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1:16Are the PowerPoints? Which one do you want to control view? Let's start with Worldview. And before we do that, I'm going to go back to the scriptures from the World View lecture I gave because. Islam is a worldview. And the verses that we use for the worldview lecture, we really especially need to keep in mind when you're dealing with Islam because that is a very tough nut to crack in terms of witnessing. So, could I have Matthew walk around? Matthew, why don't you just start with the first verse and read it for us, and you'll be our first reader.

1:54For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Okay, so notice our weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. Well, what about Islam? Definitely is. Okay, and you know, one of the seven pillars, one of the pillars of Islam is jihad, right? So let's go to the next verse.

2:36Oh, yeah, I got to do it myself. All right, and find somebody. Matt, you're supposed to be recruiting me, somebody. But in your heart, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience. So, that when you are slandered, those who revile your go good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

3:07And I might add that that gentleman did an excellent example of that verse last Sunday. Brother Smith, right behind you there, Matt, if you don't mind, take this one. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

3:46Okay, and of course, remember this when you're talking to anyone who's not a Christian, but especially with a Muslim, remember this. And the irony is they think they're more spiritual than you. Okay, I mean, from the very get-go, be aware of that. But just be aware that they are deceived. They're also actively suppressing the truth. We're going to see that in a minute here. And so, obviously, you know, if you're witnessing with a Muslim, you've got to have a lot of prayer going into it. All right.

4:28For the wrath of God, again. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. Okay.

5:12Then finally. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is and which is good and acceptable and perfect. Okay. All right, if we could switch to the medieval Christianity now, those are just a few key verses I think we, whenever you're witnessing when someone is not Christian, just always run those through your mind. Of course, Romans 6:10 through 20, put on the armor of God. That's that. Incredible passage, and then more importantly, you know, we need to put on love. And so, first Corinthians 13, Brother Clyde's favorite passage, and that's a good set of scriptures to go to. And hopefully, with that, you're ready. Okay, so let's skip back to the medieval period here, and that's sort of a brief overview that we're going to try to do today.

6:29And actually, I think I want to skip that one and come back to it. Just as a recap from last time, Islam seemingly just burst on the scene. You know, Islam, and of course, the Quran itself is not even in existence until about really 600. And you have, of course, let me explain the backdrop, though, why this occurred so quickly. You have the Byzantine Empire, which at this time controlled southeastern Europe, modern-day Turkey, coming down the Levant, and that's the eastern seashore of the Mediterranean. It controlled all the 11 countries. You got Syria, what's modern-day Israel, then you have Egypt, and then stretching all the way across South Africa, northern Africa, you had the Byzantine Empire, massive empire. Well, of course, in the West, you know, everything's broken down, smaller, you know, states, you had the collapse of Western Empire. When Islam appears, it is at a very strategic point in history between the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Empire, the renewed Persian Empire. And these two great empires had been going at it for centuries. And you had right before Islam appears this titanic battle between the Byzantines and the Persians. And Heraclius, one of the Byzantine emperors at the time, finally managed to decisively defeat the Persians and drive them back from the shores of the Mediterranean. For a brief moment there, the Persians had taken Syria, portions of what's modern day Israel. I mean, there'd just been this back and forth between these vast empires. And the problem was they were, by winning this victory, though, the Byzantines utterly exhausted themselves. And so did the Persians. Like, you know, the war is over now, but they're just, you know, bankrupt.

8:46You know, imagine England at the end of World War II. Imagine if another great empire comes out of nowhere and attacks England right after World War II and the United States didn't exist to defend England. Maybe you give you. A modern parallel. And that's when the Muslims strike the Byzantine Empire. Plus, on top of that, you had this big controversy going on within the Byzantine Empire that was in part religious and in part political. And that was the monophysite heresy, which had arisen. And I don't want to go into details of that other than to say, monophysite form of Christianity, in fact, it continues today in Egypt. It's the Coptic Christians in Egypt, or basically monophysites.

9:39They were having a big dispute with the Orthodox Catholic Church. And frankly, the Orthodox Catholic Church wasn't handling it in a very Christian manner. You know, they're using the government to coerce the monophysites to accept their view of Christianity using force of the state. And basically, monophysitism becomes not just a different form of Christianity, it becomes a rallying point in both Syria, what you could call Palestine at this time, not in the modern sense of the word by any means, but just it's not Israel. And then you have Egypt. And basically, what was going on, the majorities of the populations in those areas had gone. Monophysites. And the Byzantine Greeks were trying to enforce Greek orthodoxy upon these people.

10:38And basically, when the Muslims appear, the Monophysites actually thought the Muslims would cut them a better deal than the Greek Orthodox would. And that's why Syria and what's today Israel and Egypt just collapsed, more or less opened the gates and come on in. That's a lot more complicated than that, but that is kind of the big view picture of what was going on in the background. So you have Syria falling to the Muslims 634, 640, Jerusalem falls in 636, Egypt falls 641. I mean, bam, bam, bam, bam. The vast majority of the people remain Christian, or well, at least in name. In fact, in Egypt, they would remain Christian down to really about 120, 1300, majority, even though they've been ruled all these hundreds of years by the Muslims. But at that point, what you'll see in Islam, you have a group in power. And the original Muslim conquest, quite frankly, was not all that intent on converting everyone.

11:50And the reason for that was the jizya, the tax. I will argue, I get a lot of trouble for this, I know it's in some quarters. Islam has always appeared to me to be a parasitic civilization. It survives on ruling other people and making those people serve them. Islam itself means submission. And so, anyway, you have, but also within Islam, you always have these very, shall we say, extreme new sects arising, which consider the ruling group of Muslims to have gone soft. They're not really living up to the tenets of the Quran and the Hadiths. And so they stage a rebellion, they take over, and usually they then start this coercion to get the non-believers to accept Islam. And this continues these cycles. And what we're seeing now is an interesting situation where many of these Muslim countries have become totally Muslim. And guess what the problem with that is?

13:09That's right. I mean, she got it, nailed it. All right. And of course, Islam ultimately is a false religion. And ultimately, it is a very corrupting religion. And these countries have a lot of problems, you know, if they don't have someone else. To get the taxes from and to rule over and all these different things. I mean, I think in Afghanistan, last I read an article, there's like three Jews in all of Afghanistan. Okay, there's, you know, if you're a Christian, you sure don't tell anybody. You know, it's just, of course, in Saudi Arabia, you know, no other religion is allowed to be practiced. You know, it's only Islam. And so it's, you know, this is sort of an overview here. Now, the Ottoman Empire begins this Western expansion. This is a new group of Muslims, and that was always problematic because the Turks obviously do not speak Arabic. And this led to all kinds of frictions within Islam. But the Ottoman-Turkish Empire, of course, begins this great advance. And Constantinople falls in 1453.

14:24And we don't need to get into details of the battles. All of Greece falls by 1460. Now, remember, Columbus sells the ocean blue 1492. And part of the reason that's able to happen is because to the west, remember, Islam is attacking from the east, Europe from the east, and attacking Europe from the west. The attack into Europe actually was having more success initially coming from the west. Most of us think, you know, Turks take. Constantinople 14. Well, actually, it really, you have the greatest successes of Islamic conquests in Western Europe coming from the West. They come from the tip of Africa over into Spain, you know, the Rock of Gibraltar, wasn't very, didn't save the Spanish, the Visigoth kingdoms of Spain. And you have this Muslim army coming in in 7-11, and they conquer virtually all of Spain for 700 years. It's Islamic. Now, the vast majority of people in Spain remain Christian. The Muslims were a minority ruling over the majority Christian population, but it is under Islamic rule. And of course, in Spain, they claim, you know, it was so wonderful and benevolent. And they talk about the universities there at Toledo. And yeah, there was some incredible scholarship for brief periods of time. But what they don't tell you about are the periods of oppression, outright massacres of entire populations of towns and cities. You have the suppression of the Jews. Overall, the Jews probably had it better in Spain than any other part of the Islamic world, but they too would from time to time suffer these harsh pogroms by the Muslims there in Spain. And of course, the capital city, Córdoba, became. One of the wealthiest, most culturally advanced cities of the medieval world. That is true. Modern textbooks portray Muslim Spain as a land of tolerance. That's not really so. 732, Muslims swept into France.

16:43And in fact, a whole southern part of France for one time was under Islamic control. And they, of course, started hanging up into northern France. Had they succeeded, we all might be stopping a few minutes and doing our bows to Mecca. But you have Charles Martel, Charles the Hammer, with a much, much smaller army stopping this Islamic advance. And, you know, Poitiers or Tours, depending which one you want to use. And remember, last time we left off, I was talking about how in Europe in the medieval period, it's not nearly as backwards as some would think. In fact, this whole title, Dark Ages, is a creation during the Enlightenment period. People like Voltaire Rousseau, you know, who hated Christianity. They're embarrassed by the medieval Christian period because the church was so dominant back then, and they're always looking for things to disparage any time period in Christianity. Actually, during the so-called dark ages, you know, eyeglasses come into use, you have the medieval. University system, which is just absolutely extraordinary development to come about. And in agriculture, major advances. And, you know, we were talking about how they're breeding these gigantic horses that look like the Clydesdale horses. You know, if you've ever seen those, and they got these new plows, heavy plows that's going to bring about revolution cultivation, agriculture. And they're also, Europeans are very good at war technology, and they have these full suits of armor, and now they got the stirrup for the horse. And so when the Muslims run into this much smaller Christian army, these guys are on these massive Clydesdale horses with stirrups, and they got the lances, full-body armor. And they just devastated this Muslim army, just absolutely massacred them. And they forced the Muslims back into Spain. And then these little tiny Christian kingdoms in the mountains of the Pyrenees, you know, take notes, they start copying, and they go on this reconquista, all right, the reconquest of Spain. And do you know what year the reconquest of Spain was completed?

19:141492. You've heard the old story that, you know, Isabella pawned her jewels to fund Columbus's voyage? That is not true. What she did do, though, was to use the loot they gained from the conquest of the last Moorish kingdom. In southern Spain, that's Granada, and that was used to fund Columbus's voyage. Okay, or at least part of that was. So, just to give you a little bit broader perspective here, yes, sir? Speaking of perspective, could you remind us when Muhammad lived around and founded the Islam religion around 622 or so?

19:51Yeah, but I don't want to go there. I won't get where I need to get today, okay? All right, yeah, it's very recent. Yeah, this happened relatively quickly after Muhammad. Yes, very, very quickly. And I have a whole lecture on that whole thing, but I need to get to a certain point today, or try to. So, now, left off last time with this, and this is the problem that I see in America academia. They want to soft pedal, I don't know what word you want to use for it, the true nature of Islam. And so, when you have things that are rather, you know, against the narrative that Islam is not as aggressive as it really is, they will take something that is absolute evidence of the barbarity of some of the treatment of non-Muslims by the Muslims, and they'll try to make it look like it's not such a bad thing. Here, you know, and I have this is actually from a textbook I use teaching Western Civ, and actually, it's one of the fairer textbooks out there, but even it has. This picture here of these little Christian children, and it says they're being recruited. Okay, they haven't been recruited, they've been forcefully grabbed out of the arms of their loving parents, taken to Constantinople. They are coerced, brainwashed into accepting Islam, a very fanatical form of Islam. And most of them are going to become Janissaries. A Janissary, you would have a sultan, often when foreign visitors from Western Europe would come to Constantinople, he would have these Janissaries come out and they would do all these incredible martial arts types things and just pull in just these fantastic displays. And to impress the Western visitors, he then, the Sultan, would look at one of the Janissaries and says, okay, you have done a wonderful job here. Now kill yourself. And he would, without flinching, do something sort of like Javanese seppuku and kill himself right there to show his utter devotion to the sultan and to Islam.

22:03And that's the type of stuff that they're doing here. And textbooks won't tell you that usually. And the others were taken and they run the bureaucracy. And of course, the Turks were very involved in massive, massive human slavery. And I have my students, I have them do a comparison contrast between the Atlantic slave trade, which was absolutely. Atrocious, horrible. Remember, we got a great hymn out of that, though. Amazing Grace. He was a former slaveholder, you know, ship captain hauling slaves who had a miraculous conversion experience. But if you look at Islamic slave trade, it is far, far harsher. We're talking 90% loss of life of slaves being brought across the Sahara. 90% in some cases. And whereas in Western slavery, it's mainly focused on fill hands, heavy labor, and Islam is often female sex slaves that we're talking about. And as far as the men, most of the African males would immediately be castrated, which should help you understand there's millions, millions more Africans taken into Middle Eastern Islamic areas, but you don't see their descendants, do you? Okay? All right. And so that is another huge story that the Western media and academia totally turns a blind eye to. And they focus only. And part of this goes to the fact that, remember, even Westerners that are no longer Christian, they are very much permeated by Christianity, even though they may not be aware of it. And part of Christianity is confessing your sins, right? And so since these people are no longer Christians, they still have these, I don't know what vestiges.

24:00One of the things about Western civilization that has always amazed me is how it is always self-criticizing. Whereas in some of these older cultures and civilization, they tend to hide their dirty laundry, and we don't want to talk about that. And let's just rewrite history, pretend that didn't happen. And so you have this excessive focus on Western sins and evils, and a complete ignoring of other cultures and civilizations what they're doing wrong. And that leads to taking a lot of history out of context when you fall into that trap.

24:38Okay, so anyway, I have a video, and the guy is very hostile to Islam. I do not think the guy is a Christian, so I did not want you to hear some of his, I mean, you can go listen to him on your own, but it's not appropriate for Sunday school, most definitely. However, he did a map, which I think really puts things into context. What he does is he shows actual attacks by Islam on the rest of the world. And I think this will help put things in context for you. So, should we have that up here?

25:25And here it starts. All right, just stop it a second. All right, well, what You to do is notice you got that little bar up there. Keep an eye, it's hard to do, on the dating. The dates are going to start changing as time progresses, and he's going to bring this right up to the present. And what he does, and from what I've checked on, these are legitimate incidences of Islamic aggressive attacks on non-Islamic areas. Okay, so you see, starting with Saudi Arabia and the initial conquest that we've already discussed. Okay, let's roll it.

26:34Let me go back to the PowerPoints. So, any questions there? Do you see what I'm talking about? How things are so taken out of context? And so, now, all right, so I would say the general original, you know, what you have in most schools, the Crusades were an attempt by the Western Church regained. The Holy Land is still the correct interpretation. But over time, what you get in most textbooks today is it functioned as an outlet for warlike nobility. You have the kings trying to get these nobles out of Europe to go fight the Muslims because they're causing so much trouble back home. It is true, medieval Europe had plenty of wars amongst themselves, but that's if you really do an in-depth study of the Crusades, you'll find out these guys that was not their motivation. Actually, if you actually look at, and we actually have letters of Crusaders, they were intensely religious. They are very intensely being motivated by religious feelings, I think misdirected religious motivations, but they definitely had the attitude. Remember, they were very much aware of all these outrages had been going on for centuries before you have this belated response by the so-called crusaders. It was only after, and if I had the time, I could just list to you outrage after outrage, massacre after massacre, desecration after desecration. You know, when they invaded Italy, there's a bunch of raids in southern Italy. They make it up to Rome. They totally desecrate the tomb of the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Peter. You know, if you can imagine going, desecrating the colours. And Mecca, what the response would be. Yet, one of the modus operandi is the Muslims, wherever they conquer, they will destroy the religious structures of the people there, or they'll take them over, make them to Islamic mosques, and then they declare: once this is an Islamic mosque, no other religion can use this again. And, you know, as far as what's mine is mine, what's yours, that's negotiable. Actually, it's not even negotiable, we're going to take it. And sort of that attitude. So, and this idea of motivation, land for greed, land and wealth, while it is true that the Western Crusaders initially intended to help the Eastern Roman Emperor, remember, it's all called in response to the Byzantine Emperor begging for help to fight the Muslims. While their initial intent was to help restore these lands to Byzantium, if you get into the details of the actual First Crusade, the Byzantines pull all kinds of stunts on the Crusaders, and they basically got fed up with them, said, Okay, you know, we took Jerusalem, no help from you guys. In fact, they're working against them, and so we're going to keep it since we extended all this blood and toil. All right, and this idea of imperialism, really, modern imperialism was not even in existence in Europe at this time. Remember, I've already told you, medieval countries are really kind of a fiction. You know, modern nation-states. States that we take for granted today really are not even firmly established in Europe at this point. All right, so just very briefly, First Crusade is called 1095 by Pope Urban II, 1095, and Pope Urban was one of these reforming popes, very religiously motivated and calling this Crusade. And they literally saw it as, you know, a fight for survival at this point. And so, and if you read the details of the First Crusade, it is incredible, awful, and amazing all at the same time.

30:44The Crusaders should not have won. I mean, time and time again, they were incredibly outnumbered. On top of that, as I've already mentioned, the Byzantines were pulling all kinds of shenanigans on them. When they needed aid the most, they would withdraw it. It's just, you know, but they take Jerusalem, and of course, they're taking Jerusalem. You have this incredible massacre take place. That's definitely true. You see, the dress of Middle Easterners was very confusing through the Crusaders. It's hard for them to tell the difference between a Jew and a Christian and a Muslim. Although, if they look closely, they were dressed differently. But it's just all different to them.

31:27But let me just mention what happened in Jerusalem. Jerusalem happened to cities in Western Europe when they were taken by storm. And by the way, the Muslims would do the same thing. I'm not trying to justify. I'm just saying that too is taken out of context. Okay, what happens? Alright, so you have, of course, the Crusaders briefly set up these so-called Christian kingdoms, and they would hold those about 40, 80 years, and then they'd be kicked out, and that's the end of the Crusades. And yet, the Crusades is going to be one of the first things that a Muslim bring up to you. I want you to know that for many, many years that wasn't the case.

32:07This is more a result of Western scholarship dredging up the Crusades, which is, you know, pinpricks compared to what the Muslims have been doing. And they really grossly exaggerate them in comparison of the entire situation. So you have, of course, these Knights Hospitaliers, the Knights, Templars, which would be very interesting to get into a side discussion on those, which we're not going to do. Then you've got the Second Crusade, Bernard de Clairvaux called that, it is a failure. Jerusalem falls to Saladin, who's often portrayed as a romantic, wonderful, very benevolent Muslim ruler. That is not true.

32:50Anyway, here's the First Sing, Third, Fourth Crusade. There's others besides that. You saw that crazy thing on the map there where they actually tried. To go to Egypt for a crusade, which is certainly a misdirection. That was a disaster. So ultimately, the crusades, they really don't last that long. They're dismal failures in terms of winning back the Holy Land, so to speak. But they did have some side benefits outside religion, if you want to look at economics. It revives trade. Oh, let me back up at least talk about the Third Crusade here. This was... Talk about a disaster. You have the leading rulers of Western Europe personally going, leaving Europe, taking their armies to the Holy Land. Should have been a success. You got Frederick Barbarossa, meaning Frederick Redbeard. He's Holy Roman Emperor, rules a vast part of Europe. You got Philip Augustus, who is a scoundrel supreme.

33:49He's going to come over briefly. And then you got Richard the Lionheart, right? He's a dashing romantic figure, you know, one of the time period think Robin Hood. You know, that legend occurs during this time period. And they go over there, and of course, they immediately commence to arguing amongst themselves, who's going to be the one in charge, all right? And Philip Augustus uses this as a pretext to go back to France, where he then merrily starts scheming to take over the territories of Richard the Lionheart on one hand, who actually controls about as much France as he does, and of course the whole Roman Emperor on the other hand. So, you know, he goes back and Take advantage of their absence. Frederick Barbarossa, of course, splits from Richard the Lionheart and manages to die the most ignomanious way of dying for a king, in this case, an emperor. He falls off his horse in a stream that's about that deep and drowns.

34:54Who can explain how? An armor. Yeah. Couldn't get his head up. Okay, it is a terrible way to die. All right, but anyway. All right, so that leaves two of the that leaves Richard Lionheart stuck there. He negotiates a settlement with Saladin and then returns home to have his fight with Philip Augustus, okay, which was a big mess that we don't need to go into. But anyway, this is just to get across to you how disorganized the so-called Crusaders were. And, you know, it's really, and the Fourth Crusade is such a disaster because the Crusaders get into debt to the Venetians, and that's a long story. But anyway, to pay off the debt, the Venetians say, well, before you go fight the Muslims, we want you to go up there and fight the Byzantines, who, by the way, are not Muslim, they're Christian. And they sack Constantinople. I think I mentioned to you previously that you want to see some really great Byzantine art go to Venice, all right, because they stole it from Terran. Constantinople, and it's still there. St. Mark's Cathedral, just take a look at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. And so that was a disaster.

36:09So yet you have, as a result of the Crusades, you got all these radical new technological advances going on in Europe. And of course, they get from the Muslims gunpowder. Now, it was introduced to the Muslims by the Mongols. And by the way, that's one of the reasons Islam is having some failures here. You had the Mongols attack them, and they did a number on the Muslims. But then the Mongols convert to Islam. So that's not good. All right, but in the brief tenure, you know, they come across gunpowder. And of course, I often tell the students, you know, worldviews are an interesting thing. Think of the Chinese and gunpowder. And initially, though, what did they use it for?

37:05Beautiful splashes of color in the sky. European gets a gold. Gunpowder, what does he think? I blow people up with this, okay? Well, anyway, it's kind of scary when you think of that, but gunpowder really helped to break down feudalism. Just want you to know that. And, you know, even bad things can have positive. After effects, and it's with the breakdown of feudalism. And you say, Well, how did the gunpowder break down feudalism? Well, you see, in feudalism, everybody thinks the king's all-powerful, right? And you know, the nobles serve the king. It didn't really work that way. Each nobleman was like a little king in his own castle. And by the way, castles were not built for romance novels, they were brutal military institutions to control a region or area. And whoever controled that castle controlled that region. And if a king tells a nobleman to do something, he doesn't want to do it, he could sort of stick out stuff and say, nanny boo-boo, you come make me. And the king would have to raise an army. And you've got to remember, 3,750,000 square miles of territory and only 100 million people. Okay? And thanks to the Roman Empire, there's no gold or silver hardly left. I think there's like $200 million worth of gold in all of Europe. And you've got a million people. What does that mean everybody's got? If you spread out equally, which it definitely was not spread out equally. Come on.

38:37That's right. He got it. $2 per person to live on for life. Now, that's how poor Europeans were. Okay? Alright, $2 live on for life. So, how can a king afford to raise an army? And castles are designed to withstand sieges of up to seven years. Right? Okay. So you're going to pay a soldier to. Sit on his rump for seven years waiting for the guy to surrender and give in to what you want him to do. Well, what does gunpowder? How does gunpowder change that scenario?

39:10You just blow that wall down, yeah. And no more nay-nay boo-boo tell me what to do. Now it's okay, what do you want me to do? Okay, and you have a rise of powerful nation-states, and that means you can do big things. You know, going to the new world in those three tiny ships would be like sending three spaceships to the moon in terms of cost. Private individuals couldn't afford that. And so you have to have big nation-states that can collect taxes, or in this case, conquer the Moorish kingdom of Granada, and raise the money to fund the expedition. And so that does it. Now, what else does that lead to, the European explorations in the Americas?

39:56What did they find there in Mexico? Gold. Tons and tons of gold and silver. And Peru? Many, many, many more. I mean, Potus, the mountain of the Potisea, it's literally called the Mountain of Silver. It had exposed bangs of silver that you could see from a distance walking up to the mountain. Okay, yeah. And you're going to have a population of 75,000 people up there in the 50s. 1500s. When's Jamestown found it? 1607. Okay, yeah. Alright, so just get a little perspective here. So, why is Western Europe going to be able to now fight off the Muslims?

40:46Yeah, yeah. Literally. And one of the really decisive battles is going to be there in the Mediterranean Sea when you have this big naval battle and the Muslims are no longer to yearly, year after year, raid the coast of Europe after that. That breaks that little, although you still got the pirates of Tripoli when Thomas Jefferson's president, right? You know, the Marines, you got a line there in the Marine Corps, him coming out of that one, all right? But anyway, you know, just broad perspectives there. Now, meantime, back in Europe, something, just to ponder, by the late medieval period, slavery, and thanks to the Roman Catholic Church now, had been totally abolished, done away with.

41:38Had been done away with. Now, unfortunately, after the New World discovery, it's going to come back again. But you have a Christian civilization banning slavery. It's the first civilization I know of on planet Earth to do that. And then it does it again. Okay, of course, the Brits were the smart ones. They did it peacefully by legislation. And that's due to a Christian legislator, and we won't get into that. And of course, here in this country, we fight a bloody civil war over it.

42:17But it is abolished, which is really amazing. And yet, you know, when I had my students do this project where they compare Western Atlantic slave trade to Islamic slavery, I had a Korean student who wrote me a real nice little note afterwards. Says, Mr. Johnson, I so appreciate you have opened my eyes. I thought only the United States, no, only Western Europeans engaged in slavery. Now, what country is he from? Do you think maybe Korean textbooks are not telling him something?

42:56Koreans themselves were enslaved by the Japanese. And Chinese slavery is probably more extensive than all other forms of slavery. And we don't hear about Chinese slavery. So, you know, it's just amazing the incredible degree of ignorance that seems to be intentional. Yes, sir. Slavery of the Chinese by the Chinese? Oh, yeah. And they were really into eunuchs, too, and I don't want to go there. But anyway, okay. Now, meantime, the church also is tempting other things. Believe it or not, some. This was a bit idealistic. The peace of God. By church decrees, the church tried to limit warfare by threatening excommunication for anyone who harmed members of vulnerable groups such as women, children, peasants, merchants, and clergy. Okay. I think college professors were in there too, thank goodness. But anyway, so this is called the peace of God. And then you got the truce of God further attempted to limit warfare by proclaiming that all men must abstain from violence and warfare during certain days of the week, Wednesday night to Monday morning. And in all holidays, which were actually holy days. By the way, please don't tell atheists what holiday means.

44:13Okay, all right. So, and although these attempts did tone down the violence, we all know they ultimately failed, but isn't it interesting that they tried? Okay, tell me another civilization that even attempted this. Okay, there are very positive things about Western civilization that you don't get taught anymore. And so, all right, now, how long does this struggle between Western Europe and Islam continue? Well, would you believe quite late? We're jumping ahead to the time of Louis XIV.

44:50And this is a really incredible story. You got Khaled Mustafa, I'm mispronouncing that, that's the best I can do. Calam Mustafa, he's the grand vizier. Vizier is sort of like a prime minister. He's the one that actually runs things day to day. And the reason for this is the Sultan now is in his palace in Constantinople. And he has succeeded in building an empire within the empire. You know, you've got this huge, vast Holy Roman Empire, but it's not really an empire, you know, Voltaire's quote. It's not really Holy nor Roman nor even an empire. It's more of a confederation. And so you have Leopold, emperor of the Austro, what's going to now be the Austro-Hungarian Empire, taking actual Half-Burg possessions and linking them up into a personal ruled state. And this is scaring the daylights out of the French. The French were the dominant power. They want to remain the dominant power. So you have Kyler Mustafa secretly getting in touch. With Louis XIV, who, by the way, is supposed to be Mr. Catholic. You know, he's the one that represses the Huguenots in France, and he's just fanatical Roman Catholic. Here you have Roman Catholic Louis XIV secretly conspiring with Islamic ruler of Turkey, Khar Mustafa, to attack a Christian kingdom, the Austrians.

46:54He's secretly sending the Turks money, apparently some ornaments, but this has to be secret for obvious reasons. You know, Louis knows he'd be in trouble with his people, especially the Pope, if it gets out that he's doing this. So Khara Mustafa, 1682, assembles his gigantic army of Janissaries. We've already talked about how tough they are. 200,000 men, an enormous army for that day. And notice the date, 1682. The Muslims are able to mount a massive attack on Western Europe. And they march up the Danube, just laying waste to everything.

47:33And they lay siege to Vienna. And it looked like Vienna is going to fall. They're down to eating their horses, and now they're on rats. You know, they're starving. And salvation comes from an unexpected direction. The Protestant Germans and the Catholic king of Poland get together. Now, those two don't normally mix. And by the way, the Poles. Hate the Habsburgs, you know, and the Germans hate the Poles. But anyway, they decide we hate the Turks even worse. You know, we're terrified of the Turks. So they come down and they hit the Turks just at the point that they're about to break into Vienna. And Karma Staffa has to commit suicide because he failed the Sultan. And then you have the Pope who was terrified by this whole event. I mean, you know, had this succeeded, you know, Italy would have fallen. And so he calls a crusade. Okay? Sets up the Holy League. And this is a most unusual crusade because remember, this is in the midst of the Protestant Reformation, and you have the wars of religion in Europe and all this. Basically, the Protestant and the Catholics call a truce. Okay, we've got to get rid of these Turks. And you have Protestants joining this Catholic crusade against the Turks. And thousands of French volunteer. And Louis cannot say a word about it. Okay, you know, and so they go off, and you have the Battle of Zenta, 1697, and the Treaty of Karlowitz. And look at this. You see the red there?

49:18All right, that's the Holy Roman Empire. Most of that, the Holy Roman Emperor doesn't really have much control over. But that purple area are personal possessions of The Habsburgs. Notice outside that red line, Hungary there, notice all that? That is now given to the Habsburgs as a personal domain. Louis, remember, started this wanting to reduce the power of the Habsburgs. What has he done with what's about to become the Austro-Hungarian Empire? He has doubled the size of it. Yeah. And unfortunately, folks, this sets us up for World War I, by the way. Now you have Austria-Hungary, you got Germany to the north, and that's a whole nother history lesson. But, you know, that, that just gives you, but, you know, it should be interesting to you how late in history this was continuing. Now, we do know one of the six-pillar, a jihad, holy war. Some Muslims consider jihad six-pillar of Islam. And there are different interpretations with Islam about this.

50:28You know, one is a very militant view, another is this is a personal struggle, all this. Then you have, you just, I'm not going to be able to do it, doggone it. All right, well, we'll just have to finish this up next time. Just a couple little points that you need to consider. But hopefully, the bulk of the next lecture is going to be on the end of the medieval period and the beginning of what I call the proto-reformers. All right, so we'll be back on, you know. On Europe, I'm probably going to let you watch this little video. If you're interested in the actual teachings of Islam without the political correctness, Robert Wood is probably the best person you go to. David Wood, excuse me, David Wood, who is a very interesting character himself. But David Wood was a psychopath, took a hammer, tried to knock out the brains of his father, went to prison, which he needed to go, and ran into a newly converted Christian who didn't know that much about Christianity. He had a relationship with Jesus. But apparently, David Wood made him grow real fast because he was an very avowed atheist at this time. And then through just an incredible series of events, David Wood became a Christian.

51:56And I mean a Christian, you know. And the thing that when I first listened to his testimony, if you know anything about psychopaths, you would think that it's impossible for them to become Christians because just the way psychopaths are made up. But God's grace can even extend to a psychopath. It is really astonishing. And then he got involved in apologetics and especially witnessing to Muslims. And some of you may be familiar with Qurishi. Nabil and his remarkable conversion. Robert Wood was one of the primary people that led him to Christ.

52:41He tragically died just recently in Houston of cancer. He became a Southern Baptist minister, often traveled Robbie Zacharias, and he particularly witnessed to Muslims. But anyway, we're out of time. Robert Wood. David, I always say Robert. David Wood, thank you. David Wood. Nabil Qureshi was an Islam Muslim convert. In fact, his parents were Islamic missionaries. And so, and he was vowedly a Muslim and he converted to Christianity. And there's a lot of YouTube videos by him, although he's passed away, died of cancer here recently. But David Wood is still going strong. Okay, we're way out of time. So, Brother Robert, would you pray for us?