Intolerant Tolerance

In listening to a sermon by David Platt, he spoke on tolerance and got me thinking about the ways of this world today.  I find it interesting that we live in a culture today that champions the idea of tolerance of all religions and yet is intolerant of intolerant religions like evangelical Christianity.  We live in a culture that does not believe in spiritual absolute truths and yet lives by absolute truths daily such as 2+2=4 and the law of gravity.  Does it not seem convenient for the world to make all spiritual truth equal?  This would never work in the realm of science.  If I decided to walk off a bridge because I didn't believe in the law of gravity, I would still fall to my death anyways.  Though this is true of science beliefs the world says that it is not also true of spiritual beliefs.  The problem is that, if in fact Christianity is true, then all other religions really are going to hell without Jesus whether they believe their spiritual beliefs are true our not.  If there is not absolute spiritual truth and we all have to be tolerant of everybody else's beliefs, then none of us has to feel conviction of sin or anything contrary to what we want to believe.  I find it ironic that this world, especially the modern college campus, champions the idea of religious tolerance so loudly and yet seek so passionately to destroy the claims of Christianity.  How can supposed tolerant people be so intolerant.  

In a sermon I was listening to by David Platt  called The Gospel and Homosexuality where he said this about tolerance in our world in all context, "We have created the idea, the belief that every idea in the world is equally right, equally true.  so to disagree with some one is intolerant but the reality is tolerance in and of itself implies disagreement.  If you and I agree on every single thing, I don't tolerate you.  I don't tolerate your beliefs if I agree with all of them.  If you believe that Jesus is the Lord of the universe then I don't tolerate you for that. On the other hand, if you deny that Jesus even exist then, yes, I would passionately disagree with you but it is at that point that I would tolerate you."  Our world has so confused the meaning of words such as tolerance that we all feel we are bad for standing up for our beliefs.  We have come to believe it is wrong to believe in absolute truth.  Many of us have become to scared to proclaim Jesus as the way and the truth and the life because it is infringing on other people's truth.  

We have to be so careful not to be drawn in by the ideas of this world.  If we allow ourselves to not proclaim Jesus due to fear of being viewed as intolerant then we are quietly allowing people to go to hell.  Jesus was not afraid of absolute truth and he was not afraid to challenge those who spoke against His Father.  We have to stand up for our beliefs and proclaim them with boldness and compassion.  We can no longer allow this world to keep our mouths shut or allow this world to scare us into their view on tolerance.  We must be the salt and light to the world and trust that Jesus' truth will ring in the hearts of the people around us.  Stand tall for Christ brothers and sisters and stand for absolute truth in Christ this moment.  

Blessings,

Greg