(upbeat music) - Welcome back to the podcast on this Friday morning as we close out the week and we're about to close out the year too here in our final weeks of 2022. We're closing out the year with something we've never done before on the podcast. We're gonna introduce you to some of our key international partners.

Desiring God's books and articles, even this podcast get translated into dozens of languages around the world. And to do it, we need help, lots of help. And that's what we have. And so today we get to hear what God is doing in the French speaking world through our friend Daniel Henderson.

Stay tuned for that at the end of today's episode. And as you can imagine, Pastor John, based on what I just said, we are big believers in international missions and reaching the globally lost, which leads to today's question from Michael who lives in Arrington, Tennessee. Michael writes this, "Hello, Pastor John.

I've heard Orthodox preachers say in the past that God could reveal the gospel to a native tribesman who has never been witnessed to by another human. Do you believe this is true? Can we have any hope that God occasionally revealed the gospel to a particular person supernaturally without any human witnessing, say to an unreached Native American or to a Jewish prisoner of war in World War II?" And however you answer this question, how should we think about Paul's conversion by vision in Galatians 1:12?

- Let's start where Michael's question ends. He wonders about how the apostle Paul's conversion came about in relationship to how conversion comes about today through the preaching of the gospel or perhaps by other means through direct revelation, say, or through dreams. And it is a very perceptive and relevant question because Paul stresses in Galatians that his own transforming encounter with the risen Christ was not dependent on any human being, but came by direct revelation.

In fact, his entire argument for his apostleship in the first two chapters of Galatians hangs on that very fact. Here's what he says in chapter one, verse 11 and 12. "I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ." And then to underline the point of being dependent on no one except the risen Christ, he says in verses 15 through 17, "When he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia and returned again to Damascus." So the point of Paul's argument is that his unique apostolic authority over against ordinary Christians in the early church is based on his unique way of encountering Christ and being called into the ministry.

So it would be wrong to use Paul's unique experience to say that's how other people around the world can come to Christ. Paul's point is just the opposite. My dependence on no other humans is the warrant for my apostleship, not a model for evangelism. If others could come to Christ this way, my argument would lose its force.

So that's my answer to the last part of Michael's question. Paul's experience is not a model for how people can come to Christ without human input. So what about the first part of Michael's question, which is even more important? Can a person be saved who has never been witnessed to, preached to by another human?

This is a hugely important question, especially for people involved in world missions. Does God save people who have never heard the gospel through a human witness? Does he, for example, give them dreams of all they need to know about Christ to be saved? This is so important that in my book on missions, "Let the Nations Be Glad," there's a whole long, long chapter about this issue.

And we thought it was so crucial that His Desire and God and the publisher thought it was so crucial that we published a small book from that chapter called "Jesus, the Only Way to God," subtitle, "Must You Hear the Gospel to Be Saved?" So I can only mention a few pointers here, but there's more out there to read if you want to follow up.

My answer is no. God does not save people today apart from hearing the gospel of Jesus. And the reason is that God's purpose ever since the incarnation of Christ as the God-man is that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is to be the conscious focus of all saving faith everywhere in the world, among all the peoples of the world.

For example, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:21, "Since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe." It was the wisdom of God that decreed that people would not come to know Him except through the preaching of Jesus.

The incarnate, crucified, risen Son of God is so gloriously pivotal in God's purposes for the revelation of Himself in history that all saving faith orients on this Christ, and particularly as He is preached in the gospel. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," John 14:6.

The apostles proclaim that very truth in these words in Acts 4.12. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. And then Paul put the finest point on it by arguing that this saving name must be preached and heard and believed for people to be saved.

Here's Romans 10.13-17. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, the Lord Jesus, will be saved. How then will they call on Him whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how shall they hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." In other words, I don't think the Bible gives us any encouragement at all to believe that a person can come to saving faith without hearing the gospel. This is why world missions and personal evangelism are so utterly crucial.

If we ask about the role of dreams and visions, say on the mission field, the guidance that the New Testament gives us is the story of Cornelius, the Roman centurion who got a vision of an angel speaking to him that resulted in his conversion to Christianity. But Peter explains how this vision led to his salvation.

Here's what Peter says about that transaction in Acts 11:13-14. Peter said, "Cornelius told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter. He will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household." The vision from the angel was not the saving message.

The vision connected him with Peter who preached the saving message about Jesus. If God uses dreams or visions, I think biblically that's the way he's going to use them. So my conclusion is that God has mercifully provided a way of salvation through the glorious gospel of Christ. And he says to us, to missionary goers and to senders in the words of Acts 26, 17, the risen Christ now talking to Paul and really to all of us who care about bringing people out of darkness into light, he says, "I am sending you, you, you human being, I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among all those who are sanctified by faith in me." So God uses people, speaking people, acting people, loving people, God uses people to save people.

Let's be about that. - Amen, Pastor John. And speaking of being speaking people, ministry is about words, lots of words, words preached, words published, words podcasted, and of course, words translated. And to that end, we have a team of friends who labor to make Desiring God resources accessible to non-English speakers, and one of them is Daniel Henderson.

Daniel pours out his life to serve the French-speaking world, and we asked him for a ministry update. Here he is. - My name is Daniel Henderson, and I'm from Chewinigan, Quebec. I'm serving with a ministry called Pouglie-Castron Chrétien, and we exist to equip the church with resources in French to make disciples, to train leaders, and to share the gospel.

Desiring God is one of the first ministries that comes to mind for our ministry when we're looking for biblical content that doesn't apologize for what the Bible teaches. We've translated 15 to 20 books. We've translated over 200 Ask Pastor Johns. We've translated 365 Solid Joy episodes. We've done one conference in person in Paris, and we've done one online conference with John Piper during COVID.

One of the reasons I love working with Desiring God is because it's not just about projects. It's about seeing us and our team grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. It's about seeing our love for Christ increased. It's about seeing these projects actually have an impact in the French-speaking world.

Our partnership with Desiring God has been our own personal discipleship. It's been our own growing in Christ, seeing our love for Christ be increased. But it's also been Desiring God connecting us with all the other international partners and positioning us in the global community of the church. So we're not just a French publisher working on our own, but we're working alongside a Portuguese partner, a South African partner, a German partner, an Egyptian partner.

There's not other ministries doing that. That's a unique thing that Desiring God is doing, bringing us all together. It's not just handing out projects. You know, it's not just, "Hey guys, we're excited about this book. Can you translate it?" It's creating a community of international publishers that are working together, that are also keeping each other accountable, bearing another's burden, praying for one another.

It's more than just the product. And Desiring God brings us all together and gives us a bigger picture of what God's doing in the world. And ultimately, that helps us to glorify God with greater passion. - Amazing testimony. Thank you, Daniel, for your tireless and selfless labors. And if you're listening right now and you are a ministry partner with us at Desiring God, you're making Daniel's work possible.

You are, you. I'm pointing at my microphone, you. You listening right now, thank you for your partnership. And if you're not yet a partner and you want to join in what's happening through Desiring God in the English-speaking world and its overflow into Daniel's work to reach the French-speaking world, you can join us right now by becoming a monthly ministry partner.

So much of our financial support comes from friends of ours who give, on average, $30 a month to support all of our work. To set up monthly giving, go to give.desiringgod.org. That's give.desiringgod.org. It's hugely appreciated as you make it possible for us to expand our work even further in the years ahead.

So thank you. We'll see you on Monday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)