Happy New Year. Welcome to Truth for Life. We live in a world where Christian beliefs are often thought of as intolerant.
So the question is: should we try to soften the gospel message, see if we can make it more acceptable? Would that be the kinder, more loving thing to do?
Well, the Bible answers that question with a resounding No, and Alice Durbegg explains why. Keep a finger in Isaiah forty five to day, and then turn to Philippians chapter two. Here is Hallister. One way? One mediator?
One name. As Christians, we affirm the fact that at Jesus' name, Every knee is going to bow. that all of history is moving towards that event. That every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That doesn't mean that everybody will bow, having embraced him as Savior and Lord.
But those who have rejected him in time will in eternity. to their shame. and to their destruction. Declare him to be the person He claims to be.
Now, the statements then are straightforward, aren't they? Peter, in the declaration and response there in Acts chapter 4, which you can read at your leisure, is absolutely unapologetic. He's direct, he's clear. He's not offering an academic treatise. He's not offering an abstract proposition.
He's not suggesting that what he has to say is up for debate. Or that he's encouraging all kinds of opinions and discussions on the subject. No. Because although his statement is in contemporary terms politically incorrect. It is not logically incorrect.
Because the statement made by Peter, the statement made by the prophets, is a logical deduction from the facts as they're given. In a way that testifies to the fulfilment of Christ. And the promise of the Holy Spirit bringing the apostles into all truth, Peter then conveys this truth. In light of Christ's life and death and resurrection, He declares that there is no other Saviour. He's not being arrogant or rude.
or bombastic. He's saying in light of the life and the death and the resurrection. There is no other Saviour, for there is no one else who is qualified to save. The Buddha's final words, apparently, to his followers on his deathbed were: try a little harder. Jesus says to his disciples, I'm going to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the place where I'm going. And Philip says, Lord, We don't know where you're going. How can we know the way? I am the way.
The truth and the life. That then is essentially and summarily The content Of what the Bible affirms concerning God's exclusive claims. Let's say a word secondly about the context, about the context in which these affirmations are given. First of all, we've noted the context in here in Isaiah. I could turn you again to, for example, you can read on from Isaiah all around 44, 45, 46, 47.
When you get to chapter 47, Uh the the this the statement is is still as clear as ever. The prophet says to the people of his day, he says, Keep on then with your magic spells and with your many sorceries, which you've labored at since childhood. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps you will cause terror. All the counsel you have received has only worn you out. It's a great picture, isn't it?
Of the futility of taking advice and counsel and advice and counsel, of reading your horoscope, of trying to figure everything out. And he says, Here you are, and you go to this stuff all day, every day. You go to substitute gods all day, every day, and instead of them bringing you peace and forgiveness and satisfaction and joy, well, all they've done is they've made you weary.
So why don't you let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month? Why do you bring those boys out? Let them save you from what is coming. He's challenging them.
Okay. If this is the answer, bring them out. Surely they are like stubble. The fire will burn them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame.
Here are no coals to warm anyone. Here is no fire to sit by.
Well who wants to sit at a fire that isn't lit? Who wants to sit in a fire that has no heat? Why don't you pull yourself up to the fire and get warm? There's no fire. Oh, that doesn't matter.
There really is. You just have to feel it. You'll feel it. I mean, can you feel it? Don't be ridiculous.
Now I suppose. That is all they can do for you, those who have labored, those These you have labored with and trafficked with since childhood. Each one of them goes on in his error. There is not one that can save you. There isn't one that can save you.
Now that's the context in Isaiah's day. You fast forward through all the centuries and it just comes with striking application, doesn't it? Why? Because everybody needs to be saved. Everybody knows they need to be saved.
The only question is saved from what? Saved simply from suffering, as Buddha would suggest? Or saved from sin as the Bible suggests? But saved nevertheless. And everybody every day is looking to something or to someone to save them.
I just downloaded again a wonderful rendition of You Got to Serve Somebody, not sung by Bob Dylan. I like Bob Dylan's songs, but only when somebody who can hold a tune sings them. And because I've discovered this new tuneful edition, I've been playing it all the time in the car. You may be an ambassador to England or France, you may like to gamble, you may like to dance, you may be the heavyweight champion of the world, you may be a socialite with a long string of pearls, but you're going to have to serve somebody. Yes, indeed.
you're going to have to serve somebody. It may be the devil, it may be the Lord. But you're going to have to serve somebody. And there's no question today. whether in this room people are worshipers.
The only question is, who or what am I worshiping? And what the Bible says is that when we take something that is good. And we exalt it to the place of God, it becomes an idol.
So, money is good. If you want to buy a hamburger, it's good to have money. But if money takes the place, if money is preferred by me to God Himself, then it becomes my idol. The privileges of sexual fulfillment are good. If sex seeks to become my God, Then it's actually now my idol.
I become its slave to what I worship.
So we discover that the question that is raised by the prophet. In his day, It's apropos our day. The context then It's not dissimilar to the context now. In the first century? The challenges were equal.
What was it that the Christians in the first century were faced with? They were encouraged by the surrounding culture. To simply say that Jesus was something other than a man. But not quite God. Or that he was just the greatest of the angels.
That's kind of the first century context. We don't mind having you people around. You're a bit of a nuisance. We can't understand you. We don't understand where your God is.
If you have a God, we don't know where He is. Why don't you have him somewhere? This is the question that gets asked here at Parkside. People come in and say, So, where is your God? You don't have him anywhere.
You haven't put him up somewhere. There's no God in here. God is hidden. You have the answer for that actually in the prophets again. God is in heaven.
He does what he pleases. No, you worry about God. He's a hidden God. He was even hidden in the person of Jesus. That's why the people saw him and didn't get him.
But wouldn't you just be prepared, they said in the Roman culture, to put Jesus in the pantheon of gods, in the garden of the gods, like Colorado Springs? We'll go into Colorado Springs and we have a place for this one and that one and the next one, and then we can have it's just all we're saying is we just put Jesus and put him here around with the others. Isn't that what our friends are saying to us? Wouldn't you couldn't you just do that? I mean, why do you have to always be on about this one way, one mediator, one name stuff?
Why do you say this all the time? We're not going to invite you back for coffee, Mrs. Reynolds, if you're going to keep this up.
Well, why do we say it? Or do we say it? The writer to the Hebrews drives The truth of Jesus Home Conclusively, as he opens up his letter, in the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. Here's a history of the Jewish nation. But in these last days he's spoken to us by his son.
whom he appointed heir of all things. and through whom he made the universe. Through whom he made the universe. That's that's quite a statement, isn't it?
So, why are you so on about Jesus as opposed to Muhammad or Krishna or Buddha or whatever?
Well, one reason is. Jesus made the universe. Oh, don't be ridiculous. Nobody made the universe. We made the universe.
Really? You see, The Christian answers Psalm 121 with the psalmist. The pantheon stops short of the answer. or comes up with a different answer. What was our psalm this morning?
I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? Contemporary ecology and pantheism say, my help comes from the hills. My help comes from the earth. From Mother Earth.
The earth is good, right? The earth is a gift from God. The earth is flawed. But if the earth... assumes the place of God, then the earth itself becomes an idol.
So, the distinguishing feature of the believer is: I lift up my eyes to the hills, wonderful hills, those beautiful hills in the Lake District of England, where I'll be this time next Sunday, God willing. And you can never see them because it's always raining. But I lift up my eyes to the hills and I say, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. Who's the Lord?
The Maker of heaven and earth. Who's that? Jesus Christ. Through whom He made the universe. He is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful world.
Not only did He make the cosmos, but He sustains the cosmos. You see, we if we're going to be Orthodox Bible Christians cannot step back from this. We can't read the parts we like and include them and then exempt ourselves from others that we find a little challenging in our day. And our forefathers understood this. If the early believers had been prepared to do what their friends asked them, namely simply include Jesus in the pantheon, then things would have gone swimmingly for them.
Since they were unprepared to do so. It was the very opposite of swimming. Because they were burned. And they were destroyed. Why?
Because they said There's only one name. There's only one way. There's only one mediator.
Well, you say to yourself, well, here we are now, all these centuries later.
Well, if that was the context 600 years BC and 1 AD, Oh, thankfully we're a long way removed from that.
Well, I think that's true. I haven't heard of anybody being thrown to the lions here in suburban Cleveland for their convictions concerning Jesus, but I do know that a number of you who are out in the Academy have been metaphorically thrown to the lions. For affirming ridiculous ideas in the science department of Case Western Medical Facility. That Jesus Christ, who is the heir of all things, created the universe.
Well, they haven't removed you from your position. You're still doing surgery and very effectively, but they just think you're nuts. They talk about you behind your back. They've thrown you under the bus. Intellectually.
Good surgeon. But she's crazy with this Jesus stuff. Very good at business. But an idiot. When it comes to the things of the Bible.
You see, the prevailing mood in which we live our lives is one that sets itself apart from certainties. In fact, the only certainty in our day is the fact that there are no certainties. Which is ridiculous because that is a certainty. I've told you before that this is apparent in contemporary literature. and in contemporary art, so much as we're going to call a television program art, but lost.
I've told you before, I got completely lost with lost, and partly because I was looking for the truth, I was looking for resolution, I was looking to discover it. And I was so stupid I didn't realize I was supposed to make it. If only I'd known, I'm just supposed to. Fall into it. and make it what I want it to be.
What was the ending for you? I don't know. What was the ending for me? Whatever you wanted to be. It's fantastic, isn't it?
It's absolutely absurd, but it is there in moral philosophy, in the question of the establishment of the Supreme Court, the issues of the Constitution, and in every other way. Make no mistake that the questions regarding the appointment of Supreme Court justices in our nation have far more to do with personality and the configuration of the individual. It has to do with the underlying philosophical platform from which they come. And we have produced a generation that has decided that just about everything is on a sliding scale. Therefore, we cannot say with certainty about virtually anything at all.
So when we interview them, they have no answers. When we press them, there is no definition. In fact, the only place you can get any kind of absolute clarity and definition is with a jolly weather forecast. Last evening I recorded one of my programs. My wife and I like to watch it.
It's a program for old people from the BBC. We often watch it on Saturday nights just to get cozy. And right in the middle of it, a big red thing came right across the deal, you know. And they can't make it go without shutting the entire dialogue down on your program.
So you can't stop it, you can't start it, you can't, you just gotta endure it. And it's like, you know, their thunder is coming, the lightning is coming, and it's a lady who should never be put anywhere near a microphone, and she's rabbiting on about this. I'm trying to get rid of her, and I can't get rid of her. And I said to myself, what is this about?
Well, it's important, it's a tornado. Might be a tornado to you. Maybe a trickle to me. You call it a tornado? I call it a trickle.
You call it potato? I call it potato. Let's call the whole thing off. No, everybody knows. You can call it anything you want, but if you stand underneath that, you're going to be in real difficulty.
The same is true in air traffic control, the same is true in cardiothoracic surgery, the same is true in the bridges across the Hudson River. But when it comes to the issue of theology, moral philosophy, when it comes to the stuff we're dealing with now, all of that goes out the door. And the only person you need to fear is the person who wants to say. That there is actually truth which can be discovered. That there is actually meaning.
Because meaning has collapsed. There's no overarching story that explains the universe. There are only little stories. And everybody has their own little story. And whatever it is for you and whatever it is for me, that's fine.
Just don't interfere with my story. And what happens when you come to the Bible? The people who have been listening to that six days a week come on the first day of the week, and they're going to approach the Bible in the exact same way. Even my address to you this morning, some of you are processing it in your minds just in the exact same way. What do you say?
That's just his view. That's just his view. He just seems very certain about it, but we're afraid of people who are certain about things. In fact, the only person we should fear is the person who thinks he knows. Because we know if he thinks he knows that he definitely doesn't know.
Why? Because nobody knows. John Mayer, in one of his songs entitled Belief. Says, is there anyone who ever remembers changing their mind from the paint on a sign? Is there anyone who really recalls ever breaking rank at all for something someone yelled real loud?
One time. Everyone believes in how they think it ought to be. Everyone believes. And they're not going easily. Belief is a beautiful armor, but makes for the heaviest sword.
like punching under water. You can never hit. Who you're trying for? It's an enigmatic song at best. But basically what he's challenging is again the notion of certainty.
And when we come back this evening, We'll pick it up here. But let me finish in this way with a word. To those who who are wondering about these things. Ask yourself the question. Since each of us is trusting in someone or something.
It's what I'm trusting in. Sufficient. To grant me Peace? And forgiveness? And joy?
And whole? You see If I cling to my successes for significance, I make success an idol. And it will never satisfy me. If my disappointments And my broken dreams Provide sufficient ground for my sulking. And for my angry Rebellion.
Then there is no hope there. The Bible says that ultimately we will bow and we will be put to shame. It's not that we will be able to go on and it won't matter. But all who have raged against him will come to him. and be put to shame.
And so my question is a simple one. Why not trust in the living and true God? I mean, if you're going to serve somebody, which you are. If you're going to worship something, which you do. If you're going to find confidence and strength and significance and meaning in your tiny private little world, Let me ask you.
Is sex doing it for you? Relationships? Money? Career? Family?
All good things. Which are transmuted into parasites that will eat our souls. When they take the place. that belongs to God. Hello?
Uh You're listening to Truth for Life with Alastair Begg. Alastair will return in just a moment to close today's program. A message like the one we've heard today makes it clear how important it is for us to study our Bibles regularly so that we can hold firmly to the only message that truly saves. And as we begin a new year we have an opportunity to recommit to spend daily quality time learning from the Bible. If you'd like to make the most of this effort, but you're not sure how to get started, I want to recommend to you a book called The Quiet Time Kick Start.
six weeks to a healthy Bible habit. This is a short and simple how to book that gives you a template for working through the Bible in manageable sections. It starts you off with a small portion of Scripture to read, followed by a brief explanation and prayer. You'll be guided to add more each day until you establish a comfortable pattern that fits your schedule. If you're looking to start spending time in God's Word routinely, or to get back on track, this little book will provide you with an easy, step by step guide to regular Bible study.
Now our offices are closed today. While our team is enjoying the holiday with their family, you can donate securely online and request your copy of the book when you go to truthforlife. org slash donate.
Now here's Alastair with a closing prayer. Father, We thank you for the Bible. We thank you that we can Have our minds recalibrated by its truth? We pray that it may be the truth of your word which settles in our convictions. that unsettles us when we have chosen to find satisfaction sitting at fires.
that provide no warmth. Trying to lie in a bed that is too short. or wrap ourselves in a blanket that is too narrow. Bring us then, we pray, to see That in the person of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, There is Forgiveness. and freedom And family.
and a glorious future. And grant that we might come to him. in childlike trust and believing faith. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. and the love of God our Father.
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. rest upon and remain with all who believe. Today and forevermore. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine.
On behalf of all of us here at Truth for Life, we wish you a happy and blessed new year. And I hope you'll join us tomorrow when we'll learn how to be clear about our convictions without coming off as arrogant. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
