W. Robert Godfrey

They captured Spain and reached as far north as the French cities of Poitiers and Tours in 732.

So they had pushed into the very heart of northwestern Europe by 732.

There they were stopped and then pushed back south of the Pyrenees Mountains, but maintained a dominant presence there and were not finally driven from Spain altogether until 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

So, there was this explosion of energy, of intellectual energy, of religious energy, of military energy coming out of Arabia and spreading out and suddenly capturing really remarkable sections of the world.

In the ninth century, Islam spread into Persia, Afghanistan, and even into India.

and as I talked about before, eventually took Constantinople in 1453 and continued to threaten Vienna from the east as late as 1683.

The last major Muslim attack on the eastern outskirts of Vienna was in 1683.

So the threat of Islam to the West was a serious and ongoing one through the Middle Ages, and that's why in the 16th century for the Reformers it was often difficult to be sure who the Antichrist really was.

Was it the Pope or was it Muhammad?

It was a close call for a number of the reformers.

And it was easier when you had the beast from the land and the beast from the sea.

That was the Pope and Muhammad.

So it simplified things.

But there was this profound sense at times, not at all times, but at a number of times in medieval history of this rising power following a prophet

a prophet who claimed not to be entirely at odds with the Old Testament and the New Testament, but to have gone beyond the Old Testament and the New Testament.

In effect, Muhammad was the first postmodern person, post-Christian person.

Muhammad taught that Jesus was a prophet.

He was in the line of prophets, but that the New Testament had falsified things about Jesus.

so that most of what was taught in the New Testament about Jesus was true up until the point of His death and resurrection.

He did not die on the cross, and He was not raised from the dead.