Humbly Handling the Offense of the Gospel with Non-Christians

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:05.000 | A podcast listener and a friend of ours, a woman, writes in, "Dear Pastor John, I live in Singapore,

00:00:11.000 | a multiracial and multireligious small country in Southeast Asia.

00:00:16.000 | Nonbelievers sometimes feel the gospel is offensive or extreme because we say that Jesus is the truth

00:00:22.000 | and the only way to heaven.

00:00:24.000 | I have had people reply by saying, 'So are you saying my religion is fake or I will go to hell

00:00:29.000 | when I die?' All religions teach good things. We should respect all religions."

00:00:35.000 | So how should we handle such a reply, especially in the latter comment about respecting all religions?

00:00:42.000 | In my society, I find it sensitive to tackle and to discuss this topic.

00:00:47.000 | What would you say, Pastor John, about handling the offense of the gospel in a pluralistic society?

00:00:52.000 | I think the first thing to say is that the gospel of Jesus Christ, as the Bible presents it, is offensive.

00:01:01.000 | And it is extreme until God opens the eyes of the heart and calls people out of darkness,

00:01:10.000 | the darkness of rebellion, into the light of faith.

00:01:14.000 | For example, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:23, "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews

00:01:24.000 | and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,

00:01:31.000 | Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God."

00:01:34.000 | The words "stumbling block" and "foolishness" are very similar to the accusation that the gospel is offensive

00:01:42.000 | and extreme, and it's true until the calling of God opens their eyes to see the good news.

00:01:50.000 | We need to settle it in our hearts that we are willing to be criticized and even persecuted

00:01:57.000 | by bringing the best news in all the world and having it characterized as foolishness.

00:02:04.000 | That has happened everywhere the gospel has been preached for 2,000 years.

00:02:11.000 | Some believe and rejoice in the gospel as the greatest news in the world.

00:02:17.000 | Others do not see it and regard it as the height of arrogance.

00:02:22.000 | So our friend there in Singapore points out that some people stumble over the claim that Jesus

00:02:30.000 | is the truth and the only way to heaven.

00:02:34.000 | And I think one helpful way to relate to this criticism is to communicate before you hear it

00:02:43.000 | and after you hear it the amazement, communicate amazement, that God would supply any way of salvation.

00:02:55.000 | Not that he didn't supply ten, but that he would supply any way of salvation to be reconciled with him.

00:03:04.000 | In other words, Christians should shift the amazement away from the fact that there's only one

00:03:12.000 | to the fact that there's one! There's one!

00:03:15.000 | This should stun the Christian. If it doesn't stun the unbeliever,

00:03:19.000 | and that sense of amazement might affect the conversation.

00:03:25.000 | Because I think often they feel we're coming with this smug sense that we've got only one thing.

00:03:33.000 | It's like, "Are you kidding me? God Almighty stepped into the world to save sinners!"

00:03:41.000 | The Apostle Paul was unashamed to walk into Athens and all of its deities and all of its competing religious allegiances

00:03:50.000 | and preach like this, verse 30 of Acts 17.

00:03:54.000 | "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,

00:04:00.000 | because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.

00:04:07.000 | And of this he has given assurance by raising him from the dead. Now when they heard this, some mocked,

00:04:15.000 | and others said, 'We'll hear more about this.'"

00:04:19.000 | So the response he got is the kind of response we can expect everywhere.

00:04:24.000 | Some mock and some are interested.

00:04:29.000 | When I hear the kinds of questions that our friend in Singapore is posing,

00:04:35.000 | it makes me think that perhaps the most helpful thing to draw attention to would be

00:04:40.000 | that Christianity is a different kind of thing than religion.

00:04:47.000 | Christianity is news. It's news about a historical event.

00:04:54.000 | Just like you'd say, "Did you hear what happened last week?"

00:04:57.000 | Namely, the incarnation of the Son of God, his life, his death for sins, removal of the wrath of God,

00:05:07.000 | his dying, his resurrection. It includes his triumph over death and hell and sin and Satan.

00:05:15.000 | And so the provision for reconciliation and salvation and eternal life with God

00:05:22.000 | was brought about by this great work of Jesus Christ in history.

00:05:29.000 | Jesus is alive, ruling in heaven today.

00:05:32.000 | He'll come back unexpectedly to earth to judge the living and the dead.

00:05:38.000 | This is not a religion. This is news of God's action in history to save rebellious human beings

00:05:45.000 | who do not glorify God by trusting and loving and worshipping and obeying him.

00:05:50.000 | So how should we respond if somebody says, "So you're saying my religion is fake?"

00:05:56.000 | Well, one response would be to use the analogy of someone who comes to the hospital with a book of sayings

00:06:06.000 | and someone who comes with an antibiotic to help the person who's dying of pneumonia.

00:06:14.000 | Now, the little book of sayings is not a fake medicine. It's not a medicine at all.

00:06:20.000 | It's another kind of thing. But another person comes with an antibiotic.

00:06:24.000 | This is a medicine. The aim is to save the patient from death.

00:06:30.000 | One person has a book of sayings to help the person live well until they die.

00:06:35.000 | Another person has a medicine to save the person from death.

00:06:40.000 | It's not a matter of what's fake. They're two different kinds of things.

00:06:45.000 | That's the way it is with Christianity and all world religions.

00:06:50.000 | It's another kind of thing. What about responding to the statement,

00:06:55.000 | "Are you saying I will go to hell when I die?"

00:06:59.000 | Well, you might respond by saying, "The whole point of the Christian religion

00:07:04.000 | is that all people are going to hell when we die. We're all going to hell.

00:07:10.000 | We all deserve God's judgment because of our sin.

00:07:15.000 | You will not go to hell because of your religion.

00:07:20.000 | If you go to hell, it would be the same reason I would go to hell.

00:07:25.000 | We're both sinners. We have both offended God.

00:07:28.000 | We have both failed to love Him and trust Him and honor Him and glorify Him and obey Him,

00:07:33.000 | and therefore our sin is infinite because His honor is infinite.

00:07:37.000 | You and I are in the same condition. Hell is not about religion.

00:07:43.000 | It's about God's justice and His response in justice to all of us who have failed to glorify and thank Him."

00:07:51.000 | And then, against that backdrop, you declare that nevertheless,

00:07:57.000 | God in great love and at great cost has entered into our misery in order to rescue anyone who believes in His Son.

00:08:06.000 | And then if she says, "Well, what about the response, 'All religion teaches good things'?"

00:08:13.000 | And the answer is certainly, "Well, yes, but this again is a confusion of categories.

00:08:21.000 | Christianity does not offer itself to the world mainly as a superior set of teachings.

00:08:28.000 | It offers itself to the world as a message, as news about a redemption and a resurrection

00:08:35.000 | and an eternal life in history through the death and resurrection of the Son of God.

00:08:41.000 | We don't need to get bogged down in arguing who has better teachings.

00:08:46.000 | The issue is who has a historical intervention of God into this world to bear the sins of man

00:08:53.000 | so that salvation can come to undeserving people.

00:08:56.000 | That's the question, and only Christianity has that message.

00:09:01.000 | And it's the same with our response to the last statement.

00:09:04.000 | She said, "We should respect all religion."

00:09:07.000 | Well, one could say it depends on what a religion claims to be.

00:09:12.000 | If it claims to have a better remedy for man's greatest problem, we want to hear it and respect it.

00:09:22.000 | Christianity is not first a set of religious practices and ethical teachings that demands respect.

00:09:29.000 | It's news, the best news in the world about the coming of the Son of God into the world

00:09:35.000 | to bear the sins of man and absorb the wrath of God and reconcile rebels to their Creator.

00:09:41.000 | So, the sum of the matter, it seems to me, in relating to people of other religions,

00:09:47.000 | the sum of the matter is keep bringing the conversation back to the biggest problem humans face,

00:09:55.000 | the wrath of God because of our sin.

00:09:59.000 | The greatest question is, has God done something in history so that our sins can be forgiven

00:10:08.000 | and His wrath can be averted and undeserving people like us Christians can have eternal life?

00:10:15.000 | So, it's not about a superior religious set of practices or teachings.

00:10:20.000 | It's about, has God acted to reconcile rebels to Himself?

00:10:26.000 | Amen. What an incredible message of glory entrusted to us and urgently needed in the world.

00:10:33.000 | May we be given boldness in this work by the Spirit to explain sin and God's wrath

00:10:38.000 | and the answer that can only be found in Jesus Christ. Thank you, Pastor John.

00:10:43.000 | Well, do you have a concise question of your own?

00:10:46.000 | If so, go to our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn

00:10:52.000 | and there, look for the button where you can email that question into us.

00:10:56.000 | So, if Jesus was not a sinner in need of repentance, why was He baptized?

00:11:02.000 | It's a simple question, but a perplexing question too.

00:11:05.000 | And we will find out tomorrow.

00:11:07.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

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Humbly Handling the Offense of the Gospel with Non-Christians

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