Stop Saying All Roads Lead to God!

All roads lead to God. It's like, it's like everyone believes this saying, but almost none of them have bothered to actually stop and think about the thing that they're believing and risking their lives on. So, we're gonna talk about this today because the phrase "all roads lead to God" simultaneously represents one of the most common objections to Christianity and one of the worst objections to biblical Christianity that I've heard. I think that this phrase really holds sway in people's minds. Christians often find it hard to respond to the phrase "all roads lead to God" or the subsequent other slogans that come out right around the same time as you hear this one. And some Christians actually go so far as to agree with it. They agree with the thing. And I think that's ironic because they don't see that this is actually incompatible with a biblical Christian view, with an understanding of who Jesus is. You can't really say this sensically. At least, that's my understanding. It's one of the worst objections to Christianity, though. Even though I consider it a powerful, in a sense of its pragmatic effectiveness to cause people to devalue the gospel, I consider it one of the worst objections to Christianity because, as we'll see today, it can't possibly be true. It's wrong. It's got to be wrong, and I'm gonna explain why today.

In the Tuesday livestream, I'm Pastor Mike Winger, and this is the Tuesday livestream. Every Tuesday at 5 p.m., we do a livestream here on YouTube on the topic of theology or apologetics or the intersection of those things, the Christian life. We talk about that kind of stuff. We wanna think deeply about our Christian faith, but we want to be biblical at the same time. And I think these two things are very compatible, unlike what all the atheists keep telling me, like those don't work together. But I would say they're working very well for me, and I hope that they can work well for you too. So, thanks for joining me. If you have questions and you're watching live right now, you can put those questions in the live chat. Just put a capital Q in your question. But know that I can only answer like a gathering, like a smattering of say, 10 to 20 of those questions toward the end of the stream. So, please don't feel hurt if I can't get to every question. It's just not physically possible, but I do my best.

Let's talk about today's objection. This, this statement, you know, that "all roads lead to God," or "all roads lead to heaven," or "all roads lead to a happy eternal existence." It really objects to the exclusivity of Christ, to the idea that Jesus is the only way. That's what we're sort of objecting to, or or really an objection that anything is the only way. That there is a singular way in which you can get to God. That would exclude some people from that path, you know, from that journey to eternity, to eternal life, to being in God's presence, to like a Christian idea of heaven, is usually what people are thinking of. But it comes with a lot of other slogans. So, we're gonna look at these slogans one at a time. Let me just put some of them on the screen. So, we've got, you know, "all roads lead to God." This is the primary slogan I'm gonna deal with. The next one is gonna be, "How can you say Jesus is the only way? How rude, how arrogant, how judgy." And I mean, this stuff holds big, big time sway in a large amount of our population. So, I want to deal with it thoughtfully and carefully. And if you agree with these slogans, I'm especially making this video for you. I want to, I want to change your mind. So, I just hope you'll give me the opportunity to speak to these issues and help me think it through a little bit.

The next one is, "All religions teach basically the same thing." That'll be the next phrase that we'll deal with. After that, we'll handle, "All religions have a different piece of the truth. They all have a different piece of the truth." And so, I want to affirm every religion, but not everything about every religion. So, they say it's a piece of the truth. Another one is that, "I think sincere people will be okay as long as you're sincere." Okay? So, not everybody, but the path is sincerity, and that's all that's really required. And I find this to be attractive to a lot of people, but we'll deal with it in detail. And finally, the last one, "God knows our hearts and good people will be okay." "God knows our hearts and good people will be okay." This is, this is hopeful stuff. In fact, let me, let me start by saying, I understand the appeal of these slogans. Like, I fully feel the appeal of these slogans. It feels kind. It feels nice. Like, if I say these things and affirm them, I feel like I'm being a nice person. And I mean, I'm not trying to, you know, talk down. Rather, I would identify like, I'm a human interacted with other humans in the world. I get it, just like you do. Like, I want to be nice, and I want to be perceived as nice. I understand this, and I understand why it's important to feel that way. Also, I understand that it just won't get people mad at you. Especially in our culture, our culture is getting increasingly irritated and angry with a biblical version of Christianity, you know, the real version of Christianity. And, and we're looking for ways to just sort of placate them. Like, maybe you won't even agree with me, but can I just get you to not be angry at me? And this may be an impossible task, as it was for Jesus, as it was for the apostles in the first century. But I get that. I don't want people to be mad at me. So, it can, it can placate those, those, the sense of irritation people have towards Christian teaching. Also, it's, it's very hopeful, man. These statements, like everyone, oh, they're gonna be okay. Everyone's gonna be okay. It's so hopeful, and it's really encouraging to have such great hope for those around you that you maybe previously were thinking were gonna face judgment and have some sort of horrible eternal future. So, I get that sense of hopefulness that it creates, and that's a very attractive thing. I want to have a hopeful attitude towards all people and their, their futures, their final end. And it also seems wise and tolerant. It seems wise and tolerant in our society. Tolerance, well, we have a new version of tolerance. It used to mean just, you know, I'll tolerate you while I think you're a kook, basically, while I totally disagree with your beliefs, I'll tolerate you. Now, it's different. Tolerance is more like, like sort of trying to affirm people's beliefs, trying to like agree with them in some sense. And that makes you more tolerant is when you can agree with things that you don't really agree with, or something like that. It's kind of a weird, muddy thing, but that's tolerance today. And this seems very tolerant. This seems very tolerant and wise and educated and, and all that. So, I get the attraction. That's a lot of weight behind it. There's a lot of, you know, magnets drawing people to these concepts of "all roads lead to God," "all roads lead to heaven," "everyone's gonna be okay in the end," that kind of thing. But what we need to do is, we need to analyze these things because, in the end, people aren't really thinking. They just think they're thinking. They're not thinking. They just think they're thinking when they use these phrases. They're not being rational. They're being culturally acceptable. They feel like they're being helpful or kind or hopeful. But these things don't establish the truth of anything. They just don't establish the truth of anything.

So, consider the following phrase to demonstrate that you think you're thinking, but you're not thinking. Here's a phrase, you know, you may have heard before: "Nobody goes to that restaurant. Nobody goes there." Why? "Because it's too crowded." Yeah, that's right. "Nobody goes there because it's too crowded." But, but wait. If it's too, if it's too crowded, then people have to be going there, right? And do you get this? This is, to me, this is like a perfect example of the slogan "all roads lead to God." When you first say it, it feels right. When you evaluate it, you realize it can't possibly be true. You just thought you were thinking, you weren't really thinking. That's the idea. That's the problem. So, we're gonna analyze these things. We're gonna go through them one at a time. I, I will start with the phrase "all roads lead to God." And I'll let you guys know, I don't currently have a cat cam for you, but that's, I have the cam, I don't have the cat. She sometimes, she's just next to me. Sometimes she doesn't. Right now, she's somewhere else. So, anyway, "all roads lead to God." Let's take this first phrase and let's analyze it. I think there's an out. If you've ever done this, I think this is fun to just think it through carefully. Oftentimes, these conversations get so, people get so angry or just emotional. Maybe they're not mad, maybe they're just feeling uncomfortable or anxious that they have all her time thinking it through carefully. Well, this video, we're gonna think things through carefully. So, let's take this phrase "all roads lead to God." There's maybe three ways people can mean this, and two of those ways, I think, are nonsense. I think they don't work. I think they're very bad. The third way you might mean this phrase, I think it works, and I think it's actually true. And so, we're gonna analyze those one at a time real quick, and then we'll move on to the next phrase in our list of these six phrases.

So, the first way that you could mean this would be the idea that all religions work. So, I'm saying "all roads lead to God" because I'm actually thinking, no matter what your religion is, no matter what your beliefs are, no matter path in life you take, you'll end up with God. It'll be successful. You know, that, I'm sure hobos witness that path will will successfully get them to God. Mormons, that path will successfully. Christians, Islam, you name it, you pick the religion, it'll, they'll all go to heaven. Jesus is a way, Buddhism is a way, Islam's a way, whatever. I guess the response to this one's pretty easy. If we're gonna say that all religions actually work, and we're gonna try and really soberly believe this, then we have to think of situations like, let me give you an example. Jim Jones. Jim Jones, somebody many of you have heard of, the Jonestown Massacre. Jim, Jim Jones was a, you know, in this flyer, he's, he's a treasure, present himself as a Christian. He called himself a Christian, he called himself a socialist, but he was a cult leader. He was a nasty, weird, out there cult leader. And in November, 19, 1978, November, he had his people gathered together in this sort of socialist, communist, in or let anyone out. They actually shot people for trying to leave. It was pretty crazy. But he decided it was time for them to cross over to the other side because the government was cracking down on them. And so, he and 917 other people, 917 other people, all either killed themselves or were murdered. This is known as the Jonestown Massacre. They were doing this in attempts to cross over. The, the goal, the agenda here was for him to take all his people and engineer a way for them to cross over to the other side, to go to heaven together, effectively. That was the idea. Now, if you're gonna say that "all roads lead to God," you're gonna say that Jim Jones' plan, it worked. Like, it succeeded because "all roads lead to God." So, all religions work. Therefore, Jim Jones' nutty religion, I can't even really complain that he had mothers injecting their children or or groups of people just strong-arming those who wanted to get out of the cult and just injecting them, or others, his drinking the Kool-Aid. This is where we get the phrase "drink the Kool-Aid." It wasn't actually Kool-Aid, but that's what the phrase is nowadays. And so, they're drinking the juice, so to speak. Yeah, you're saying it worked. You're saying Jim Jones actually was successful.

Here's another example, and this is why I think it's obviously wrong that all religions work. This is obviously not true. This is the Heaven's Gate cult, headed by crazy-eyed Marshall Applewhite. III looked for a picture of, kind of a normal photo of him, and I just had a hard time finding one online. I'm sure they exist. I just didn't find him. But he's the leader of the Heaven's Gate cult. They had some pretty strange beliefs. And if you think "all roads lead to heaven," you think their beliefs work for them. They work for them, right? He thought that God was an alien. That's what he taught his people. God is an alien. And what we want to do is we want to be not, not so much go to heaven, but when we be beamed up, you know, like Star Trek. I want to be beamed up back to be with this great extraterrestrial being that created us. That's the idea. This was something they thought they could actually achieve in 1997 with the approach of the Hale-Bopp comet. Let me put a little clip of that for you. Hale-Bopp comet was coming close to the Earth in 1997. It was actually an incredible sight. You were able to see it with your naked eye. And I remember it back in '97. Um, I think, or I just remembered thinking about it and not remembering it. Who knows? Sometimes you can't tell. At any rate, they believed that behind this comet, which was doing a near pass to Earth, this really wonderful sight in the sky, that behind the comet was a spaceship that had aliens in it that were gonna beam them up if they would kill themselves at the moment when the comet was the closest it would be to Earth. This is what Marshall Applewhite told his people. And this is what changed the Hale-Bopp comet event for all of us because we, you know, everybody who was alive at the time, we just went, "Whoa, wait, what?" And all of a sudden, the news was not about the comet. It was about this guy and his cult. In fact, 39 members of his cult killed themselves in 1997. And if you think "all roads lead to heaven," you think it worked. But you can't even say they're in heaven. You have to say they're in space on a spaceship. Think about this. "All roads lead to heaven" doesn't make any sense. You also have to say that the 9/11 terrorists were successful. That in fact, when they flew these planes into buildings to kill themselves and kill large numbers of other people, believing in their mind that they were gonna receive virgins in heaven, these, these, these dark-eyed, dark-haired, beautiful women that would attend. This is, this is what they thought, that would attend to their sexual desires, and they'd be in a garden with all these kind of wonderful, great fruit and everything. You, you have to think that that was successful if "all roads lead to God." It worked. It worked. And you can't just say, "Oh, it's that's just an isolated event." No, I recognize. I mean, I'm not, I'm not one of those who thinks that all Muslims are terrorists or something like that. I think that's an ignorant view. But there are those who are terrorists because if they're genuine reading of not only the Quran, the Hadith, but also because of the way they look down it or look back, I should say, at the life of Muhammad. And so, it's a legitimate thing in Islam. It really is. And in 2018 alone, there were 293 suicide attacks in 21 countries, 1,932 people killed, 3,3374 wounded. That's according to the Institute for National Security Studies. You know, this, this stuff is not isolated, random events. This stuff happens. It happens today. It happens in real life. And if you think "all roads lead to God" or "lead to heaven," you have to actually believe that this stuff works. They're successful. You can hardly complain because it was successful. It worked in your mind. And I think it's nutty.

But there's another problem with it. It's actually insulting to various religions to say that "all roads lead to God" when in various religions, they don't want to go to God. They don't think they're gonna go to God. They don't believe in God. In Buddhism, they don't even claim to get you to heaven. It's actually insulting to, to Buddhism, to say that it's gonna get you to heaven when they're like, "What heaven? What are you talking about? There's no heaven. We're just seeking to stop existing. We want an annihilation. We want to cease our existence." That's one branch within Buddhism, a big one, absolutely. Atheists would say they don't, they don't want to go to be with God. In fact, I've talked to several who told me that if God does exist, they're not even interested in being with him. They'd rather be out of his presence forever. So, would you tell them, "Your path leads to where you want to go"? The Muslim, "Your path leads to the paradise with virgins." You know, this particular kind of Muslim. Other ones would have different views. The Christians, "You get to go be with Jesus." The Buddhist, "You get to cease existing." Certain branches of Hinduism, "You get to go and become one with God," not really a personal God, not really, you're not really conscious or anything like that, but you sort of, you know, become one with this sort of nondescript entity. And now we're just living in Fantasyland at this point. So, "all roads lead to heaven" just turns into lala land thinking. And I think that this seems really evident, seems really obvious. But I have an analogy I'll give you that might, might maybe make it more clear. Suppose three guys get taken up into an airplane. And visualize these three guys. They're up in an airplane. The three of them are told that they have to jump out of the plane, or they're gonna get pushed out. At any rate, they're jumping out of this plane, and they should prepare accordingly. So, one guy shows up, and he's wearing a spacesuit. And there he is in his spacesuit. I know this isn't a real spacesuit. This is a guy in a Buzz Lightyear outfit for those who are listening on the podcast. Hi, welcome. But this image is free on pixels.org, which is a great website for finding free images you can use in your video content. A little plug there, not, I'm not being paid to say that, but it's a good resource. At any rate, so here's a guy who, you know, took a picture of himself, put it online for free. And he goes up in his spacesuit, and he's thinking, "I'm gonna go in a spacesuit because when I jump out of this plane, I'm gonna shoot up into the air because I'm so high up. I think gravity's not gonna work right. I'm gonna shoot up into the air."

And the next guy shows up, the second of the three guys, and he's wearing a super suit because he thinks, genuinely believes, when he jumps out of this plane, he's gonna fly like Superman, with his fists out, going through the air, doing what he wants. And so he wears a super suit. The third man, he's a bit more sober-minded, and he brings a parachute. He brings a parachute. Why? Because he thinks he's gonna fall out of this plane, and there's only one way that he's gonna survive. So, he jumps out with a parachute. Now, the one who says "all religions are leading to God," they all work successfully, the fantasyland version of this, the first version, you're that you're like saying to these three guys, "When you jump out of this plane, you're all gonna experience whatever you want." You know, "your guy, you're gonna go up and you'll be fine. Superman dude, you're gonna fly and you'll be fine. Other guy, you're gonna fall and you'll be fine because you bought a parachute." And we have to know, like, it has to just hit our gut that this is utter nonsense. It's just utter nonsense. So, most people, I think, would be impressed with these, with these facts, these ideas, would say, "Okay, I don't think all religions work on their own terms." Okay? They don't work on their own terms because it's, it's impossible for at least two reasons: the differences of their terms and, of course, because of the nature of religions, the insane things that some of them teach.

So, you have your second option when you say "all roads lead to heaven" or "all roads lead to God." The option number two is that you don't mean they're all successful. What you mean is, "No religion works. They're all full of false beliefs and unnecessary practices. But even regardless of that, who cares that it's all nonsense? You'll still end up with God in the end." That could be the second way you can mean this. Yeah, "all roads lead to God" because no matter how kooky you are, no matter what your beliefs are, no matter what you do, everyone's gonna be with God in the end. So, let's think about the consequences of this. It, first off, it's a relief. It feels hopeful. It feels kind. It feels tolerant. Feels all those things. But, but there's some consequences. Let's talk about those. For instance, and I use Hitler as an example here. Hitler always comes up in in moral discussions because we all recognize Hitler is a bad guy, as a very bad guy, I should say. We all should recognize him as a very bad guy. This means that Hitler, Hitler's good, Hitler's with God in eternity, even though he died unrepentant of his mass murders and his his evil, that he's just totally fine. That's one of the consequences. That Hitler and other Hitlers, other guys like this who were manifestly evil and wicked, and who died in a more wicked state than they started, so to speak, through their lives, that they're, they're gonna be fine. There's no judgment. There is no judgment. And I'm just like wondering, what kind of place is heaven gonna even be if that's the case? What kind of eternity is this gonna be? You know, these guys, look what they did while they were on the earth with us. What are they gonna do in eternity? And you have a problem. Another consequence of this thinking that no religions work, but we'll all go to heaven anyway, is that you're actually saying all religions are wrong. Think about the implications of this. When you said "all roads lead to God," you meant it to be this generous, kind, tolerant thing. But what you really meant was, "You're all dummies, and all your beliefs are dumb, and nothing you believe in matters. And I have my own secret religion, and it means that everyone's gonna be with God in the end, and everyone's wrong, and I'm right, and my path makes sense and works. You just extend the work of the path to everyone, whether they like it or not." So, I would say it's no longer tolerant. It's no longer nice, and it is no longer very appealing for some of the reasons it was appealing before. And that leads me to another point. If I say, let me get rid of, I really don't want to keep you looking at Hitler for too long. That's an unpleasant livestream. So, if I say that all religions are wrong, yet there's still some path to God, no matter how broad you paint the path, there's some path to God, and everyone, you say, is on it. What you're saying is, there's something that actually works. There's something that's getting us to God. So, I like to ask these people a couple of questions. "Where are we going?" When you say we're gonna go to God, where are we going? Describe this God that we're going to. Do you think that you know God? Is he good? Is he holy? Is he just? Is he loving? Is he omnipotent? Is he eternal? And you start to figure out that there's like an actual religion hidden behind a disguise that pretends that it embraces all religions. It actually rejects all religions, and they have their own religion. I recommend you actually do this. Ask them for the requirements on, "If everyone goes to heaven, what are the requirements?" Cuz most of them will say, "Hitler won't make it, right?" So then they'll go, "Okay, well, then what are the requirements? What do I have to do to get to heaven?" And you'll see this person start developing their religion right before your eyes. Although they're not doing it based on revelation from God through scripture. They're not doing it based on any sort of testable things like we have in the resurrection of Christ, and the prophecy of the Bible, and the historical claims in the text. You know, they're not doing it with the backup of so many testimonies of people whose lives have been changed by Christ or something like that. They're doing it off the top of their head. They're just making up a new religion off the top of their head and saying it's right, and everyone else is wrong. And now it seems extremely hypocritical for in that phrase "all roads lead to God," what they really meant was, "Everyone's wrong but me. Everyone's wrong with me, and I have my own religion I made up off the top of my head, and it's super inclusive because that makes me feel good." Okay, this just sounds like a Fantasyland. But now you can ask them, now that you've walked them into the pond, where they're actually expressing the beliefs they have, the ideas they have, and they've sort of forced into realizing, hopefully, they have a religion. You can ask them one more question: "How do you know your personal, off-the-top-of-your-head religion is true? Are you just guessing your way through it, or do you have some sort of evidence to substantiate your claims?" And here's where Christianity shines because now we can talk about things like the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ, the impact of Christianity in the world, prophecy in the scripture, the unity of the Bible. Christianity is verified by public revelation, not by private imagination. This is wonderfully important. My faith in Christ, it does involve a real testimony of God working in my life that is convincing to me, but I can also test it with outside evidences that demonstrate it's true because Christianity is based on public revelation, not private imagination. So, this is where Christianity absolutely shines. Okay, those are the two ways you can, you can mean "all roads lead to God," and both of them just don't work. They fall apart. But they do lead people into a conversation that might lead them to talking about Jesus and how, how he has actually made a real way and not an imaginary one.

The third way you can mean it, I agree with. And that is this: I agree "all roads lead to God" in the sense that they all lead to God, not to salvation. Meaning, it is appointed unto man once to die, and then the judgment. We all will stand before God because there is a real God objectively existing in reality, and we all will stand before him and face him, and it will be up to him what happens to us, not up to us. And that sobering reality is why the presentation and the preaching of the gospel is so important.

Alright, let's take the second claim that we're gonna spend less time on each of these other claims. The first one, I spent the most time on, but I've kind of done a lot of the groundwork. They'll move faster. Mufasa. All right. All religions up. No, that's the wrong one. I want to go to "All religions teach basically the same thing." There we go. "All religions teach basically the same thing." Again, to some people, this seems very kind. And I get the attraction. Why? I want to, I want to say this because, man, I just feel like I'm just telling the whole world to hope to hold hands, right? You know, just to give them all the Coke and to keep them company, and we're all hold hands and sing a song. And I happen to like that idea of just coming together with people. It's a wonderful thing. But yeah, there's some problems with this. So, I can see how someone's attracted to it if they don't think about it carefully. So, if someone says, "All religions teach basically the same thing," a great question, this is what Frank Turek recommends, and I would as well: "Ask them, 'What do you mean by that?'" "What do you mean by that, 'all roads are all religions teach basically the same thing?'" "What does that mean? What do you mean by that? What do you mean by that?" And let them explain what they mean by that. Like, if they go, "Oh, the core tenets of religions are all basically the same core tenets." Oh, now I have a testable claim, right? I can look at the core tenets of religions and compare them. We can have a real conversation instead of a slogan. The second question you can ask is, "How did you come to that conclusion?" Because it's kind of important to ask them on this question, "How do you know that? Why on earth do you think all religions teach basically the same thing?" Do they not realize that all religions definitely don't? Well, the way you can expose this is by asking them questions like, "How did you come to that conclusion? Did you study all religions? How many religions have you studied in depth? What core fundamental things did you see in those different religions that showed that they were teaching the same thing?" These are good questions to ask.

Let's move forward. If "all religions teach the same thing," then you study all religions and you find out an actual rebuttal for this, which is that religions are superficially similar, superficially similar, but they're fundamentally different at their core. Their core teachings, like their major, big worldview ideas, they're fundamentally different. They're not super, they're not fundamentally the same. So, the superficial similarities, the similarities often include things like religions often have a worship, they often have teachers, festivals, similar moral values. In fact, the moral values is where I guarantee you this conversation will go. Some will say, "Well, yeah, but they have, you know, every religion has the Golden Rule." And I would actually argue every religion doesn't have the Golden Rule. Not that this is a huge point to me, but it's just not quite the same. The Golden Rule according to Jesus is, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Buddha, as I understand it, taught, "Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you." So, it was a live and let live morality versus Jesus, which is an active, "Go out there and help people" morality. It's a different approach. He extended the people you should care about to be everyone in the world. Your, "Who's my neighbor?" Read Jesus's story of the Good Samaritan, and it's this person that was hated by that culture and considered not the neighbor. So, he extends it to everyone, tells us to love our enemies. So, actually, the moral requirements in Christianity, the moral, moral standards in Christianity are generally higher than what I've seen in other religions when I've looked into them. But I will agree, religions have morals. But just having morals, or even having similar morals, doesn't mean they have the same fundamental teachings because moral values are not the core of religions. In fact, people who have no religion still have moral values, don't they? So, morals, while they're elements of every religion, they're also elements of non-religious views. Though there are those who were atheists who would say they have moral values, right? And, and I'm glad that they do. I think that they can't justify those, the belief in those values and duties apart from God's existence. But that's a different, that's a different issue. They still have them. So, morals aren't an exclusively religious issue. When we want to talk about what really is the foundation of religions, we need to get into more details about what they believe about things.

So, superficially similar morals, and then some sort of like the window dressing on various religions, you know, big buildings, oh, you know, pretty stained glass, or things like that, you know, symbols. Okay, but this is superficial stuff. The fundamental areas of religion are contradictory. I'll give you some examples. Let's start with Christianity because this is, this is my experience. This is what most people who say "all religions are basically the same" they have a vague familiarity with Christianity and they have no familiarity with other religions, or almost none, in my experience personally. So, we'll start with Christianity. Uhm, let's make that vague familiarity slightly more familiar. In Christianity, we believe that there's a God, right? Who's eternal, who has all these, what we sometimes call the omni-attributes. He's omnipresent, that means he transcends space. He's eternal, meaning he had no beginning and he will have no end. He is, he is the foundation and grounding of all other existing things. He's the creator of all things. He's incredibly loving. This is a really strong emphasis in Christianity, is the love of God. In fact, it says, "God is love" in scripture. I'm not aware of any other faith that that has declared such extreme things about the love of God as Christianity has. Others came along after, saw Christian saying it, and then tried to adopt it in some fashion in their beliefs. But Christianity is the originator, to my knowledge, of that concept. We believe as Christians that God made man in His image. This means that humans have incredible value on a Christian worldview, incredible value. We're made in God's image. We're not just elevated animals. We're not just smarter apes, right? We are in God's image, and this is, this is so profound. You know, every human on earth has this incredible, immeasurable value. This is a Christian idea. In Christianity, though, we deal with sin. We talk about sin and how the suffering that goes around around the world traces its way back to original sin, as well as ongoing human sins, and it causes separation from God. So, while we have incredible human value and it elevates humans, we also say, "Oh, that humans have this major, major sin issue," and so we need a solution to the problem. It's gonna cause death, it's gonna cause eternal separation from God. So, we have a major dilemma in Christianity that is solved by Jesus Christ. Jesus comes, he, he comes in our image, right? In a sense, he bears humans' image to represent all of humankind, while he's being God in the flesh. He dies in our place to suffer the punishment for our sin, rises again from the dead, and then the result is that we can simply believe in him and be saved. So, we have salvation by faith, restored back into relationship with God, as God deals with our sin, and we're saved purely by grace. It's just a free gift of God. This is the Christian worldview. This is the Christian way of looking at the universe. This is why when I see people, I see people made in the image of God, you know, who are fallen, but who need Jesus. I see hope and grace extended to all. This is my Christian worldview. This is nothing like other religions.

And this is where we get off base. In Buddhism, for instance, ultimate reality is not God. God's not the ultimate reality. No, ultimate reality is impersonal, and the world itself isn't created by God. In fact, the world's uncreated. It's all, in fact, illusory. In Buddhism, introd, in traditional Buddhism, there's different branches of Buddhism, right? But traditional Buddhist Buddhism, you know, it's all just illusory. Living beings have basically the same value. Now, this is profound. Living beings have basically the same value. This is where Buddhism came out of Hinduism, so there's gonna be values here that are shared with Hinduism. But this is why you'll see a photo of a starving child and next to the starving child is a cow, and they're like, "You know, we can't kill that cow because all living beings have basically the same value." And so, we can't kill the cow to feed the kid because we elevate the value of that child over the cow. It also has to do with their view of karma. That, um, the kid's starving, the kid's suffering because he must have done something bad in a past life that resulted. Maybe he's not bad, but he was before, and so, you know, he's just kind of like playing out his karma. That kind of view. Whereas, you know, a Christian worldview would be like, "Kill the cow, feed the kid." You know, this is easy, right? We, we elevate human value above animals. That's kind of a big difference between us. They think in Buddhism that suffering is an illusion. That when you suffer, like say your child died, and you're suffering intensely, it tips beyond emotion, beyond the ability to express it, even. You lose a loved one, or you're suffering in pain because if your leg or your liver or your heart or whatever is wrong with your body, and you're in intense pain, that's illusory. It's an illusion. Think about this. This is very different than the Christian worldview. Christian worldview is like, "Hey man, suffering, you know, is such a real problem that Jesus came and suffered for us to help deliver us from it." Whereas in Buddhism, suffering is an illusion. It's caused by your desires. If you didn't desire anything, you wouldn't suffer. So, you have to get rid of desire. That's a big deal. In Buddhism, you stop desiring things. Now, in Christianity, we promote actually increasing good desires and decreasing bad desires. "Walk in the spirit, not in the flesh." So, we want to be more intense and more powerful in our love, godliness, those kinds of qualities. In Buddhism, you want to get rid of desire.

So, some of you know "Avatar: The Last Airbender," and in this series, which, which I thought was a very interesting cartoon, and, you know, it's not for everybody. I'm sure. Be honest, I thought it was pretty interesting. Cartoon. Taylor was one of the best cartoon series I've ever seen. But it was really influenced by Buddhism. And so, here you've got this cartoon series where the character, you know, he's picking the toys out in the beginning of the series, as I recall. He has two. He picks toys that belong to the previous avatar, and it shows that he's the reincarnation. Well, that's supposedly, that's the legend about how the Dalai Lama is selected to find out if he's the reincarnation. So, this like a Buddhist thing. It's like it just came right out of Buddhism. He has to unlock his powers to be the avatar. And to do so, he has to stop desiring. Yes, the leg, overly attachments. Detachment is a huge principle in Buddhism. And so, you could see some Buddhism stuff there. I remember seeing the thing and I was able to watch it while enjoying parts and pointing out rejecting other parts. And I watched it, I'm going, "Hey, this is, this is entirely self-contradictory." You know, he, he releases his avatar character. He has to save his friend Katara. Katara, I forget. He has to stop caring. He has to let go of any attachment to her in order to like elevate himself to be the avatar. To do so, then save her. The irony of it is, if he really stopped caring and attached to that point, why would he be working so hard to even change anything in reality if it's all just illusory? It just, the whole worldview just kind of gets weird and confusing. And some Zen Buddhists actually embrace this, and they meditate on the contradictions of their own belief system as a way of getting themselves to stop thinking. It's, it's weird, but that's Buddhism, right? You, your suffering is caused by desire. We got to get rid of your desire, and your suffering will stop. When you cease desiring things, but you got to really want that real bad, which is a desire, which, you know, it's all confusing. There's no enduring self in Buddhism. So, you die, you do not continue on for all eternity. That is not going to happen. This is not part of Buddhism. You simply stop existing. You, and life's ultimate goal is to break free from the cycle of rebirth because it's a bad thing. You know, Christianity is no reincarnation. But here, you're being reborn, reborn, reborn, and you want to stop this and cease existing. That will be the goal of Buddhism. So, if you say "all roads lead to God," you're insulting Buddha's teaching because he directly contradicts this fundamentally. "All roads lead to God." What are you talking about? No, no, no, no. That's not even the path we're on. That would be their view.

So, Christianity, Buddhism, utterly different worldviews. Like, they're, they're so different that they're incompatible. They say opposite things about the same things, you know? And therefore, they cannot be in agreement. Islam is more like Christianity. More like Christianity. It's not Christianity. You know, believes in a personal God who created the world, omniscient, omnipotent, holy. It devalues the love of God a lot from the Christian perspective of God's love. It sees man as sinful, and how many men needs forgiveness, and an everlasting heaven or everlasting hell are believed about in Islam. But know this, Islam rose as a response to and rejection of Christianity. It's fundamentally a rejection of Christianity. They believe that you earn salvation by faith plus your righteous deeds. They believe that God hates the prodigal son. Or as Jesus would teach, that God loves the prodigal, the one who would turn to him. If your life's been in rebellion to him and you turn to him, he loves you. He wants you to come back. Islam would say, "God, God just despises you." It's very one-dimensional in God's opinion about you. He hates you. It's built on a denial of Christ. Islam says that Jesus never went to the cross in the first place, let alone rose from the dead. And so, this is like not compatible with Christianity. They do believe in a paradise and an eternal, everlasting paradise future for those who are good enough and who are selected by Allah. But that's not a God-filled place. See, with Christians, it's our fellowship with God that is so beautiful and so wonderful about eternity. The most important thing about it is you're with God. God is with them, and He will be their God. You know, read Revelation. Well, whereas in, in Islam, it's impersonal. God's not actually with you there. It's just a wonderful kind of better-than-earth experience, but God's not with you. So, these are very different, fundamentally different claims that you cannot say they're all true. In Christianity, the destination, eternal life with each other, perfect relationship with God. So different than Buddhism. So different than Islam. So different than other religions. And the more you compare them, and the more you know them, the more you know that they can't work together. They're saying opposite things about the same things, and so they can't possibly all be true. Christianity, we uniquely care about grace. We uniquely care about not us self-improving, but rather God saving us by His grace and by the work of His Holy Spirit. So, God gets all the credit. It's a very worshipful, very love-based belief system. Yeah.

So, if someone at this point tries to say that they just agree with everyone, and you, and you explain, "You know, but Buddhism, but Islam, like these are impossible things to put together." And they go, "No, I believe all of them." At this point, you just ask them the question, "So, do you think you just agree with everyone?" And they say, "Yes, I agree with everyone." And you say, "What? You can't agree with everyone?" And they say, "Yes, I can." And you say, "No, you can't." And they say, "Yes, I can." And you just repeat this process until they realize they're not agreeing with you.

Alright, let's talk about the next one on, "How can you say Jesus is the only way? How rude, how arrogant, and how judgy. How judgy. Oh, you, you jerk." And that's, that's the feeling that we get is that you're, you're just a jerk for saying Jesus is the only way. Well, let's, let's talk about this one a little bit. Um, let's suppose that you were getting directions to go somewhere. And you say, "Huh, hey Mike, how do I get to such and such place out in the middle of the desert, kind of thing?" And I say, "Okay, you're gonna drive on the, on the five freeway. You're gonna take it this way. They're gonna take the 60 or the whatever freeway you would take to get to the desert out here. And you, and you get finally all the way out there. You turn right here, left here, at the gas station, this way. And then you're gonna see this dirt road. And there's a little sign on it, you know, it says like, "Bert's Road" or something. And you turn right there. Hey, that's the only road to get you where you're going. So, you got to drive down that road. You get on ten miles and boom, you're at your destination."

Let's suppose that you responded by by getting angry at me and folding your arms and calling me a jerk. You jerk, you jerk! That's the only way you're telling me. That's the only way. The only road to get where I refuse you. I refuse your road. I think all roads lead to that destination. I think any path will get me where I want to go. That's fine. I mean, I'm I mean, I went to this person. I would just say, "We'll get good luck." Like I gave you the way you don't want it. Okay. There's nothing rude though. If it really is the only road, let me offer another example. Maybe this would help more. If you think it's rude, judgy, and arrogant to say Jesus is the only way, let's suppose that there's a doctor. And you go to your doctor. I mean, hold on. I have a doctor here for you. I have a picture of a doctor. Don't ask me why this was important. I just, I like this picture. This doctor, here's your doc. His name is Doc Maynard. Alright, Dr. Maynard. And you go to him and you're like, "Hey, Doc, I, you know, I have me feelin' so good." And he goes, "Alright, let's let's do a scan." And he discovers you have cancer. Horrible news. Life-changing news. And he says, "Come back, you know, next week and I'll give you a treatment plan for this cancer." And while, you know, you're waiting in the week, you start asking your friends, "What do you think I should do?" And one friend tells you, "You need to eat broccoli. You just need to eat a lot of broccoli. It's the superfood. People don't realize like if you just eat a lot of broccoli, your cancer will just go away on its own. Your body will heal itself." Someone else says, "No, no, it you need T broccoli. You need to sleep and you need to quit your job because you just need less stress and all this will go away." The next person says, "Oh, you need to meditate and need to think and focus on your cancer and command it to tell you, tell it to leave and destroy those cells like with positive, you know, positive repetitions and encouraging words that you'll say out loud." And, and then you go back to the doctor and the doctor says, "Alright, I've devised a chemo plan for you. It's gonna be, it's gonna be some tough stuff. It's gonna be six weeks of chemo or six months and then we're gonna go in with surgery and see if we can finish it off. And we're gonna see how it goes. How many guarantees?" But I, I think this is going to be the only way. And you say, "Doc, look at all these other options. I mean, broccoli, sleep, meditation. Like, what if one of those works too? Is it possible that that you know, that you're just being a jerk, Doc, by refusing these other ways?" And so imagine then the doctor, he realizes that the emotional pressure of you calling him a jerk and how unpleasant, you know, the look on your face is towards him. And so he says, "Yeah, oh yeah, no, I, I think all those, all those are good. Go for it. Do you know, forget this chemo plan. Let's just throw that away. You go for it." This would be the worst doctor on the planet. This is like the worst. This guy knows a way to heal you and he doesn't have the guts to tell you that these other ways are foolish, right? That this is not gonna work. That you need, you know, you need this. This is the way. He's not being rude. He's not being rude. Perhaps you think, "Thanks, Doc. Thanks, Doc Maynard. Appreciate your help there." Perhaps you just feel like it's just rude because, like, when you say Jesus is the only way, you're saying that you think you're right and you think everyone who disagrees with you is wrong. Now, that's a true accusation. I do think I'm right and I think everyone who disagrees with me is wrong. The problem is, people haven't thought about this accusation because the person who's saying it, they think that they're right about it, right? They think they're correct. That I think I'm right and everyone who disagrees is wrong. And they, if I disagree with them, they would think I was wrong. So the person who accuses me of this, they also think they're right and they think that everyone else is wrong. Even the pluralist, even the guy who just says, "I believe every religion works. All roads lead to God." And I said, "Well, do you think those who disagree with you are wrong?" And they say, "Well, yes, they're wrong because all roads lead to God." And so you think you're right and everyone who disagrees. Here's the point. Everyone thinks they're right and everyone thinks that everyone who disagrees with them is wrong. That's not arrogant. That's just called having an opinion. They can be opinionated in a negative way, but if you have a view, if you have an idea, if you have a thought in your head, you think you're right and you think those who disagree with that thought are wrong. And when you discover you're wrong, you change your mind. And after you change your mind, you now think you're right. And then everyone who disagrees with wrong. This is just how thinking, like, it's how it works. So Jesus being the only way, he's not arrogant. It's not rude. And even if it was arrogant, that doesn't mean I'm wrong. Like, imagine right now in the building you're in, wherever you happen to be. Let's say you're in a building. Some of you might just be jogging or driving a tractor. I know a guy and who drives a tractor or some truck drivers who listen to the program. But let's suppose you're in a building, an office building. And suddenly the fire alarm goes off. And you, and you realize when the fire alarm goes off, you smell, you smell smoke. And you're like, "Yeah, that something's wrong." And screaming down the hallway goes this guy. He's the biggest jerk in the office, right? And he's screaming down the hallway, "Fire, you idiots! Fire, you jerks! Fire, you numbskulls! Your poop faces! Get out of the building, you dummies! There's a fire!" And he's, he's simultaneously telling you get out of the building and he's calling you names and he's making fun of your mom and he's making faces at you. And maybe he even like throws stuff at you to get your attention. And he snaps his fingers and points at your face and does everything that irritates you in the world. He's arrogant. Do you still fake heat the building? Like, "Yes." Smart people would get out of the building. They wouldn't be like, "You know what? I'm gonna sit here and burn to death because that guy is a jerk." Like, this doesn't make any sense at all. But it is actually where our culture is sometimes. "Christian, I think you're rude, therefore I reject Jesus Christ." Well, I don't think it's rude to tell people about Jesus. I think it can be perceived as being rude or it can't even be done in a rude way, but it's not inherently rude. But it doesn't matter. There's still just one way. Like, if it's true, it's true. He's not arrogant. I mean, it'd be arrogant if I said it was true based on me merely liking it. If I was like, "Well, I like Jesus, so I'm gonna say he's the only way." Like, that's arrogant. Like, as if my own opinion makes things true. But it's not arrogant if it's based on the public revelation that God has given us in this world. That God himself has shown us these things. That's not arrogant. We're responding to his diagnosis of our sin and the fact that Jesus is the plan for a cure. He's not arrogant any more than the doctor's arrogant by saying this plan is the only way. At this point in our culture, though, it seems like it's actually evil to seek truth and share it with people. Like, you can actually get in trouble for just saying you believe something firmly and that you think others should believe it too. Yet, even the people that are mad at you for this, they believe firmly that they're mad at you and that you're wrong for doing it. And it just becomes a cyclical, weird thing that I hope you don't fall into. It's just a cultural taboo. It's not actually wrong that Jesus is the only way. It's a cultural taboo, and the culture is wrong.

The next view we have here is that all sincere people will be okay. I think that sincere people are gonna be okay. And this one's real easy to deal with. If sincerity is the thing, if I think sincerity, just being sincere means that everyone's gonna be fine, I have two problems with this. One, people who are sincere shouldn't always be okay. Like, for instance, the 9/11 terrorists. They were absolutely sincere. They fully meant what they were doing. Were they not sincere? They were. Think about the sacrifice they made, right? They, they killed themselves. They gave their lives. They sacrificed more for that terrorism plan than you have probably sacrificed for anything. These guys, they sacrificed more than most of us have sacrificed for anything. They were sincere, and they deserved to be judged, hands down. Sincerity is not a good enough standard for saying that everyone should go to heaven, kind of thing. The problem is, people aren't sincere, though. We're not generally sincere. We're often frequently insincere, even to ourselves. We deceive our own selves. But I'll say, let's pretend the whole world is sincere. Let's pretend everybody's sincere. Everyone's genuine. No one has ulterior motives that maybe they don't know or they're just not sharing with others. But the real problem with mankind is that we're not good. And that takes us to our last one on the list.

God knows our hearts and good people will be okay. Good people will be okay. "God knows my heart" is what I grew up hearing from people. And, and I didn't know how to respond to it at the time. And while I've thought about it for many years now, so there's some responses. Good people will be okay. The problem is, people aren't good. They're just not good. This is on your screen here is Dr. Clay Jones. He did a whole study on the topic of, I mean, for years and years and years, he's dedicated much of his career to studying the problem of evil, suffering, and, and along with that, bad human behavior, or people doing bad things. He read a number of books on genocide and has done an extensive study on the topic of genocide. This is, this gets at the heart of how good people actually are. So I'm gonna share some quotes from Dr. Clay Jones on the topic. He actually has an interview on Capturing Christianity's channel. So if you could type in "Clay Jones Capturing Christianity," you'll see that up on YouTube and you can watch the interview in its, in its entirety. It's a really interesting interview. But here's some quotes. Things he says about the goodness of people. He says, "Humans, quote, do genocide very easily. Very easily." Every genocide researcher I've ever read, and I've read a lot of them, and every genocide victim I've ever read, every single one of them agreed, and without exception, that it's the average member of a population that commits genocide. Think about the, the impact of this, that it's normal people. Normal. This blows my mind. The people who carried out, you know, Pol Pot's stuff or the Khmer Rouge, you know, killing so many Cambodians, or, or Hitler, you, you name it. The people who carry these things out and were behind them, a hundred percent, were normal people that would smile at you and wave, and who you could have them take care of your kids when you're out of town. People who would pick up your, your wallet if you dropped it and hand it back to you instead of stealing it. They're normal people committing genocide. So he concludes, "There's something really wrong with humankind. There's something really wrong with humankind. It's the normal member of a population that does it." This is a huge deal. And he goes on. I quote him again. "The majority of any culture, the majority of any culture that participates in mass killings will always find a way to justify their killing. They're gonna find some way to justify it." You see, it's not just that people do wicked things. It's that people routinely do wicked things and they don't even feel bad about it because they tell themselves they have good reason. That's the normal situation for humankind. Go to a prison. And I've talked to enough inmates to know. Go to a prison and talk to them about their justifications for why they're there and how they don't belong and how they're not like the other guys here. And how it's like, "Man, here's the standard for a prison." You walk through a prison, you'll see, right? You talk to the guys and they're like, "You know what? Maybe I stole, but I only stole from those who couldn't afford it." Or someone says, "You know, and they go, "I didn't kill anyone." And someone says, "Yeah, maybe I killed, but I only killed people who deserved it. They really deserved it." And then someone else, you know, over there, that guy, he killed people they didn't even deserve it. And get to the guy that says that he killed people who didn't deserve it, and he'll have some other excuse. And he'll point to some other guy. But at least I'm not a pedophile. You know, at least I'm not this. At least I'm not that. And every one of us has this, "At least I didn't," or "I have these good reasons for the wicked things I've done." And we've all got this like self-justifying attitude. And we see this in an example of this. And I'll quote Dr. Dr. Jones. I like Holland, Dr. Jones, because it makes me feel like he's like Indiana Jones or something, which is I should have put a hat on him with Photoshop. That would have been great. At any rate, here's what he says to give an illustration of the fact that whole populations or large numbers, the majority of populations will justify mass murder and they will feel okay about it. They'll even feel like it's a good thing. Here's an example. He says, "Here in the United States, we have suctioned, scraped, or scalded to death over 60 million babies." Wait a minute, Mike. Wait, Mike. We have justifications for abortion. We have reasons why this is okay, right? It's about a woman's, a woman's right to choose. As it, and if you can't see the insanity of this empty slogan for killing a baby, you're part of the problem. You know why? Because you're an ordinary person who's justifying the genocide of our time, the murders of our time. You're just, you're a normal wicked human. And that's the point. People aren't good. People aren't actually good. Jesus, he actually made this more extreme. You know, he shows us that our goodness isn't just about our behavior. It's also about our thought life and our inner person. Because, and not, not like a government who's trying to punish people for thought crime, which, oh, by the God of all creation, who cares about the person you really are. He looks inside of you and he sees that if you lust in your heart, you've committed adultery in your heart. That if you hate in your heart, you've committed murder in your heart. And God cares about the actual person we really are, not just the outward presentation, not just our, our Instagram profile photo, but the person we are inside, right? And so we know this. I knew I'm wicked. I know I've got sin issues. I know I need Jesus. Okay, I understand this. That good people are gonna be okay. That's fine. The problem is, there aren't any good people. To which everyone replies, "What about Gandhi? Like, what about Gandhi? God, he's a good guy." Mahatma Gandhi. And the truth is, most of us know almost nothing about Gandhi. We just know that he, like, marched to the sea. There was something about salt, you know, British oppression. Most of us don't actually know much about his life. He was more of a political leader than a religious leader. But one of the things I'll share with you about Gandhi is that Gandhi, every night, would sleep in the nude with someone who was not his wife. He would rotate these women out. He would pick different women. Sometimes he would pick a man's wife. He would be like, "Your wife, I want to sleep with your wife tonight." You know. And he had his justifications. He said he had to tempt himself. He had to tempt himself. Let's just think about this. He needed to tempt himself. He even slept with his nieces, his 18-year-old niece, when he was in his 70s. Every night. He was unashamed of this. He wanted her to write a book about her experiences with him. And she never did. And everybody was embarrassed about it and stuff. But this is just one of the facts about Gandhi people don't know about Gandhi. Surely, Gandhi, he's not Christian, but surely he's gonna be okay because he's such a good person. Like, do you really know Gandhi? No. God knows him. And God knows the thoughts of his heart. And God knows the man he really is. And God has made a way through Jesus Christ. He could be saved. And I'm encouraged that the exclusivity of Christ, there's only one way, is also the openness of God's kingdom because it's one way that can be applied to anybody who will put their trust in him. And if you're thinking, on a side note, "What about those who never hear the gospel?" I actually have a link in the video description where I deal with that in great detail in a study. There is some hope for people who've never heard the gospel, and it's Bible-based. And I have it in the video description there below. It doesn't compromise the gospel to understand that. But I like explaining it in detail, and that's why I put that link there. So I say, if you look at yourself, and I'm almost done here, I'm gonna go your guys' questions in a moment. If you look at yourself and you just say, "Look, you know, honesty, when I look at me, when you look at you, you've got to be shocked." You, if you're paying real attention, if you're being morally honest with yourself, you're shocked at your sin and your failures. You have this lofty ideals of what you know you should do and how you should live, but you know you don't live up to it. You never live up to it. You never have lived up to it. You're a moral disappointment. And here's where I say, this is why Jesus is the only way. Because he's the only one who paid all the price for your sin that you could be forgiven. That you can know the kindness and grace and love of God. He paid the full ticket for you to be saved and transformed from the inside out. So that God would remake you into a new person, one who honors God, one who is morally pure, slowly over time of sanctification. And finally, when we enter his presence and we're rid of this flesh and these temptations. I think that Christianity makes real sense of the real burdens and suffering of life and of humankind. And that other religions don't, because they're not true. So, are people deserving of judgment? Yeah. God says so. Experience says so. Your own moral intuitions reveal serious issues about your own life. And you have some sense that you need real grace. And if God is a God of justice, he's gonna need to actually have a way to provide you that grace without violating justice. That's, of course, Jesus. So the impact of religious pluralism, the impact of religious pluralism is pretty, pretty bad, actually. I mean, if it's true, if religious pluralism is true, then it's actually good news. It's wonderful news. But the problem is, it's not true. It can't possibly be true. Which means it's terrible, scary news. It's dangerous news. It's bad diagnosis coming from a doctor, so to speak, that will end up killing you while making you feel good about this easy pill that you have to swallow instead of the tough one. Where if they die to yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus. It's emotional, but it's emotional without truth, which means it's manipulation. It's hypocritical. It's, it's self-refuting. The "all roads lead to God" stuff. It's ignorant of religions and their actual teachings, or of real human nature. It seems to be ignorant. It's dangerous. There's no evidence for it. So it's really common, but it's also really unwise. Really common, but also really unwise. And Christianity provides us with the real solution to the problems of life, not empty slogans that make everybody like you, but ultimately doom them all. So that's what I had to say about religious pluralism. And I'll go to your guys' questions now.

From Samuel, the question is, "How do I grow my YouTube ministry and my preaching ministry in general?" I think I got this question last time I did a live stream and I think I answered it then as well. So, you know, Samuel, if you're looking for some more tips, send me a private message through BibleThinker.org. You know, you can send an email that way, and I will send you a video where I'll give you some, some tips. I have a video just for people who have actual real Christian ministries and are looking to grow them online.

Kayleen van Konan says, "Hey Mike, so my boyfriend claims that the God of Islam is the same as the Christian God. He wants non-biased secular proof that the two gods are different. How do I respond to this?" I say, my first response would be, "Ask him to demonstrate why he thinks they're the same. Why he thinks they're the same." That'd be my first response. Second response would be, "You, let's see. Allan Schliemann. Allan Sleeman has done a lot of work on Islam in particular. He's done stuff related to the God, comparing the description of God in Islam to the description of God in Christianity. So I would, I've already shared a bunch of stuff in this video, but I would forward you to his content. It's gonna be more thorough. It's gonna be specifically breaking down these ideas for you. So I would look up Alex Lehmann from Stand to Reason and look for his content on this." When he says he wants non-biased secular proof, I think that that is a, how to put this, how to put this lightly, it's a silly request. It's a silly request, right? "I want proof that the God of Islam and the God of Christianity is different, but I'll only accept this proof if it comes from someone who's neither Christian nor Muslim." Why on earth, if someone's not Christian or Muslim, does that make them a better commentator on the truth of, like, I'm a Christian. If I look in Islam and see the same God as I believe in, I'm excited by that, right? It's not like I want them to have a different version of God. It's rather that I look at their beliefs about God and compare them to biblical views. What you want is informed people who probably adhere to those different religions talking about them openly and honestly. So I think it's a little silly. Or maybe there's a secular source you could find on that. I wouldn't have, top of my head, no.

Devin Nicely says, "Hey Mike, there are a couple people in my fellowship who deny the Trinity, but still, they still believe they are saved by grace through faith alone. Are they saved, or should I try to witness to them?" I don't immediately want to even try to make a judgment on whether they're saved. I do think that denying, it's one thing to be ignorant of the Trinity, like you're just not aware or confused about it. I think that's a quite absolutely possible thing. But to be openly denying, like, "I reject the Trinity," and then I'm wondering, "What exactly are you rejecting? The deity of Christ? The personhood of the Holy Spirit? Do you, what is it specifically they reject?" It's, it's, you want to walk through that really specifically. So I say, if the Trinity is their stumbling block, you should talk to them about the doctrine of the Trinity. But you can use it, you can do it by building it biblically, not basing it off of the word "Trinity" or off even of church history and councils and things like that. You need to base it off of just the text of Scripture. So I have a Bible study on my YouTube channel that says, "Are we, are we right about the Trinity?" And that might be a good place to start, at least as far as resources. I have, of course, there's tons of great resources online to help you there.

Devan, Heather Switzer, "Don't all religions claim exclusivity?" Yeah, in fact, everyone, maybe I should have mentioned this, I guess, but everyone is exclusivist. Even though, even though even the universalist, even the pluralist, because they believe that they're right and everyone else is wrong. They just try to cast, some of them cast a bigger net of who's, who will be benefiting from my views. Oh, I have more numbers of people who will be benefiting. So I'll consider myself not exclusive. But yeah, in a sense, everyone is, everyone is exclusive.

Pedro Jr. Jr. says, "Why did God allow bears to kill 42 children for mocking Elijah?" Well, I don't think they were children. I've read the text very carefully. These guys, these were, these were like young thugs, is what they probably were in the text, not children. That would be, and I have looked up the Hebrew and all that other stuff, and I don't think they were young children. They were young thugs that were mocking him, the prophet of God. And so God allowed, caused in response to Elijah, these, these men to be killed. But they weren't children. This is, this is a talking point that you get from anti-Bible people who don't usually want to look at the passage carefully. They just want to find, I'm sorry, I'm only speaking from personal experience, that a lot of people just want to find something to that looks embarrassing to Christians. And so they'll sometimes take passages and try to interpret it in the worst way imaginable. And of course, their interpretations right, and all the Christians are wrong because they're all just backpedaling. But anyway, I deal with a lot of that, as do many of you, as do many of you. So do you recommend patience on those things? But yeah, not children.

Kick it like Johnny says, "This is in regards to Mike's Sunday teaching and maybe this too. Does God have divine hate?" Divine hatred? I do. Yeah, I mean, the scripture clearly indicates that God has hatred. He hates sinners, right? He hates the wicked. This is what the text, the Bible tells us. It also tells us that he loves the whole world. When you think that these things can't coexist, I just ask, think about your own life as a human. Have you ever had a person whom you felt a sense of anger towards, right? But also loved at the same time? Now, yours is imperfect. Your anger is imperfect. Your love isn't perfect. God's, of course, it's gonna be perfect and justified in every way. But you, you, we sense this in scripture that God has a sense of like anger and looming judgment coming towards people. Yet he says, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Turn from your wicked ways and live." And so he loves them as well. He hates what they're doing. He hates what they're about. He hates the character makeup of their character. But he wants them to come out of that. He wants to redeem them from it. He wants to see them come to grace and salvation. So while you can, it, you can acknowledge like a sense of a hatred of God towards people, you can acknowledge that his love, and I'll put it crudely, God's love is bigger than God's hate. And he's willing to die for their sins, suffer for the things they've done. So that the war, those ones whom whom he's got that, that hatred for in us, in a God sense, you know, we're applying human terms to God here. Those ones could experience his love and grace and be forgiven. So I would say yes, you confirm divine hatred. You cannot, but you have to see his love and how his love is for those people. Even, even who would recognize, "I know God's got to hate me from what I've done." And I say, "Oh yeah, but he loves you even more." Like I said, to put it crudely, he loves you even more and would want to see you come to him and be saved.

Isabel Chris says, "Isn't the root of the issue the fact that these people don't believe in truth? How do you deal with that if this is the case? They're not being reasonable, or as you said, they're not thinking." I think that's a great, very astute observation. It's about, they don't, they ultimately have to see. "We don't believe in truth." That is one of the most easy statements in the world to refute, right there. "There is no truth." Think of the statement here as if, as if I have a graphic on the screen: "There is no truth." The question is, is that statement true? Is that true? Okay, well, if it's true, then there is truth. If it's, if it's not true, then there is no truth. If you, well, then it's false. Well, well, then there is truth. No matter what you do, it's true. It's, there's truth. No matter what you do, there's truth. This is, this is the self-refuting views of anyone who denies truth. Or, "I don't think anyone can know what's true." That's the next backup mode. If they go, "Okay, fine, there's truth, but no one knows what it is." The question you ask them is, "Do you know that?" "How do you know that no one knows the truth?" In fact, you yourself are knowing a truth about everyone and everyone's knowledge. How did you know? How did you learn that when no one knows the truth? So these are just self-refuting ideas from people who aren't thinking clearly.

BC our life says, "A question, if someone asks God into their heart, but then later on in life, they turn away from Christianity, do they go to hell?" Yes. The short answer is yes. The question is, okay, here's where those who believe "once saved, always saved" or those who believe that you can lose your salvation, they'll both agree with me here and they'll say, "Yes, the person who, they had a profession of faith, but now that they've rejected Jesus, deny the gospel of Christ, and live a godless life, they are not currently saved." They'll all agree here. They'd either go to hell. However, the secondary question of, "Does that mean they lost their salvation, or that they never were genuinely saved in the first place?" That is a secondary question that I don't know how to answer. But their current state is the one I'm the most concerned about. And that it seems is pretty easy to see. If you openly deny the gospel of Christ, I have every good reason to think that you were not saved. Yeah.

Hannah Elizabeth, "Is it wise to tell someone that their loved one is in heaven because that deceased person was Catholic or because they believed Jesus?" Well, let me say, when it comes to deceased loved ones, I feel an incredible desire to tell everyone that everyone's in heaven. I sense that human desire. I want to bring comfort and help. But I can't make those proclamations because I don't get to say who goes to heaven or who doesn't. This is one of the errors of the universalism is thinking like, "You know, I get to make this stuff up as I go along." If I'm confident of their situation, I may or may not even mention it because it may or may not be tactful or wise. But I, yeah, but if someone, being Catholic, that doesn't mean they're not saved, right? I need to know what that guy believes. He may or may not even know what Catholicism teaches on many topics. Most Catholics, in my opinion, don't. Maybe he believes in the gospel of Christ. Maybe he really trusts in the Savior. In which case, I rejoice, and I don't care that he identified as Catholic in that regard. I don't care at all. But I would need to know the person. And secondarily, I just don't know that I'm in a position to indicate who is saved and who's not. You have to kind of know a lot to know that sometimes. Other times, you do know. Anyway, I'm just saying I don't know that there's a pat answer to your question, Hannah. So I'm sorry if I couldn't be of more help. I would say focus on, did they receive the gospel of Christ? Do they believe in the true Jesus? And did their life seem to indicate that this was genuine? That, that's my main focus right there. But it's okay to, does not know, and then to say, "How would I know?" I know this. I know that Jesus is the way. I know that God is gracious and kind. And if we turn to him, we'll be saved. You know.

James Giorgio says, "In Matthew 11:21-22, how would a Calvinist harmonize this with her soteriology? Why would God judge some harsher if there was no way they could ever choose him?" I may not be the best one to try to answer this, but I'm gonna go to the scripture passage here. Let's go to my Bible software and I'll look at Matthew 11:21. "Woe to you, Chorazin! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." So the idea is, they would have repented. I think if I read on a little bit, we see what your point is. "There's more severe judgment, right? It will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon and for you." So why would judgment be worse if everyone is the same? Actually, I'm not sure if this passage is a real make. I'm just responding to it in real time here. I've got time to think more about this, but I'm not sure that this passage is a real challenge to Calvinism. Because if I were a Calvinist, I would probably say, "Yeah, you're, you know, you're hardened, you're not gonna receive Christ." But not everyone has sinned and rejected the same amount of light. And so, you know, you know, they all would have ultimately rejected Christ. Even, oh, I guess in verse 21, maybe you're getting at the point that they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Yeah, that might be a challenge. That might be a challenge to Calvinist views because they would have repented. The only escape hatch I see personally is, well, two escape hatches. One is, Jesus just speaking metaphorically or something symbolically. Doesn't really mean it. I'm not inclined to think that. I don't think that's justified. I think he really means it. So the other escape hatch would be, well, they would have repented in the sense that they changed their society and they wouldn't have been judged immediately. But that doesn't mean they would have been saved. And so, yeah, at any rate, in the sense that there's some who would have repented had such and such happened, this does seem to be a challenge to Calvinists. And if you're Calvinist viewing, put in the comments what your response to that would be so we can have a brotherly conversation. I'm not attacking you here, okay?

All right, Bobby Miller, we'll just do a couple more. We'll call it a night. Says, "Are there any renowned religious scholars that actually uphold universalism in any way? I feel like anyone who spends, let's see, a few minutes thinking about it could see how flawed universalism is." I agree with you, Bobby Miller. There's one. I'll mention a guy named Marcus Borg. Marcus Borg is a scholar, well, well-respected in some. I, I don't have a lot of respect for his thinking, but, you know, in some circles. And, and he's written on universalism and he preaches universalism. He says, "If universalism is not true, he doesn't even want to be a Christian." It's not important to him. I watched a whole lecture of his in preparation for this video because what I wanted to do is find more robust, you know, cases, a more robust case for universalism, for the idea that everyone, all religions are gonna be fine in the end. And I thought, maybe he'll bring like a scholarly edge to this, right? Like a stronger case for religious pluralism. And I watched like an hour-long lecture on the topic of religious pluralism, and he didn't bring a single compelling argument. I was, I was embarrassed. It was, it was like, right? I guess I was encouraged, actually. His cases for religious pluralism was number one, his biggest reason, it just seems obvious. And I'm like, "Wait, wait. It doesn't seem obvious to most religions." That's for sure. It doesn't seem obvious, certainly from a Christian worldview. And he just metaphorically reinterpreted every passage of scripture that indicates Jesus is like the way, the truth, and the life. And he goes, "Well, he's a way for me. To me, he's the way." And when you say to me, "What you mean is it's not really true, but it's like pragmatically working for me." And that's not what the scripture means. It's embarrassing. So there's an example of a scholar who brings, in my opinion, lousy arguments for universalism, but is respected. And as soon as the scholar speaks on an issue in public and speaking with that sort of clout, that scholarly clout, it will persuade lots of people because they're persuaded by the helper. This way, the Pharisees would be persuasive to the crowds because of their robes and their clout. And the modern-day scholars are sometimes today's Pharisees in the sense that scholars, not all scholars are bad or something. There's great scholars out there. But to the common average Joe, when they see this guy get up and he seems so smart and he's like, always speaking at Oxford or something, and it, that alone gets you to believe what they say instead of evaluating their claims.

All right, now I'm Andrew Stone has a question. "Pastor Mike, could you please one day do a topical study in helping victims of sexual assault refine Jesus? Thank you for sharing your gifting of teaching with us. God bless you, sir." Andrew, I'll definitely consider it. Some topics I look at and I go, "I don't know how qualified I am to do a great job on that." You know, and I'm sure that there's, there's resources, Christian resources out there. And I would look for, you know, a Christian author who's gone through this stuff, who wrote a book about it about how they experienced sexual assault and they have trust in Christ now. That's the people I want to find. People who've been through it who can share their testimonies and point people to Jesus. And I'm probably not the best one. Maybe I'll do an interview of a person like that in the future. That would be my angle. I would like to take.

Child of God says, "Actually, I said a couple more and I'm probably gonna call it for tonight because it's already 6:15, so we're a bit long. I like to keep it closer to an hour. So I think I'll wrap it up. But I want to say thank you for watching. Thanks for your time. I appreciate your time. And if, if you guys love this ministry, I really don't want you to give. Like, can I speak to the vast majority of my viewers? I don't want you to give. The whole point is that all this ministry stuff is totally free. But every once in a while, there's a rare person and you're like, "It's just on my heart, Mike. I have the finances. Like, I have the ability to support and I want to support this ministry." If you want to, there's a link in the description, or you can go to BibleThinker.org and be one of those who supports. But by all means, if you've listened to hundreds of hours of this content and it's blessed you and you feel bad for just listening and not giving, don't. That's my heart. That's my goal. That's the whole point of this ministry is free content going to the world and transforming lives, learning to think biblically about everything. I want to draw people to Christ and then get them grounded in Jesus Christ and to think really, think biblically, or think rightly about all things in life. And that's the agenda. That's the goal. And we're just gonna keep on plowing. I just want to say thanks to my mods who got, who come and give their time every Tuesday with no reward except some wonderful fellowship and some headaches in the creative chat. So thanks, guys. And I'll find the button here to stop streaming. God bless you. See you next week."