Answer: They all promote a works program, where adherents desiring favor with their deity (or deities) must perform good works while in their natural, fallen state.
In other words, all other religions besides Christianity propose a person is born naturally capable of doing good in the absence of God’s grace, whether wholly or in part. Christianity, on the other hand, is completely reliant on the grace and mercy of God.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
-Ephesians 2:1-10
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
-Romans 3:20
Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
-Galatians 2:16
One would think that all of this good news regarding God’s grace would be something everyone in the world would want to take advantage of. And yet, as Jesus said:
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
-Matthew 7:13-14
Why doesn’t everyone just accept God’s grace?
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
-Jeremiah 17:9
The answer to the above question is simple. We are all born totally depraved, incapable of performing any good works for as long as we remain in that state. We must be "born again”, as Jesus taught Nicodemus in John 3, “by grace…through faith” as Paul described in Ephesians 2. Once a person is reborn, made “alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11), the floodgates of God’s grace are opened wide.
Now, back to the primary question on the table…
Why is it so difficult to evangelize a religious person?
The answer, again, is simple. A religious person likes the idea of having something to do with their own salvation. If a Christian evangelist comes along and proclaims it is by grace alone that a person is saved, well, they have essentially stripped that person’s human flesh of any pride it might be clinging to for salvation. Meanwhile, every other religion is beckoning to this same person, saying, “Come over here where you can work for your salvation. We have an entire system of theology and a network of churches that will help indoctrinate you into our religion.” Fallen, sinful man prefers the latter over the prior.
You see, a person who has taken the bait and dove headlong into the lake of lies (figuratively into the Lake of Fire if you think about the long-term implications) has actually taken themselves farther away from God’s Word on the topic. As this distance increases, it becomes more and more difficult to interest them in the Truth. As the Bible teaches us, at some point, God may choose to hand them over to their depravity, hardening their hearts the way He did with Pharaoh (reference blog: Pharaoh’s Hardened Heart).
This is the reason why we find it so difficult to evangelize a person steeped in false religion. The more ingrained they are, the more difficult our objective may be.
The religious person is further from the truth than the non-religious person. This often means it is easier to evangelize the unguided, untethered unbeliever than the religious one. It’s no wonder why Satan is behind false religion.
As some additional food for thought, think about why religious folks hate the doctrine of the total depravity of man. Hint: if man is born totally depraved, what hope does a religious person have in making it to Heaven?
Love in Christ,
Ed Collins
