What a privilege that is, to be called and
sent by God to proclaim his glorious truth. This February will be 40 years of ministry
at Grace Community Church. 40 years, that's pretty amazing when -- you -- I appreciate
that. You should be applauding the people who have endured all of this for all these
years. But what a great privilege, and what a joy. And one of the highlights, of course,
of my life (over many years now) has been the friendship with R.C. and the opportunity
to minister in Ligonier conferences. Many places, including the National Conference
in Orlando, and being here with you. I'm just honored to be a part of this great event. Now, I know you've heard a lot, and you have
a lot more to hear today. I want to just kind of begin our morning, maybe as we just sort
of spiritually wake up, with a bit of a Bible study. That's my favorite thing to do. So,
if you can just take the sermon idea out of this and just look at our time together as
if we were gathered in a somewhat informal place, and we were just going to look together
at the Scripture. And I want to point you in the direction of the Scriptures around
the theme of the exclusivity of the gospel. One of the strange realities in my life, that
I never really anticipated, is that I have spent so many years, preached so many messages,
written so many books trying, in a sense, to hang on to the gospel while it's under
attack from so-called 'evangelicals.' When I was in seminary, you know, we were kind
of prepared to battle with liberalism, and we were prepared to defend the inerrancy of
Scripture. We were prepared to be able to defend the true ministry of the Holy Spirit,
and get the right paradigm of sanctification, and deal with the sort of initial movement
of what we now call the 'charismatic movement.' We were learning how to address issues of
liberalism, and counter-Catholicism, and deal with the cults. But the gospel seemed to be
sort of a settled issue in the evangelical world. Certainly, that is no longer the case,
and the word 'evangelical' has reached proportions now where it really doesn't mean anything
because it's so ambiguous. But if you look at surveys that are done by these various
groups that do that, you will find that somewhere between 45 percent and 65 percent of so-called
evangelical Christians are convinced that Jesus is not the only way to heaven. This
goes counter to our tradition, our theology, and Scripture, as you know. But here we are,
as evangelical Christians, defending the exclusivity of Christ. And this is a movement that's not
diminishing. It is a movement that is escalating, in a postmodern world where tolerance dominates
everything, and everybody has a right to his own opinion, and there is no universal truth
and no absolutes. This kind of fits perfect. So I think we need to be able to deal with
this. There are so many attacks on the gospel, as
I look back over the books that, through the years, I wrote. The Gospel According to Jesus,
followed up with The Gospel According to the Apostles. Followed that up with Hard to Believe.
Followed that up with The Truth War. Threw in Ashamed of the Gospel. Half a dozen books
dealing with the gospel. To say nothing of the fact that there have been hundreds and
hundreds of other books written endeavoring to clarify the gospel, and to demand adherence
to the gospel, if you're going to call yourself a Christian. But there is a widespread ambiguity
about the gospel, and there are some very popular, prominent evangelical leaders who
are apostles of this ambiguity, who are content to leave the precision out and have a kind
of gospel that is like soft clay that you can sort of shape into any form that satisfies
you. Now, we can get some things wrong without severe, eternal consequences. We can't get
this wrong without severe, eternal consequences. The heart of our faith, of course, is the
gospel of salvation, and we must understand the gospel as the gospel truly is in its saving
reality and its saving power. True Christians have always believed and taught that you can't
be saved from eternal hell unless you hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and believe that
gospel. You cannot be saved. That is what believers in Scripture have always affirmed,
always proclaimed, always embraced. Look at Romans 10, if you will, and let's
kind of start there. And I want to do this in a sort of a backward fashion, if I can,
as we look at the Scripture. Rather than affirming the exclusivity of Christ (which we certainly
can do on a positive note), I want to show you what the Scripture says about any other
attempt to be saved. So, looking at it more on the negative backside of it. But a good
place to start is in Romans 10 because Paul begins by saying, "Brethren, my heart's desire
and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation." And of course he's talking about
Israel: 'My prayer is that Israel would be saved'; which assumes that they are not. Now
these are not pagans. These are the people who had the Old Testament, believed the Old
Testament, believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, believed in the God who
created, the God who gave His Law, the God who is the Redeemer of Israel. This is the
nation of people who had the Old Testament -- the only existing revelation from God,
written down and passed down -- and they, with that revelation, and with their faith
in the true and living God of the Old Testament (the true God), were not saved. They were
not saved. You will hear today, if you listen to people like John Hagee, and others, that
Jews don't need to believe in Jesus. They have another path to salvation. Not according
to the New Testament. Not according to Jesus, who continually pronounced judgement on them.
Even as He walked to the cross -- on the road to the cross, while the professional mourning
women were weeping over Him, doing their duty, he turned to them and said, "Don't weep for
me. Weep for yourselves." It was crystal-clear that Jesus saw the whole nation of Israel
as apostate. And they believed in the Old Testament. And they believed in the God of
the Old Testament, as revealed in Scripture. But that's not enough. They had misrepresented
the Old Testament and come up with a system of salvation by works, as we all know. Saving
faith is something more than believing certain things which are true. The problem is, as
you flow down in this text, and you do a little bit of pathological study of a non-saving
faith (it's something that I mentioned to you last night) -- they have a zeal for God
but not in accordance with knowledge. It doesn't do anybody any good to have a zeal for God
if it's not correct. If it's not precise. I was really amazed when I watched the Rick
Warren interview with Obama and McCain and Rick Warren said to McCain, "You say you are
a Christian. What does your Christian -- what does your Christianity mean to you?" And he
said, "It means I'm saved and I'm forgiven." What does that mean? By what? By whom? From
what? To what? In another interview (and this is very popular) -- I've heard people say,
very prominent public people, "Well, my faith is a very private thing." Let me tell you
something: if your faith is a private thing, it's not the Christian faith, and it's not
a saving faith. Jesus said, "If you confess me before men, I'll confess you before my
Father who is in heaven." The right answer to the question what does your Christianity
mean to you is: it means to me that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. He is my Lord and
my Savior, and there is no other lord and there is no other savior. That's the right
answer. What was even more disturbing to me was the comment of Pastor Warren, who said,
"Oh, that was a 'gimme!'" Like, 'that was so simple. You got it right. We don't need
to carry that any further.' Now I don't know what he believes, but I know that that is
the kind of comfortable ambiguity that has now captivated supposed Christianity today;
where you basically don't have to commit to anything because you might be intruding on
someone's sensibilities because they might disagree with you. They had a zeal for God, and they were the
chosen people. But it was not in accordance with knowledge. And what was wrong with their
knowledge? Verse 3 -- "not knowing about God's righteousness." They didn't understand how
righteous God was (and I pointed that out last night). And so they went to seek their
own righteousness. In other words, they thought God was less righteous than He was, and therefore
they were able to be righteous enough to please God. So they didn't understand the full essence
of the righteousness of God. They didn't understand their own sin and inability. They didn't,
therefore, subject themselves to the righteousness of God. They didn't really come under the
threat of divine righteousness in a beatitude attitude -- the attitude of the publican (Luke
18) pounding his breast in horror over his own wretchedness and saying, "God be merciful
to me, a sinner." They thought they were good. They thought they were so good that God was
low enough to accept that goodness. They had a warped view of salvation, do you understand
that? They had a warped view of salvation; a warped view of God's righteousness (essential
to understanding salvation); a warped view of their own unrighteousness, thinking that
they could attain to salvation by their own effort. They had a misunderstanding of the
cross of Christ. They didn't understand that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness;
that the only way that we will ever be righteous is through the One who satisfied the Law perfectly.
So they got their theology wrong, they got their hamartiology wrong, and they got their
Christology wrong, and their soteriology wrong. And they also didn't understand that this
righteousness is available, according to verse 4, "to everyone who," what? "believes"; that
it's not by works, it's by faith. So here is this sad statement by Paul, that, with
all of the revelation that they had, with all the truth that they had concerning the
one, true and living God -- and they were monotheists -- they were not saved. Their
lostness was so wrenching to the heart of Paul, that in the earlier chapter (at the
beginning of the ninth chapter), he says, "I wish that I myself were accursed, separated
from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." He agonized
over the lostness of Israel. Now if you follow the flow here, we learn
a little later in the tenth chapter (verse 13), that "whoever will call on the name of
the Lord will be saved. But how then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher?" In other words, you can't be saved unless you believe. You can't believe
the right thing unless you've heard it. You can't hear it if somebody doesn't tell it
to you. And that is why those who preach are so beautiful -- "How beautiful are the feet
of those who bring glad tidings of good things" -- because you can't be saved until the message
arrives that you must believe. So verse 17, you know the verse: "So, then,
faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." And Chris, you said that
this morning: the gospel is outside of us. It is not intuitive to us. It is something
we have to hear. And somebody has to be the spokesman for that hearing. And when you look
at the history of the gospel-faithful church, you go back and you see the uncountable amounts
of money, millions of believers through the centuries who have spent their resources,
who have sacrificed their lives to take the one and only message of salvation concerning
Christ to the edges of the earth. Many of them martyred. Many of them burned at the
stake. In just a couple of decades, Bloody Mary burned at the stake 283 Christians because
they would not agree that the actual body and blood of Jesus was in the host and the
cup. They burned them at the stake. What, you think this contemporary evangelical world
would want to give its life for that? You think people would be burned at the stake
to hold on to the fact that transubstantiation is a fantasy, and the misrepresentation of
the truth? The mentality today of this sort of postmodern, kind of emerging, ambiguous
evangelicalism is an assault on the integrity and the sacrifice of believers through the
ages, who were willing to die for the precision of the truth. You think about all the translation
work that's gone on. All the printing. All the preaching, teaching, evangelizing that's
been the church's mission since its birth at Pentecost -- an unrelenting effort to use
every means available to take the gospel to every creature, as we've been mandated in
the Great Commission. Was this waste? Was this folly? Was this useless? Was this redundant?
Unnecessary? Here we are, at the start of this new millennium, and we have now greater
means than in the history of the world to spread the gospel, don't we? Greater means.
Radio, television, tapes, iPods, CDs, DVDs. On, and on, and on it goes. Printing, mass
printing. Mass distribution. We can get it everywhere, and get it there fast. And at
just the time when we have the means -- the likes of which the church has never known
-- to spread the gospel all over the world, we have no interest in doing that, because
we think that people are probably going to be okay even without the gospel. This is really
an embarrassing thing. Very embarrassing. The church has taken the shallow approach,
motivated by shallow understanding. And, in many cases, a synthetic gospel is being propagated
that doesn't have the power to save because it's not the truth. Now all of that indifference toward precision
and clarity in proclaiming the gospel has basically kind of come out of some theological
views, or it's defended by some. Let me give you a couple of them: Natural Theology -- there
is a -- there's a big movement in what is called 'Natural Theology' -- that is, man
has innately, intuitively, inside of him, the natural reasoning powers to come to God
and be saved without the Scripture. That's right. Without the Scripture and without the
gospel. Advocates say that man can discover the existence, and the nature, and the attributes
of God (in Romans 1), and that is true. And human reason will lead you back to God, because
human reason functions on a 'cause and effect' structure (and cause and effect eventually
leads you back to the primary cause). You can know a lot about God. You can know something
about His power by looking at the world, in its macro and in its micro sense. It is true.
So they go further and say man thus becomes capable of knowing enough of the truth of
God to satisfy God without the necessity of divine revelation. He sort of 'finds his way'
to God. It's nice if he has the Bible. It's nice if he has the gospel. It's not necessary.
Here's a news report from the Vatican -- Vatican City, from the Los Angeles Times: "Tempering
a controversial Vatican declaration on salvation, the Pope said this week that, "All who live
a just life will be saved, even if they do not believe in Jesus Christ and the Roman
Catholic Church." Well you're saying, "Oh, but the Roman Catholic Church has always believed
that." The Pontiff, addressing 30,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, asserted the Second
Vatican Council's liberal interpretation of the Bible's teaching on salvation. Quote (the
Pope): "The gospel teaches us that those who live in accordance with the Beatitudes -- the
poor in spirit, the pure of heart, those who bear lovingly the sufferings of life -- will
enter God's kingdom." End quote. "The Pope appeared to take a far more inclusive approach
to salvation than the declaration of Dominus Iesus, September 5th, by the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy. The declaration
caused dismay among non-Catholics involved in interfaith dialogue by asserting that their
rituals, insofar as they depend on superstitions or other errors, constitute an obstacle to
salvation." End quote. So that the idea is this: false religion may be a barrier to salvation,
but people, apart from the Bible and the gospel, can be saved if they can work their way around
the barrier. By the way, the Roman Catholic Church was basically led into that by the
heretical Thomas Aquinas, who adopted Aristotelian kind of philosophy. Officially adopted as
the position of the Roman Catholic Church in Vatican One. Present, of course, in the
new Catholic Catechism. The Biblical teaching that salvation only comes in response to faith
in Christ is rejected as unreasonable and cruel. People are saved if they live good
lives and are sincere in their beliefs, whatever they are. Well, so much for the Catholics. Here is an
interview between Billy Graham, (beloved Billy Graham) and Robert Schuller. This interview
was recorded on tape and video: Dr. Graham: "Well, Christianity and being
a true believer -- you know, I think there's the body of Christ, which comes from all the
Christian groups around the world (or outside the Christian groups). I think everybody that
loves Christ, or knows Christ (whether they're conscious of it or not), they're members of
the body of Christ. And I don't think that we're going to see a great, sweeping revival
that will turn the whole world to Christ at any time." He says further, "God's purpose
for this age is to call out a people for His name. And that's what God is doing today.
He's calling people out of the world for His name. Whether they come from the Muslim world,
or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are 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 in their hearts that they need something that they don't have.
And they turn to the only light they have, and I think they're saved, and they're going
to be with us in heaven." To which Dr. Schuller replied, "What I hear
you saying is that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into a human heart, and soul,
and life, even if they've been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible.
Is that a correct interpretation of what you're saying?" Dr. Graham: "Yes, it is, because I believe
that. I've met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations. They've never
seen a Bible, or heard about a Bible, have 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 was quite apart
from the surrounding community in which they lived." Dr. Schuller: "This is fantastic. I'm so thrilled
to hear you say this. There's a wideness in God's mercy." Dr. Graham. "There is. There definitely is." That was on The Hour of Power, by the way.
It's kind of a shocking thing, isn't it? -- when the proclaimed leading evangelist in the world
believes that you don't need the Bible, or Jesus, to get to heaven. Another expression that is used -- different
from the Natural Theology, but corollary to it -- is -- you'll hear people write and speak
about a wider mercy. There are theologians that insist that the historical New Testament
view is too narrow. Developing this Natural Theology -- that there's something innate
within man that can get him to God, to satisfy God (which, again, is the same problem you
had in Romans 10, right? Because even the Jews, who had the Scripture, didn't get salvation
apart from Christ. How could people who not only didn't know Christ but didn't have the
Scripture receive salvation? That's the problem with this Natural Theology -- Wider Mercy
says, "But you have to understand that God is more tolerant." Clark Pinnock writes, "When
we approach the man of faith (other than our own), it will be in 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 ourselves discover in this encounter. Our first task in approaching another
people, another culture, another religion, is to take off our shoes because the place
we are approaching is holy. Else we find ourselves treading on men's dreams. More, we may forget
that God was here before our arrival." And he adds, "God has more going on by way of
redemption that what happened in 1st century Palestine." This depreciates the Trinity. This depreciates
the Incarnation, depreciates the work and atonement of Christ, denies the uniqueness
of the Bible, denies the necessity of gospel truth, substitutes the same old philosophical
junk about the 'universal logos' at work in all religious systems. You say, "Well, how
can people believe this?" Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes
to the Father but by Me." Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by hearing the word of Christ.
For there is no salvation in any other. For there's none other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). How can people say this? This is a twist on Scripture. But these kinds
of writers -- including many more prominent ones today than say, Pinnock, whose heyday
was a little in the past -- say that the basis of salvation is not knowing Christ, for most
of the world. Raimon Panikkar writes, "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, through the mysticism that comes down to him through Hinduism,
that Christ saves the Hindu." That's in a book he wrote called The Unknown Christ of
Hinduism. There's a book that came out a few years ago, written by Tony Evans, called Totally
Saved. In that book, he said that God saves people around the world without the Bible,
without the gospel, by 'transdispensationalizing' them -- it's a coined word -- by 'transdispensationalizing'
them. That is, in God's mind, He just shifts them out of this age into a pre-cross age,
or even a pre-law age. In other words, he wants to save them so much that he'll, in
His own mind, stick them in any economy in the past that doesn't require the Scripture
or Christ. Now, enough of that. What does the Bible say
about this? Well, there are a lot of passages we could look at, but I think probably most
helpful to start by going to Romans 1. Back to Romans 1. It is true that God reveals Himself
in creation. That's in Romans 1. It is true that God reveals Himself in conscience, a
moral law written in the human heart. That's in Romans 2. But that does not mean that man,
on his own, based on that natural revelation, can be saved. The knowledge that man has of
God -- manifest in the creation, and revealed in the moral law that is behind the function
of his conscience -- is not enough to save. It is only enough to damn. Romans 1:18 -- "the
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." The sinner, in his natural condition, is dead
in trespasses and sins (and dead means dead -- he can't respond). He is blind, ignorant,
double-blinded by Satan -- according to 2 Corinthians 4 -- so that the glorious light
of the gospel can't penetrate the darkness. And so when this sinner, by his reason, concludes
there is a first cause, there is a God -- a powerful God, a mighty God -- and, when in
his own mind, he recognizes there are certain moral rights and wrongs, this, in itself,
will reveal to him that there is a God, and that that God is a law-giving God. But what
does man do with that truth? Does he innately have the capability to move from that to salvation?
No. He suppresses it. He suppresses it in unrighteousness because he is, in his nature,
wicked, corrupt, sinful, and incapable of any true righteousness. Yes, "that" (verse 19) "which is known about
God is evident with them; God made it evident to them. His invisible attributes, His eternal
power, His divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been
made so that they can be saved." Is that what it says? "So that they are" what? "without
excuse." That's enough information to damn you, but it's not enough to save you. Verse 21 -- Even though they know of God,
they know the reality of God -- there is no sanity in saying, "There is no God" -- you're
left with the equation Nobody times Nothing = Everything (that's intellectual insanity).
So you ultimately come back to God. And "even though they knew God," (that there is a God
who is powerful, and who is a law-giving God) "they did not honor Him as God or give thanks.
They became empty in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Whatever
faint glimmer of light appeared on the path of reason and conscience went black. At the
heart of the whole system of Calvinism, at the heart of the whole Biblical understanding
of salvation, is this great recognition. This is the most important doctrine, I think, of
all. If you get this one wrong, you're going to mess up everything that comes afterwards.
Man is utterly unable to believe in the truth by himself. That's the issue. People always
get stuck on the sovereignty of God in salvation. You'd better get, before that, the right kind
of understanding of the sinfulness of man. And then you will understand that the only
way that man could ever be saved would be if God blasted into his life, and gave light
and life to the dead and the dark. So what happens is they dishonor God. They're not
thankful. They become empty in their speculations. There's complete darkness in their hearts.
And, of course, they profess to be wise. They become fools. "They exchange the glory of
the incorruptible God for an image." And he goes on to talk about idolatry. So what is this? God has placed in man evidence,
from reason, that He exists -- evidence, from moral law and conscience, that He exists -- and
what do sinful men do with that? The only thing that sinful men can do with that: pervert
it, shut it down, blow out the faint, flickering light of reality so that they are not able
to be saved. They are just able to be justifiably condemned. And they make their choice, and where do they
end up? Verse 24 -- they wind up in sexual lusts, dishonoring their bodies. Now, just
to give you kind of an overview of this text: this is the story of human history over, and
over, and over, and over. This is everybody's history, every group of people. This is how
they all respond. Like Acts 14, God has allowed the nations to go their own way. Just -- this
is all throughout history. Cycling, cycling, it's the same, old story. All men have reason
to take them to the knowledge of God, conscience to take them to the fact that God is the law-giver,
and they have a certain accountability. But they suppress it, they override it, they corrupt
it, they pervert it, they don't follow it, because they're incapable of that. And, instead,
they wind up in sexual lusts (verse 24). Verse 25 -- "they exchanged the truth of God
for a lie, worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.
Amen." They reject the light of truth, and they believe a lie. Because that's all they're
capable of, really. For this reason, further (verse 26), they
fall into not only sexual sin but homosexuality. It goes on to describe this homosexuality
in these two verses, leading with women. And that's the worst. Women tend to be reluctant
lesbians, because they're instinctively mothers and wives. So the fact that they're listed
first means that this is a severe overturning of normal instincts. And then, of course, he follows up with they
don't want to acknowledge God (verse 28). God just let them go. So what do you get with
an unaided pagan? You're going to end up with immorality, homosexuality, depraved mind,
unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice,
gossip, slander, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient
to parents. The point is (and it goes on) -- the point is, this is where your natural
theology leads you, unaided by God. They suppress what it true. They don't follow it to more
and more enlightenment on their own strength, and by their own ability. Another passage is 1 Corinthians chapter 1.
And I could say more about that one. That's one of my favorites. (That's what your pastor
says when he's just run out of material.) Brethren, we could go on and on. He hasn't
got another thought or another note. How do I know that? I'm not telling. Now, to compound the problem, man, by his
own intuition, cannot find God, will not find God. He will, rather, end up perverted. Verse
18 of 1 Corinthians 1 -- "The word of the cross is, to those who are perishing, foolishness."
Even when he is presented with the gospel of the cross, it is, to him, foolishness.
So man, unaided, in his natural condition, without the gospel (Romans 1), is not going
to come to the truth of God. Man, in his natural condition, given the gospel, is not going
to believe it. It will be foolishness to him. On the other hand, "But to us who are being
saved" I love that phrase. We are passive, in a sense, in this, aren't we? "To us who
are being saved" By whom? By God. To us who are under divine compulsion, this gospel becomes
"the power of God to salvation." You can't get saved by your own powers. Verse 19 -- "It is written, 'I'll destroy
the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.' Where is
the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?" Bring 'em on! Bring
on the finest minds, the most articulate communicators, the best debaters. Give me the elite, and
I will show you a group of fools. Because the best that they can attain -- Who are these?
Well, let's just assume they are the great philosophers whose names we all know. And
where did it lead them? If you haven't read Paul Johnson's book The Intellectuals, you
ought to get it and read it. Understand that Western civilization, as we know it, was shaped.
It's a series of stories about certain individuals like Rousseau, and Kant, and others who affected
Western culture. And what strikes you is how brilliant they were, and how vile they were
sexually. Bring all the great minds! Line them up! And they will not attain to the truth
that saves. Verse 21 (one of the most important verses
in this section) -- "Since, in the wisdom of God, the world, through its wisdom, did
not come to know God." Philosophy is the love of wisdom, but you can't get to God by your
own wisdom. It can't save. Only the message of the cross saves, and the message of the
cross is perceived as foolish. It was a stumbling block to the Jews to think of a dead Messiah,
a dead Son of God, killed by God. That was absolute ridiculous folly, and a stumbling
block. But it was foolishness to the Gentiles as well. What characterized a god was immortality.
Jesus couldn't be a god. That's why, if you were to go to Circus Maximus, even today,
and look at one of the little stone etchings that is still there in its faded form, you
will see that, in a guardhouse in the past, they carved a picture of a crucified donkey
-- body of a man and the head of a donkey -- and a man below, representing a Christian,
bowing down, and then the words 'Alexamenos worships his god.' A crucified jackass. That's
what the elite of the Greek world thought of the gospel. It was foolish. So you can't get there with just the knowledge
of God that comes through natural revelation, as Romans 1 says. You can't get there even
if the preaching of the cross comes to you because it will be, to you, a stumbling block
and foolishness. So there isn't any path that the natural man, in his unaided condition,
is going to find to get him to God! It can't happen. The only people who believe -- boy,
this is so powerful -- verse 23 of 1 Corinthians -- "We preach Christ crucified." Doesn't work
with the Jews. It's a stumbling block. Doesn't work with the Gentiles. It's foolishness.
With whom does it work? Verse 24 -- "to those who are" what? "the called." The called. And
who are the called? Verse 27 -- "But God has" what's the next word? "chosen." And then it
says it again: "God has chosen." And then it says it again, in verse 28, "God has chosen"!
The only people who can believe are the ones to whom God has given an effectual call because
they were His chosen. Why is it this way? Verse 29 -- "So that no man should" what?
"boast." I love verse 30: "By His doing you are in Christ Jesus." Isn't that great? By
His doing you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness,
and sanctification and redemption." So, if you're going to boast, boast where? In the
Lord. Give Him the glory. These passages point to us the very clear
truth -- point the clear truth to us -- that the unaided natural man can not do anything
to discern and then attain salvation. There is no salvation apart from the gospel of Jesus
Christ, but even the gospel of Jesus Christ is foolishness to the natural man. So chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians -- "When I came
to you, brethren, I didn't come with superiority of speech and of wisdom, proclaiming to you
the testimony of God. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and
Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, much trembling. My message, my preaching
were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power."
He says, "I preached Christ" (verse 5) "so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom
of men, but on the power of God." It is God's power moving in, and penetrating the heart
with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul said that's the message. It is a wisdom
none of the rulers of this age know. It is a wisdom that only comes from God. No person,
by natural reason or religious intuition, can come to know the truth of God. No person,
on his own, can even believe the gospel. It will be a stumbling block. It will be foolishness.
Unless he is called, and chosen, and regenerated. Go to a few verses down in chapter 2. Verse
14 -- "But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness to him; he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised," and
he's spiritually dead, I might add. The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit
of God. They're foolishness to him. Here's the key phrase: he cannot understand them.
You must come to the gospel to be saved, but you can't on your own. It is a work of God.
It is a work of God. If you will look with me, at Acts 17, we'll
continue our little Bible study here (and I've got a couple more passages, if I have
a minute or two). And let's be explicit about this. Paul comes up in the midst of the Areopagus
and -- (this is a place where all the philosophers and leaders of the city gathered together)
-- said, "Men of Athens, I've observed you're very religious in all respects"; (which, I
might add, is useless to you) "I was passing through, examining the objects of your worship,
I found an altar with the inscription 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What, therefore, you worship
in ignorance, I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since
He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He
served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life
and breath and all things." And he goes on to define this God who (as in Romans 1) is
not far away, and His existence can be discerned. "For in Him" (verse 28) "we live and move
and exist. Even some of your poets recognize this" -- that there is a God who has created
us. But it comes down to verse 30, "Now, therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance,
God is now declaring to man that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day
in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He appointed, having furnished
proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." He says, now, God says the only way to access
salvation and His kingdom is to be believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, including the
resurrection. God commands all men everywhere to repent and embrace the gospel. Now turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 -- (maybe
squeeze in a couple of other passages that deal with this). You remember, in the Corinthian
church, there were perhaps many people there who would come to worship on the Lord's Day
and partake in the Lord's Table, and then they would go, another day in the week, to
an idol feast in one of their idol temples they formerly frequented. And in verse 19,
Paul, speaking on this subject, says, "What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to
idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No. But I say that the things which the Gentiles
sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God." This is a sweeping statement. If
you don't make a true sacrifice to God, you have made a sacrifice to? Demons. If you worship
any other than the true God, and the true Christ, you are a demon worshiper. This is
the very opposite of this Natural Theology, this Wider Mercy concept -- that, somehow,
these Hindus, and Buddhists, and people in other places, through their intuition, and
their understanding, and their natural reason, and their spiritual inclinations are finding
their way to God. That is the opposite of the truth. They are demon worshipers. Oh they
may not identify them as demons. I don't think, I don't think false religions -- none of them
identify themselves as worshiping demons. If you're a Muslim, and you're worshiping
Allah, you're worshiping demons. Demons. Demon deceivers, and impersonators of the true God.
Demons are behind all false religion and they work in all false systems. Father of lies:
Satan. And he's an angel of light, right? And his ministers are angels of light disguising
themselves as bearers of the truth. 2 Corinthians 10: 3-5 says that these demons
erect fortifications, false ideologies that become the prisons and the tombs of the people
who believe them, and that our job, using not carnal weapons, but weapons that are mighty
unto God (meaning divine truth) -- our job is to smash the fortresses down, and rescue
these people, and lead every thought captive to whom? Christ. If you're caught in a fortress
of Satan, it is a damning fortress. The same word for 'fortress' is the word for 'prison.'
The same word for 'fortress' and 'prison' is the word for 'tomb.' Your fortress, your
ideological fortress becomes your prison and ends up as your tomb, unless you are rescued
and brought captive to Christ. All false religion is demonic, and people are not, through the
means of false religion, ascending to God. They are descending to demons. The Old Testament
speaks about this. Deuteronomy 32:17, Moses wrote of those who "sacrificed to demons who
were not God." You can also see that in Psalm 106, verse 37. Deuteronomy 32:21 -- God said,
"Israel made me jealous with what is not God. They provoked me to anger with their idols"
-- because they were worshiping Satan, and the kingdom of Satan. So when you think of
a Buddhist, or a Muslim, or a Mormon, or a Hindu, or Jews, don't think of them as making
the best effort they can to worship the true God. They're demon worshipers. God is not
in those idols. Satan is in those idols. And that's the perception we must have. Well, maybe that's enough, although there
are quite a number of other things that could be said. Let me just close with 2 Thessalonians
1 because, in this passage, we have a statement about judgement. Verse 7 talks about the return
of Christ. Just pick it up in the middle, "when the Lord Jesus" (2 Thessalonians 1:7)
"when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire"
-- who's He going to judge? Verse 8: He's going to deal out retribution "to those who
do not know God," kai) 'even,' "to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus,
and these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction." That's just unmistakeable. If
you don't know the true God, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will feel the fury
of God. So Natural Theology is sufficient to tie you
to demons and damn you, not sufficient to save. I suppose I would have to say it is
one of the greatest (if not the single greatest) grief to my own heart that we have just chopped
the legs out from under missionary endeavor, with this kind of heretical theology. At a
time when we have the resources (financially), when we have the means (technologically),
when we have the opportunity (transportation), when we have a global village so adaptation
is easier than it's ever been, we found a way out by saying, "They're okay the way they
are." In fact, some have gone as far as to say, "Don't take them the gospel because,
if you do and they reject it, they might be in trouble." "If you confess with your mouth
Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be
saved." Father, we thank You for Your truth. We thank
You for the clarity of it. We are so grieved when Your name is dishonored, when false religions
come along (and are clearly false and anti-Scripture). We grieve for the people that are lost there.
But it seems so much worse when people undermine the gospel and call it 'Christianity.' It
brings such dishonor on Your name. May it be, Lord, that we are faithful to the truth
of Scripture, faithful to the gospel. And would You, Lord, raise up a great force of
people who, being faithful to that gospel, can be mightily used to bring that message
(which alone can save) to the ends of the earth. And we pray this, believing that You
want Christ to be exalted. And we ask You to exalt Him among the nations. Give the church
a heart to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, because men will perish without
it. And make us a part of that, starting where we are. And we thank You for this privilege
in Your Son's Name. Amen.
