Well, first of all, thank you, Steve, for
that vitally, vitally important subject. Thank you, Chris, for such a kind introduction.
I did not know the firestorm that The Gospel According to Jesus would cause. When I wrote
that book, I was profoundly exercised when I wrote it. I will admit that. Because I felt
that the gospel was being misrepresented, and that it was being misrepresented at the
heart of the tradition that I came from. I was, I was shocked at the misrepresentation
of the gospel that I felt was coming out of the seminary that was the bastion of my own
heritage. And I will admit that I wrote that with a fire in my heart, that book. And I
remember Zondervan, that published the book and brought it out, said that they thought
it would sell about 25,000 copies. But they didn't understand what would happen if someone
stepped on the oxygen at Dallas Seminary and cut off their air. So it went way, way beyond
that initially, and did cause a firestorm. And, you know, it became a defining moment
in my own life when I came out of seminary. I had been prepared in seminary to fight battles
over inerrancy, biblical inspiration; to fight battles over what Steve was talking about,
paradigms of sanctification, true and false, and to understand what true sanctification
was. Never did I believe that I would spend my life trying to defend the gospel from evangelical
attacks. That was a total shock. And, when I wrote that, I essentially distanced myself
from my own tradition. And I wound up, for a little bit in the process of that, a lost
soul. Until, in studying for that very book, I can say that I fully, and with all the passion
of my heart, embraced Reformed theology. And it started with soteriology, at its basic,
subjective level. What does it mean to put your faith in Jesus Christ? And it hasn't
stopped. It was The Gospel According to Jesus and then I wrote an answer to all the reaction,
called The Gospel According to the Apostles. And then came Ashamed of the Gospel and the
same effort to clarify the gospel. Then came Hard to Believe, and now comes Slave, and
I just keep trying to address the fact that evangelicals are not rightly representing
the gospel. How can, after all these years, we not get that? That seems to be the reality
of it. I -- I'm very thankful that the Lord, in His wonderful providence and grace, just
kind of blended me in to this movement at the same time you were coming along, and a
few others were coming along, and Jim Boyce was raising the profile of all of these things.
And, you know, this was brand new from the category that I came from, to take on a subject
like that at that level, and take that approach. And I needed some new companions and, so,
I'm grateful. One of the most prominent preachers in America
(that all of you would know), when that book came out, called me up and said, "I have to
meet with you right now." And I said, "Sure, I'd be glad to." We went to lunch and he said,
"You have divided the body of Christ in a -- in a massive way by the writing of that
book." And I just asked him, "Is it true? If it's not true, then write an answer. Tell
me where it's not true." But the point that he was making was the point that I felt: that
there was an immediate alienation. But that's okay. This is something we have to get right.
This is something we have to get right. Some of us can be wrong about baptism. This -- this
we have to get right. Now, you would think --
you would think that, with the massive onslaught
of this great work that is pouring out of the Reformed minds, that the questions would
be resolved!; that everybody would get on board; and, as Steve said, that you'd finally
see it and then see it everywhere – the sovereignty of God in the gracious work of
salvation. But we still have battles to fight, and battles to fight at this very basic, foundational
level, around the gospel. And one of the battles is, believe it or not, the necessity of believing
the gospel of Jesus Christ to be saved. There is much movement in evangelicalism to espouse
the idea that you don't need to believe the gospel to be saved. The message of Christianity
has always been the message of faith in Christ. The content of that, objectively, is found
in the gospel facts of history, recorded in Scripture. We have always affirmed that. That
has been the core of true Biblical understanding since the New Testament. True Christians have
always believed that the only way sinners can be rescued from eternal hell is to believe
the gospel, to acknowledge Christ. For centuries, Christians have given their lives and shed
their blood to make that message known. For centuries, they have spent their fortunes
to send missionaries to the farthest corners of the world who, in many cases, have given
their lives there -- either in life or in death -- to get the one message that saves,
apart from which no-one can be saved. This is what we have believed. Salvation comes
only to those who believe the truth concerning Jesus Christ, His person and His work. And
here it is, this really pathetic irony, that in our time, with greater means than ever
to proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth, the church has become confused as to
whether that is even necessary. Embarrassed by the realities of sin and hell, fearful
of offending the perishing by calling them to repent and confess Jesus as Lord, and trying
desperately to save God from being responsible for anyone's condemnation. We have raised
questions about whether people even need to hear the gospel. After all, God loves you
just the way you are, as we heard earlier. We have questions about the lordship of Christ.
We have lots of questions about the doctrine of justification. We have confusion about
the doctrine of imputation. We have a whole lot of confusion, as well, about faith. Is
it even necessary to believe in Jesus Christ? So the question that I've been given in this
session is: 'Do people have to hear the gospel and believe it to be saved?' The biblical
answer is yes. And that's what we've always believed, and that's what we've always preached
and given our lives, generation after generation, to proclaim. However, we have some new ideas.
I'll just give you some -- some -- maybe some categories, and then maybe some people to
sort of set the scene a little bit. There is a movement that falls under the title
'Natural Theology' – you may have been reading a little bit about that – and Natural Theology
suggests that a man has natural, reasoning powers to bring himself to God, without the
Bible and without the gospel. He is able to know enough about God to satisfy a sort of
divine, minimum requirement; without Scripture. One source of that, we might understand -- this
I drew out of the L.A. Times: the Pope, interpreting the Second Vatican Council, says (and I quote),
"The gospel teaches us that those who live in accordance with the Beatitudes, and who
bear lovingly the sufferings of life will enter God's Kingdom." Close quote. We might
concede that the Catholics would believe that. The biblical teaching – that salvation only
comes in response to faith in Jesus Christ – is rejected. It is rejected as unreasonably
cruel. And the heathen are saved if they just live good lives and are sincere and, as Peter
Kreeft tried to say in Ecumenical Jihad, they are essentially monotheistic. In fact, Peter
Kreeft says in that book (endorsed by Chuck Colson and Jim Packer) that even atheists
will be in heaven if they sought to find out if, in fact, there was a god. "So don't be
surprised," says Peter Kreeft (Roman Catholic) "if you enter heaven and see Hindus and Muslims."
In fact, he said Muslims, for the most part, are better Christians than Christians. The
book is Ecumenical Jihad, endorsed by J.I. Packer and Charles Colson on the back cover. There was an interesting interview, very interesting
interview, on the Hour of Power (one of my favorite television programs – I switch
from R.C. Sproul to Robert Schuller often). One broadcast of the Hour of Power (this was
1997, and I ordered the transcript of it because I was so amazed at it) the guest was Billy
Graham – Billy Graham, the leading evangelist of the world. Billy Graham is having a conversation
with Robert Schuller and here is the conversation: Mr. Graham said, "I think everybody that loves
Christ or knows Christ (whether they are conscious of it or not), they're members of the body
of Christ; whether they come from the Muslim world, the Buddhist world, or the Christian
world, or the non-believing world. They're members of the body of Christ because they've
been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know they need
something, and I think they're saved and they're going to be with us in heaven." End quote.
That was Billy Graham, not Robert Schuller. To which Billy Graham responds again: "I've
met people in tribal situations. They've never seen a Bible, heard about a Bible, never heard
of Jesus. But they've believed in their hearts that there is a god and they've tried to live
a life that's apart from the community in which they lived." To which Robert Schuller
said, "There's a wideness in God's mercy." To which Mr. Graham said, "There is. There
definitely is." And we're not talking about something that's
on the fringes, folks. Is any of that conversation a reflection of the truth that we believe
about the necessity of the gospel? – 'Doesn't matter whether they know the name of Jesus
or have ever heard the gospel'? Perhaps on a more academic front -- if I had the choice
I'd choose to keep this there so let me fix it -- if we get on a more academic front,
we run into a man who, through the years, metamorphosed continually by the name of Clark
Pinnock. And I'm quoting from him: "When we approach the man of faith" – he started
out as an evangelical – "when we approach the man of faith (other than our own faith),
it will be with a spirit of expectancy to find out how God has been speaking to him,
and what new understanding of the grace and love of God we may discover in this encounter."
Pinnock goes on to say, "Our task, in approaching another people, another culture, another religion,
is to take off our shoes because the place we are approaching is holy ground. We may
forget that God was there before our arrival." End quote. And then Pinnock said this: "God
has more going on by way of redemption, than what happened in 1st century Palestine." Raimon Panikkar wrote a book called The Unknown
Christ of Hinduism. There's a bizarre title – The Unknown Christ of Hinduism. And in
it, he says this (and I quote, page 54), "The good and bona fide Hindu is saved by Christ,
and not by Hinduism. But it is through the sacraments of Hinduism, through the message
of morality and the good life, that the mysticism that comes down to him, through Hinduism,
is the mysticism by which Christ saves that Hindu." A popular television charismatic pastor down
in Texas, John Hagee, says the Jews don't have to believe in Christ. They don't have
to believe the gospel. They can be saved by another means. And he advocates this all the
time. A book written a few years ago and published
by Moody Press called Totally Saved, written by Dr. Tony Evans, says that people who've
never heard the gospel will be saved by being 'transdispensationalized.' He coins that word.
That is, they will be treated as if they lived prior to Christ's arrival. Have you had enough? You want more! That's
enough for me. Are we wasting our time sending out missionaries? Are we wasting our time
preaching the gospel? Are we just making things worse? Because, if they're saved without the
message, the message can only then potentiate their damnation. Now, I know that you know
that Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father but
by me." I know that you know that, John 14:6. Acts 4:12 – "There's not salvation available
in any other name under heaven, given among men, only the name of Christ, by which we
are to be saved." You know those positive things. But let's take a different approach
than just to recite those verses or I would be done now, and I have a few more minutes
to fill. So let's, let's come at this a little bit differently, and let's ask the question,
"Does the unaided pagan have, in himself, the ability to come to any saving knowledge
of God, left to himself?" Well, if you have any sensible, biblical doctrine of depravity,
you know the answer. Of course. But let's expand that a little bit and look
at some Scripture passages that I think might enrich us. You could actually start in Genesis
3, and you can always start there, but we can start there by saying that if man, by
his own reason, could know God savingly, then we would assume that there would've been a
really big advantage to Adam and Eve before they fell. Did Adam and Eve have the natural
powers in their sinless condition? Did they have, with perfect minds and perfect reason,
the capability, naturally, to understand why they were created and exactly what God required
of them? Would they have known, intuitively, what to do? What not to do? What to eat? What
not to eat? Does Natural Theology put you in line with the purposes, and the will, and
the plans, and the requirements, and the mandates of God? Many of these Natural Theologians,
I suppose, would be shocked to have to face the reality that even Adam and Eve couldn't
know what God required, and what God denied them, by any means of their perfect reason
unless God had revealed it to them. God had to tell them, "Don't eat this; eat this. Marry
this woman that showed up this morning. Name the animals. Take care of the garden." Adam is not the origin of truth. Adam is not
the origin of justice, duty, morality, meaning, beauty. The Creator God is the origin of all
of that and it was all given to him in times of special revelation, day by day when God
walked and talked with Adam. God had to come down and find Adam every day, and give Adam
His requirements. No one can understand God unaided by special revelation. And even in
his unfallen condition, he would not have intuitively been able to do the will of God
and please God if he had not heard from God what God required. And since the Fall, whatever
hope there would be for a perfect human being to know and obey the will of God is so far
corrupted that we would agree that no fallen, corrupted individual could ever intuitively
please God by his own human reasonings. Man cannot please God apart from obedience to
His revelation. And, according to the seventeenth chapter of Acts, "Now God requires all men
to repent and believe in the One He raised from the dead." Where does man, left to himself, get? Does
he get to God? Does he get to God savingly? Is God impressed with his intuition? With
his mystical meanderings through his own human reason and the collective reason of whatever
pagan community he's submitted himself to, or subjected to? Is God pleased? Is that a
path to God? Let me show you a few passages. Let's start in Romans 1. And there's a lot
that can be said about this from a lot of portions of Scripture but -- what time does
this session end, Chris? 3.30? Oh, okay well I'll tell you a few things. I just, I want
you to get the picture of Romans 1, verse 14: "I'm under obligation to both Greeks and
barbarians, wise and foolish …" What is that obligation? "For my part, I'm eager to
do" -- what? -- "preach the gospel." "I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power
of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the non-Jew."
Everyone in the world is targeted here by the apostle Paul, in this discharge of his
debt to proclaim the only message that saves – which is the gospel. He is a debtor. He
is obligated to those who are Jews, to those who are Greeks, to those who are educated,
to those who are uneducated. Because there is no other way to be saved. Verse 18, then, is that very compelling statement:
"The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." This is the problem with the human race, with
the natural man. He suppresses the truth that he has. He doesn't go from the truth that
he has to greater light on his own. He goes the other way. That which is known about God
is evident within them for God made it evident to them. He has reasoning power. He has deductive
powers which would lead him back to an original source, a first cause. He has enough reasoning
power to go back through the steps of logic, using cause and effect reasoning (which is
how we reason about everything), to go back to the first cause and understand that the
One who caused this is a glorious creative power (verse 20) with invisible attributes,
eternal power, a divine nature, and that is so evident and so obvious that man is without
excuse. Now here's the key point: this isn't enough to save him. This is just enough to
damn him without excuse. And he doesn't go from there to the truth; he goes from there
to error. He starts down. They know God. They don't honor Him as God. They don't give Him
thanks. They become futile in their speculation. Their foolish heart is darkened. Professing
to be wise, they become morons. That's the Greek word 'moron.' It is. It's a Greek word.
And they exchange the glory of the corruptible God, incorruptible God, for an image of the
form of corruptible man, birds, four-footed animals. You know the passage. So what happens is man is given reasoning
power to take him back to God. And he can know a lot about the attributes of God by
looking at the world around him – power, and beauty, and order, and structure, and
design, and personality – all of those things. And his reason takes him back to that cause.
When he gets there, he starts down, and his heart's darkened, and he corrupts what he
knows because that's all he can do. Left to himself, man is an inexcusable, religious
moron. That's where he's going to end up. And God is going to bring His judgement and
his wrath on him. Man's nature, with 'natural revelation' if you want to call it that, will
only make him a proud, foolish, empty, evil, corrupt sinner who'll have no excuse when
he stands before God. Romans 2 even says he has a moral set in his mind. He has a structure
of morality, the law of God written in his heart. But even the Jews, with the law of
God written in their heart, and the law of God written in Scripture, were judged and
condemned. So man, left to himself, with only his aided powers (aided by the corporate influence
of the community of the pagans around him), is going to end up as an inexcusable moron
who develops a false religion. Now, to further understand this (and we're
moving pretty fast because I want to cover a few of these): 1 Corinthians chapter 1 (and
there's going to be another few, so keep your Bible handy) -- 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Here,
we have another very important insight into a category of people. In verse 18, there are
two categories of people here: there are "those who are perishing," those who are present
tense perishing – that's a category of people. That's all the unregenerate people. They're
the perishing people, okay? Those who are perishing – and then there is another group
mentioned in verse 18: "those who are being saved," those who are in the process of salvation
and, while salvation is of course, at its initiation, not a process but a divine miracle,
there is, following the first phase of salvation (which is justification, regeneration, conversion,
all of that) sanctification and then glorification. So those who belong to the 'being saved' – going
from justification through sanctification to glorification – that's one category.
The other category is the 'perishing.' So let's look at the perishing and ask the question:
what characterizes the perishing? Well, the first thing we find in verse 18 is the word
of the cross is, to them, foolishness. And here we have the same word again: moron. It's
morons for whom the truth is moronic. They reject the gospel. They reject -- the word
of the cross is the gospel -- they reject the gospel. This is categorically true. Perishing
people reject the gospel. So they are inexcusably incapable of coming to God without the gospel
and, to make it even worse, if you give them the gospel, they will reject the gospel. Why
would they do that? Because the message is unacceptable. It is foolishness to them. It
is beneath them. They laughed at the apostle Paul. They mocked him. He preached Christ
all the time. And they were unimpressed by him. His presence is unimpressive and his
speech is despicable. And all he did was preach the gospel. So the category of perishing people
are spiritual, religious morons without excuse who, even when they hear the gospel, reject
the gospel because the message is unacceptable, unreasonable. It's not a rational message,
this substitutionary atonement, this salvation by a crucified Jew. Look, Paul had a horrendous
time trying to communicate that message with all the rest of the early church in the gentile
world, didn't he? You can go to the Circus Maximus in Rome and you will find the fading
remnants of an amazing carving around Circus Maximus. It's a carving of a crucified figure
with the body of a man and the head of a jackass. And underneath, the words alexa menos ('a
man bowing down') and the words alexa menos 'worships his god.' Who would worship a crucified
jackass? That was the world's view. That was a tough sell, to tell the Roman world – a
world where everyone wanted freedom in a world of slavery – that they needed to become
slaves to a crucified Jew. That's a tough sell. The whole message was idiocy. But not only is it unreasonable, it's unattainable.
Verse 19 (and, here, he borrows from Isaiah 29) – " -- "It is written, 'I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise. The cleverness of the clever I will set aside.' Where is the
wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world?" Then this statement in 21: "since in the wisdom of God the world
through its wisdom did not come to know God." You can't get to God from that path. It can't
be done. On the other hand, "God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached
to save those who believe." Friends, that's the Great Commission in different words. The
only hope of salvation is through the preaching of the message of the word of the cross, and
the hearing and believing. It's the only hope. So they had an unreasonable message. They
had a message that was unattainable from the human perspective. The message is unreasonable.
The message is unattainable. And, to make things more difficult (in verses 26-28), it
says the people who are preaching it are unremarkable. Not many wise. Not many mighty. Not many noble.
Foolish. Weak. Base. Despised. Things that are not -- things (meaning 'people') who are
absolutely nobodies. You have an unreasonable message about salvation in someone who claimed
to be God and was crucified by the Romans, rejected by the people He came to save, the
Jews, and that's supposed to be the God of the universe and the only Savior? That is
unreasonable. Even worse, it's unattainable. Even worse, its preachers are unremarkable,
and unimpressive, and unfashionable. Comes down into chapter 2. That's where he
says, "I was with you in weakness, fear, trembling. My message, my preaching were not in persuasive
words of wisdom but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power." So how is anybody
going to believe? I mean, this is impossible. This -- not only it is impossible for the
unregenerate to be saved apart from the gospel, it's impossible for the unregenerate to be
saved with the gospel. They can't get there without it and, on their own -- are you ready
for this? -- they can't get there with it! But Paul says, "I keep preaching it." Why
do you keep preaching it, Paul?! Why do you keep preaching it? His answer comes in verse
30 and 31 of chapter 1, "by … " (I love this) -- if you haven't seen the sovereignty
of God before, see it now -- "by His doing, you're in Christ Jesus." The only way anybody
will ever be saved is by His doing. Who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, "Let him who boasts"
-- what? -- "boast in the Lord." Why did the Lord design it this way? So that He gets what?
All the glory. All the glory. Paul says in chapter 2, "Look, I preach the
way I preach so that your faith doesn't rest on the wisdom of men but on the" -- what?
– "power of God." So the people in the category of the perishing would (the world of unbelievers)
aren't going to be saved on their own without the gospel. They aren't even going to be saved
on their own with the gospel. But they're not going to be saved without the gospel but,
when they are saved with the gospel, they are going to be saved by the power of God
who saves them. To add to the same kind of thoughts, drop
down in chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians, verse 11: "Who among men knows the thoughts of a
man except the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so, the thoughts of God no one knows
except the Spirit of God." I got news for you. You have no idea on your own what God
thinks. This is ludicrous. Some guy somewhere in the world, by his own mystical intuition,
is going to discern the mind of God? Not a chance. His mind is so corrupt that he thinks
like a fallen, corrupt, godless human being. And God doesn't think that way. So, the apostle
says, "The only one who knows the thoughts of God is the Spirit of God." So the only
way we're ever going to know what God thinks, and what God desires, and what God demands
is if they're revealed to us. So "we have received not the spirit of the world, but
the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,
which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the
Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts" -- listen -- "with spiritual words." Let me tell you
something. Any spiritual thought that isn't connected to a spiritual word, in the Scripture,
is wrong. Spiritual thoughts come from spiritual words. This is talking about the revelation
of Holy Scripture. Verse 16 says, "We have the mind of Christ." That's not a mystical
experience. That's not intuitive. That's the Scripture. We have the mind of Christ, the
mind of God, revealed by the Holy Spirit, and only by that can we know what God desires,
what God requires, what God demands. "A natural man" – let's go back to Natural
Theology, verse 14 – "doesn't accept the things of the Spirit of God." We're back to
the same word: "they're foolishness. He can't understand them they're spiritually appraised."
He's spiritually dead and blind. Apart from the revelation of Scripture, encompassing
the gospel of Jesus Christ, no one in the natural can find his way to God. All the best
of human wisdom leads to false religion and ignorance for which, as we saw in Romans 1,
they profess to be wise and give themselves PhDs. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 10 -- couple
more minutes here -- 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Talk about spiritual warfare day, there
are a lot of people who talk about that and they think it means chasing demons around
and telling them what to do. You really don't want to do that. You look silly, first of
all, telling demons what to do. I remember there being a big pastor's conference (I don't
know if you were there that time), and the moderator (I think you might've been there)
stood up to start this great big pastor's conference and he said, "Let's pray." And
he said, "Satan," I thought "Whoooaa!" Were you there? "WHAT!!?" I almost -- I was the
speaker! I almost fell out of -- "Who does he think he is? "Satan"? And then he started
telling Satan what to do. You know, wow. That's not spiritual warfare, chasing demons. Here's
spiritual warfare – verse 3, 2 Corinthians 10 – " … we walk in the flesh … " – and
we're not talking there about sin but rather we're human. We're human. This is talking
about ministry. How Paul did ministry. You know, we're human, but we don't war according
to the flesh. We don't use human weapons, okay? There are no human weapons that are
going to work. So " … the weapons of our warfare are not human, but divinely powerful
for the destruction of fortresses." Vivid language. We've got to have, I think the King
James says, "mighty unto God" (but 'divinely powerful' is good). Our weapons have to be
superhuman, supernatural, transcendent. We can't use human ingenuity, human planning,
human technique, human wisdom. It's got to be divine. Why do we have to go to battle
on the divine level with divine weapons? Because we're going into a very, very formidable operation
for the destruction of fortresses. Greek word 'fortress' means 'fort, prison, tomb.' Same
word. Massive, granite, stone edifices. We're trying to destroy massive fortifications in
spiritual warfare. What are they? They're described in verse 5. End of verse 4 talks
about the, as we said, the destruction of fortresses. The beginning of verse 5, the
destruction of logismos: 'speculations.' That means the fortresses are 'speculations.' What
is the logismos that the NAS calls 'speculations'? It's ideas. Ideologies, theories, viewpoints,
philosophies, psychologies, religions – any kind of idea. Further -- follow it -- even
"every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God." Spiritual war is a battle against
anti-God ideas. It's a battle for the mind. It's not chasing demons. It's battling for
the minds of people, whose minds are captive to deadly, anti-God ideologies, and ideas,
and theories, and viewpoints, and religions. We need weapons that smash error. You tell
me, what is the only thing that can destroy error? Truth. So he doesn't even have to tell
us. We get it. We have to go with divine truth. Supernatural, divine truth. And what is our
goal? If we're going to do evangelism – this is another Great Commission passage – we
have to smash all wrong thinking about God and take "every thought captive to the obedience
of" -- whom? -- " … Christ." There is no other way for people to be delivered. People
are -- they have fortified themselves in their damning ideologies. Those fortifications become
their prisons, and then become their tombs. If we want to rescue people, we have to smash
those ideologies, and replace them with the truth about Christ, and call them to obedience
to Him; bringing every thought captive to Christ. No matter how you come at this in
the Bible, you always end up with the necessity to proclaim the truth concerning Christ. That
is the only thing that frees people from the imprisonment that their damning ideologies
hold them in. Go back to 1 Corinthians for a moment. We
may not get past Paul's letters to the Corinthians, but there's one other very formidable passage
to mark here, and it draws on Deuteronomy 22, and it draws on Psalm 106. But it's 1
Corinthians 10:19. Paul is talking about this whole problem of food offered to idols. Down
in verse 19, he says an idol isn't anything. No. An idol isn't anything. We agree with
that. It is a fabrication. But an important thing to understand is: when people sacrifice
to idols, when they worship their idols, their false gods, could we say that that's the best
they can do, and that's the most revelation they have, and they're trying their best,
and God will accept that? That He will accept that as worship of Him? Because they don't
know any better? Will He say, "That's okay. You were trying to worship, and I'll let that
be a substitute for me"? I don't think so. Verse 20: "The things which the nations sacrifice,
they sacrifice to … " -- what? Yeah, " … demons." That's demon worship. That's what Hindus do.
That's what Jehovah's Witnesses do. That's what Mormons do. They worship demons, not
God. That's where you go with Natural Theology. That's where you go with that kind of thinking.
You end up worshipping demons every single time. Demons. Demon worship. When I was in
Russia, I was meeting with a group of pastors in a closed session – all the leading pastors
of the evangelical churches in Russia – and they said (because they hadn't really had
a lot of training), they said, "Isn't Allah the same as Jehovah God?" And I didn't know
the question would come up. I said, "No. No he is not." Those who worship Allah worship
demons. There is no 'Allah' -- al-ilah (the god). There is no Allah. There is only the
demons that impersonate Him. Natural Theology will get you to worshipping demons, and before
God, without an excuse. The only way to be saved is through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Why do you think Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature"?
That's the only way. I wish I had time to talk about Romans 10.
That was the best part of this message! Wow! You took all my time, Steve! No, you didn't.
Faith -- no, no, I can't do that. I've got to catch an airplane. I've got to preach at
church tomorrow, so -- Look, Romans 10 -- let's sum it up: "Whoever calls upon the Lord shall
be -- "? "Saved." "How will they call on Him -- if they haven't heard?" You need more?
"How can they hear if they don't have a …"? " … preacher." "How are they going to have a preacher -- unless
they're sent." This isn't brain surgery. It's why we've been doing this for 2,000 years;
sending preachers to the ends of the earth, right? Because faith, saving faith comes by
hearing the message concerning Christ. We'd better pray. Let's pray. If I get my
second wind, we're all in trouble! Father, we thank You from the depths of our
hearts, that You're word is so clear. We love it. We love it so deeply. And what we love
about it is its life-giving power. And that comes because it's clear to us. Not because
we're noble, and mighty, and brilliant. Not because we're the elite minds, but in its
majestic simplicity. Its message is unmistakable, so that a wayfaring stranger, though he be
a fool, need not err. So that even a child could understand. The world must hear the
message of Jesus Christ. May we never be so content with our theology, never so content
with our privilege of being saved by sovereign grace, that we forget that our great God has
not only saved us, chosen us, but He's chosen us to be the means by which He will save others.
Make us faithful in the relentless proclamation of the glorious gospel of Christ, for His
honor and glory, forever and ever. And everyone said, "Amen!"
