This is the ninth sermon that we have in our suggested topics sermon series, where I invited the congregation to give us topics that they wanted to hear sermons on. And the one that we're on today is universalism. So this falls under our second category, apologetics. Theology was our first category, had six or seven sermons from that. And now we're on apologetics, which is about defending our faith and what we believe. So the specific request that I'm taking this week was for a sermon that would refute universalism and the notion that all religions are equally valid. I think the person that asked for that said they run into this all the time, When they talk to people, they think all religions are basically the same. And there's just different colors of things or something, but they're all essentially the same. It is indeed pretty much the default position of those who are disciples of the modern day secularism that characterizes our day. In the West, as people of true saving faith, a number of years ago, looking back centuries, a couple of centuries ago, as people of true saving faith began to multiply, there was also with that multiplication, the multiplication of people that we might call tagalongs. Okay, people that kind of embrace a form of Christianity, a kind of a nominal form. they went along with the faith in a superficial way and they embraced many of the moral teachings of the true faith because after all these teachings are what is true and right and kind of comport with our nature when we're not suppressing the truth and resisting it. And so there's kind of a natural tendency if there's a bunch, a strong force of Christians that are living that, for other people to kind of embrace those same morals. And we, at least outwardly, we saw that happen. And these tagalongs even would go to church. But for them, being a Christian was more about living a moral life than it was about trusting a savior to save us from our sins. Over time, the society as a whole began to embrace the notion that it was good to live according to the values of Christianity, but that Christ was not needed to do this, which was was utter folly. You got the 1950s kind of a situation with morals and good citizenship and neighborly care and all these things that are things that were taught in the Word of God. But to the dismay of the older secularists who, again, they thought those things were wonderful and good and they wanted to see those things continue. To their dismay, without Christ, it began to unravel. And it led to the moral degradation that we see today. By taking Christ away, they remove the foundation of the morals that they loved. And they lived in the delusion that society could go on living in this way where people cared about each other and served and all this. When they can't. When I grew up in the 1960s, I remember that I only knew one kid. By the time I got to grade five, besides me, they didn't have two parents in the home. My father died when I was nine years old, and there was another kid whose parents were divorced. Everyone else in the whole school, they all had mom and dad at home. In those days, if it had been discovered that a teacher was living with someone she was not married to, she would have been immediately fired. It wouldn't even be a consideration that she was an immoral person with a bad example. And you see how quickly that there has been a casting off of morals that were universally embraced. The morals were there, but Christ the Savior was not there. Things like observing the Lord's Day, of course, even in that time, were certainly eroding. And before the decade was out, of the 1960s, sexual immorality and divorce were on the rise and abortion soon followed. For the moral secularists, the main benefit of religion was to help people be moral and to love one another. They would say things like, well, it doesn't matter what religion you are, as long as it helps you to be a good person. Those are the kind of things that you get. So this universalism grew up, and it's still something that kind of is there in the shadows of our culture, something that people still kind of cling to in a certain way, some more than others. It didn't matter what religion it might be, as long as it helped you to be a moral citizen who respected other people. Those who embrace this view knew mostly of Judaism and Christianity, so they didn't really have as much contrast as we would have today, as there's been a lot more immigration and people with different religions and things. And so they assumed that other religions also taught similar morals and made people into good moral citizens, which is not necessarily always the case with some of the religions. Where some of them have absolutely no compassion on people that are suffering because it's just karma and you don't help them at all, you just watch them suffer and walk by. Don't help at all, you don't care, that kind of thing. So again, these people would say things like in their embrace of things, doesn't matter what religion you are, just be a good person. And by that, they meant a good moral citizen who cares. Of course, as morals erode, and by that I mean morals that are in at least outward conformity to the teachings of God's word, then a change is occurring. Today, many people have come to view religion in a very different way, not as a help, but as a hindrance, because it causes its disciples to say that, for example, same-sex relations or abortion are wrong, to the modern progressive saying that such things are sinful is itself sinful, even though they don't really talk about sin. They see it as something that is unacceptable behavior. But even so, when religion is considered, the general thought is that one religion as just as valid or, as the case is now, invalid as another one. In other words, they're all the same. They're either good, or they're all bad, or they're kind of in the middle. Maybe they have some benefits and some problems, but they're all essentially the same thing. And that is still the view that you have, except that 50 years ago, it was like, okay, religion is good. And now it's like, well, some of you may be very bad, but in either case, they're all, all religions are basically the same in their mind. So in this sermon, again, I've been asked to dispel the notion of universalism that one nation is, and one religion is as valid as another. So the scripture reading for this is from Isaiah 45, one through 25. I could have gone from Isaiah 41 to Isaiah 49 or so, because there's a whole section really addresses. It's sort of an attack on universalism, if you will, a refutation of it. But I just chose a chapter in the middle, which is chapter 45 of Isaiah. So I'll read this to you now. This is the word of God. It says, Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings. to open before him the double doors so that the gates will not be shut. I will go before you and make the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden treasures of secret places that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel, my elect, I have even called you by your name. I have named you, though you have not known me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. There is no God besides me. I will gird you, though you have not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I, the Lord, do all these things. rain down you heavens from above and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation and let righteousness spring up together. I, the Lord, have created it. Woe to him who strives with his maker. Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him who forms it, What are you making? Or shall your handiwork say he has no hands? Woe to him who says to his father, what are you beginning or to the woman? What have you brought forth? Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and his maker, ask me of the things to come concerning my sons and concerning the work of my hands. You command me. I have made the earth and created man on it. I, my hands stretched out the heavens and all their hosts I have commanded. I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways. And it's talking about Israel. Of course, he shall build my city and let my exiles go free, not for price nor reward, says the Lord of hosts. Thus says the Lord, the labor of Egypt and merchandise of Cush and of the Sabians, men of stature shall come over to you, and they shall be yours. They shall walk behind you. They shall come over in chains, and they shall bow down to you. They will make supplication to you, saying, Surely God is in you and there is no other. There is no other God. Truly, you are God who hide yourself. Oh, God of Israel, the Savior. They shall be ashamed and also disgraced. All of them. They shall go in confusion together who are makers of idols. But Israel shall be saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation. You shall be ashamed or disgraced forever and ever. For thus says the Lord who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited, I am the Lord. And there is no other. I have not spoken in secret in the dark place of the earth. I did not say to the seat of Jacob, seek me in vain. I, the Lord, speak righteousness. I declare things that are right. Assemble yourselves and come draw near together. You who have escaped from the nations, they have no knowledge who carry the wood of their carved image and pray to a God that cannot save. Tell and bring forth your case. Yes, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from the ancient, from ancient time? Who has told it from that time? Have not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides me, a just God and a savior. There is none besides me. Look to me and be saved all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. I have sworn by myself the word. The word has gone out of my mouth and righteousness and shall not return that to me. Every knee shall bow. Every tongue shall take an oath. He shall say, surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength to him. Men shall come and all shall be ashamed who are incensed against him. In the Lord, all the descendants of Israel shall be justified and shall glory. And there we end the reading of God's holy and infallible word. So you see, this is this is very powerful. I mean, how many times does he say, I am God and there is no other or the equivalent of that? This chapter, along with the chapters surrounding it, is a direct challenge to universalist notions that this God and that God, whatever they are, are all the same. The thing that stands out here in Isaiah 45 is that one God is God overall. He is the only one who sends prophets and declares to his people what he is going to do next in the world before he does it. and then what he declares occurs. There are many such prophecies in the Bible where even specific details are given, not only about Israel, but also about Israel's neighbors. Sometimes there's a whole list of what's going to happen to their neighbors. When a particular, when God raises up a particular king to discipline his people, he tells what they're going to do to Moab and to Ammon and to Edom and all these different places around to the Philistines whatever. So, the universalist is wrong, okay? We're looking at refuting universalism. The universalist, who says all religions are basically the same, is wrong because he denies that one God is the source of all that happens, that there is only one true God. He assumes that all religion is just a matter of the recorded reflections and thoughts of people as they have thought about things. and just kind of collectively over the years that you have different religions that come along from people just kind of reflecting about whatever they think about God. In other words, the source of revelation is not God. What the universalist misses is the fact that there is only one God who created everything, who runs the world, and that he revealed himself as the only true God and as only one God. Isaiah 45 opens with God speaking specifically about an event that's going to happen in the future, about 150 years into the future, about a future pagan king named Cyrus, or more like 200 years, really, with the Cyrus part. At this point in history, about 700 years before Christ, the Lord had declared to his people that in about 150 years, he was going to send them into exile. because of their sin. He was going to raise up enemies and destroy their city. He said that Jerusalem would be destroyed by Babylon. He even named the country. He told Hezekiah when the envoys came to visit from Babylon that this would happen. And here he does something remarkable. He speaks about how he will deliver his people from that exile by raising up a Persian king, a king from Persia named Cyrus, who will be given dominion. In other words, he will conquer like where Babylon had conquered. Persia would be the one that would conquer and who will issue a decree to restore Israel to their land and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. So it won't be that Israel gained strength and is able to go and build it themselves, but that a pagan king will conquer the pagan king of Babylon, and then he will issue a decree for the temple in Jerusalem to be rebuilt. Who would have ever come up with that? You see, that's God's plan. You'd think, you know, if they were prophesying about themselves, and they'd say, we'll rise up and we'll be on top of everything, and they would have been wrong. But this is prophesied in Isaiah 44, 28. It speaks to the Lord, who, and I quote, says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd. So he calls his pagan king a shepherd, because he's going to be looking after his sheep for him. God's sheep. As a king, he's going to be a shepherd looking after his sheep. Not because he's a godly man, but because God's going to raise him up to do that. And it says, he shall perform my pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, You shall be built, right? Jerusalem had been torn down and to the temple, your foundation shall be laid. So this is an incredible prophecy. Understand, this was said long before Jerusalem and the temple had even fallen yet. It was still standing when this prophecy was made. In Isaiah 45, four through seven, the Lord draws attention to that fact when he gives this prophecy. In other words, he's deliberately naming a king that's gonna come in the future and telling what's gonna happen in the future so that everybody will know who's in control. God is the one that does all these things. He's the only God, not these other ones that claim to be God. So he's setting this out and stating it as something that will exhibit the fact that he's the one who controls the future. Look at Isaiah 45, four through seven. He says, for Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel, my elect, for my chosen people, I have even called you, speaking to Cyrus, by your name. before the guy was even born. He already said what his name would be. I have named you, though you have not known me. I am the Lord and there is no other. There is no God besides me. I will gird you, though you have not known me. In other words, I'm going to be the one that gives you your ability to be strengthened and so on. He says, I'll gird you, though you've not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I, the Lord, do all these things that the Lord names him is highlighted as proof that God is the one who has already decided what will happen in the future and controls the future. So look back a couple of chapters back to chapter 41, Isaiah 41 and verse 21 where the Lord taunts the other gods. He says, okay, I'm doing this all the time. I'm telling you what's going to happen 100 years from now, 200 years from now, 500 years from now, 700 years from now. I'm telling you what is gonna occur in history. So all you other gods, you come, you're gods, and you tell us what you're gonna do. What are you gonna do in 200 years? What are you gonna do in 50 years? What are you gonna do in even 10 years? And of course they can't, because they're not God. There's only one God. Universalism is not true. So look at Isaiah 41, 21. He's speaking to these other gods. He says, present your case, says the Lord. Bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob. Let them bring forth and show us what will happen. Like I'm doing right before your eyes. If God wasn't doing it, nobody would have listened to this argument. He was doing that and had done that. And so he says, tell us what's going to happen. Let them show the former things what they were. Explain that to us. Why do those things happen? That we may consider them and know the latter end of them. What's going to happen to them? declare to us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods. Do you claim to be a god? Let's hear something about what you're gonna do in the future. Yes, do good or do evil, like do something. You can tell us you're gonna destroy something, or you can tell us that you're gonna bless something. Do something that we may be dismayed and see it together. Indeed, you are nothing. and your work is nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination. What do you mean by he who chooses you? The people that worship these do-nothing gods, these idols. Those people are wrong. They're an abomination. Now, of course, the gods of the nations are not capable of declaring what they're going to do because they're not in control. They're worthless idols. Now, I've told you before that, you know, Paul tells us that some of the idols that are worshiped by the Gentiles, that they worship demons when they worship idols. So there may be some demons that even like do some little things here and there, miracles of some kind or signs or things like that. But they're worthless idols. They have no ability. They don't have the future is not in their hands. Now go back to Isaiah 45 and you can see how God stresses that he is the one who created the earth and who decides what will happen. He emphasizes it even more. Okay, Isaiah 45, 11 through 13. Get the connection here. Okay, the one that created everything is the one that sustains everything and brings it to its final destination. He's the one that has control over it all. The one true God who made heaven and earth. There's only one that did that. There weren't a bunch of gods that created the world. One God that was here and created all things, including those that are now worshiped as gods. They're not gods. They're creatures. So let's see what he says. Isaiah 45, 11. Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and his maker. Ask me of the things to come concerning my sons and concerning the work of my hands. You command me. I have made the earth and created man on it. I my hands stretched out the heavens and all their hosts. I have commanded. I stretched out the heavens and I commanded, I ordered them as to where they should go, what they should do, how they should do it. I have raised him up in righteousness and I will direct his ways. He shall build my city. Now this is talking about this pagan king, King Cyrus. How did he get his power? Same way Pharaoh did. What did God say to Pharaoh? For this cause I have raised you up. What did he say to Cyrus? For this cause I have raised you up. Why did he raise Pharaoh up? So that he could show his power in destroying Egypt when Pharaoh didn't want it to be destroyed and refused to let the people go. Why did he raise Cyrus up? for a very different reason, so that he could be the shepherd of God's people and bring them back to Jerusalem and have the temple built again under his protection and provision. So the Lord is the one then who must be feared because he is the creator. To worship anyone else is to worship what is not God. The universalist is wrong to say that there's no difference from one religion to another. There's a huge difference. There is only one creator, and he is the God who chose Israel and who declared himself to be the only true God in the ancient world. And get this, too. What were the other gods claiming, even? You realize in the ancient world, the other gods didn't claim to be God of all the world, the God who created everything. They said that they were one of the many gods. I'm the God of this area. I'm the God of the mountains. I'm the God of the hills over here. I'm the God of these trees. They had different, this place and that place, that they were the God of. And they didn't really care. Acknowledging that there were other Gods. And sometimes one of them would defeat the other one. That kind of thing. One God was different in the ancient world from all the others. Even in what he said about himself. that I'm the creator and that I'm the one that decides what's going to happen even to all these other nations that are not my people. I'm the one who decides all of these things because I'm the one that made the world. But that's not all that the universalist is wrong about. He's wrong about that. That's pretty basic, isn't it? But the universalist is also wrong about morality. I said before about how they look at morality, and they say, okay, morality is a good thing, and religions promote morality, so that's a good thing. But they're actually radically, there's radical differences in morality for those who are in the true Christian faith. The universalist assumption is that morality arose from men, just like their assumption that revelation about God rose from men. So as universalists are typically positive about religion, when someone calls themselves a universalist, they usually aren't negative about religion. They're usually someone that says, yeah, religion's a good thing, they're all the same. So they see all religions being used to help keep, what is it for, for them? Religion is used to help keep society together, to help it to stay in order. So it also gives a little extra boost, they would say, to the morality, because they realize that if someone is answering to their god, whatever religion it is, it's gonna affect their behavior, isn't it? And that's true. I mean, if you have a false god and you know that, and he is not pleased with adultery or something, you're gonna think twice. I remember talking to a Muslim student who was boasting about how sexually pure he was and his people, and then he ended up committing adultery, another man's wife. And he was devastated because he had sinned against his God. And so it restrains people, doesn't it? It prevents them from doing immoral things. And the Universalist says, yeah, that's a good thing about religion. It helps to do that. God has built into everyone a conscience. And at creation, he gave us a sense of right and wrong that can still be seen reflected in us, even though we're fallen. So people know by nature. something about what is right and what is wrong. It's only in their rebellion that they pervert this, you see. And when a society has been collectively rebelling over a long time, they can really get twisted in their morality, but there's still kind of a remembrance that you see come out that they kind of know what's right and wrong still. They really know. And they're trying, some of the things they're doing that they're even promoting, they're kind of desperate to promote them and say that they're not bad because they feel guilty and they know that it's not really right. So for that reason, there is a consensus about many things, though, in a society. Like most people say that murder is not a good thing. There have been societies that get perverted that say, yeah, well, it's good if we murder anybody else. We don't murder within ourselves. They still have that. But you know, you're showing your power and whatever. It's a virtue. But there's a kind of a consensus. Remember that we all came, as I mentioned to you before, we all came from Noah. And so really we all came from where people even understood that there was a Redeemer that had promised to send a son that would conquer Satan and that the world would be blessed through this one that would come. Because we all came from Noah. So all of the perversions are perversions from that. So there's a lot of suppression going on there. What's more, morality gets perverted when people depart then from the true God. So the reason that they depart is often because they lust and want to sin. And because they know that God doesn't approve of it, they don't want to be restrained by their religion. So they say, oh, I'm going to get out of the shackles of that religion that I grew up in, and I'm going to go so I can be free. And I can do whatever I want, and nobody can tell me what to do. Maybe they want to have sex without a commitment to marriage. Maybe they want to kill people that they don't want around, like a baby that they conceived that they don't want to keep. Whatever. In the case of the universalists, they often just want to engage to encourage religion as a buttressed morality. They don't want to worship God. So what they do not realize is that while they can be moral toward their neighbor in the way of the 1950s kind of morality, that morality is highly, in fact, very immoral if it does not worship God. So the morality is radically different. You see, the first of the 10 commandments is to have no other gods before his face. The second is to worship him only as he commands, not. by idols. The third is to revere his name. Don't take his name in vain, but give him the honor and fear that is due to him. And the fourth is to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The universalist says those commandments don't matter because they don't have to do with loving your neighbor. They might be part of kind of religious system and maybe they can be useful in certain ways. Maybe the Sabbath a little bit. People don't have to work or whatever. You give them a break. But the universalist says that all religions are the same because they all help to live a better life as they understand it. But any religion but the one that worships the true God, no matter how much they may teach morality toward people, is very immoral. because it doesn't keep the first four commandments. No other gods have another god by definition. Another religion has another god. The greatest commandment of all summarizes those first four commandments, that we're to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Why? Because there is one God, not many gods. So that makes every religion but one not something that promotes morality, but something that promotes immorality. So the universalist is wrong about that too. The universalist position is actually quite illogical. All the religions cannot be right when they have areas of radical disagreement such as who is God. It is true that when unbelievers culturally embrace a nominal Christianity, though, okay, people come into the church, they're not really Christians, and they say, I am a Christian. They don't really know what it is to serve Jesus or to know him as Savior, and they're not really born again, but they come in because, hey, it's nice people here, we wanna be part of the community, we wanna be nice people, and that happens all the time, that their version of morality is actually no different than in other religions are not much different, you see, than all the others. Because they're not living for the true God, except in an outward conformity way. They do not know him or serve him or believe in him. They're just trying to be good people according to their own twisted morality that takes the first four commandments in God's moral law out of the picture. So whenever I meet someone, I say, oh yeah, I'm a Christian. And I talked to him a little bit, and I find out that they are not trusting in Jesus for their salvation. By Christian, they mean, I go to some liberal church, and I try to live a good life, and try to do the right thing, and all that, and serve God. And when I meet someone like that, and they say that, we know all the other religions are doing the same thing. I say, yeah, you're right. Same kind of religion you have, it's the same thing. But there's one that's different, and that's true Christianity. True Christianity is different than your false Christianity. Your false Christianity, yeah, it's just like all the others. You have good people, do these things, doesn't matter who God, but true Christianity is different. So, okay, God's, so we have God's sovereign rule, that the universe gets wrong, that's the first point we looked at, and we have morality. that they get wrong. But those are not the only ways that the true religion stands apart from all the others. The universalist is wrong about sin and judgment. There is one God who is the judge of all, and the universalist misses that. Isaiah 45.9 speaks of the serious nature of sinning against God. It says, woe to him who strives with his maker. Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth. So we're potsherds, like broken pottery. We need to strive with each other, but don't go striving against God. Because you're not going to get very far as a piece of broken pottery, striving with God. Shall the clay say to him who forms it, what are you making? Or shall your handiwork say, he has no hands? Did you hear how this began? That which I just read, 45.9. Woe to him. Woe to who? The one who does this, who views God this way. Who strives with his maker. When a woe is pronounced against a person, it means that that person is in deep trouble. In deep trouble with God. That judicial vengeance is coming on him. That he is going to be severely punished. And you see the ones about whom this is said, it is said about the ones who strive with their maker. Again, there is only one creator. He is the Lord and judge of all. He is the supreme lawgiver and the supreme judge, the final judge. To strive with him is to go counter to his law, to transgress his law. And if you transgress his law, You'll be punished. It's to go against the righteous standard of the one true God who made heaven and earth that everyone ought to obey. The Bible teaches that we have all sinned, all of us, and come short of the glory of God. We are the clay striving with the one who formed us into living beings, and we take it upon ourselves to alter the way that God has called us to live. Say, I don't want to do what God says. I want to do what I want to do. We're striving with our Maker. Sinning against God is such a serious matter. Anyone who does that, he says, whoa, to that one that strives with their Maker. He's in trouble. It's gonna go very, very badly with him. They're guilty of striving against the God that made them. The Universalist does not accept that. The reason is simple. It's because a universalist accepts all religion. He does not notice the fact that the Christian religion is the only one that actually takes sin seriously. Other religions can take it somewhat seriously. but not nearly as seriously as it ought to be taken. Other religions either minimize sin, so they regard it as sin, or they deny it altogether. Islam, for example, which is a modified version actually of Judaism and Christianity, supposes that there will be some individuals that God will accept and reward. based on their own merit. It doesn't pronounce woe upon us all who strive with our Maker. It doesn't leave them condemned because we've all had striving with our Maker. Islam doesn't leave them all condemned apart from the salvation that God provides through His Son Jesus Christ. How does that person become accepted to God? How can anyone in Islam be accepted by God? It has to be based on God accepting them as they are, because they don't have a savior. And then there's the Eastern religions. They're different, like Hinduism. They don't take sin seriously either, but in a different way. They have karma, but it doesn't address sin as an offense against God that demands eternal punishment. Sin is something much less severe than that for the Hindu. It teaches that a sinner can eventually make his way to nirvana state, which is the Hindu version of paradise, and is really the dissolution of the person completely. So they just become mixed in with the whole of everything, and that's supposed to be the goal. And then you have those unbelieving perversions of Christianity that also deny the seriousness of sin. Liberal churches, what do they deny every time? the doctrine of eternal punishment. I've never been to a liberal church that said, oh yeah, we believe that people will go to hell because of their sin unless they repent and believe in Christ. Jehovah Witnesses also deny eternal punishment. And there are even so-called evangelicals that deny it. So don't take sin seriously. I tell you, the acknowledgement of sin as permeating and making the sinner unfit for communion with God is unique to true Christianity. We teach that all of us, before we came to Christ, were, as we read in our New Testament reading, Ephesians 2, dead in trespasses and sins, and were, by nature, the children of wrath. and that we were, as verse 12 says in Ephesians 2, without hope and without God in the world. People that were not reconciled to God through His covenant promise and mercy were without hope, completely without God in the world. In this teaching, Christianity stands entirely apart from all other religions. It's one of the most offensive things of all, to say that there is no way to be saved. They say, what? You think they have to believe your religion to be saved? What are you talking about? There's lots of other ways. And that's a big offense. The universalist does not see and accept this radical difference. And this leads to the most harmful error of all about universalism. The universalist is wrong about redemption. Christianity alone has redemption. To be without the redemption that is in Christ is to be lost. Since sin is not taken seriously by the universalist, there is no need for redemption by a divine Savior. A person will be fine if they just do the best they can. They do not need to be redeemed by the Son of God coming and dying for their sins on the cross. The liberal churches typically deny the true deity of Christ. He is a Savior who is less than God because the death of the Son is not necessary. If God's Son is not necessary, divine being dying for us. The same is true with Jehovah Witnesses. They deny hell, so they deny the deity of Christ. Those go together. You don't need someone as God to save you. Islam has no redeemer. The Hindus and Buddhists have no divine savior and redeemer. Christianity cannot be seen as the same as other religions because this is a huge difference. It is the fundamental difference that we're reconciled to God through Christ. Salvation is of the Lord. It's not of us. It's of the Lord. He must save us. With all the others, salvation is obtained if it is thought to be needed to be obtained at all. In other ways, the only thing that delivered the nations from being without hope and without God in the world, the Ephesians 2.12 thing, is that we are now in Christ Jesus. So, we read also in Ephesians, right? Ephesians 2, 11. Therefore, remember that you are once Gentiles, nations in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision, outside of God's covenant, by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands. That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, you were strangers to the church. and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off are brought near by the blood of Christ. But you see, there's that's how the nations, not just Israel, but the nations are saved. And without that, They're strangers from the covenants of promise. They're alienated from God. They're cut off without hope. Think about that. There's a word, without God and without hope in the world. There's no hope. So at the end, now we go back to Isaiah 45, at the end of Isaiah 45, the Lord calls all who worship other gods, who worship idols, to come to him, the only true God for salvation that can't be found elsewhere. All you that are worshiping this God, you know, Chemosh over here, and Moloch over here, and Asher over there, you come. and be saved, come to the true God. Because you can't be saved without that. It's a gracious, gracious call. Look what he says, Isaiah 45, 20. Assemble yourselves and come. Draw near together you who have escaped from the nations. They have no knowledge. They're ignorant and foolish. They have no knowledge who carry the wood of their carved idols and pray to a God that cannot save. What's the point of praying to a God who can't ultimately save you? Even if he can bless your crops or something for a little while, even if he could do that. What's the point if he can't ultimately save you? Tell and bring forth your case, he says. Yes, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from the ancient time? Who has told it from that time? Have not I the Lord? And here he goes again. And there is no other God besides me. A just God and A Savior. There is none besides me. What other God is a Savior? You see the stress on the fact that God is the only Savior and the only true God. He is the one who rules the world and it is only by Him that any of us can be saved. And so there is this marvelous invitation to every person, this call to come and be saved by Him who is the only Savior. Look at verse 22, where the Lord says, this is Isaiah 45, 22. Look to me and be saved all you into the earth for I am God and there is no other. See that there, this is not just for Israel. is for the nations. Israel was the nation through which God's truth and way of salvation was preserved in the world until the Messiah came. They were God's witnesses. But now that Christ has come, all nations everywhere are commanded to repent and to look to the Lord, the one true eternal God, to be saved. Who else can do the saving but Him? Jesus made this point to the woman from Samaria. She asked Jesus, Hey, you're I perceive that you're the Messiah. You're telling me things that could tell that there's there's something about you. And so she says, Where is worship supposed to be done? We have this dispute with the Jews, the Samaritans at the Samaritan site here where we worship or at Jerusalem. Where is it supposed to be done? And Jesus responded that the hour had come when true worship would no longer be the ritual worship at Jerusalem or any other place on earth in that way, a particular central location, but that it would be in spirit and truth. No longer in symbols, but in spirit and truth. Symbols are representations, they're not the true thing. Jesus is the true thing, the true sacrifice that is needed. And so, through the lamb that takes away the sin of the world, through Jesus. He tells her that salvation though, is of the Jews. That's where it was preserved, not everywhere. Not among the Greeks, not among all the false religions. This is where the true religion, but now... That is, they brought forth the son that God said they would bring forth and the salvation goes into all the world. So he goes out of his way to make sure that we realize that he is the only one. Look at verse 23 and 24 declares that every believer will find salvation only in him. This is back at Isaiah 45 again. I have sworn by myself The word has gone out of my mouth and righteousness and shall not return that to me every knee shall bow every tongue shall take an oath. He shall say surely in the Lord. I have righteousness and strength to him men shall come and all shall be ashamed who are incensed against him. The true Israel of God are those who have their righteousness from the Lord. Verse 25 in the Lord, all the descendants of Israel shall be justified and shall glory. This, my friends, is the great distinguishing factor between the true religion and all others. is the one and the only one who does the saving. Are you trusting in him for your salvation? Because if you're not, you don't have any salvation at all. Are you seeking to make Him known to those who do not know Him? Because unless they're trusting in Him, they don't have any salvation. No matter how devoted they might be to their own gods and their own religion, their own salvation, or their own religious practices, it's a matter of the utmost importance that we declare the gospel to all any Christians who thinks that it's possible for people to be saved without Christ. does not understand the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Such a person needs also to come to Christ and be saved. Because if they understood, they would know that there is no other salvation, but in Jesus Christ. Only by coming to Christ will anyone be saved. Only by coming to Christ will anyone see his glory. All religions are certainly not equally valid. Universalism is certainly wrong. So please stand and let's call on the name of the Lord. Lord, we thank you that you have revealed your truth from the very beginning. We see how even in your mercy that after you judge the world and the day of Noah and you kind of wash the whole thing clean, as it were, And there was only one believing family that was left. You'd think that everyone would have continued looking to you for salvation, but such is not the way with us in our sin. We see that it requires radical preservation on your part, keeping us for us to continue or to believe in the first place. And we thank you, Lord, for how you preserved a people for yourself in that very way until the Messiah came, the one that you promised. And truly, Lord, as he was the only one that could save in the day of Noah. He is just as much the only one that can be that can save in our day. We can't look at things and say, oh, it's more complicated. Now we have all these different religions that sprang up from here and there. All those different religions were perversions of what originally was the truth. And we see, Lord, that there is so much corruption in man. And we pray, Lord, that we would be careful to take heed to your word and to your truth. You're the only God in the Old Testament that continually set forth yourself as the only God. And we see that you're the only one who could tell what would happen in the future, whether it be 100 years future or 500 or 1,000 or 2,000. You're the one who showed that you were God. And we have a copy of your revelation to us. And we see that you've even done that in this period that we live in now, after Christ. Because you told us that after Christ came, that that's when the other nations would come and start believing in. That's exactly what happened. Just exactly what you said. And no one can look at that and say that that wasn't prophesied long, long beforehand. And it is absolutely so. And we see that it is exactly what happened. And we pray, oh, Lord, then that we would trust you and that we would have a firm and unshakable confidence that what we have is the truth. that there's no other, and that we wouldn't dink around and kid ourselves and act like we've got some kind of objection to this being the truth, that we've got some kind of intellectual scruple about it being true, or some kind of moral scruple about it being true. No, we don't have anything valid whatsoever. You are God. You are the only God, and we pray that you would strengthen your people, Lord. Give us a a courage, a fortitude that comes from strong faith. We know, Lord, that those who trust in the Lord in an unshakable way are a terror to their enemies. And I'm not sure that we're a terror to our enemies because I'm not sure that we're trusting in an unshakable way. But we pray that you would help us to grow into that. that we would become what we ought to be as your people. And thank you for your mercy to us, Lord, that though our faith is weak and though it is imperfect and by a long shot that you are very gracious and we don't lean on our own works of righteousness, we lean on Christ. But may we not in a hypocritical way leaning on Christ to be some kind of an excuse that we don't even need to concern ourselves with whether we have a strong, unshakable faith, that a weak faith is sufficient. It's true that it is sufficient, but it's not nearly what it ought to be. So we pray, Lord, that we would have real faith and growing faith, because real faith is growing faith. It doesn't stagnate. We pray then, Lord, that we would advance from glory to glorious by the working of your gracious hand in our lives. Oh, Lord, we look to you and we thank you. that you are the one true God. We praise you that you're the one true God. You're the one that made everything. You're the one that controls everything that you made. It brings it to its purpose. You're the lawgiver and the judge, the only one. You're the one who has revealed to us our sin and our need, and your judgment will fall. The woe to him who strives with his maker. And you're the God who brings salvation. So Lord, we praise and thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Of our God. God be merciful to you and bless you, cause his face to shine upon you, that his way may be known on earth, his salvation among all nations. Amen.