Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. We are going to close out the week with an email from a listener named David. "Hello Pastor John. Up until his crucifixion, Jesus faced more opposition from the Pharisees and others with an unhealthy religious spirit than he did from the Romans and the secular society around him.

Do you believe that in a similar way the greatest opposition to God's kingdom today comes from within the church or within the religious world more so than the secular world?" Pastor John, how would you answer this question? I think the best way to answer that question is to say that the point of greatest conflict with the advance of God's saving rule, God's kingdom, is not the church or the world, but rather to say that the point of greatest conflict with the advance of God's rule will always be the very place where the point of the spear of truth is penetrating the sphere of unbelief and unrighteousness and intruding upon the dominion of darkness.

In other words, there's nothing peculiar about religion or irreligion that makes it stand in opposition to the gospel. What always stands in opposition to the gospel is sin and its root in unbelief. And that unbelief and that sin may be found in the world and it may be found in the institutions of religion, including the churches.

So the reason the gospels tell the story of Jesus in a way that shows how much conflict there was with the Jewish religious establishment, which were embodied in the scribes and Pharisees and chief priests, is not because they were less receptive than the Romans to the message of Jesus, but because Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

In other words, the reason there was such resistance from the Pharisees is because that's where the spear of truth was pointed. Jesus wasn't doing any evangelism among the Greeks and Romans. He was doing evangelism among his own people, because that's what God said to the Jew first, then we'll get to the Greeks very quickly.

We get a pretty clear glimpse of the reception that Jesus would have had if he had focused on the Romans by looking at Pilate and Herod, who became very good friends when they were formerly enemies in their common animosity to Jesus. And it was, as everybody knows, on a Roman cross where Jesus died.

So the implication of what I'm saying is this, because that's what I've been asked, what's the implication? The implication is if the true radical, whole counsel of God's revelation begins to penetrate a church that is full of worldliness and unspirituality and nominalism, with no passion for the gospel, no zeal for the lost, no heart for missions, no brokenness because of its own sinfulness, no fervor in worship, no love for the scriptures, if the true radical, whole counsel of God's revelation begins to penetrate that church, there's going to be plenty of opposition.

And it might feel to a faithful pastor as though, "Good grief, I'm getting more opposition in the church than on the street." On the other hand, if that radical, true, whole counsel of God's revelation is proclaimed in a secular venue, like a university classroom or a businessman's gathering or a PTA meeting or a non-Christian religious venue like a mosque or a Hindu temple in Minneapolis, say, if that true, radical, whole counsel of God's revelation is proclaimed with conviction in those non-Christian settings, there will be plenty of opposition.

So I doubt that we should have a mindset that says, "More opposition is going to come from the church," or, "More opposition is going to come from the world." Opposition is going to come from sin and unbelief wherever it is found to the degree that our message is true and radical and full and faithful to the whole counsel of God in Scripture.

So I think the final implication then would be this. Let's not fret about who our worst enemies are. Let's look upon every person and every group as a group who needs the gospel, church or non-church, and let's make it our aim to penetrate the darkness of unbelief and sin by the faithfulness of our preaching and our witnessing, whether in church or in the world.

And it may be, it may be that in God's power and His mercy, He would cause a nominal church to explode, not with opposition, but with awakening and reformation and joyful renewal. And it may be that in our neighborhood or in our other non-religious connections, God would be pleased by His power and mercy to bring about a stunning sensitivity to the gospel and eagerness to hear the truth.

So let's never talk ourselves into defeat in either case, as though we knew where opposition were coming from and where it's going to be more prevalent. It will come from unbelief. It will come from sin. It will come in the church. It will come in the world. But the gospel is the power of God unto salvation in the church and in the world.

And you never know, you never know what triumphs may lie ahead. Amen. That is hopeful and full of faith in the power of God. Thank you, Pastor John. Well, we publish this podcast three times a week, and you can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our episode archive, and even reach us by email with a question you may be having about the dangers and pressures that we face as Christians along the path of faith.

You can do all that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well, we're going to break for the weekend now. And when we return on Monday, we have a question from a female listener to the podcast who is single, and she wants to know if her singleness, her ongoing singleness is pointing to a deficiency within herself.

It's a deep question rooted in deep insecurities, and it's an important question that we will address on Monday with longtime author and pastor John Piper. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. Desiring God.org/AskPastorJohn Page 1 of 11