Last Saturday, August 13, 2011, I was all set to endure sitting in a seminar for the better part of nine hours.  I was ready of mind to endure the boredom, but I had hoped to glean some helpful information.  What I did not expect was to gain spiritual insight.

The first two-hour lecture was on international and domestic adoption. The lecturer was Prof. Elizabeth Pangalangan.  It was informative and interesting, not totally unfamiliar, and based on the requests for legal advise I have received this year, quite appropriate.  Besides, Prof. Elizabeth Pangalangan is so light and easy on the eyes–she has a lovely face and her voice, so animated, I didn’t notice the two hours pass.

What I dreaded was the two-hour lecture right after lunch.  I have to face facts: I am a middle-aged, mostly sleep-deprived mother who also practices her legal profession, I am physiologically bound to feel drowsy after lunch.  The lecture was something new and unfamiliar:  practice in the Shari’ah courts. I was afraid that my mind would just tune out and turn off as I dozed off.

Unknown to most Filipinos, there are courts in the Philippines whose jurisdiction is to settle persons and family relations between Muslims and to adjudicate disputes arising from the Code of Muslim Personal Laws.

I will share with you my spiritual insights into the gleanings of information I gathered from the lecture of Prof. Mehol Sadain:

1. The word “Allah” means “The God.”  He said that it was not the particular name of a particular God because Moslems believe that there is only one God, all other gods are false gods and idols.  He even said that when the Holy Bible was translated into Bahasa in  Malaysia, the translators substituted the word “ALLAH” for the English word “GOD” because it was the Bahasa word for God.  He also said, there is no difference really whatever name you call him, Allah or God, he is still the same God.

It crossed my mind:  It can’t be the same deity because their personalities are not the same.  Allah has no Son.  God the Father has begotten God the Son, Jesus Christ.

2. Prof. Sadain said that Moslems believe that Moses and David were prophets and that the Torah (The Books of Moses) are also in the Qur’an just as the Psalms of King David are in the Qur’an.  They also believe in Jesus Christ as a prophet from God because the Gospels are also in the Qur’an.  But, he said, although we believe Moses, David and Jesus Christ to be prophets, Mohammed is the last prophet and the revelation of God to Mohammed is the final revelation.  Such that in the final revelation, some of the older revelations were amended and revised.

It crossed my mind: first, that truly, the gospel has been preached to all the nations.  Being a Moslem is not an excuse not to have heard the gospel if it is true that the Qur’an also contain the Books of Moses, the Psalms of David and the Gospels of Jesus Christ.  In Luke 24:44, when Jesus rose from the grave, he taught his unbelieving disciples all that were “written in the books of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me.”

What they choose to believe in the books of Moses and in the Psalms concerning Jesus Christ is their choice.  Their option to believe Jesus Christ as just a prophet, or if they believe him to be God the Son will not be an uninformed choice.  Further, if it were true that the books of Moses, the psalms and gospels are in the Qur’an, then, the Biblical caveat in Luke 16:29 & 31 holds true for them as well:  Jesus Christ, quoting the conversation between Abraham and the rich man, said: “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them….if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.”

It crossed my mind that the circumstances prophesied in the Bible concerning the time before the Rapture is upon us today:  there is not one language or one nation that has not heard of Jesus Christ if the psalms, Moses and the Gospels are also in the Qur’an.

It crossed my mind that Islam and Christianity clash on the point of final revelation.  The Bible in Hebrews 1:1 proclaims that “God who in sundry times and in divers manners have spoken to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his Son.”  To Christians, Jesus is the final revelation of God.  Jesus Christ is proclaimed to be the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

It also crossed my mind that Allah and Jehovah are not the same God after all.  If it were true (what Prof. Sadain said) that the Moslems believed that the prophecies and revelations of God to Moses, David and Jesus were prior revelations that were amended and revised in the final revelation to Mohammed, then Allah and Jehovah are not the same because God himself declared in the book of Numbers ( incidentally, a book of Moses) that God is not a man that he should lie nor the son of man that he should repent”.  God the Father says “I the LORD, I change not.”  The writer of the Hebrews proclaims the same immutability of God in referring to Jesus Christ: Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.

Our God is immutable:  He does not change from better to worse, he does not change from worse to better, he does not change in character.  His words are expressions of his feelings and choices that are rooted in perfect wisdom and perfect knowledge such that our God knows no surprises or emergencies.  God does not change his mind because of supervening and unforeseen events.  Our God, unlike Allah, does not revise or amend his revelations.  Our God progressively adds to his revelations, he widens the scope and reveals how he judges us, but the laws of God stand forever.  Our God and Allah are therefore not the same God.

When our God changes his mind, as when a sinner repents, he does not change his innate character because God has revealed himself to be both wrathful against sin and forgiving of the sinner when he repents.  When God forgave my sins, it is not because he had done away  with or canceled my judgment:  someone else paid the price for my sin.  It was Jesus Christ, his Son who paid for my judgment debt.  It was Jesus Christ who bore my judgment but my sin was judged just the same.

3. Professor Sadain also said that before Shari’ah court proceedings, Moslems swear to an oath: “May the wrath/curse of Allah be upon me and my descendants if I do not tell the truth in these proceedings.”  He even recounted how when he was a commissioner in the Commission on Elections, a fire razed the city hall in Tawi-Tawi.  All the voters’ registration records were also burned.  So that a new voters’ registration had to be conducted.  He instructed the COMELEC officials to ask all the Muslim registrants to swear on the truthfulness of the information they provided in the voter’s registration to ensure truthfulness.  He reported that the 60,000 registered voters were reduced to only 40,000.  He joked that the same oath ought to be required of Moslem voters to ensure that dagdag-bawas ( vote padding and vote-shaving) does not occur again in the future in Moslem-Mindanao.  But that making voters swear an oath to Allah is a religious test that is prohibited in the Constitution as a condition for the exercise of a political right.

Prof. Sadain said that Moslems are afraid of the curse of Allah.  And he also said that the oath is the same as when Christian witnesses swear upon the Bible in court.

It crossed my mind:  witnesses in court these days no longer swear on the Bible.  Perhaps this is the cause of so many perjured testimonies.  Swearing an oath on the Bible at once makes the swearer realize that the Omnipresent God sees and hears all that we say and do.  He can read our thoughts and our intentions.  This is the fear of God, the knowledge that the God we worship knows us so fully, we cannot hide before Him, all sin is manifest in his sight and all our righteousnesses ( the good things we do that we are so proud of) are all dirty rags before Him.

It crossed my mind that this fear is no longer present in people.  Their idea of God is not different from a jolly Santa Claus whom they ignore for the most part of the year and only pray to when they need a blessing or they have a wish.  At other times, their God is one who is insignificant in the conduct of their daily lives.  It is time to bring back the majesty and grandeur of our God into our teaching.  It is time to teach and preach again that our God is the Righteous Judge of all, before whom we have to account our conduct and our thoughts.

It crossed my mind that the fear of God is no longer present with us because we have begun to think of God as our “pal” one who is indulgent of us in our foibles and loyal to us in our troubles, one who accepts us without reservation and makes no demand on us to be worthy of  His name.

It is time to preach again that God is our Shepherd who has a rod and staff that leads us on the path of righteousness but that we are sheep who have gone astray and we insist on going our own way.  It is time to preach again that God’s sheep hear his voice and they follow him.  Those sheep who do not follow are not of God’s fold. It is time to preach the holiness and righteousness of God so that we may serve him with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire.

Who would have thought that these things would cross my mind when attending a mandatory legal refresher course? When God truly wants to teach you, he can do it anywhere using anything.  When God wants to speak, he speaks in your mind and then he speaks to your mind.