Michael Youssef - Jesus, Jihad and Peace: What Does Bible Prophecy Say About World Events Today?

This compelling message is an alarm clock waking believers from their stupor. Read it soon.

Gov. Mike Huckabee

Dr. Youssef has been on my show discussing the Islamist agenda. In Jesus, Jihad, and Peace, he goes much deeper, answering questions we all have about todays turbulent events in the Middle East and what they mean in prophetic terms.

Sean Hannity
Host, Hannity, Fox News

JESUS,
JIHAD
AND
PEACE

WHAT BIBLE PROPHECY SAYS
ABOUT WORLD EVENTS TODAY

JESUS,
JIHAD
AND
PEACE

WHAT BIBLE PROPHECY SAYS
ABOUT WORLD EVENTS TODAY

MICHAEL YOUSSEF

Copyright 2015 by Michael Youssef

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Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

All quotations from the Koran are taken from the Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation in Three Translations of The Koran (Al-Quran) Side by Side (in the public domain) at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16955/pg16955.html .

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To Dale Sostad,
whose obedience to the Lord
made it possible for millions of people to hear the gospel,
some for the first time,
and be set free from Satans clutches.

I WAS BORN IN THE MIDDLE EAST, spent my early years in the culture of the Middle East, and I return to the Middle East often. I have had many long, revealing conversations with Muslims in general and Islamist hard-liners in particular. I know the Middle East well and have had much firsthand experience with Islamic practices and thought processes. Although I am an American now, for most of my life I have lived with one foot in the West and one foot in the East.

Throughout this book, I have tried to distinguish between Islamic ideology and Muslims as people. I have many dear friends and acquaintances who embrace Islam. While I risk being criticized for my sociological, economic, political, and religious assessments of Islam, my ardent desire is that no one would misunderstand my genuine affection and appreciation for Muslim people.

From my perspective as a Christian, I see all other religious systems as less than whole. Jesus declared, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). And the apostle Peter testified before the members of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin, Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). I cannot be true to my Christian faith and believe otherwise.

Yet the fact that I, as a Christian, understand Islam to be a false worldview does not mean I look down on Muslim people in any way. On the contrary, I am compelled by my love for Muslim people. I feel a deep burden for them, and I humbly yearn for them to know the fullness of life that comes only through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

AL-QAEDA FOUNDER OSAMA BIN LADEN was killed by Navy SEALs at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011. Almost five months later, Anwar al-Awlaki, one of al-Qaedas top recruiters, was killed by a CIA drone attack in Yemen. Yet the threat of terrorism only grew greater and more frightening in the ensuing months.

By 2014, we began to hear rumblings of a new terror threat in the Middle East. Operating for years beneath the radar of Western news organizations, a Sunni terror group called al-Qaeda in Iraq broke away from the larger al-Qaeda organization. Calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or simply the Islamic State (IS), it proclaimed itself a caliphate, with religious authority over all Muslims.

ISIS took advantage of the civil war in Syria and the power vacuum in Iraq following the US departure. It metastasized like a cancer, swallowing territory, conquering villages and cities (including Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq),

We are horrified at the inhuman acts of ISISfrom beheading journalists to crucifying, stoning, and beheading Christian men, women, and children. We turn away from these horrors, wishing we could get the images out of our minds, feeling sorry for those poor people over there, and feeling glad that at least that could never happen here.

Yet if ISIS and other Islamist groups get their way, they will bring these horrors here. They wont stop at gobbling up Iraq and Syria or the entire Middle East or Europe and Africa. Their goal is to establish a global Caliphate. Could ISIS accomplish this ambitious goal? Who knows?

But no one should assume that Western civilization is safe. No one should assume that ISIS cannot do what it says it will do. In January 2014, ISIS controlled one cityFallujah, forty-three miles west of Baghdad. By August 2014, ISIS controlled one-third of Iraq and one-third of Syria, and it showed no signs of stopping. No one can predict what the forces of Islamic extremism might accomplish.

So we wonder, Whats next? Is there any hope for world peaceor is terror our destiny? Why is there so much turmoil in the Middle East? How can we understand the mind-set of Islamic extremists whose ideology is so fanatical that they are willing to kill themselves in order to slaughter us?

Bible-believing Christians have even more questions: How does radical Islam fit into Bible prophecy? What do todays turbulent events in Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Iran (biblical Persia), Iraq (biblical Babylon), and Russia (biblical Magog) mean in prophetic terms? In a world that is crying out for peace, which will prevail: Jesus or jihad?

Christians and non-Christians alike look at alarming developments in the Middle East and around the globe and wonder what the implications are for our future. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam feature parallel accounts of the end times, and all three accounts focus on a messianic Savior, an apocalyptic final war between good and evil, and a central role for the city of Jerusalem. Do these prophetic end-times scenarios intersect in some way? And, more pressingly, do recent global events reveal that we are living in the end times?