Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Is God More Tolerant Than He Used To Be? | Dr. Erwin Lutzer and Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

In this video Jonny Ardavanis sits down with Erwin Lutzer and continues their conversation on the growing godlessness in America. In this episode, Jonny and Erwin answer questions such as:Is God growing more liberal? Is God more tolerant than He used to be?How do we interpret the culture through the Word of God?What is our responsibility as Christians in a world that is growing increasingly dark and hostile towards the truth of Jesus Christ? Click to purchase Pastor Erwin's recent bookSubscribe to stay up to date with each episode! Watch VideosVisit the Website Buy Consider the LiliesFollow on Instagram

Faithful Christians have always discovered this, that the church is an island of righteousness in a sea of paganism. Right from the earliest times, the church has always had to stand against the culture if it wanted to be faithful. And that doesn't mean that it's only negative. What positive witness are we bearing in the midst of this to represent Jesus Christ well for them to see that we actually have a Savior who saves us from our sins and gives us hope and joy in the midst of the crumbling culture.

Pastor Erwin, thank you again for sitting down. We're talking about your book, The Eclipse of God, Our Nation's Disastrous Search for a More Inc more inclusive deity and what we must do about it. But I've also mentioned your other books, No Reason to Hide and We Will Not Be Silenced, because you are able to synthesize the world in which we live through a biblical perspective. As a pastor, one of the realities that I face is I want people to understand the word of God, but I also want them to understand the world in which they live through the lenses of the word of God so that they're able to be, as Jesus says, shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves because the church is on a mission. And the mission is to reach the lost, engage them. And that's difficult to do when the light coagulates together and just talks about how dark the world is. And so thank you for sitting down. In our previous episode, when we sat down, we talked about how we got here. And you mentioned

three grave diggers, Freud, Darwin, Marx. Those are probably three names a lot of people are familiar with, but aren't very familiar with their teaching and their philosophy and how gravely that's shaped our reality today. I want to maybe continue the conversation and we can kind of weave in and out of different items. One of the grave misconceptions now as a derivative of those philosophies is that God has changed because we still have in God we trust on our dollar bill. We still sing God bless America. But as our world kind of continues to morph, many people have asked the question, is God more tolerant than he used to be? We live in a world of LGBTQ+, we slaughter babies by the millions.

Maybe just answer that question from a pastoral perspective. I have two things that come immediately to mind, and this has to do with your intro that you just gave. The big issue before the church is this. Are we going to interpret the culture through the lens of scripture, or are we going to interpret the scripture through the lens of culture? That's critical, because you have many people today who say that the Bible is an ancient book. We have to interpret it in light of the culture. And so what they mean is that there are certain parts of the Bible that don't apply.

And certainly, in answer to your other question, we're living in a day and age when God is being redefined. Americans don't mind saying, I believe in God, just as long as they get to choose the God in which they believe. And I think even, you know, it's funny because we're mentioning all these different things regarding the degradation of the culture in which we live, but I'm watching Monday Night Football tonight and they're going to score a touchdown and say, I do this for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He's still largely accepted as long as it's a God that's made in our own image. And you talk about that. Yeah, exactly. Because that article in The Economist that appeared a few years ago said

that God is becoming more liberal. He's accepting same-sex marriage. And then it says nobody believes in the smitey almighty of the Old Testament, the God who smote the Egyptians, the God who smote the Canaanites. And so, I have a chapter on that. I also have a chapter on nearer my God to me of how we are creating, which actually is the online title of that article. We are creating God in accordance with us. And what kind of a God is he? He's very sin-friendly. Throughout the book, I emphasize that there are two doctrines that destroy the church. One is the essential goodness of humanity and the endless tolerance of a non-judgmental deity. And so what we've left out is the judgment of God. And what we have to do is to recognize God is not more tolerant.

In fact, since you raised the issue, I'll say it very briefly. What you find in the New Testament, people say, well, is it safer to sin? I mean, in the Old Testament, you were stoned, et cetera. I deal with those issues. But, Johnny, let's all just take a deep breath. In the book of Hebrews, it says very clearly that if people died under Moses and were stoned because of two or three witnesses, because of an infraction, of how much greater will the punishment be of those who have trampled underfoot the blood of the Son of God. In other words, in the New Testament, what we discover is because there's more light, there's harsher judgment.

There's nothing in the Old Testament that compares with the judgments that are mentioned in the book of Revelation. So, God is complex, and what we have to do is we have to talk about his love most assuredly. But the reason that his love and his grace is so wonderful is because it saves us from his wrath. There's so much more that we could get into. You know, the last chapter of my book, The Eclipse of God, is returning to the God of wrath and grace, not the God of unconditional love. Explain that, just because I think that's a misconception people have regarding the unconditional love of God.

God loves his people unconditionally. The 17th chapter of the book of John, they were loved from before the foundation of the world. We understand that. But how can you square the love of God, the unconditional love of God, when there are so many judgments in the Bible against the wicked? One comes immediately to mind. Jesus is going to return in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God

and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power. It takes my breath away. So what we must do is to recognize that we do not really appreciate grace until we understand the wrath of God. Remember this, grace is not sweet until sin is bitter. And it is the wrath of God that makes us appreciate the grace of God. I smile when I say this, Johnny, but you'd be surprised at the number of Americans who think that they deserve grace. If you deserved it, it wouldn't be grace.

And so we are such debtors to God and we thank him for his grace. And so, oh, we are such debtors to God and we thank him for his grace. And we urge people to run to Christ to save us from the wrath to come. Now, you mentioned kind of this idea that God is more tolerant than he used to be, which would be a contradiction. Malachi 3.6, I the Lord, I change not. So, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The economist says, no, God is changing his stance on sexuality, on gender. He's more sin-friendly than he used to be. Now, the church is in an interesting position.

You know, one might think, even though we're really not, we've been given a playbook by God. But the church is in an interesting position. And oftentimes, the attack on even how do we are to respond in this cultural moment is more from within than it is from outside. And I think you even referenced that. I've heard the phrase, you've heard the phrase, and you referenced the phrase in your writing and in your speaking that, okay, I've heard everything about the sin growing more and more rampant. God is, you know, we're making God in our own image. And then pastors will get up there and say, we want to be known more for what we're for rather than for what we're against.

And you offer some perspective on that type of an idea. But my main question is, we've been talking previous episode, beginning of this one, about the world in which we live. Now my alley-oop, my softball is, this is a lot. I'm a Christian, first and foremost.

What's my role in this? What's the church's role? How do we respond? Right, you've actually asked several questions. I have. Let's begin by talking about the church, and then I'll talk about individuals. Great. I know that not all pastors agree with me, but I think you do.

We have a responsibility to help our people navigate this culture. For example, I think that churches could have seminars and other things on helping parents to navigate the question, what if my child comes home from school and says, mom and dad, I think I'm trans. How do you respond to that? We have to help our people think through that. And no other generation that I know of has ever had to face that question. We have to help them to understand where the lines are drawn. For example, I had a businessman who texted me and said, can I sign this document and do so with a clear conscience? what is the document in his business, whether or not he is willing to use multiple pronouns? Well, my response, and I mentioned

this in the book, is this, that if Betty is born Betty, but now she wants to be called Bert, call her Bert because names aren't gendered. But I can't take Betty, a girl, and call her a boy or use the pronoun he without violating my conscience. So in answer to your question, and maybe my answer is going in different directions, I think that the church has to help people to navigate the culture. That doesn't mean that we speak on every trend that comes down the river, so to speak, but we cannot ignore the cultural moments. And at this point too, I'm willing to get into the whole thing of Christian nationalism.

I don't know if we wanna go there or not, but the point is we have a responsibility as pastors to help our people navigate. Now, for the individual, the question comes back to, am I willing to pay the price of faithfulness? And I'll tell you that in American culture, that has been usually quite an easy question to answer. But as darkness comes on the land, it's becoming more difficult

and more difficult. And the price of faithfulness might mean that you do indeed lose your job because you aren't comfortable with multiple pronouns. People have to ask themselves, am I willing, for the sake of conscience, for the sake of God, to say, I will not bow to this culture on this point. So here's what I encourage Christians to do. Ask yourself before God, where's the line in the sand that I have to draw so that I can say, I can do A, B, C, D, but I can't do the rest. Where is that line? You see, I don't want to put this too strongly, but we are to stand against the culture, but I think that oftentimes the church is so much a part of the culture, we've forgotten where the lines are. I speak, for example, in some of my books about the whole issue

of technology. Johnny, parents don't raise their children anymore. The culture raises them. The cell phone raises them. I remember a mother saying to me, I didn't know that when I gave my 13-year-old a cell phone, I might as well have given her her first shot of heroin because technology is instantly addictive. So I'm trying to help people to understand this. In all of these issues that we are raising, where is the line for you? And then the other thing that we always have to do is to face the issues redemptively.

We need to remember, of course, that the real issue is people's relationship with God. So it isn't just standing against the culture. It is standing for something. It's helping people to understand that we have a message that can be transforming and hopeful, and that message has to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, we're constantly thinking of ways to witness and to share Christ, but at the same time, knowing that the cost to do this is becoming higher and higher. You know, one of the things that you mentioned with the church is that they have a responsibility, pastors have a responsibility of helping people navigate the world in which they find themselves

in. We're here at such a time as this because of the providence of God. And I would agree with that. And I think that there's sometimes a tendency by pastors to kind of stay out of certain things, but theology ultimately turns into biography. So it should affect the way that we're living. Now, one of the things I wanted to go back and maybe ask, you said about seminars and if a child comes home and says, hey, I identify as a girl and my name is Jake, you know, or something like that, that there could be seminars. The rebuttal on the other side would be, well, the church might lose their mission and all that. And you mentioned the Christian nationalism. So there's ditches on either side. I would say the one ditch would be we're passive and we don't address the world in which we live. People don't know how to think. They're not true to serpents. They don't understand

the times. They're ignorant of the world in which they live, People don't know how to think. They're not true to serpents. They don't understand the times. They're ignorant of the world in which they live, but they're full of the scripture. And sometimes that can be, that disables you from being effective in reaching the lost. On the other side, you have another ditch, which would be, we're going to win the culture war and we're going to take the hill. Maybe talk about both of those ditches from a church perspective and a pastor's church's role. Well, I would say this, that the three books that you have referenced here, The Eclipse of God and the two others that I've written, I didn't write those books to reclaim the culture. I wrote them to reclaim the church.

Apart from some kind of a national revival, we've lost the culture war. I mean, haven't we, Johnny? We've lost the culture war. I mean, look at television, look at where the things are going, look at us even politically, even regardless of who gets elected. We've lost, and by the way, who gets elected is important, and I can speak to that too. But we've lost the culture war. The question is whether or not we're going to be absorbed by the culture. You know, there's that old story.

You've probably heard it of two little fish swimming along, and an older fish swims past them and says, how's the water, boys? And after he's passed, one says to the other, what is water? And the question is, we are so much a part of the culture, what is the culture war? Now, if you go to Europe, there is no culture war. We talked about that in the first segment. Why?

Because the culture has been totally absorbed by secularism, so there is no pushback. But faithful Christians, faithful Christians have always discovered this, that the church is an island of righteousness in a sea of paganism. So right from the earliest times, the church has always had to stand against the culture if it wanted to be faithful. And that doesn't mean that it's only negative. We're standing against the culture, obviously, and I know your heart and mine is. What positive witness are we bearing in the midst of this to represent Jesus Christ well for them to see that we actually have a Savior who saves us from our sins and gives us hope and joy in the midst of the crumbling culture. That's really

the issue that we need to be willing to face and to do whatever God demands, whatever we believe God has laid upon us to do to be faithful. Now, as our world grows increasingly dark, the distinction between the citizens of light and the citizens of darkness becomes more and more apparent. You know, let's say I'm a mom. I've got three kids. I'm hearing what you're saying, Pastor Lutzer, this is, I might be scared, right, of the world in which my kids are growing up in and the world which I'm still in. Maybe just encourage them. You said this is an exciting time to be a Christian. Why is this, you know,

in Ecclesiastes Solomon says, do not say the former days are better than these, which I take to mean that Solomon says, don't look back at the 1960s of the heyday of when evangelical Christianity was exploding in America and say those days are better than 2024. Maybe for the person listening that's discouraged and, why did I have to grow up in this generation? I'm a part of a church culture that's going to be continually marginalized because we're standing for truth, trying to be faithful, put some pep in their step from a biblical perspective going, hey, you're here for such a time as this. Well, first of all, speaking to the mother, I want to also say a word to the fathers. Fathers should be priests in their own home,

and they should know that they shouldn't look to the church or to even a Christian school to really educate their children, though they may send them there. They have a responsibility to those children, and they need to be taught in such a way that they can in turn teach their children. And so that is very, very important. You know, Hitler, and I've written a book about him, actually, too, so I can comment on it. But in that stadium that we talked about at one time in our discussion in Nuremberg, he said to the parents, you clothe the child, you feed the child, but the heart of the child will belong to the Reich. The heart of the child will belong to the German empire. So parents out there, you clothe the child, you feed the child, but who is going to have the heart of your child?

Is it technology? Is it the modern culture, those cultural streams? So that becomes very, very important. Now, hope. Well, all that you have to do, really, is to read the book of 1 Peter. 1 Peter was written to a church that was marginalized. It fits the description that you just gave a moment ago. But he always talks about the hope that is given to us in Christ, and he also mentions that the trial of our faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire. I'll give you an answer to your question, Johnny. Live for the world to come.

Now, the older I get, the more I realize something, that only what is done for eternity really matters. And you know what? The older I get, the fewer things that really matter to me. It doesn't matter who wins the football game. Even though it'd be nice to see the Cubs win again, that would be a really nice experience for us in Chicago. Every hundred years.

Every hundred years. We used to be able to buy a Cub t-shirt that says, anyone can have a bad century. And one time the pitching machine pitched a no-hitter for the Cubs. But the point is this, it doesn't really matter. What really matters is to live for the glory of God. And if we can capture that, we can capture a sense of happiness. Jesus said, even these things I have spoken unto you, that your joy may be full. And Jesus was not talking about all of the prosperity and so forth. He was talking about hard times. So, looked at one way, it gives us a marvelous opportunity that our love for Christ is greater than our love for sin.

Our love for Christ is even greater than our love for money and for feeding a family because we love Christ supremely. And I hesitate to say what I've just said because I know that if I were under pressure regarding my family, there would be huge pressure. But I go to East Germany when the wall was still up, and I was there on a tour. And what I discovered was a pastor said that under pressure, under communism, almost no Christians withstood the cultural pressure. Because the communists said, your kids can't go to school, you can't have a job. But here's what I want to end with. Those families that said faithfulness to God is more important than food on the table, they gave testimony of the faithfulness of God to them for their obedience despite those hard times.

So, looked at in that regard, it really tests our faith and we have to ask ourselves the question, and I go back to this, are we willing to be faithful no matter the cost? And even in this life, we experience the blessing of God for faithful believers. I think for maybe some people listening, there's also this element where you talk about the churches, you know, what's water? The two fish swimming, you know, churches are being absorbed by the world. And a lot of people maybe even listening or watching are in a church that's been absorbed by the world. Maybe you're in an elevator with someone and they're asking the question, how do I know if my church is a church with a spine? How do I know if they're going to live faithfully when the world is trying to squeeze it into its mold? Because the world

doesn't hate churches, it hates biblical churches. Well, what I would tell them is, if you want my opinion, I'd like to listen to the last month of sermons at the church to see what is being preached. That's part of it. Do you even approach the issue of church discipline? Is there some clarity regarding sexual issues? That, of course, is the big cultural pressure point in our society? And also, is there a clear gospel message that preaches the uniqueness of Jesus Christ above all other teachers, above all other options? One of the most delightful experiences I have is when I'm asked the question, why Jesus? Now, in 1993, and I won't ask whether

or not you were born at that point. I was born. You were already born. I attended the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. 5,000 delegates from all over the world representing over 100 of the world's religions getting together for a whole week to see whether or not they could unite the religions of the world. And I attended all the time. I hobnobbed with witches. I hobnobbed with Buddhists. Classic you. Classic. So anyway, I could tell you many experiences, but let me give you one. I went over to the Buddhists. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. We can get to the witch. I went over to the Buddhists and I said, you know, I'm a sinner and I need a sinless savior to save me.

Do you have one? No, we have a teacher, but we don't claim anyone being sinless. I went over to Islam. I said, did Muhammad claim sinlessness? Because I need a savior to save me from my sins. No, he taught this and this. And of course, in the Quran, he talks about his own failures. And I went to the different religions looking for a sinless savior because I said, I'm a sinner and I'm looking for a savior who can save me from sin. Johnny, I never found one.

Now, from there on, I could go and talk about how the illustration was given of a wheel. You know that at the level of the rim, we all see our differences. But if we unite in the center, which is the clear blue of sky, that's a quote, we are unified in the clear blue of sky. That is foolishness. You can take the spokes of a wheel and make them into whatever configuration you want. But if they were truth, they would have to be like train tracks that go on forever. Now, you're on one of my favorite subjects, so I don't want to belabor the point. But I want to know, does this church clearly teach that Jesus is the only way to the Father because he's the only one who has the qualifications to be a Savior,

or is he kind of presented as somebody who teaches us to live well, maybe things that you can learn from other religions, but he's not a rescuer who saves us from our sin. So I've given you a number of different examples of what I would be looking for in a faithful church. Yeah, and I think even your last chapter in this book articulates an element of the uniqueness of sin being returning to the God of grace and wrath, because no one's going to cry out for a rescuer if they don't think they're under the judgment of God. And so part of that gospel clarity is understanding the holiness of God and the righteousness of God, His justice.

And then you mentioned it, much more now being saved from the wrath of God. Yeah, in the eclipse of God, that's the last chapter. Now, Johnny, I was pastor of Moody Church for 36 years. In those 36 years, only twice did I preach on hell, and I could scarcely sleep the night before. I was saying, is this really taught in the Bible? That there is an eternal hell? I mean, it's terrifying. By any description, it's terrifying.

But people have to understand that we cannot make God in our own image. Whether or not we like it is irrelevant. We deal with a God who is. When God said to Moses, I am that I am, what he said is, I am who I am and not who you want me to be. So we have to get back to that. And that's why we have to proclaim clearly that Jesus comes to rescue us from our sins. And he doesn't just throw us a life jacket and say, grab on. He gets into the water with us, scoops us up, forgives us, gives us the righteousness of Jesus Christ, presents us to the

fathers if we are perfect because we have his gift of righteousness. That's the message that this nation needs to hear because it's a message. People say, well, are you trying to scare me? Well, what does the Bible say? That's the issue. Luke 12, Jesus says, I'll tell you who to fear. I'll tell you who to fear. Yeah. So that's our calling and that's how we are to live.

Well, that's helpful, Pastor Lutzer. And maybe just to the next time, next segment, I just want to ask you, we've mentioned the church's role to be faithful, to ask if we're willing to follow Christ regardless of the consequences. And you mentioned even in 1 Peter, he's writing to people that are being thrown into lions, and he's saying, blessed be the Godfather of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then he immediately roots them in their inheritance, an imperishable, undefiled, unfading inheritance

because they're being slaughtered in the present. So look forward to the hope of heaven. But there's still, in the mind of many Christians, a question on how we live today, particularly in even this political season we find ourself in. Some things I want to ask you in the next segment is, okay, you've mentioned we live in a broken world. There's a broken system. We've already lost the culture you've mentioned. The question I want to ask you is, can Christians vote for the lesser

of two evils? What is our responsibility as individuals? We want to proclaim the gospel. That's our mission. We're left here as ambassadors. I'm assuming a level of understanding there that our main objective as a Christian is to shine brightly, where you mentioned a priest to declare the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his light. But then there's this practical element. Okay. In three weeks, we got an election. All right. How do I look at that as a Christian without being overly passive, saying, God's got this, let go, let God, and without overly putting my hope there, and then make a decision? That's exciting. Let's do that next time. Okay. Well, thank you, Pastor Lutzer.

Thank you.