Is Jesus Really the Only Way?

So is Jesus really the only way? That is a topic we'll discuss today right here on the Christian Worldview radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. I'm David Wheaton, the host of the program, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. We're so glad you joined us today for this actually most important topic of, is Jesus really the only way?

You know, there's no more important question, as I mentioned, but no more resisted question than that. Is Jesus really the only way to God in heaven? Now, the Bible explicitly states that Jesus is the only way.

Here are just two examples. In John 14 6, this is what Jesus said about himself. I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. Or John the Baptist in John 3 36 said about Christ, he who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son or believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Now, there are many sincere, devout people all over the world who worship other gods or follow other spiritual paths, doing good works and for their God and for their neighbor. Surely these people are not kept from heaven because they don't have the correct accurate biblical belief about Jesus Christ, are they? And what about those people who have never even heard of Jesus in other parts of the world?

How could a good God consign them to eternal torment? Well, this weekend on the Christian worldview, Tim Barnett of the apologetics ministry, Stand to Reason, joins us to discuss the exclusivity of Christ in our pluralistic world, along with some other apologetic questions as well. Tim is one of the speakers today at the Lakes Free Church Worldview apologetics conference in Lindstrom, Minnesota, which is just north of the Twin Cities. And also today, we have a special live audience here in the Christian worldview studio. We have 21 students from Nebraska Christian School.

We do this annually. And so we just want to have the students say good morning to our audience here. Good morning. They're all a little sleepy out here.

What do you expect from teenagers? When I was a junior high school, I barely be able to stumble in at eight o'clock in the morning, but we're glad to have them here. And they also have some questions for our guests today. So let's get Tim on the line here. And Tim, welcome to the Christian worldview. We're glad to have you take some time away from the conference to come with us this morning for this special program. Tim, let's start off by just giving us a sense of your background, how you became a follower of Christ, and what you do now. Sure.

David, first off, thanks for having me on your show. I actually grew up in a Christian home, but typical to a lot of young Christians, this kind of typical testimony, you know, they were attending church, they were present physically, but not really present mentally or spiritually. And so growing up, my faith was quite shallow, you know. We often talk about being a mile wide, but an inch deep.

Mine was an inch deep and an inch wide, you know, that kind of thing. And so I ended up going to university, really not knowing my faith. I couldn't answer basic questions. What's the gospel? You know, deity of Christ, resurrection.

I wasn't familiar with any of the arguments for these kinds of things. And so when I got to university and I went to a secular high school and then I went to a secular university, I was studying physics, very smart friends from very diverse religious backgrounds or no religious background. And they actually asked me, you know, one of these memories that I'll never forget, because it's quite embarrassing. One of my friends asked me, he said, Tim, you know, you go to church every Sunday. And that was my routine.

That was what I did. And they said, so you're a Christian. Why are you a Christian? And my response was, I'm a Christian because my parents are Christians.

And here I am, you know, I was 20, going on 21 at the time. And, you know, it was such an embarrassing moment for me because here I am, I was used to giving reasons when it came to science and when it came to what I was studying. But then here I was on this, you know, my Christian faith, and I could not give a defense. And so I ended up going home from that experience and searching out answers.

And of course, you know, where else do you go? I Googled it, you know, and started looking online and stumbled upon some different ministries, apologetic ministries, also stumbled on, you know, Richard Dawkins and many of these other guys on the other side. And fortunately I got myself equipped to answer some of these challenges. I'd come back to school and I'd talk to my friends about these things. And what ended up happening was I was doing apologetics.

And I was loving it. And so I left teachers, I left getting my degree, my four-year degree, in physics. And I went to Teachers College because I wanted to be a high school science and math teacher. And I did that for some time, but I was always drawn to this area of apologetics, this ministry.

So I was doing that on the side, maybe on the weekends. I do a talk here, I talk there. And it just grew to the point where I was able to go full time in apologetics ministry. I travel around North America speaking and I work for a ministry that actually helped me. When I was a student in university, Stand to Reason, they were one of the ministries I went to, their website.

And Greg Kochel is the president. He's got a radio show where he would talk to skeptics and Christians and answer their questions. And I thought, no way, here is a thoughtful Christian. In my whole church upbringing, I hadn't experienced a thoughtful Christian like this answering tough questions until I was in my early 20s.

And it was a shock to me that these guys were out there. How could I have gone through Sunday school? I was basically born into the church. We were at church on Friday nights for youth group, Sunday mornings, obviously for church and Sunday school.

And we had a midweek program. But how could I not be exposed to the why questions? Not just here's what to believe, but here's why we actually believe these things. And so that's what I do now.

I have a passion for it because I want to see especially young people be able to answer those why questions, the questions that I couldn't answer. Well, we have a studio full of young people here this morning from Nebraska's Christian School, the junior class, and they have some excellent questions for you that I'm going to mix into our questions as well. Tim Barnett, again with us today here on the Christian Rule of You from Stand to Reason, str.org is their website. Tim's from Canada. We'll get into more of that later.

A couple questions about what's going on north of the border. Now at the apologetics conference, Tim, you're giving three messages. The first is on the heavens declare the glory of God, I think you may have done that last night.

If God, why evil? And then the third question, which we'll really focus on today more a little later is Jesus the only way? And I'm going to mix some of the student questions in.

They wrote me some questions on some paper, and I'll mix those in today. I'll start with the first one on God's existence, the heavens declare the glory of God. One thing you often hear is about science, that science is fact, and faith is more preferential. So what exactly is science? And why are science and faith not incompatible?

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's a great question. This is one of those questions that a lot of students especially struggle with. It's important to define what we mean by science and faith. Science can be referred to as just the scientific method. Here's how we do science, here's the process, and whether you're doing physics or chemistry or biology or geology, the method might look a little different, okay? There's nothing about the scientific method that is opposed to Christian faith, okay?

You're basically making observations and coming to conclusions, and the disciples did that kind of thing, all right? But science is also being used more philosophically, and what I mean by that is there are some in the scientific kind of establishment that are defining science in such a way that you must come to naturalistic conclusions or materialistic conclusions, and what I mean by that is there's no supernatural allowed, and so on that definition, well, you know, there might be an incompatibility, but that's a definition that's imposed on science. So, I'm at a conference here with a cold case homicide detective, J. Warner Wallace, great apologist, and he would say, you know, if someone was killed at the conference here, at the church here, and the detectives all show up, and they say, look, your top priority is to find the killer, and then he says, so use your methodology, you know, forensic science, CSI, that kind of thing, so they get the rubber gloves out, and you know, they're going to do the CSI thing to find the killer, and then the chief of police says, oh, one more thing, you can't implicate anyone taller than six foot three, and then, of course, the question would be, well, what if someone taller than six foot three did it?

He said, no, you can't charge anyone. Well, I think this is what's going on in science, and I mean, there's the quotes to back it up from scientists who are very candid about this. Look, we cannot allow a divine foot in the door, one professor said. When we search out for explanations, it better be a naturalistic explanation.

So, that's the first point. Science, if we just understand it as making observations and coming to conclusions, the scientific method, no problem with faith, but here's the other problem. Faith is defined by the world as believing something without evidence, believing in what you know ain't true, okay?

That kind of thing. Well, it turns out that's not biblical faith. That's blind faith. That's how the culture uses it, but the word faith has changed its meaning, just like the word awful. The word awful, a century ago, meant to be full of awe, but I didn't wake up this morning, turn to my wife and say, honey, you look awful. That's a bad idea because the word awful has changed its meaning.

It means unpleasant or distasteful today, and so it's come to mean the exact opposite of what it used to mean. Well, it turns out with the word faith, the same thing has happened. In the first century, when John used the word faith or belief, he meant the word trust.

That's what it literally means, trust, and you trust something based on evidence. In fact, I'll give you one example from scripture. At the end of John, the Gospel of John, John tells us why he wrote his gospel. He says, you know, many other signs were done in our presence, so he says, these are written, well, why'd you write, John? These are written so that you may believe and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John wrote an entire gospel, an entire book of the Bible, so that people would read about the signs and wonders. They'd read the evidence that Jesus did and come to believe. Does that sound like faith is against the evidence? Of course not. Faith is all about the evidence, okay?

It's trusting once you have the evidence, and so on that view of faith and a proper understanding of science, they're completely compatible with each other, and so a Christian today who's a scientist should just be excited about what's going on in the sciences. Well answered. Tim Barnett with us today here on the Christian Real View talking about, is Jesus really the only way? That's one of the apologetic questions we'll just get into. Before that, we're talking about God's existence. Next, we're going to talk about the problem of evil.

We have a student question about that, so we're getting close to our first break, so I think I won't get into that until right after this first break here of the day on the Christian Real View. Again, we're joined by the junior class at the Nebraska Christian School in Central City, Nebraska. They're here in the Twin Cities for their annual World View trip, and part of that trip is sitting in on a live broadcast of the Christian Real View radio program. If you're listening this morning and want to know more about the conference that our guest Tim is speaking at, that's the Lakes Free Church World View Apologetics Conference. They still have some room.

I think it's going to be pretty full, but they still have some room. If you're interested in doing something this Saturday morning here in the Twin Cities, go up to Lindstrom, Minnesota at Lakes Free Church, and you can go to their website, lakesfree.org, and that conference is going to be going on all morning until about 12 15, so you're certainly encouraged to take part in that. Okay, let's get to our first break of the day here on the program. Stay tuned. We have much more coming up on some of the most important questions of the faith right here on the Christian Real View radio program.

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You can hear them. We're going to have a great time during the interview and then afterwards have a little breakfast and discussion time as we talk about today in the program some apologetic questions with our guest Tim Barnett of Stand to Reason, that organization. Their website is str.org. As a matter of fact, they have a—STR has a conference, a student conference coming up in the Twin Cities at Grace Church Eden Prairie. I believe it's in November.

We'll be talking about that more as the year goes on. But today, we're going to focus mainly on a few apologetic questions, getting to the most important one, is Jesus really the only way? Tim is actually in the Twin Cities right now, another part of the Twin Cities, about an hour from where we are in the studio for the Lakes Free Apologetics Conference. Okay, Tim, let's go on to your second message at the conference entitled, If God, Why Evil?

And this is one of the student questions as well. You know, why does God allow, a good God allow evil to happen? I was reading a column this week about what the situation is like in North Korea, and with President Trump meeting with Kim Jong-un in Vietnam and so forth, but some of the background on what Kim Jong-un is like and what life is like in North Korea. And it's just horrific, awful, in the modern definition of that word. Murders and torture and prison camps and oppression.

I mean, it's just horrible. And you look at that and you think about our life here in the United States and think, you know, we're here to gather freely in the studio this morning and talk about the things of the Bible. Christianity is basically banned in North Korea.

You just think, how can God allow something like that to take place in North Korea while we, just an ocean away, have a much different life? So talk about this issue of the presence of evil and actually being something that actually points to a God rather than pointing away from a God. Yeah, so the first thing I would say is the Christian worldview can make sense of evil in the world, okay? It's at home in our worldview.

Not that it's a good thing, but that we can explain it. When you look at our story kind of from cover to cover, you see where the entrance of evil and suffering comes into the world. And so the first point I would make is that God didn't make an evil world or a world that's cruel and full of suffering. No, that's a world that He made a good world. Of course, you read through Genesis 1, it says, good, good, good.

You know, every day is good. And then behold, God saw all that He had made and it was very good. And then, of course, you get to Genesis 3, just flip the page, you know, in your Bible and you see what happened. And what happened there was Adam and Eve broke the one rule they had to keep, and that was to eat from the tree.

And so what ended up happening from there is the world changed. Adam and Eve broke the world, so to speak, and a broken world produces all kinds of broken people and relationships. And so the first point is, it's at home in our worldview, but from an atheist perspective, an atheist worldview, evil is not at home. Evil does not exist, I would assert, I would say, because they have no way to ground evil. So here's kind of an argument, very interesting, here's an argument, I think, that points to God. Because if there is actual evil in the world, it's not just inside me, but it's out in the world, then there must be a standard from which to judge what is good and evil.

It's not just my personal preferences, it's something out there, not in here. And so this standard, well what could be that standard that's above any individual or culture? And it turns out, I mean this has been argued for centuries, that that standard would be God, a moral law giver. Okay, so an objective moral law requires a moral law giver. And so that moral law giver, classically, people have argued that that would be a perfect being, like God. And so rather than deny God's existence, it actually affirms God's existence.

But it's still, obviously it's still a problem. And so here are a couple of points, or insights, that have kind of revolutionized how I think about this. The first thing is, and it goes back to that Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had free will. God, one of the good things that he had made was Adam and Eve's moral freedom. And so they were able to choose good from evil. Freedom allows the possibility of there being evil in the world, and sadly that's what happened. They chose to disobey, and so produced evil. And this is something not just Adam and Eve do, but we do all the time.

And you brought up North Korea, and so you have all over the world people choosing to do wrong over what is good. So God didn't want robots, he wanted morally free creatures. So that's one aspect in philosophy, once we talk about that being the free will defense.

And so that's one piece. Another piece is that, well, God uses suffering, he permits suffering and pain in the world for different reasons. The Bible outlines a number of things.

James 1 talks about testing, and Hebrews 12 talks about discipline, and you read about the flood in Genesis 6 to 9, and God is judging the world, and so he used it to judge the world. There are all these, he used it to build character, perseverance. And it turns out, and we all know this from experience, it's through those hard times, through suffering and pain, that often we end up turning to God, and those situations mold our character.

And so C.S. Lewis has a famous quote where he says, C.S. Lewis is a famous apologist and he wrote a book, Mere Christianity.

I say, if you become a born-again Christian, you need your Bible and you need mere Christianity, because it's such a great work. And he says, actually in The Problem of Pain, he says, God whispers to us in our pleasures, he speaks in our conscience, but he shouts in our pain, it's God's megaphone to rouse the deaf world. And it turns out when Jesus was actually confronted about this issue of pain and suffering in the world, some people came to him and said, that tower of Siloam that fell on those 18 people, killing them, what's up with that? And Jesus says, he says, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. And so what he does, he doesn't appeal to free will and some of those other things that we'd like to talk about, he goes right to their heart and says, look it, they were no different than you, we all need to repent, we don't know if we have tomorrow, that kind of thing.

So he used that to get the world to pay attention, to get his listeners to pay attention. So there's a number of responses that we have in the Christian worldview. And I think that they can respond to the intellectual challenge. Ultimately though, there's an emotional challenge. And for that, look it, the Christian worldview offers hope.

Our lives don't end at the grave. This suffering that we experience and this pain that we experience, the evil we experience, Paul calls it a light momentary affliction, is producing in us an eternal weight of glory. He compares what he's gone through and he suffered as much as anybody. And you can read about that in 2 Corinthians, all the stuff that he went through, but he calls it a light momentary affliction because he was looking forward in hope to eternity with God. And that changes everything, that perspective changes everything.

Yeah, it does. Tim Barnett with us today on the Christian Real View Radio Program. He's a speaker and apologist for Stand to Reason, str.org is the website. He's actually in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul today, north of town at an apologetics conference at Lakes Free Church. We're also joined by the junior class of Nebraska Christian School this morning. A lot going on today with the Christian Real View here, but we're glad you joined us. Okay, let's get into the third issue you're going to be talking about, the conference, Is Jesus the Only Way?

That's what we're going to focus on today and a few other things. You say that this is one of the big obstacles to people coming to saving faith in Christ. People consider it narrow-minded, it's intolerant, it's exclusivistic. Before we get into some of the challenges that are raised against it, what is the biblical basis for it that Jesus is in fact the only way? Well, you read, you opened the show and you cited kind of some of the key verses. I think it's actually peppered all the way through scripture, but you know, when Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.

That is very clear. He's not saying he's a way, he's a truth. He's saying he's the way, he's the truth. And he could have stopped there at that first sentence, but he says he follows up by saying no one, that's everybody, no one is the way, the truth, and no one is the way, that's everybody. No one comes to the Father except through me. And you also read, again, another kind of universal, with lots of universal terms says, and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. These are clear passages and you have to do some serious hermeneutical gymnastics to get around these to make them mean something they never meant.

That's exactly right. That's well said and God makes it very clear in his word that Christ is the only way to be saved. So by definition, that means that all other ways are false ways and don't bring us to God in heaven after we die. That means other religions, that even means within Christianity, those who are trusting in something else besides Christ's work on the cross alone for their salvation, maybe they're trusting in good works, that's not the gospel. The only way is through believing in Jesus Christ's work and not our own. Okay, Tim, we're coming up against a second break here. Let's get into the three ways, this challenge that Christ isn't the only way, the way it gets, the way they're raised.

There's theological confusion, there's religious pluralism, there's the inclusivistic view, there's lots of different ways that people push back against that. So we'd like to hear some of those after this next break of the day here on the Christian Real View. Again, Tim Barnett with us from Stand to Reason, the junior class of the Nebraska Christian School. We'll take a quick break.

We'll come back. Also, I'm going out to Shepherds Conference this week in California. If you're a social media follower, we're going to be doing some live messaging on Facebook and Twitter. Hope you can join us for that. Just visit our website to find out more. This is David Wheaton. You're listening to the Christian Real View radio program.

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Good morning, everyone. We are joined in studio today by the junior class of Nebraska Christian School for their annual worldview trip here to the Twin Cities. At the same time they're in town, we have a conference, an apologetics conference, a worldview conference going on in the northern part of the Twin Cities.

A lot going on in this snowy, we just had incredible amounts of snow and winter here in the Twin Cities, the most snow ever in February, so we're all kind of snowed in here, but it is beautiful outside. And we're talking today about an even more beautiful topic of, is Jesus really the only way? And Tim Barnett is our guest. He's a speaker at that conference up in Lindstrom, Minnesota at Lakes Free Church, and they still have some space.

If you want to get up there, the conference runs until 1215 today. Tim, let's get into the challenges that get raised about Christ being the only way for someone to be saved. You say there's three challenges. There's a theological confusion, there's a religious pluralism, and there's an inclusivistic view. Why don't we start out with the first one, the theological confusion? Explain that more.

Sure. I think that a lot of people misunderstand what we're saying when we say Jesus is the only way. Oftentimes, what happens is religion, morality, these things get pushed into the realm of personal preference or opinion, okay? And so what ends up happening is they treat our claim that Jesus is the only way like an ice cream claim. That's the reason we use this illustration of ice cream, that it's like saying to someone, vanilla is the one true flavor of ice cream.

And if you made that claim, people would look at you funny. What are you talking about one true flavor? I like chocolate or I like strawberry.

I would agree. I like chocolate so much better. Yes, true.

Yeah, of course. I don't know why I said vanilla. With chocolate chips, actually, too. Who actually likes vanilla? And so when you make a claim like Christianity is the one true religion, it sounds like you're saying chocolate or vanilla is the one true flavor of ice cream.

And so right away, they don't understand what we're talking about. We're not making an ice cream claim. We're making an insulin claim, okay? And so I use the illustration ice cream and insulin. By insulin, I mean this, like what is the medication that you need to take if you have type one juvenile diabetes? And the answer is insulin is the one true medication, okay? If you don't take it, I have a nephew and he's three now and he needs insulin to survive. He has juvenile diabetes.

Without it, he will die. And so it would be strange for someone to say, well, that's just true for you. I mean, I use vanilla ice cream to control my type one juvenile diabetes. And we would all laugh at that. We'd say, no, you don't understand.

This is the one true cure. And so when we say Jesus is the only way, the first thing is we're making, not an ice cream claim, we're making an insulin claim. We're making a claim about the way the world really is out there, not just my personal preferences in here kind of thing. And so, but that first point, it's a theological confusion. People don't understand. When we say Jesus is the only way, they don't understand the gospel. And so what I normally do is I explain to people that Jesus can't be true for me, but not for you. Okay. He's either the savior of the world or he's the savior of none.

Those are the two choices. He can't just be the savior for me, but not for you, that kind of thing. And so, but to understand that you have to understand the gospel.

And essentially what the gospel says is that, I mean, you need to know the bad news before you get the good news. And the bad news is we're all sinners. We're all sinners. We all fall short. Everyone has a sin problem and this, and it's important to know because Jesus is the only one who solved the sin problem.

There's a whole lot of religions out there who are trying to work their way out of their sin debt, but it can't be done. And we, I think we all intuitively understand this because kind of like one crime against the state makes you a criminal. You can't stand before a judge and say, well, you know, I know I stole that thing or I, or I hurt that person, but I, you know, I helped an old lady across the street. And I, and I give to a red cross and I, and just trot out all these things that you've done.

And I donated to this and I, and I gave the food and I hope that this thing, that doesn't make a difference. The judge is going to say, you broke the law. You have to pay the price. And similarly, we are all criminals in God's court because we've all fallen short. We've all sinned against God, disobeyed God. And James, the brother of Jesus, he says, if you sin at just one point, if you break the law at one point, you're guilty of breaking the whole thing. And that's actually how our criminal system works too.

If you break the law at one point, you are now a criminal and you'll be punished for that. And the good news is this, that's all bad news, but you have to understand that, to know, look at the good news is there is someone who actually, who actually paid for your, paid your punishment, paid your debt. So you don't have to, but there's a condition that comes with it. And that condition is faith.

You don't have to work. You don't have to do anything in that respect, but you have to trust that one who paid your price. And when you understand that, you understand that, look at, there's no one else out there. Muhammad didn't do that.

There's no guru that did that. There's no other religion out there that even claims to have taken care of our sin problem. And so I think that once you, I call this a theological confusion. Once people understand that our claim that Jesus is the only way starts to make sense. Now you may disagree with, disagree with the claim at the end, but you got to understand the claim that we're making. Right. And so, and so there's a whole context that goes behind this.

And so I think that's the first, that kind of answers that first kind of challenge. Let's combine the next two, just for the sake of time, the idea of religious pluralism, you know, the world thinks that all sincere religious roads lead to the same God. Or the inclusivistic view is that, well, you can be saved without explicitly believing in Christ, you know, sincere Muslims or Buddhists or even Christians who don't believe in the true gospel. They're worshiping the best way they can.

How would you respond to those two challenges? So the religious pluralism challenge is false without even going very deep. And here's why it's false. All religions out there, if you study them in some depth, what you find out is there's superficial similarities. People say all religions are basically the same.

Wrong answer. There's superficial similarities, but there are fundamental differences. For example, Muslims believe, one of the biggest world religions out there, they believe that Jesus is not the son of God. Christians believe he is the son of God. In fact, he's God the son. Okay.

He is God. Muslims deny that. We can't both be right. We can't both be right. The law is the law of logic. The law of non-contradiction says either a or not a.

Okay. And so take your pick. And so the Christian could be right here or the Muslim could be right, but we can't both be right. And so religious pluralism can't be true because it says all religions are equally valid. They're all equally true. And to make that statement, you have to be, you're ignorant. And that's not a put down.

I'm trying to be descriptive here. You're just ignorant of what the religions teach because when you study the world religions, my Muslim friend is not a Christian because he denies key tenets of Christianity. And the same is true when you investigate all the different world religions out there.

Okay. And so that's kind of like the nail in the coffin of religious pluralism. Logic demands that it can't possibly be true. As far as the inclusiveness view, this is a little bit more, it tries to be more friendly to Christianity because it says, well, my Muslim friend and my Jewish friend and even my atheist friend, they could be anonymous Christians. And what I mean by that is Jesus is the only way to salvation, but you don't have to actually put your faith in him. You don't have to even know about him. You don't have to believe in him.

Okay. So they affirm one part of Christianity that Jesus is the only way, but you could be, if you're just sincere, you're a Muslim and you're doing your prayers every day and you make your trek to Mecca and you do all those things, then somehow Jesus will count that in some way and save you. And this view of inclusivism, again, it can be shown to be false by just looking at scripture. And one of the key texts that I go to, and there's many we could look at, but it's the story of Cornelius. Cornelius was a God-fearing Greek, it says. He was praying continually, giving to the poor.

He was doing all these good things, but he didn't know the message of salvation and therefore he wasn't saved. And what happens is there's a vision that he gets and you say, send for Peter. There's this guy named Peter. He's got a message for you. What's interesting is the vision doesn't tell him the message.

The message is our responsibility to communicate. And so he says, send for Peter, sends for Peter. Peter comes to his house, proclaims the message, and basically says, you have to have faith in Christ.

Believe in him, is what he says. And that's what Cornelius does with all of his family. And now he's saved at that point. He wasn't saved before. Cornelius, if inclusivism is true, Cornelius was saved before Peter got there. He didn't need to hear the message.

Peter should have showed up and said, oh, you've been an anonymous Christian this entire time. He doesn't say that though. What he says is you need this message. And the message is believe in him because there's no other name.

St. Peter says there's no other name given among men by which we must be saved. So we had to hear about Jesus. Yeah. Yeah.

And so does everyone. And so it brings up the logical question to that is, well, what about people who have never heard about Christ? That's one of the students submitted questions that you'll answer right after this last break of the day here on the Christian Real View. Again, Tim Barnett with us of Stand to Reason. This is the Christian Real View radio program. We'll be back for the last segment right after this.

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You are definitely encouraged to go to our website to take advantage of our current resources. Right now we have a really good one on abortion, Life is Best, that two DVD 13 episode series. This is becoming, we talked about the evil going on in North Korea.

There's a terrible evil going on right under our noses in this country. We need to be informed about that issue, get that Life is Best DVD series. Also, we have a couple resources on climate change and the Christian. We're going to be going to Shepherds Conference this week. So if you're a follower of the Christian Real View on social media, whether Facebook or Twitter, we're going to be doing some live updates and reports and on some of the content taking place out there this week.

So hope you can join us for all of that. But before we get to that, this weekend's program we're talking about, Is Jesus Really the Only Way? And we've been really benefiting by hearing from our guest today, Tim Barnett, a speaker and apologist for Stand to Reason, who's actually in our home broadcasting area this weekend up in the Twin Cities in Minneapolis and St. Paul. He's here for the Lakes Free Apologetics Conference north of town at Lakes Free Church in Lindstrom, Minnesota. You can still go to that conference, by the way, it's going till 1215 this morning if you're looking for something to do on this Saturday morning.

And Tim, we don't have that much time left. And I want to get to some more questions, including some student questions. Let's get to that student submitted question about, you've talked about the exclusivity of Christ, that Christ is the only way, you've answered challenges that often get pushed back against that claim that Christ is the only way. Well, the natural question that arises is, what about people who live in different parts of the world where they've just never even heard about Christ? Yeah, this is a really important question. And I know we got to move quick. I'll just say that I did a whole message at my church actually on this.

I think it's about 40 minutes. So if people who are listening or the students there want to, if they wanted to YouTube and typed in Tim Barnett, what about those who never hear, you could watch that whole thing. But what I do in that message, like I kind of walk through Romans and I think Romans, the book of Romans answers this challenge. The first three chapters in Romans essentially establish that we are, we have all fallen short.

Okay. And so I'll just take you to a couple of passages. I got my Bible in front of me here. Romans 2 12 says, for all who have sinned without the law will perish without the law and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

There's two kinds of people in the world. There's those who have the law, the actual Bible, and there's those who do not have the law. They have the law written on their heart is what the scripture says.

And so they don't have a physical paper. They don't have the Old Testament or New Testament, but they have the law still written on their heart, but it still says they'll be judged by that. So the first point is God judges by the light available to the individual. But here's the thing.

That's not good because we all have that light. And so when you get to chapter three at the end of chapter or the middle of chapter three, verse 20 says, for by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

And so there's no human being. We all fall short of the glory of God. And then of course, I'm just going to skip right to Romans 10.

This is actually where I think the question gets answered. Paul brings this up because he's talking about people in Romans 10, verse two. Well, verse one says, brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God is for them that they may be saved.

Okay. These people, he wants to be saved. That's important to notice. How are they going to get saved? He says, I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God. These people were sincere.

They had zeal. They were religious, but he says not, but it's not according to knowledge. What kind of knowledge they need to know about Christ. And that's why we get these famous passages that you must, you know, Romans 10, verse nine, you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised from the dead, you'll be saved.

And then you get to Romans chapter 10, verse 14. How will they call on him on whom they've not believed and how will they believe in him? Here's the question of whom they've never heard and how will they hear without someone preaching and how will they preach unless they're sent?

The question, those are hypothetical questions. And what he's saying is you can't call unless you believe. You can't believe unless you hear and you can't hear unless someone preaches to you. And so Paul's point is those who've never heard are lost without the message, without someone preaching to them. And I think that we could go to other passages, but that's the truth of what scripture teaches. And this should motivate us to spread the gospel to the four corners of the world. Okay. Because people need to hear this message.

They do. And the revelation that God gives each of us inside the heart, even if we don't live in a Christian area, we know just by looking at creation and within our conscience, that there is a God. And when we respond to that revelation, God gives more revelation. And you hear about this in conversion stories all over the world where even the gospel is not prevalent. And Tim Barnett with us here on the Christian Real View Radio program. Final question for you, Tim.

Only have a few minutes left here. What we've been talking about today, these are contentious, offensive issues about does God exist and the problem of evil, and especially that Christ is the only way. You're from Canada, and they're down the road even further than where America seems to be going in really, I guess you could say, punishing or marginalizing people who hold to these viewpoints.

What's it like in Canada and where do you see things going in America with the issue of freedom of speech, saying things that you should be free to say, and freedom of religion? Yeah, that's a good way to put it. We're kind of further down the slide than you guys. We're right behind the UK, I think. And one way to look at it is we legalized same-sex marriage in 2005.

You guys are about 10 years behind us, okay, 2015. And so there's kind of this moral slide going on. A couple things I would say. First of all, there is a serious challenge to freedom of religion and freedom of speech. We spoke the other day about this story going on right now in the Supreme Court where parents are legally, they didn't want their kid to go through hormone treatments, the kid identifies, they were 13 at the time, now they're 14, identified as the opposite gender, and the public school counsellor and then the doctor recommended hormone treatments. And these are irreversible treatments.

Once you start taking these things, they change the body. And so there's no going back from this. And the parents basically said, we don't want to do that.

They're only 13, 14. There may be mental health issues going on here. We want to hold off on this. And essentially, the Supreme Court in British Columbia said, as a parent, you have no right to tell your kid on this issue what they can do. And not only that, it would be a criminal offense for them, consider abuse, for them not to refer to their child by their chosen pronouns and their chosen new name.

Okay, so you use the birth name or birth pronoun and they consider that abuse. This is where we're at. Tim, it is a troubling future and we're running up against the end of the program here. So we have to let you go and say thank you for coming on today and really explaining clearly the answers to these questions. Hope your conference goes well today. All of God's best and grace to you.

Thank you so much for having me. You know, we do live in a changing and challenging world. But there is one thing we can always trust in and count on. Jesus Christ is the only way. And He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Until next time, everyone, think biblically and live accordingly. We hope today's broadcast turned your heart toward God, His Word and His Son. To order a CD copy of today's program or sign up for our free weekly email or to find out how you can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, go to our website, theChristianworldview.org, or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233. The Christian World View is a weekly one hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to theChristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233. Or write to us at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to The Christian World View. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.