Do All Religions Lead to God?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - We close the week with a very important question,
00:00:07.240 | one that we never want to assume
00:00:09.960 | and one that we never want to ignore.
00:00:12.400 | It comes to us from a new podcast listener named Kayla.
00:00:16.560 | Pastor John, is God the same God in all religions
00:00:21.480 | but in different forms?
00:00:23.080 | I've heard this said before, but what does the Bible say?
00:00:26.820 | - Let me make sure that I understand the question.
00:00:28.880 | I take Kayla to be asking,
00:00:31.540 | if we sincerely worship the God of any religion,
00:00:37.480 | are we worshiping the one true God?
00:00:42.900 | That's my rephrasing of the question.
00:00:44.780 | Or we could ask it like this.
00:00:46.700 | Does the Bible teach that the gods of other religions
00:00:51.700 | besides Christianity are real supernatural beings
00:00:58.120 | distinct from and in opposition to the one true God
00:01:03.120 | and father of our Lord Jesus?
00:01:06.840 | So those are the two ways I would rephrase the question.
00:01:10.740 | And the answer to the second one is yes.
00:01:14.740 | The Bible teaches that the gods of other religions
00:01:19.500 | are not mere names.
00:01:21.280 | They're not mere myths,
00:01:24.400 | but are in fact supernatural beings
00:01:28.520 | who love to be worshiped and want to deceive the world
00:01:33.520 | and receive acclaim and take the place of the true God.
00:01:38.000 | And the answer to the first question is therefore no.
00:01:43.900 | If you sincerely worship these gods of other religions,
00:01:48.080 | you're not worshiping the one true God
00:01:51.500 | revealed in Jesus Christ.
00:01:53.040 | So that's my answer.
00:01:54.600 | Now here's some Bible verses
00:01:56.440 | to show you where I get that answer.
00:01:58.780 | The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, 19,
00:02:04.380 | "What do I imply then?
00:02:06.560 | "That food offered to idols is anything
00:02:10.260 | "or that an idol is anything?
00:02:12.720 | "No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice,
00:02:17.720 | "they offer to demons and not to God."
00:02:22.680 | I do not want you to be participants with demons.
00:02:26.720 | So the question he was dealing with
00:02:30.480 | was food offered to idols in another religion
00:02:34.500 | and whether Christians should participate.
00:02:37.060 | And his explanation was that these sacrifices
00:02:41.000 | in the other religions in the first century
00:02:45.160 | were not sacrifices to the true God,
00:02:50.060 | as though behind every religion was the same God,
00:02:53.960 | but they were sacrifices to supernatural beings,
00:02:58.120 | he calls them demons, who were in opposition to God.
00:03:03.120 | That's what a demon is.
00:03:05.440 | So what Paul is claiming is simply a continuation
00:03:11.360 | of what God had already revealed in the Old Testament.
00:03:15.120 | There is one true God in Israel, Yahweh,
00:03:18.900 | who revealed himself by his word to Moses and the prophets,
00:03:23.900 | and there are other gods of the nations,
00:03:27.760 | real supernatural beings
00:03:31.100 | that his people were not to worship.
00:03:35.080 | For example, Deuteronomy 29, 18,
00:03:38.800 | "Beware, lest there be among you a man or a woman
00:03:42.660 | "whose heart is turning away today from Yahweh, your God,
00:03:48.320 | "or the Lord our God,
00:03:50.920 | "to go and serve the gods of those nations."
00:03:55.920 | Or Joshua 23, 7,
00:03:59.480 | "You may not mix with these nations remaining among you,
00:04:03.260 | "or make mention of the names of their gods,
00:04:06.520 | "or swear by them, or serve them, or bow down to them,
00:04:10.400 | "but you shall cling to Yahweh, your God,
00:04:14.340 | "just as you have done to this day."
00:04:18.000 | So God made it clear numerous times in the Old Testament
00:04:22.940 | from the beginning that there were other gods,
00:04:26.240 | there were other religions,
00:04:28.560 | and his people were not to assume
00:04:32.240 | that these gods are simply manifestations
00:04:34.980 | of his own true being,
00:04:36.600 | as if the same god were behind every religion.
00:04:38.780 | They were different, they were competitors,
00:04:41.460 | they were enemies, they were demonic, they are not God.
00:04:45.580 | They are contenders for deity.
00:04:48.400 | They are real supernatural demonic realities.
00:04:53.140 | And the great issue of life is,
00:04:57.040 | will you serve the one true God,
00:05:01.280 | or will you serve other gods?
00:05:03.440 | So Elijah, or Mel Carmel, put it like this,
00:05:07.280 | in the great contest between Yahweh on the one side
00:05:10.640 | and Baal, the god on the other side.
00:05:13.520 | He says, "How long will you go limping
00:05:17.300 | "between two different opinions?
00:05:18.860 | "If Yahweh is God, follow him.
00:05:23.040 | "But if Baal, then follow him."
00:05:26.660 | So Baal is not Yahweh.
00:05:29.320 | You can't say, "Oh, all those sincere Baal worshipers
00:05:33.380 | "are worshiping the true God."
00:05:34.860 | The Bible makes zero sense if that's the case.
00:05:39.460 | They are great enemies.
00:05:41.940 | So the first commandment is,
00:05:44.420 | "You shall have no other gods before me."
00:05:47.360 | Exodus 20, verse three.
00:05:50.880 | Here's the most crucial issue in our day.
00:05:54.520 | Ever since Jesus came into the world
00:05:56.940 | as the final decisive revelation of the true God,
00:06:01.940 | he himself, as he revealed himself in history,
00:06:08.440 | is the test of whether any claim
00:06:12.200 | to be worshiping the true God is a real claim.
00:06:15.840 | So for example, 1 John 4, verse one.
00:06:19.440 | Beloved, do not believe every spirit.
00:06:23.920 | So if a spirit says, "This is a true religion.
00:06:26.880 | "This is true God over here."
00:06:29.520 | Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits
00:06:33.200 | to see whether they are from God.
00:06:37.240 | Now, how are we gonna do that?
00:06:38.560 | For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
00:06:41.600 | By this you know the spirit of God.
00:06:46.080 | Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ
00:06:51.080 | has come in the flesh is from God,
00:06:54.840 | and every spirit that does not confess Jesus
00:06:57.960 | is not from God.
00:06:59.120 | In other words, the real Jesus of history
00:07:03.080 | revealed in scripture is the litmus test
00:07:06.720 | of every claim to supernatural reality.
00:07:11.560 | Any religion that does not embrace and worship
00:07:15.680 | and obey Jesus for who he is revealed in the Bible
00:07:20.360 | is a false religion.
00:07:23.440 | It is not the true God incognito.
00:07:27.600 | Jesus put it like this in John 5, 23.
00:07:30.120 | Whoever does not honor the son, Jesus,
00:07:34.720 | does not honor the father who sent him.
00:07:37.800 | No matter what they say, he's talking to Pharisees
00:07:40.160 | who really said they trusted and believed
00:07:42.680 | in the God of the Old Testament.
00:07:44.520 | He's saying, "No, you don't because you don't accept me."
00:07:47.560 | Jesus is the litmus test for all religions,
00:07:50.480 | including Judaism.
00:07:51.840 | And again, John 8, 42.
00:07:53.560 | If God were your father, you would love me
00:07:58.120 | for I came from God and I am here.
00:08:01.400 | In 1 John 2, 23, John says,
00:08:04.000 | "No one who denies the son has the father.
00:08:08.400 | Whoever confesses the son has the father also."
00:08:12.840 | So my conclusion from the Bible
00:08:15.400 | is that there are real supernatural beings
00:08:20.320 | behind other religions, but they are not the true God.
00:08:25.320 | They are contenders against God.
00:08:29.080 | They are demons and deceivers.
00:08:31.800 | And the way to test all claims to truth in religion
00:08:36.720 | is Jesus Christ.
00:08:38.960 | He is the final and decisive revelation
00:08:43.440 | of the one true God.
00:08:46.280 | - Wow, behind every religion is a supernatural being.
00:08:51.000 | That is a profound thought.
00:08:52.920 | Thank you, Pastor John, for those wise words.
00:08:55.840 | And thank you for listening to the podcast.
00:08:58.320 | Well, next time, we've got an interesting question
00:09:02.200 | on the table.
00:09:03.040 | We usually do have interesting questions on the table.
00:09:05.080 | I hope we always do.
00:09:06.920 | But this one is going to be,
00:09:09.080 | the next one is gonna be about the worship song,
00:09:11.720 | "What a Beautiful Name."
00:09:13.480 | That's the title.
00:09:14.680 | You've probably not only heard the song,
00:09:16.280 | you've likely sung it in your local church.
00:09:19.320 | We have a question about the line in the second verse,
00:09:21.320 | this line that says, "You didn't want heaven without us,
00:09:24.840 | so Jesus, you brought heaven down."
00:09:27.480 | Is that right?
00:09:28.960 | Is it right to say that God did not want heaven without us?
00:09:33.000 | It's the first time I can recall that an email came in
00:09:35.400 | asking Pastor John to evaluate contemporary worship lyrics
00:09:38.360 | of a very popular song.
00:09:40.160 | And we're gonna do that very thing next time.
00:09:43.440 | And we're gonna talk also about why we would even step back
00:09:46.880 | and look at worship lyrics in the first place.
00:09:49.800 | It's a really important discussion.
00:09:51.840 | I don't think you'll wanna miss it.
00:09:53.500 | Launching Sunday evening, about 7.30 Central Time.
00:09:56.600 | You won't wanna miss this one.
00:09:58.080 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:59.680 | We'll see you next week.
00:10:01.040 | (upbeat music)
00:10:03.620 | (upbeat music)
00:10:06.200 | [BLANK_AUDIO]