if this is What is meant by that The other way around In general In general The Quran is speaking In terms of generalities So this is a very important point That I mentioned as well The beginning of the Quran divides humanity Into three broad groups Very broad But obviously it's more nuanced than this Allah SWT is giving Something that's general Speaking in generalities The believers he describes in a couple of ayat The kufar, a couple of ayat Because that's easy Which takes 13, 14, 15 ayat Because it's a different type of animal But yeah Identity is tricky So we want to be Muslim But we don't want to We don't want to Do anything that is That is Against our sharia Something that is against our theology Right People might be tempted But it's just a tree It's okay The majority of Christians Do not celebrate Christmas by the way I don't know if people know that or not The majority of them don't celebrate Christmas They understand the origins of Christmas as we know what I should say Right This idea of taking trees And decking the halls And putting presents under the tree This is all paganism And this is something that is well established In part 10 verse 2 it says Following out the way of the heathen Who brings the tree into his house And decks it out in gold and silver Because tree worship The word tree comes from true Because they believe that trees contain true spirits So putting a gift under the tree Bowing to the tree Here's a gift for you tree So that's not my intention Yeah You're not intending to worship the tree But that's a little consequence According to our sharia We don't imitate the kufar And their feasts and holidays It's a very important point Regardless of your intention Because It's a slippery slope You open up that door You know Next thing you know You're marching in a parade of some sort And a lot of Muslims are doing that Say what's wrong with this These are our allies And that You know He's the Christ He's the messiah He also told us of the one Who was the opposite of Issa Right Masih ad-Dajjab The imposter messiah And the imposter Hadith very interesting He says He said that Part of the fitna The worst of fitna The history of humanity Is the fitna of the antichrist The imposter messiah And he said that It's so bad that a Muslim Who considers himself a firm Muslim Out of curiosity Will go to the antichrist The imposter messiah Just to see what's happening And this antichrist Will fill his head up with doubts With shubu hat Doubtful matters Erratical matters You can do this That's not your intention You're not Come on, it's okay Sometimes there's an opinion That's why we have to have recourse to the Erlamah The deen is vast But there's parameters These are called hudud Ahad also is the word for definition The word For definition in Arabic It's called haad Define also dey finis In latin Means towards the end of something When you define something You're limiting that something If I say to you what's the definition of the Quran It's Jins and fassal That's the definition The mother is a tuna brother I'm not too big on my logic But I'm kind of a logical but So it's Jins and fassal It's genus and differentiate So the logical definition of the Quran Is a scripture Revealed to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam Genus is different The genus is scripture What makes it different Revealed to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam That's called the had But when we stretch out So the deen is vast But then you have had You have parameters To move the goalposts Right? It's called radical hermeneutics Right? If you go to right now Take an intro to Islam class At any public university Most likely you're going to be exposed To radical hermeneutics Right? You know A Circus reading of The story of lute alayhi sallam But It means something else A feminist reading Of surat maria What is the lesson? It means that you don't need a man Who needs men Be a strong independent woman Strong independent As if men are strong and independent Who is strong and independent Who is al qawii Who is asamad This is shirk This is satanic You know You don't need no man Just You know What is it called? Self partner There's a new phenomenon going around It's called Solagamee You heard of this? You're going to hear about it Solagamee means Women marrying themselves This is becoming a phenomenon You're going to hear about it in the next couple Years Women marrying themselves There's a woman in India, she married herself And all these western liberals Yeah, she'll brave You know these liberals that we consider our allies Some of us consider these are our allies We can march with them She's so brave, they interviewed her She said I always wanted to be a bride But I don't want to be a wife So I don't know How do you No, no, it's okay You know The Quran says Don't enter the prayer while you're intoxicated Which means you can drink You just can't pray What? What are you talking about? No, that's how I understand it This is what the dijal does He puts all of these doubtful things These shubu hat in your mind To the point where You sort of retreat Away from the religion itself And it causes apostasy And the dijal tells you That your salvation Is in the dunya Is it really after life? That's what the prophet said He said I'm going to tell you something about the dijal No other prophet told their ummah He said He said the dijal is one eyed And your lord is not one eyed And the idol mentioned this is physical It's also symbolical in the sense that if you're one eyed If I cover up my eye So I mean I'm already sitting here But if you took me to a place I'm not familiar with And I just covered my eye I can't tell how far people are away from me I have no depth perception Right?  This is the Hadith of the Prophet SAW The truly intelligent one Is the one who subdues his lower self And works for what comes after death Because death is eternal After life is eternal Everlasting Death in service of his hawa And has vain hopes In Allah SWT He says, I hope I'll go to Jannah, he says He's smoking a joint Drinking some vodka Missing his prayers One of my teachers said Non-praying Muslims are low-hanging fruit For the dijal Easy Easy Child's play Dain Al-Iman Al-Kufri Tarq Al-Sala Mantaraka Al-Sala Fakat Kafara These are Hadith of the Prophet SAW We need to implement the prayer People who aren't praying We have to implement the prayer This is absolutely essential Yes I don't know Based on the title for tonight I was thinking About Prophet's iPhone We're seeing the revelation I'm not the ghost of the Prophet And they're kind of expecting This new Prophet's iPhone This new iPhone So you can kind of describe Like What they would be doing Yeah, very good question Yes So In the Gospel of John Which is the last Gospel There's problems with the Gospel of John Historically But the subtext of the Gospel Reveals something very interesting That's happening historically The subtext So in John chapter 1 We're told that Jews send Messengers to John the Baptist And they ask him Who are you And then it says He did not He said He confessed, I am not the Christ And then they said So according to Jewish belief The Second coming of the Messiah Will be preceded by the second coming of the Prophet Ilyas Ilyahu In Hebrew And he said Are you the Prophet Are you the Prophet Not a Prophet Are you the Prophet So it's very interesting that the Jews in the first century According to the subtext Of this Gospel We're expecting the fulfillment Of three prophecies So the Prophet is not the Messiah Okay, and if you have a cross Reference in your Bible The Prophet is a reference to a Prophet The Prophet of Deuteronomy 1818 The Prophet like Moses So God told Moses in 1818 Deuteronomy the fifth book of the Torah It says a Prophet I will raise up A brethren who shall be like you A Prophet will be like Moses I'll put my words into his mouth and he shall say Whatever I command him Right So Three distinct lines of prophecy The Messiah The second coming of Ilyas And the Prophet Right, so for the Jews They're over three Right, for them the Messiah has not come By the way, they're Jews right now What's happening in Israel But the top rabbis In the world are saying Right now that the Messiah Has come He hasn't come out yet as it were But he's in secret talks In counsel with top, top rabbis So I don't know if you're familiar with This is very, very Important This is very consequential This doesn't happen Very often But anyway So they're still waiting for the Messiah And then Elijah hasn't come back And they don't have any Candidates for the Prophet Right The Christians what they do is they say Isaias is the Messiah, it's true John the Baptist is Elijah Sort of coming in sort of the Spirit and power of Elijah But then they say the Messiah is also the Prophet So they conflate the two prophecies But there's very clearly three Distinct lines of prophecy So when the Prophet said He received the initial revelation He went to Khadijah Al-Kubra A.S. And her Cousin was Waraqa bin Nufa Waraqa literally means scribe So he was a Christian scribe Whether he was a Trinitarian or a Unitarian A Nestorian Something like that, Allah Allah It says It says That he used to write the Gospel In Aramaic For Hebrew and Arabic So she said look You had this experience on The mountain of light And she said but I'm not a scholar I can't interpret it for you What had happened to you with Iqra And then the squeezing and things like that He said He said The first five verses And then when he walked out of the cave He started hearing Things greeting him So the veils have been lifted So he looked And there's like a tree and there's nothing there But things are greeting him So She said I'm not an Aalim But let's go to a scholar He said He once asked the people who have specialties If you don't know So he went to Waraq al-Naufal He was a scholar of Ahlul Kitab And he said So the great law of God Has come unto you just as it came To Moses In other words it's very clear here In my opinion that Waraq al-Naufal Is saying that you are the prophet Of Deuteronomy 1818 In Hebrew So he's actually paraphrasing And actually quoting Sort of quoting Some of the verse actually So in his It seems like he's paraphrasing And partially quoting Deuteronomy 1818 To the prophet Sayyidah That you are the prophet like unto Moses That God will put his words into his mouth And you shall speak unto them All of that God shall command you The prophet never speaks from Everything he says is And he never speaks from his And he's taught by one mighty power So that's one prophecy 1818 Deuteronomy that's what they were looking at There's other things as well Waraq Al-Naufal They consider that to be strong So this is going to be the last question We're going to eat and we're hungry And enough of being inshallah Sorry about that I tend to over talk Is it okay to say Merry Christmas You know it's a difficult one It's a difficult issue So especially if there are Non-Muslim people People in your family So You'd have to ask a mufti But from my limited understanding There's some dispensation with people that have Non- There's some allowance I should say But some people who have Non-Muslim family members But generally They're going to say not to You know somebody said to me the other day He said Merry Christmas And I know this guy And he wants to sort of Take it to me a little bit So he said Merry Christmas I was sitting at a pizza called Strange things happened So I was sitting there and he said Merry Christmas And I said Happy Kwanzaa And he said I don't celebrate And I said Ah And he was a white guy So he used to sing along Yeah All along Come near love What have we learned Don't follow women in alleyways