Don’t All Religions Lead to the Same God?

Don’t All Religions Lead to the Same God?

“Don’t All Religions Lead to the Same God?”

(Exodus 20:1-3)

Series: Answers (1 of 5)

Team Preaching: Revs. Todd A. Linn and Rich Stratton

First Baptist Church Henderson, KY

(3-1-09) (AM)

 

Words in Black—Todd Linn

Words in Red—Rich Stratton

  • Take your Bibles and open to Exodus, chapter 20.

 

During the five Sundays of March we are going to be looking at some popular questions about the Christian faith.  We will study these questions both in Sunday school and in the worship hour each week.  Our series is entitled, “Answers” because the aim is to provide biblical answers to each of the questions.

 

Brother Rich is going to be preaching along with me as we’re doing some “Team Preaching” during this series so I want to ask him to come up and join me.  We think of it as “Preaching in Stereo” and we hope that God will use the both of us as we share our thoughts on these issues.

 

Now the first question we are looking at today is this question: “Don’t all religions lead to the same God?”  If I pray to God and you pray to God, does it matter if I have in mind the God of the Bible and you have in mind the God of Islam?  Does it really matter?  Well, we’re going to study this question today and our text is Exodus, chapter 20.  Many of you will readily recognize this chapter as the chapter that gives us the 10 Commandments and the first few verses give us the first commandment.

  • Stand in honor of the reading of the Word.

 

1 And God spoke all these words, saying:

2 ” I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 ” You shall have no other gods before Me.

  • Pray.

 

Introduction:

 

Do all religions lead to the same God?  Many people think so.  Last December, during ABC’s Television show, “Nightline,” former President George Bush reiterated his belief that he prays to the same God as those with different religious beliefs.  He said, “I do believe there is an almighty that is broad and big enough and loving enough that can encompass a lot of people.”  He had made a similar statement about a year earlier, telling a Middle-Eastern reporter that all religions, “whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God.”  Now, this isn’t meant to be an attack on the former president.  He himself admitted last December that he was no expert on these matters, but he asserted a very popular belief, the belief that people of all religions, “whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, pray to the same God.”

 

Is that true?  Do all religions lead to the same God?  As people all over the world pray in their religious context, whether they are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Mormon, New Agers, Philosophers, Humanists—are all these people addressing the same God and they just don’t know it?

 

A popular illustration argues for all religions leading to the same God.  Professors on college campuses frequently give it.  It goes like this: suppose you have four or five different guys and you blindfold each of them and then you take them to an elephant.  Now, none of them can see the elephant but each of them can feel a part of the elephant.  One person feels the trunk.  Another person feels one of the elephant’s feet, and still another feels the elephant’s tusks.   The story suggests that each person learns and experiences truth from the “one” elephant.  So, each person is on the right path.  They’re all encountering the same elephant, just different aspects of him.  So, the story suggests that all religions are encountering the same God, just different aspects of him.  All people pray to the same god and know him in their own ways, but he’s still the same one true god.  How would you answer someone who believed that way?

How would you answer someone who believed that way?  I mean, on the surface, that sounds like a pretty convincing argument, doesn’t it?  Each person experiences a part of truth and each person’s part of truth leads to the one main truth.  Everyone is praying to a different god as they understand him, but it doesn’t matter because all of these gods are part of the one main God, like tusks and feet are part of the one main elephant.

 

We’ll come back to the elephant illustration later, but right now we want to take a closer look at these verses we read a moment ago.  As a Bible-believing church we believe that the Bible has the answers to life’s most pressing questions and the Bible has a very clear answer to this question about different religions.  Look again at the first three verses of Exodus, chapter 20.  I want you to see three things we can learn about God right here in the first of the Ten Commandments.  Number one:

 

I.  God Declares His Lordship (1-2a)

 

1 And God spoke all these words, saying:

2 ” I am the LORD your God,

 

That statement, “I am the Lord your God” is worthy of some sober reflection.  God plainly declares “I am the Lord your God.”  He does not ask for permission to speak this way.  He doesn’t even say, “You may not believe this, but, I am the Lord your God.”  He simply and clearly asserts the truth: “I am the Lord your God.”  It is a bold, declarative statement that only God can make.

 

By the way, it’s also interesting that God does not seek to prove in any way that He is God.  He doesn’t say, “Here are some reasons why I am God and why no one else is god.”  No, He just declares His Lordship: “I am the Lord your God.”  Only God can make such a statement.

 

This phrase, “I am the Lord your God,” is a phrase comprised of two words for God.  The word “LORD” in all caps is the word “Jehovah” or “Yahweh.”  This is the personal name, the proper name, of the One True God.  It is best translated as “The Existing One.”  Modern Jews will not even pronounce the name because they believe it to be too sacred to utter aloud.

 

The other word for God there in verse two is the very word, “God,” which translates the Hebrew word, “Elohim,” which generally refers to the creating works of God.  “I am the Lord, your God.  I am the one who put the stars in the sky.  I created the sun and the moon.  I created the earth and I created you.  I am the Lord your God.”

 

Nowhere does God ever say anything like, “I am but one of many gods.”  Nor does He say, “I am to be first among many gods.”  Nor does He say, “I am the main god.”  No, He simply declares His lordship: “I am the Lord your God.”  God declares His Lordship.  Number two:

 

II.  God Deserves our Love (2b)

 

This is an implicit point.  That is to say you won’t see the explicit word “love” there in verse 2, but you’ll read about love.  Look at it there.  See what God reminds His people right after making that declarative statement about His Lordship.  In the last part of verse two.  He says, “I am the Lord your God…

 

who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

 

God reminds His people what He has done for them.  He has “brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”  He freed them from slavery!  What is the natural response to the person who frees you from danger?  Rescues you from drowning?  Saves your life?  The natural response is to love the one who rescued you.

 

You can’t force someone to love you and God never forced His people to love Him, but He frequently reminded them why He deserved their love.  Throughout the Old Testament He says, “Remember who I am and what I’ve done.”  When God’s people remembered how God had delivered them from 40 years of bondage, 40 years of slavery in Egypt, they were filled with love and they renewed their faithfulness to Him.

 

The God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament.  He comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ and He delivers us from sin to bring us out of our slavery and bondage.  The Bible says in 1 Timothy 1:12 that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”  Jesus Christ came into this world—God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ—to save sinners.  He came to save us from our sins.

 

If you have been saved from your sins you love the one who rescued you.  That’s why most of you are here this morning.  God rescued you from the penalty of your sins and you are here to worship, love, and adore that God with all of your heart.  He “brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”  This is why Jesus said in John 8:36, “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

 

See how these verses are intricately woven together.  God declares His Lordship.  He just says, “I am the Lord, your God.  I am, I exist.  I am the personal, one and only God, I am the creator God, creating the heavens and the earth—creating you!—and the very one, the only one who grants the freedom you enjoy.”  The implication to all this is, “You are nothing without me!”  and it is on this basis, then, that God can say, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”  So that takes us to the third thing we can know about God.  God declares His Lordship, God deserves our Love, and thirdly:

 

III.  God Demands our Loyalty (3)

 

3 ” You shall have no other gods before Me.

 

The last words “before me” do not mean “ahead of me.”  That would mean we could have any number of gods or idols so long as God were in the number one position.  That is not what the words mean.  The idea, rather, is no other gods “in my sight.”  This is how William Tyndale translated the verse in his 1530 translation: “No other gods in my sight.”  That’s why some translations have it, “You shall have no other gods besides Me.”  The point is, “You shall have no other gods at all.”

 

Think of it: what is Islam’s “Allah” or Hinduism’s “Brahman” if not “other gods?”  The God of the Bible demands our exclusive loyalty and allegiance to Him as the One True God.  Furthermore, the Bible teaches that there are no other gods because God alone created all things and He certainly did not create any other gods!  Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God,” not, “gods.”

 

So in some sense, the question, “Don’t all religions lead to the same God” is misleading.  It is misleading because it implies that God accepts the validity of other religions.  Now don’t misunderstand.  We live in a free country and people are free to worship whomever or whatever they want, but listen: No one is free to define the One True God of the Bible except the God of the Bible!  That’s so important we need to say it again: “People are free to worship whomever or whatever they want, but no one is free to define the One True God of the Bible except the God of the Bible.”

 

So let’s go back to the elephant illustration.  Someone says, “Well, if you blindfold four guys and ask each of them to feel different parts of the elephant, each guy will have a different experience of the one elephant so, while all their experiences will be a little different from one another, they’ll all be experiencing truth from the one main elephant.”  And the implication is that people of all different kinds of religion, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, and so forth, are all on the same path, all experiencing varying degrees of truth from the one main.  What’s wrong with this illustration?

 

Many things are wrong with it!  But the main thing that’s wrong with it is that it is taught nowhere in the Bible.  That is to say, God nowhere allows for us to think of Him as one main God to whom all other gods lead.  He nowhere allows for us to pray to one god or another god or still another god as though we were all experiencing part of the same One True God of the Bible.

 

In fact, God is so zealous for our loyalty that in the very next commandment, the second commandment, He says, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.  For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God.”

 

So God doesn’t allow for us to think of Him as an elephant with many differing parts that all lead to Himself.  He is the one, true God!  He demands our exclusive loyalty.

 

Furthermore, the teachings of other religions are simply not compatible with the God of the Bible.  Which is why the question “Don’t all religions lead to the same God?” is really the wrong question all together.  It is the wrong question because the ultimate biblical answer is; yes all those who adhere to all religions will ultimately stand before the same God, the God of the Bible.  So the better question to ask is “When I stand before God and His judgment, will I be found guilty or innocent?”  And the Bible declares that only those who have come before God on the basis of Jesus being His Son who has died for the sins of the world will be judged as innocent.     Jews do not believe that about Jesus.  Followers of Islam—Moslems—do not believe that about Jesus.  And Buddhists do not believe that about Jesus.  Furthermore, the Jesus of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Jesus of the Mormons is also not the same Jesus as the Jesus of the Bible.  Therefore, they will stand before the same God that Christians will stand before, but will do so still bearing the guilt of their own sins.

 

See, we must always ask, “What does the Bible say about this?”  What does the Bible say?  Where are we getting our information about God?  We are getting it from the Bible.

 

Moslems believe the Bible to be a book that was divinely inspired, but not on the same footing as the Koran, a book written 600 years later than the Bible.  Where the Koran and the Bible conflict, Moslems disregard the Bible and go with the Koran.  But you see, the Bible and the Koran conflict on just about everything, because the God of the Bible does not allow for the religion of Islam.

 

For example, Islam teaches that Jesus was just a prophet, a prophet sent only to Jews.  Concerning His death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, the Koran states, “They neither killed nor crucified him: it had only the appearance of it (Qur’an 4:156).”  Jesus was never crucified!  So there is no death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the fundamental tenet of Christianity.  Furthermore, Islam teaches a salvation-by-works with non-Moslems condemned forever in a pit of fire.  Does any of this sound like the One True God of the Bible who comes to us in the Person of Christ?

 

So on the surface, it may seem like “all religions teach basically the same thing” or, “all religions lead to the same God” or, “If I pray to my god and you pray to yours we are ultimately both praying to the same god,” but when we turn to the Bible we discover something else.  If we are getting our information from the Bible then it is clear that the Bible does not allow for any other god or any other belief system.

 

See, when someone says, “Well, here’s what I believe” or, “Well, this is what I think,” I really try to listen lovingly and patiently, but ultimately I have to ask them, “Upon what do you base that belief?  Upon what do you rest your faith?  Is this your idea alone or did you get it from someone else?  Is it in the Bible?  If not from the Bible, then where?  Are you willing to stake your life on it?”

 

If we are “people of the Book,” followers of the God of the Bible, then what we believe about God is determined by what the Bible says about Him.  God says, “You shall have no other gods besides Me.”  That means that He alone is God and we must allow nothing else to get in the way of our worship of Him—that includes family, our kids, our wives, our husbands, that includes our jobs, our hobbies, our recreational activities—He alone is God and nothing else must get in the way of worshiping Him.

 

Remember when Joshua gathered all the people together there at the Euphrates River in chapter 24?  It was one of those defining moments.  Joshua had led the people of God to this point and he said you’re going to have to make a decision here about whether you’re really serious about living for the One, True God.  In Joshua 24:15, he says to the people:

 

“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

 

Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, the God of the Bible or the god of someone’s imaginations.  Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, the God of the Bible or some other god.  Will you say with Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord?”

 

  • Stand for prayer.

 

Invitation…

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