In the closing days of Christ's ministry, He gave some very specific characteristics of the end times.
Matthew 24:3-14
"Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives; the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?"
And Jesus answered and said to them; "Take heed that no one deceives you.
For many will come in My name, saying, "I am the Christ, " and will deceive many.
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.
All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.
And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.
Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
But he who endures to the end shall be saved.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come."

Any careful observer will see the parallel between these words of Jesus two thousand years ago and the present hour in which we now live!
Wars and rumors of wars!
Spiritual deception by false religions!
False prophets deceiving multitudes!
Lawlessness, hatred and killings!
The preaching of the gospel to the ends of the earth! Then the end comes!
But of recent years, the tensions of the world seem, to be centered in religious overtones. The newscasters identify the source and reason of much of the tragic events to be caused by religious hatred.
On a recent international newscast, the panel openly stated that the world is in a religious war.
To this we will agree.

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From rock throwing by Palestinian youth to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, from fighting in Indonesia and the Philippines to Saudi Arabia's wealth for Muslin missions and Iran's ideology to extend aggressive Islam, Islam seems to be daily on the world scene. Words like jihad, ayatollah, martyr, Allah Akbar (God is Great) have become grist for the mass media to portray Muslims and their religion Islam. Muslims in the United State are rising up to claim more religious recognition and political power. There is Islamic revival and resurgence.
What does this mean for Christians and the Christian churches here and around the world?
Differences between the major beliefs of Christians and Muslims are real!
Muslims are unyielding in their denials of Christian beliefs in the divinity of Jesus, His crucifixion upon the cross, and His resurrection from the tomb. They condemn the Trinity.
Christians are unyielding in their unacceptance of Muhammad as the last prophet and of the Quran as the final revelation of God.
AS CHRISTIANS, WE NEED TO KNOW WHO THE ENEMY IS IN THIS SPIRITUAL BATTLE.
Islam is one of the fastest growing religions worldwide, and Muslims number over 1.2 billion persons around the world! There are as many Muslims in Indonesia (160,000,000+) as there are Arab Muslims in the heartland of the Middle East.
One hundred million Muslims live in India where most inhabitants are Hindus. Islam is the second largest religion in Europe. Islam has challenged Judaism as the second largest religion in the United States.
The third holiest city for Muslims is Jerusalem (behind Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia), where Muslims believe their prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from the place of the Dome of the Rock and spoke with Jesus.
Every Muslim is required to be on Jihad to please Allah and to spread the true religion Islam. The majority of Iranians are Shiite Muslims who expect the return of the twelfth Imam to bring a pure reign on earth. Some Muslim groups are so militant that they kill civilians in the name of Allah and claim immediate entry to heaven as martyrs.
Muslims have emerged from the desert sands as a growing and powerful religious force.
Classical Islam divides the world into two areas: (1) the world of peace, where Islam is practiced and the Quran is observed; (2) the world of warfare and ignorance, dominated by non-Muslims. The mission of Islam is to bring this second world under Islam.

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WHY DO WE HEAR SO MUCH ABOUT ISLAM?
Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have moved to Europe and the United States; Islam has become a religion of dominant expression in Europe and the emerging second-largest religion in the United States. Many Muslims have become citizens, have married nationals, and are raising their children as Muslims.
Let us take a minute and learn of the origin of Islam.
Islam was founded by Muhammad (570-632) in the Arabian Peninsula amidst fussing and fighting. He was a visionary who claimed to receive revelations from the supreme God.
Muhammad was a prophet who preached the word that he received from the angel Gabriel which he wrote down in the Quran. He was a theocrat. He spoke in the name of God, acted on behalf of God to establish the godly community, and supervised and judged the community's beliefs and actions in order to keep them correct and pure in accordance to his teachings.
At the time of his death, Muhammad had emerged as a religious and political leader without equal in the Arabian peninsula. He had founded a community, in fact a nation, based on a monotheistic and prophetic religion. The crescent moon was to become the symbol displayed on flags and mosques.
THE MAJOR BELIEFS OF ISLAM ARE THE FOLLOWING:
(1) Monotheism: There is no other god than the one god Allah.
(2) Angels: Among the angels, Gabriel appeared to Muhammad from heaven with the words of the Quran.
(3) Prophets: There are many prophets, including Jesus, but Muhammad is the last prophet.
(4) Scriptures: The Quran is the infallible, inerrant scripture revealed to Muhammad. The Torah and the Gospel were revealed to Moses and Jesus as inerrant in their times but have since become corrupt.
(5) Judgment: Everyone will be judged by Allah.
(6) Paradise and hell: Distinctly different eternal destinies await the blessed and the damned.
Let's enlarge upon these beliefs so that we can better understand Islam teaching.
(1) Their god is Allah. Muhammad grew up surrounded by polytheism (belief in many gods) and animism (belief that everything in creation is god). After his visions at Mt. Hira, he began to preach the one true god, Allah. "Say that Allah is One, the Eternal God. He begot none, nor was He

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begotten. None is equal to him." (Quran 112:1-4).
The great sin according to Islam is to associate the nature of God with creation or with humanity. He reveals his will to humankind but not his nature. Islam rejects the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. The Quran accuses Christians of SHIRK in that Christians believe that Jesus is eternal and that God is triune...God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit. Islam teaches that one may have knowledge of God's law, but no one has personal or experiential knowledge of God.
Contrary to the Muslim viewpoint, the Bible reveals that God is a highly personal being with whom intimate personal relationships can be established and enjoyed through a personal faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, who was God incarnate in human flesh.
As inscrutable as it may seem to the human mind, our personal God specially constructed man with a capacity to know and have a relationship with Him. Our purpose--indeed, our highest aim in life--must be to know God. Knowing Jesus Christ--who Himself is God, and is the full revelation of God to man--takes on eternal significance. In the Old Testament, Jeremiah says: "This is what the Lord says; "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast this: that he understands and knows Me." (Jer. 9:23-24). "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3).
Paul gives this testimony: "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things"
(Philippians 3:8).
THE god OF ISLAM IS NOT THE GOD OF THE BIBLE!
As God has a social nature, so He has endowed man with a social nature. And because man has been endowed with a social nature, man in his deepest heart seeks companionship with his Creator. He yearns for this relationship so the void in his heart can be filled!
There are some similarities between the god of Islam and the God of the Bible: Both are "one," are transcendent, are creators of the universe, sovereign, omnipotent, have communicated through angels and prophets, and will eventually judge all mankind. But there are also differences between the two--differences that are so substantive as to make impossible a common identity:

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(1) Whereas the god of the Quran is a radical unity, the God of the Bible is a Trinity (one God eternally manifest in three persons-- Matthew 28:19 says: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."
(2) Whereas the god of the Quran cannot have a "Son," the God of the Bible has an eternal Son named Jesus Christ. John 3:16 says: "For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
(3) Whereas the god of the Quran brings about both good and evil, the God of the Bible never engages in evil and is singularly righteous. "This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5).
(4) Whereas Allah desires to afflict people for their sins, the God of the Bible is "not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Pet. 3:9)
(5) Whereas the god of the Quran has no objective basis for forgiving people, the God of the Bible does have an objective basis--the death of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.
AS YOU CAN SEE, THERE IS AN ETERNAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM. As Christians we believe that the God of the Bible is the only God...there is none other!
There are many gods...but only one true God.
THE BIBLICAL GOD IS LOVE. While "Allah loveth not those that do wrong" (Sura 3:140), the Christian Bible tells us that "God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).
Paul writes: "For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." (Rom. 5:6-10).

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WHAT DOES ISLAM BELIEVE CONCERNING THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST? While innumerable verses in the Christian Bible deal with the person of Jesus Christ, only a sparse 74 verses out of 6236 in the Quran deal with Him--and of those, some 42 are indirect references. One of the more central verses in the Quran that deals with Jesus is Sura 3:171): "Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) an apostle of God, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him."
Muslims believe this verse is rich in commendation for Jesus. He is called a prophet of Allah, even though He is a much lesser prophet than Muhammad. Muslims say Jesus never claimed to be more than a prophet. Indeed, He is just one among many thousands (allegedly 124,000) of prophets of Allah, and hence, even though great, He is not unique or different in any way.
Muslims make every effort to argue against the idea that Jesus was the Son of God. People who believe Jesus is the Son of God are viewed as being deluded (Sura 9:30). In Muslim thinking, the suggestion that Jesus was the Son of God implies that Allah had sexual relations with a female partner (Mary), which resulted in the birth of Jesus. Since Muslims believe it is blasphemy to say Allah could have a partner, the very idea that Jesus is the Son of God is highly offensive to them.
Muslims are emphatic that Jesus was not God in human flesh. Christians, they believe, that hold to such an idea are guilty of blasphemy (Suras 5:17, 73). To say that Jesus was God would ultimately mean there is more than one God, which constitutes a denial of their basic confession that there is only one God whose name is Allah. Christians, they say, who make such a claim are infidels.
Muslims believe Jesus was completely human. They say...While it is true that He did many incredible miracles, He did these miracles by the power of Allah.
BUT WHAT DOES THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE TEACH ABOUT THE DEITY OF CHRIST?
Christ's deity is confirmed for us in that many of the actions of Yahweh (the God of the Christian Bible) in the Old Testament are performed by Christ in the New Testament.
For example, in Psalm 119 we are told about a dozen times that it is Yahweh who gives and preserves life. But in the New Testament, Jesus claims this power for Himself: "Just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, even so the Son gives life to whom He is pleased to give it" (John 5:21).

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John writes: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:1,14).
There are many instances in the New Testament where "LORD" is used of Christ in what can only be understood as in the Old Testament sense, "the Lord" who is Yahweh or God Himself. This use of the word "LORD" is quite striking in the word of the angel to the shepherds of Bethlehem: "For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ THE LORD" (Luke 2:11). Though these words are familiar to us from frequent reading of the Christmas story, we should realize how surprising it would be to any first-century Jew to hear that someone born as a baby was the CHRIST" (or MESSIAH"), and moreover, that this one who was MESSIAH was also "THE LORD"--that is, the LORD GOD himself!
When Jesus told His Jewish opponents that Abraham had seen His (Christ's ) day, they challenged Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" (John 8:57).
Here a sufficient response to prove Jesus' eternity would have been, "Before Abraham was, I was." But Jesus did not say this! Instead, He made a much more startling assertion: "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58). Jesus combined two assertions whose sequence seemed to make no sense: "Before something in the past happened [Abraham was], something in the present happened [I AM]" The Jewish leaders recognized at once that He was not speaking in riddles or uttering nonsense: when He said, "I AM," He was repeating the very words God used when He identified Himself to Moses as "I AM WHO I AM" (Ex. 3:14).
Jesus was claiming for Himself the title "I AM" by which God designates Himself as the central existing One, the God who is the source of His own existence and who always has been and always will be!
Another strong claim to deity is Jesus' statement at the end of Revelation "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (Rev. 23:13).
THERE IS ONE MORE ETERNAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM and it has to do with the Muslim view of the Christian Bible.
Muslims claim that the original Bible was the Word of God (apparently still pure during the time of Muhammad), but that it then became corrupted by Jews and Christians.
They say, the Bible of today has been mingled with many "untruths."

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Muslims say the Jews inserted many things into the Old Testament that served to personally benefit them. Muslim apologist Maurice Bucaille, for example, declares that "a revelation is mingled in all these writings, but all we possess today is what men have seen fit to leave us. These men manipulated the texts to please themselves, according to the circumstances they were in and the necessities they had to meet."
In the New Testament, Muslims say that Christians inserted such doctrines as the Trinity and Jesus being the Son of God. They say that the original New Testament did not contain such ideas.
Muslims also argue that there are innumerable variants (mistakes) among the various manuscript copies of the Bible! One Muslim writer says "It is admitted by the most learned men in the Hebrew language, that the present English version of the Old Testament contains at least 100,000 errors this would amount to approximately three errors in every verse).
BUT WE CHRISTIANS BELIEVE THAT OUR BIBLE IS THE WORD OF ALMIGHTY GOD, THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE, THE SOVEREIGN GOD OF THE UNIVERSE.
We believe in the authority of the Scriptures. All the words in Scripture are God's words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.
God cannot lie or speak falsely. The essence of the authority of Scripture is its ability to compel us to believe and to obey it and to make such belief and obedience equivalent to believing and obeying God Himself.
As Christians, we believe that all the words in Scripture are completely true and without error in any part! "The words of the Lord are words that are pure, silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times" (Psalms 12:6). "For ever, 0 Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens" (Psalm 119:89). "Every word of God proves true, he is a shield to those who take refuge in Him" (Proverbs 30:5). "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever " (1 Peter 1:24-25).
THERE IS AN ETERNAL DIFFERENCE...Islam's god is not the Creator God of the universe, it is a false god! Islam has no Savior and no divine Bible! No God! No Savior! No divine and eternal Word! It is the religion that is anti-Christ, anti-God and anti-Truth! And history will end with the conflict between these two religions.