I Think ALLAH Sometimes Laughs

This title does not say that ALLAH does laugh. The title leaves it open that there is so much wickedness and unfairness in this world that perhaps ALLAH never allows Himself to laugh. I actually think that some of His Prophets like Jeremiah are so saturated with thinking about man's wicked acts and his rebellion against GOD and our unkindness and even hostility toward each other, that Jeremiah never after becoming an adult, allowed himself to laugh. For how could Jeremiah laugh after he observed a situation that I will now describe?

The citizens of his beloved Jerusalem were so wicked that they sometimes offered their own sons and daughters to the false GOD of Baal by burning them to death while they were still alive. And in order to drown out the noise of the children screaming as they were dying in the flames, the drummers would beat their drums all the louder. And that was just one of their many sins.

But GOD had told His obedient Prophet to continue pleading with the priests, city officials, and the Kings to stop the people from their wickedness or GOD would bring the cruel Babylonian armies of the even more cruel Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in order to punish the nation for its wickedness. But many of the Kings, priests and officials were just as wicked as the idol worshipping people.

As I sit here in front of my silent T.V. in Seattle, Washington with my T.V. on, but with the no sound, I just saw the wording across the bottom of the T.V. screen informing me of the large number of young adult live human sacrifice that are almost daily occurring in the American U.S. Army. But CNN does not call it human sacrifice. Instead it euphemistically labels these needless deaths as suicides. But the shocking wording on the T.V. screen read:

32 U.S. Soldiers Reported As Committing Suicide in July

I personally found it beyond coincidence that this public statistic about current U.S. human sacrifices in the American Army flashed across the bottom of my CNN T.V. screen the precise second that I was addressing with my pen the dreadful punishment that the Prophet Jeremiah was warning the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem that GOD had told him was coming upon them (and did come upon them) if they didn't soon turn from such crimes as their child sacrifices to the Idol Baal.

This horrible statistic about current American soldier human sacrifices makes me ashamed to be writing about even the possibility of ALLAH laughing. But when I discuss the possibility of ALLAH laughing, I will be making some points that could eventually save lives in the Mid East. Therefore, I will continue to address the subject of the possibility of ALLAH Himself seeing a degree of humor in certain events, but certainly not in the horrors of war.

Concerning the 32 suicides that I think I accurately call human sacrifices, of course the human sacrifices in Jerusalem and the small nation of Judah in Jeremiah's time were not called or seen as human sacrifices. Instead they were seen as required and necessary offerings of their small children to Baal that would please their (false) GOD. Because their society at that time had decided that burning their young sons and daughters to death was the appropriate thing to do. This is indeed similar to how the majority of citizens of the U.S. have decided that our making consistent human sacrifices of our military men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan are not to be viewed as human sacrifices to our own U.S. idol of settling disputes without technical weapons' superiority instead of settling disputes by patient, respectful diplomacy.

These 32 human sacrifices in the U.S. army in the one month of July 2012 were not truly due to Al-Qaeda attacking New York. Nor were these U.S. human sacrifices truly due to the false information about Iraq supposedly possessing weapons of mass destruction. Nor were they due to the U.S. thinking that we had a moral obligation to get rid of Saddam Hussein and his two murderous sons.

But these U.S. human sacrifices were due to our U.S. system of government not having checks and balances that would prevent amazingly superficial and vengeful thinker such as George W. Bush from being under vengeful President so he could impose his own superficial thinking and Muslim phobia on the Middle East. So such a shallow thinking puppet of Dick Cheney was empowered to begin bringing catastrophes to the fragile Mid East and especially to Iraq and to also satisfy Israel's political desires. Also the war was due to the U.S. desire to be in control of guaranteeing the security of the U.S. oil needs as well as the rest of the world's oil needs in a somewhat futile attempt to keep the world economy somewhat stable. So Bush naively decided that he would use the overwhelming power of the massive U.S. weapons' industry in a ridiculous attempt for a new Democratic Iraq to jump start the entire Mid East to adopt his own definition of Jeffersonian democracy for each of the then autocratic nations of the Middle East.

Whether ALLAH can dare to laugh at anything when He allows man to have free will to form governments and then to even choose exceptionally incompetent leaders who choose to use their power to kill and destroy instead of wisely cooperating and negotiating, is open to question. But from the exceptional wickedness that ALLAH encountered well over 25 centuries ago, in Jeremiah's time that led to horrible punishment and Judgment on Judah and Jerusalem that even included compassionate parents eating their own children when food supplies were cut off during the Babylonian siege, I am sure caused Jeremiah to weep and weep and never, ever laugh.

But Did ALLAH Laugh When I Was On Elijah's Mount Carmel?

In the first year of the first Palestinian Intifada, a Colorado oil millionaire contacted me by phone. He had read my book, Sound the Alarm from Saudi Arabia. He felt from his reading this 1982 book that it appeared that I had mediation skills. He was totally unaware that in my position as a high school counselor I was respected as a mediator and selected by the student, teachers and staff to the honor of being the Seattle school, Districts second ombudsman which primarily involves mediation. This was in addition to my remaining in my school counseling position.

He wished to pay all of my expenses for the summer on mainly the West Bank. Since he was in the oil exploration business he had made many West Bank Muslim and Christian friends as well as a number of relatively influential Israeli friends. His hope was that with my knowledge of both the Christian Scriptures and the Qur'an that were in evidenced in my book, I could have meaningful, helpful conversations with Muslims, Christians and Israelis without ever attempting to mediate between them. The meaningful conversations that he hoped for, for the most part dud not work out. But I did have perhaps three of four conversations with Arab speaking Christian groups through an interpreter that may have been somewhat helpful to them.

I think my contribution was partly a disappointment to my possible Zionist Christian benefactor who sponsored my trip. However, the trip was a necessary surprising eye opener for me regarding Israeli–Palestinian Justice issues.

Before the trip to the West Bank and Jerusalem areas I naively had assumed the best about the intentions and attitudes of Israeli officials, IDF soldiers and the Israel people. I will acknowledge that I did not come in much contact with ordinary Israeli citizens except for the Israeli police which was an excessively negative, discouraging, but enlightening experience.

Hagar's Name Appeared on Mount Carmel

But the brief incident which may have caused ALLAH to momentarily laugh, but later also made Him weep, was this. We had stayed all night in the very small hotel located on Mount Carmel. And for the coming night I had been asked to be the speaker at the small Baptist Church in Nazareth. (If you will remember, Nazareth was the small town where the Messiah Isa was brought up. But it was also the town mentioned in Luke 4 where his listeners in the synagogue almost murdered him when they attempted to push him off a cliff near the synagogue. His Jewish listeners were furiously enraged at him because he mentioned how GOD directed the Old Testament Prophets Elijah and Elisha to each aid foreigners when there were Jews with similar needs for help. GOD did not choose to direct either of the Prophets to help the Jews. But they only, on these two occasions that Jesus brought to their attention, helped the two different foreigners. And one of them was even a hated Syrian military officer with leprosy.

But as I was getting dressed that morning in my room, I was still undecided about the topic on which I would speak for only a short time. Because when you are speaking through an interpreter, the interpreter takes up about half the normal time. So your own talk is fairly short. Amazingly, just as I began to put my leg into my pants, I was also asking GOD about what I should speak about.

His definite answer came exactly immediately. But his answer was not in any type of soft voice. Rather, His answer was on a label professionally stitched inside of my pants. There was the unmistakable printed answer to my prayer, Hagar the business name of the company that had manufactured my pants. (And I did not know it then and it would have made no difference if I had known it, but speaking on the subject Hagar that night in Nazareth was to cause a fairly serious misunderstanding with the one time wealthy Colorado oil man who had graciously paid for the expenses of my trip. So my seeing the name Hagar was to cost my wife and I the sum of three thousand dollars three years later, the amount that he had spent on my trip that summer.

As soon as I was convinced that it was GOD's will that I speak about Hagar, I also became convinced about how I was to develop the subject. For several years I had been personally concerned about the condescending, dismissive way that western Christians had a tendency to demean the significant and exciting accounts of both Hagar and her son by Abraham; Ishmael. It was obvious to me when I thought about the amazing accounts about this Egyptian mother and her Hebrew/Egyptian son, they were also both deeply involved in the plan of GOD for man's destiny. This was despite the fact that neither Abraham nor Sarah realized Hagar and Ishmael's significance and that most of Christianity often demeans them both.

I once purchased some Christian videos that I have since lost in moving. But I became enraged and called a company representative when the children's cartoon video on Abraham showed the vicious lie that was being watched by unsuspecting children and their parents all across the U.S. The video showed the supposedly evil Hagar attempting to murder the small toddler Isaac. But somehow she got interrupted and Isaac's life was saved. Though the Scriptures reveal that Sarah and Hagar had their tensions and on one occasion Ishmael mocked his younger brother which older brothers sometimes do. But there is absolutely nothing in the Scriptures that would even give a remote hint that Hagar would have attempted to viciously murder the young Isaac. But the company representative assured me that every detail in the video stories had been checked out with reputable Christian and Jewish theologians for accuracy. So I decided that at least my strong phone protest had gotten their attention.

But back to the possibility of GOD seeing humor in His giving me instructions through the inside of my pants on what I was to speak on in the very place where His Messiah was almost murdered over 2,000 years ago. Maybe there was not even a smile, but perhaps there was a little laugh when this occurred.

The way that I decided to develop the topic of Hagar in my talk was this. I am convinced that the time is soon coming that many, many Arab Muslims will realize that their own Qur'an presents Isa as the Qur'an's Risen Messiah. But at that time more than twenty years ago I was not so aware as I am now that ALLAH in Al-Im'ran 3:55 clarifies so thoroughly what An-Nisa 4:157 was intended to mean. Nevertheless, I was convinced then and I am even more convinced now that at first thousands and thousands and soon millions of Muslims will be opening their hearts to the Qur'an's Risen Messiah.

But sadly, I have observed that most Christians do not have a welcoming attitude in their own hearts or in their own Churches toward those Muslims who even now respond to GOD's and the Qur'an's Risen Messiah. Therefore, in my talk I was using as an example of how Hagar was constantly faced with rejection. She was rejected in her home country, Egypt and was given as a present to foreign Hebrews. So she was out of her home country in the company of the strangers, Abraham and his wife Sarah and all of their foreign entourage. Then, when she became a significant part of the Abraham family, twice things became very stressful with her relationship with his first wife Sarah. First, Hagar herself initiated her dangerous venture into a cruel, lonely blazing desert to escape Sarah's harassment, where she could easily have died. But the Angel of the LORD was sent by GOD to save her.

The second time when things became extremely stressful between Hagar and Sarah (never stressful between Abraham and Hagar) both Sarah and Abraham agreed to ship her and her son into the cruel desert to hopefully not die. In my mind the rejection of Hagar was comparable to Christians not having a welcoming attitude toward Muslims who have remained Muslims, but have also warmly embraced the Qur'an's Risen Messiah. Though others like Sarah came up with reasons to reject Hagar, not for one minute did GOD ever reject ARAB Egyptian Hagar. Twice He did for her what GOD did not do for even any Hebrew woman in the entire Old Testament. That is, He communicated twice with her to save her life, once by actually appearing to her through the Angel of the LORD whom she identified as GOD and once through clearly speaking to her from heaven.

Therefore, GOD always accepted Arab Egyptian Hagar and was always there for her when no one else was. Therefore, how can Christians think that they dare to have the right to turn their back on a Muslim whom GOD Himself is always there for?

Although I thought the Christians in the Nazareth Baptist Church appreciated my message about Hagar, for them to always have their hearts open to Muslims, the person who financed my Middle East trip was not happy about me having nice things to say about Hagar and Ishmael. Because he thinks (at least he did think this way then) that GOD's will has always been since the beginning for man to never have more than one wife so that Abraham was living in sin when he took Hagar to be his wife. (Genesis speaks of Hagar being Abraham's wife.) So he strongly believes that he should not have had the baby Ishmael with Hagar. Of course he totally took the side of Sarah against Hagar. So he felt that I was very off base to be saying anything positive to Christians about Hagar because Abraham was so wrong to father a son through her.

I was shocked that he had the strong feelings that he had which he revealed to me. In retrospect, I truly believe that for me to have observed those kind of anti-Hagar and anti-Ishmael feelings out into the open was an important part of the reason GOD intended for me to speak on the subject of Hagar. So there were many legitimate opposing points of view that I could have made to his argument. But my view was in such strong opposition to his view that I felt that I had already offended enough without risking debating him and offending him more so that our relationship would be irreparably broken.

Because I did not turn out to be the mediator that he had intended me to be and because he disagreed with me so strongly about my positive comments on Hagar and Ishmael, even though he graciously financed my trip with no need to pay him back. Yet, three years later when I could get the money together, I sent him the three thousand dollars he had spent on me although he never once even hinted that I had any obligation to repay him. But I felt that I had disappointed him so much that I owed him the money.

But I remained very thankful for the Mid East trip to the West Bank (mainly Bethlehem) and Jerusalem, for it had been a badly needed eye opener for me about the attitude of Israel toward the Palestinians. Because my attitude was entirely reshaped by both what I observed with my eyes and by what I read in the Israeli newspapers.

Before my trip I had felt that any writing that I had a responsibility to do in behalf of serving GOD was mainly theologically oriented. That is, I had previously felt that my primary responsibility regarding Muslims was to attempt to influence Muslims to see that from the way certain verses were written in the Qur'an it was more than reasonable for all Muslims to believe from the Qur'an that the Messiah Isa is accessible to them because he indeed has his own new life to give them from the new life he had received from GOD through his resurrection from death.

But after observing in Israel and the Bethlehem area and in observing the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) and reading the Israel Newspapers about hostile incidences that were often occurring to Palestinians something entirely unexpected occurred in my mind and heart. That is, though this was entirely new to me, I felt an overwhelming need to use the limited new information that I had to begin in my writing to address justice issues from a Biblical perspective the best I could. So the paper that I wrote while there and later mailed copies all over the world was titled, “ALLAH's Sees the Israeli Felony”, which is on this website.

This title reflects how I was stunned at how I observed through incidents that I saw and incidents about which I read in the Israel newspapers that the Israelis had a built in disdain and hostility toward the Palestinians that I naively had no idea existed. I will not attempt to recall many of the various incidents now except for two because the other incidents are in the paper that is on this website. This is in addition to the hostile way my new friend, who was a Bible School President, and I were treated by an IDF guard when we went to an official office building for my friend to enquire about a visa for his son.

The two other incidents that I read about in one of the Israeli papers were these. Of course the positive side of the issue was that the Israeli press had enough integrity and freedom to print the stories which reflected so badly on the IDF.

One was where a somewhat over weight Palestinian father was taken to a military headquarters of the IDF. Though the father was accused of no crime, several officers jumped up and down on his stomach so often that he died of the injuries while coughing up blood.

The other incident was when a young school boy, 16 years old I believe, had an IDF soldier drop a cement block on his head from the roof of a two story building. Of course the soldiers' story was that he had accidently knocked the cement block off the roof of the building though witness' said that they saw him deliberately drop it on the boys' head. But the end of the matter was that the parents no longer had the joy of their 16 year old and he was deprived of his future.

Another issue that greatly bothered me was when Palestinians were denied building permits one time after another on some usually inconsequential technicality. But when the usually poor Palestinians finally did build a small house in which their family desperately needed to live, though there was always no good reason that they were refused the permit. Israeli bulldozers soon arrived to push the new house down while the family either wept or cursed or both. But I can't help but think about what GOD's attitude or His Risen Christ's attitude was and still is toward the Israeli perpetrators when this illegal callousness occurred or what the destroyers inevitable punishment from GOD will be.

But from what I observed in my time in Israel that confirmed what I read ancient Jews and ancient Arabs in the Old Testament, is this. That those who Western Christians have often classified as the good guys, most of the Israeli officials turn out to be the bad guys, and the bad guys, Palestinian officials turn out to be the good guys. Yes, there are exceptions. But from the way the AIPAC controls the U.S. Congress, the bad guys are always treated as the good guys, and the good guys, more often than not the harassed, exploited and stolen from (Arab Muslim Palestinians) are almost always treated as the bad guys. And that wrong headed stereotyping continues in our U.S. Congress to what I believe is GOD's great disapproval and displeasure.

I will now demonstrate how this turning truth upside down, making the good guys the bad guys and the bad guys the good guys, is being practiced by most Evangelical Christians and Christians leaning Congress persons toward the first sons of Jacob/Israel in the Book of Genesis. In contrast with the grandsons of Ishmael who were conveniently called Ishmaelites. I will show that the assumed good guys, the ten older sons of Jacob were de facto the bad guys. But in contrast the merchant grandsons of Ishmael who GOD chose to safely transport Joseph to Egypt in order to keep the whole family of Israel from extinction, though stereotyped as bad guy slave traders were de facto the good, ethical, GODly merchants if GOD's viewpoint counts.

But how can this be? Though it must be admitted that the stereotyped good guys, Israel's nine older sons when the oldest Rueben is left out, made one serious mistake that actually turned our for good, in almost murdering GODly younger brother Joseph. But other than that, according to the stereotype by Westerners, these murderous ten brothers were the forefathers and foundation of the tribes of Israel so they must have been good. But that wrong conclusion rules out the fact that GOD, being Almighty, can accomplish His Will with a shaky foundation, which nine of those brothers could have been no shakier.

No, when persons assume that the only major mistake that the older nine brothers made was their almost murdering Joseph, they are wrong. For that faulty reasoning erases the whole bloody, shameful 34th chapter of Genesis.

Murdering a whole city of men, kidnapping all of the women and children, and stealing everything in the city including all of the livestock in the field, should qualify to make the older brothers cold blooded killers, kidnapping thieves and generally hardened criminals. But usually they are classified by Western Christians and especially the Christian Congress persons, the neo-cons, the Tea Party and the majority of Republicans running for President, as always the good guys. But if these gangsters are truly always the good guy, please don't show me the bad guys. (I will not explain the horrible, shameful, and inexcusable details of Genesis 34. But I have not exaggerated about the wickedness that GOD observed occurring as described in detail in that most shameful chapter. And I am sure that GOD still recalls their massacre of innocent Arabs like it was yesterday. (Please read Genesis 34).

Now let's take a look at the stereotypical bad guys who I say were actually the good guys, the great grand children of the Arab/Egyptian maidservant Hagar and the grandchildren of her son, the man that the Angel of the LORD named an honorable name that means GOD Hears. Christians have trouble not allowing it to dominate their minds that Ishmael's quality of strong independence and being his own man would cause the Angel of the LORD to say about him, “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

We conveniently ignore the reality that approximately the same seemingly negative words could have been said about American President, Teddy Roosevelt, French General and President, Charles De Gaule, British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill and the very successful American General, George Patton. But because the word donkey was used in the prophesy, and donkeys are often stereotyped as an inferior animal, it is conveniently forgotten that the donkey was usually the chosen animal for carrying famous Kings in Biblical times. It was also the honored animal that carried both King David and the Qur'an's eminent in this world and eminent in the next world, now Risen Messiah.

So the comparison with a donkey and sometimes being involved in hostility with others, can truly signify strength rather than weakness. It doesn't at all mean that Ishmael's own grandchildren were not going to be very spiritual, ethical young men. This was in virtual, total contrast to Jacob/Israel's older sons who would have been sentenced to long prison terms or to death in modern society for their inexcusable massacre of every last man in an entire city and for the kidnapping of all the women and children.

And it is forgotten or overlooked that Ishmael's own mother twice had personal conversations with the Angel of the LORD whom she identified as GOD speaking to her. So mother Hagar passed a whole bunch of spiritual experience with GOD on to her strong minded son. And persons also conveniently overlook the significant fact that Ishmael was the very spiritual Abraham's only son for over ten years and for those ten years and several years thereafter, Abraham was pumping spiritual wisdom and truth into Ishmael's mind and heart that stayed with him all his life. And that wisdom and truth from his father, he obviously passed on to his own children and to their children. And Ishmael critics also overlook the dynamite verse of Genesis 21:20 that confirms the strong spiritual heritage of Ishmael “GOD was with the boy as he grew up”. And for those critics who wish to emphasize his hostility so that he could not get along with his brothers, he really did not do so bad despite the seemingly negative prophesy about him. Why? Because he had enough relationship and cooperation with his brother Isaac and respect for Sarah who once sent him to die in the desert, that he cooperated with his half brother Isaac in burying his beloved Dad Abraham in Sarah's own tomb. (Genesis 25:9.)

So my strong point is this. With no T.V., no movies, no radio, no organized athletics and no materialism to distract the very spiritual grandchild of granddad Ishmael and great grandsons of Hagar, those boys for hour after hour after hour heard spiritual stories bonding them to the GOD of Abraham.

Therefore, when those bad guys, the nine older brothers of good guy, Godly Joseph, sold their traumatized brother Joseph to the merchant grandsons of Ishmael, those merchant grandsons were far, far from being calloused slave traders. In contrast, they were GOD chosen, GOD fearing merchants who GOD had conveniently sent on their way to Egypt. So in GOD's wonderful pan that was totally full of Great Amazing Grace, Joseph fell out of the hands of the bad guys, his older brothers who Christians still think were the good guys. And because of GOD's grace, he fell right into the hands of the good guys, Ishmael's grandchildren, who Western Christians still assume were the bad guys. So the Genesis evidence indicates that the good guys were truly the bad guys and the bad guys have turned out to be the good guys.

Similar Unexpected Reversal Soon Coming in Muslim World

So without going into detail, here's how I am convinced a somewhat similar dramatic reversal of roles between Muslims and Christians will soon role like a tidal wave of beautiful bountiful blessing through the Middle East despite the curse that Zionist Christians being on Hagar and Ishmael's descendents which in a way many Arab Muslims in the Middle East are descendants of Hagar and Ishmael.

So here is how it's soon going to go according to what I see currently unfolding.

1.     Many leaders in Islam will soon acknowledge that they have been off base in the rigid way they have interpreted one verse incorrectly and have unwisely rejected the clear teaching of Al-Im'ran 3:55 that the Qur'an's Risen Messiah is accessible to Muslims today.

2.     The doors of Muslim hearts and Muslim Mosques will soon swing open all over the Muslim world to the Qur'an's Risen Messiah starting possibly in the Emirates and in the South and possibly spreading into Mecca.

3.     This dynamic spiritual movement that will be Qur'an's Risen Messiah Centric, will be belittled and criticized by most of the Christian scholarly institutions and by many Missionary Institutions because the movement of the Spirit will be Spirit centric, Qur'an's Risen Messiah centric and Muslim centric, but will not be Christian Establishment centric or Islamic Establishment centric.

4.     This movement of the Spirit will have many energetic, talented, spiritual, praying Muslim women who will be an important source of spiritual dynamism.

5.     Perhaps ALLAH will laugh at how Israel and the U.S. State Department and the CIA did not see this dynamic movement of His Spirit coming. Or perhaps ALLAH will weep in how it has taken so long to arrive. Or perhaps He will both laugh and weep.