How Have You Processed the Sin of Ravi Zacharias? // Ask Pastor John

[Music] our first email arrived on october 3rd from marcus in los angeles and since over the past eight months another 100 emails followed all of them asking about the ravi zechariah sex scandal our emails can be basically boiled down into three questions pastor john how are you processing the tragedy yourself how should we think of his ministry legacy now and what would you say to those who are shaped deeply or were even converted through his influence so even though you're you your two ministries didn't overlap much you got a lot of emails about this like this one a representative email from a listener named jonah hello pastor john with the substantiated allegations of sexual immorality in the life of ravi zacharias how should we process it and respond to it the initial impulse seems to be to delete him to ignore him and to never talk about him again but that's not what we do with david a man after god's own heart who infamously committed sins of lust and adultery leading to pregnancy deception and murder david is a man of great faith we talk about and celebrate today despite his serious sins is it wrong to defend contemporary spiritual leaders in spite of their sexual sin does the death of a teacher factor into this decision as in would it be more dangerous to defend a living teacher susceptible to greater failures also i know a number of people who have come to faith because of ravi what would you say to encourage a believer now enduring the trial of having their spiritual father torn down because of his own sin well let me begin with perhaps a word about why i would be so slow to speak one of the reasons is wanting to know everything i should know and the other is i just cannot imagine the sorrow that family members and very close associates must feel and for for people to publicly assess and criticize a husband a father a very long-term friend must be horrible and so now i'm going to be a part of that and so i i get it i mean i just i think the person is right to ask this question those hundred people are right to ask okay piper you knew him how are you responding in your heart and mind to this so here we go let me begin with some biblical background of gospel ministers who for a season spoke the truth in useful ways and then made shipwreck of their lives and indeed their faith these illustrations that i'm using from the bible i'm i'm thinking here of judas demas and haimonius all of whom are explicitly named by jesus and paul according to john 12 verse 4 judas was very critical of mary's anointing jesus feet with an expensive perfume and um he said why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor and john comments he said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was the thief and having charge of the money bag he used to help himself from what was put into it so in other words for a long time but three years say judas was abusing the lord's trust by stealing what others had given to the ministry and i assume that during all this time he was preaching the gospel of the kingdom that he was sent out two by two with others that he worked miracles that he enjoyed the most intimate conversations with the son of god jesus christ all the while being a son of perdition john 17 12. judas deception was so exceptional that none of the other 12 even suspected him of sedition and betrayal because they would they were stunned at the last supper when jesus said it's one of you who's going to betray me they didn't all look at judas and say oh of course he's a jewish he was he was a master of deceit and what if among the many people who were converted into followers of jesus some of them had been healed by judas and had responded to his preaching with faith in jesus which was his preaching was so orthodox so apparently authentic no apostles were looking at him saying well judas never gets it right they they weren't he was getting it right he was preaching the truth unless anyone think that a phony apostle can't do miracles remember the words of jesus in matthew 7 22 on that day many will say to me lord lord did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name and then will i declare to them i never knew you depart from me you workers of lawlessness and those works of lawlessness would of course include things like pervasive deception greedy lavish use of ministry funds harmful manipulation of other people for your own private pleasures adulterous dalliances continually making provision for the flesh against the explicit command of the apostle in romans 13. and then there's demas twice we hear from paul that he is a faithful partner in gospel work alongside paul colossians 4 14 luke the beloved physician greets you so does demas he greets you philemon 1 23 epiphus greets you and so do mark aristarchus demas and luke my fellow workers demas is ranked as a fellow worker in the gospel alongside luke of all people and then in his last letter ii timothy 4 10 come these horrible words demas in love with this present age has deserted me and gone to thessalonica so it appears that for several years demas was a trusted gospel partner with paul just like judas was with jesus during that time there's no reason to think that he didn't preach the gospel truly and that people came to faith along with faith through paul's preaching otherwise paul would have sent him home like he did john mark you go home you're not ready uh demas and he never he never did that but there came a time when demas true colors were revealed namely what he really loved it was not true spiritual reality but only what this age was offering him through religious work things like association with notable people access to money experiences of power accolades for eloquence commendations for courage there are plenty of worldly pleasures to be had doing so-called otherworldly work but demas decided to stop playing the game and he abandoned paul and then thirdly there's haimanius in first timothy 1 20 paul says to timothy wage the good warfare holding faith with a good conscience that's i'm underlining that with a good conscience by rejecting this namely faith with a good conscience some have made shipwreck of their faith among whom are haimonius and alexander whom i have handed over to satan that they might learn not to blaspheme they appeared to have faith well what happened they did not hold faith in a good conscience what does that mean it means that over time they begin to do things for which their conscience condemned them but instead of repenting they found ways to dull their conscience until their conscience was so seared that they could justify behaviors which were simply appalling even to the point where paul said they made shipwreck of their faith a double life lived contrary to the christian conscience is a shipwreck about to happen so the lessons from judas demas and hymeneus are many here's here's three one soul-saving christ-exalting truth may be spoken by hypocrites two forsaking a good conscience is prelude to moral disaster three the amassing of money and the pursuit of lavish lifestyles in ministry are the alarm bells of the love of this age now let me make two observations specifically about ravi in particular first ravi's way of publicly narrating his past personal experiences really troubled me um i always found him difficult to listen to for that very reason his rhetorical style was very distinct in this regard go to listen to any of his his sermons you'll hear it he would recall an encounter with someone and then he would proceed to narrate the interchange with exact quotations so and so said this and then i said this and then so and so responded with this and i don't recall him cautioning the audience that actually these are approximations at best of my memory and what was actually said i don't like that kind of pretense of precision in remembered narration it sounded careless to me at best and dishonest at worst at any rate it really made me uncomfortable and looking back i can't help but wonder if it was a symptom of looseness with truth about his experience here's a second observation and it's way more important than what i just said there's a lesson to be learned from ravi's manipulation of people a lesson to be learned about the need for tethered sympathy and what i mean is this every time sympathy is called for it needs to be tethered to the truth so that it is given lavishly sympathy is given lavishly when the truth calls for it and is withheld when the truth clashes with it and we usually think of this issue of tethered sympathy with regard to the victims of abuse who finally step forward at great risk and tell the truth and at that moment it can be very controversial to say that there should be tethered sympathy sympathy that abounds and blesses and helps and heals in accord with truth but it seems to me there is another lesson to be learned namely a lesson about the value of tethered sympathy upstream from the crisis of revealed abuse namely the point at which the abuse was happening how did ravi manipulate people into sinfully sending him nude pictures how did he manipulate people into sinfully providing him with sexual stimulation he did it by demanding untethered sympathy he portrayed himself as an embattled burdened wounded warrior in the righteous cause of the gospel and ironically he turned his position of power into a form of neediness and woundedness and then he tried to coerce untethered sympathy under the guise of calling for kingdom therapy for the wounded warrior now i have seen this kind of manipulation tony i have seen this kind of on this demand and manipulation for untethered sympathy repeatedly among fallen christian leaders the burdens are so great the wounds are so many those who understand me are so few the weight of faithful ministry oh it is so great i deserve some relief have some sympathy on this poor wounded warrior empathize with your embattled hero i need your body if i'm to carry on in the lord's work to which the administrative assistant or the old college flame or the teenage boy in the locker room should say that's disgusting don't ever talk to me like that again my sympathy is not for sale it's tethered to truth and righteousness and i think the last thing i would say to those who came to christ under ravi's ministry or who had their faith mightily strengthened by what he taught is this don't let the imperfections and failures of men turn you away from the perfections and the triumphs of christ who will never never fail you amen and amen christ does not fail us thank you pastor john for your willingness to address this uncomfortable topic and uh thank you to the hundred or so listeners who emailed and thank you for your patience in waiting for the right time for us to address it thank you for joining us today you can ask a question of your own search our growing archive or subscribe to the podcast all at desiringgod.org forward slash ask pastor john and thank you for listening to this special episode of the podcast we'll see you next time

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 306,090

Rating: 4.8720489 out of 5

Keywords: Desiring God, John Piper, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Christian Hedonism, Ask Pastor John, APJ, Processed, Sin, Lust, Accusation, Ministry, RZIM, Ravi Zacharias, Spiritual Leadership, The Power and Effects of Sin, Abuse, Deception, Hidden Sin, Fallen Leader

Id: OgwMPGvcN_0

Length: 15min 36sec (936 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2021