It is with sadness and grief that I am writing today about the late Ravi Zacharias, the famous evangelist and apologetics speaker, who died in May 2020. Many of you will know who he was. but for those who don't, Wikipedia states:
"Ravi Zacharias (26 March 1946 – 19 May 2020) was an Indian-born Canadian-American Christian apologist who founded the RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministry). He was involved in Christian apologetics for a period spanning more than 40 years. Zacharias was the author of more than 30 books on Christianity... Zacharias was the founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) and [radio] host... He was a lifelong minister of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Keswickian Christian denomination in which he was ordained. Zacharias has been accused of exaggerating his academic qualifications and multiple sources accuse Zacharias of serious sexual misconduct including rape. On 9 February 2021, Miller & Martin, the law firm hired by RZIM to look into these allegations, confirmed their veracity."
In June 2020, shortly after he died, a viewer on Youtube commented on the following video: "He is safely home. What a man. Amazing. RIP."
That statement completely contradicts Scripture. "Or do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1Co 6:9-11)
"The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God." (Gal 5:19-21)
At 2:29 in the video, Ravi states, "You cannot show counterfeit if you do not know what the genuine is." He definitely was a counterfeit. Sadly, he was a serial sexual predator, adulterer, exhibitionist, and liar. He had hundreds of photos of women on his phone. One massage therapist whom he saw said that when he had sex with her, she considered it rape. And there is no evidence that he repented before he died, because if he would have done so, it should have been publicly to all his followers, as well as privately to all the people he exploited.
In fact, he denied the allegations of sexual misconduct from a Canadian woman that were made public, and he refused to publicly confess his sin. Not only was he unrepentant in that matter, but according to two high-level staff members, he went into a rage when they directly asked for his phone records, since he claimed those records would prove his innocence. Therefore, he evaded all true accountability for his actions, rather than come clean.
"If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth...If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." (1Jn 1:6,8)
"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." (Rev 21:8)
"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood." (Rev 22:14-15)
Hopefully you can see that, regardless of what you would like to believe, the fact is that he disqualified himself for the prize. "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize...No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." (1Co 9:24,27)
And before anyone says we should not judge (as one person has already done), I counsel you to read your Bible, which clearly says we are to judge those inside the church: "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?" (1Co 5:9-12)
There are at least two or three witnesses of his sexual immorality, and ample other evidence to prove that he led an immoral life. Had believers known this, they would have been obligated to avoid any association with him (1 Cor 5:11).
"The sins of some are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them." (1Ti 5:24) In this case, his sins are now trailing behind him and could not remain hidden forever.
What a sad ending this was, but certainly a wake up call for every true believer, and a challenge to hold elders accountable. But please don't preach him into heaven in direct contradiction to God's Word, or you make God out to be a liar.
CBN News published a story about this entitled 'Shocked and Grieved': Ravi Zacharias Ministry Releases Report Acknowledging Founder's Serial Sexual Misconduct. Within the article is a twelve-page report produced by the firm hired by RZIM to investigate the matter (see here). I have read it in its entirety and I caution you that while it is professionally written, it contains graphic details not appropriate for children. As the apostle wrote: "It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret." (Eph 5:12).
I suppose the proponents of "Once saved always saved" (OSAS) will say that nothing Ravi could do could ever affect the eternal security of his salvation. However, the fact is that OSAS is a lie, as I have already proven irrefutably from Scripture, so please don't come against me with that heresy, but rather read the Scriptures I have laid out in my article entitled Eternal Security. You cannot deny the truth of God's Word contained in that post.
At 2:45 in the video, RC Sproul quotes Joel Osteen saying, "I don't care who you are, what you have done, or who you have done it with, God is not angry with you." Immediately afterward, you can see Ravi at 3:13 nervously bouncing his foot up and down during the seconds of silence that followed, certainly knowing in his guilty conscience all the evil he had secretly done. As RC said, Osteen's statement is incompatible with the gospel and the cross of Jesus Christ. After RC said that the wrath of God against sin is incompatible with postmodern Christianity, you can hear Ravi softly whimper a reply to the effect that "That's sad." Yes, it's sad, it's the fruit of OSAS, and it was (unbeknownst to RC) hitting home on Ravi's secret life of sin that he led for several years (perhaps a decade).
Peter spoke about men like Ravi when he wrote: "With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed--an accursed brood!" (2 Pe 2:14).
Scripture says, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." (Heb 13:4).
Ravi had defended himself against the Canadian woman's allegations by saying he had always been absolutely faithful to his wife to whom he had been married for forty-five years, but we now know that was a lie to cover up his sin.
The Scripture says...and we must "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord." (Heb 12:14)
James wrote: "Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." (Jas 3:1). Note that there is a stricter judgment for teachers.
It's too late for Ravi to repent, but for those of us still on earth, it's not too late. Let us all repent of all sin, known and unknown, intentional and unintentional, both sins of commission and sins of omission, our secret sins and the ones that are more obvious, and let us cry out to God for mercy, based on the merits of Jesus' shed blood.
The fact that this has all become public is something God allowed to happen, so that it might be an example for the rest of us, especially ministers, in order to warn us not to set set our hearts on evil things as he did (1 Cor 10:6).
"Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it." (1Co 10:11-13)
As Paul said, if anyone thinks he stands, let him take heed that he does not fall. A wise elder brother in Christ once told me when I was a young Christian to look upon things like this and say, "But for the grace of God, there go I." In other words, "That could be me, if it were not for the keeping grace of God in my life."
Angel of Light
A person named Darrel commented on a post by Berean Research called On Discerning Ravi Zacharias: It’s time to say what needs to be said, and he wrote:
"RZ is one of the more sophisticated ‘angel of light’ types. For a man to have no definite statement concerning the questions of our day and still claim to be an 'apologist' is nothing short of fraudulent. His answer to the question: 'Do Christians and muslims worship the same God” bounces back and forth and ends up with the conclusion that the answer is 'complex' while SEEMING to give a straight forward answer, this 'complex' conclusion leaves the door open for one to draw his own conclusion-apart from the Word of God and guided by wishful thinking (in other words, yes they do)."
"He routinely avoids answering pointed questions, which is taboo for all 'apologists', even the fake ones like himself. All of his 'answers' seen thus far are nothing but his own idea of how things ought to be, he cites little to no Scripture (even his fellow frauds make use of the Bible), and his 'gospel' is based on something crudely resembling man’s philosophy of life. RZ opts for today’s 'contextualization' of the Gospel rather than the Holy Spirit’s power to convict men of their sins, in fact finding the word 'sin' in his vocabulary may be a futile search along with 'repentance'."
"Apologetics to RZ is nothing more than a huge, almost eternal DEBATE rather than a clear unambiguous message from God to man: 'Repent and believe the Gospel.' If there is any encouragement be found in his speech, it is fully and only based in the flesh, there is no spiritual food that will nourish, rather you will find only poison. In his pod cast of 1-7-16 we find a short list of his heroes: Billy Graham, Joni-Erickson-Tada, James Dobson, Anne Graham Lotz. Ecumenical heretics all. Yes, there is guilt by association. Listen further to his 12 minute speech of nonsense and you will find him changing the Word to suit his whim and promote his latest endeavor (today is seems to be 'world missions', tomorrow, who knows)."
"For the redeemed to listen to such a man as this is beyond dangerous, it’s lethal to your spiritual life. If there are not huge red flags and alarms going off constantly you may want to determine whether you are saved or not. The Holy Spirit will not leave a child of God in such a cesspool and do nothing to extract him (remember Lot?) so if you enjoy his lies then continue with them at your own peril."
Conclusion
That post and the comment on it written by Darrell were published during the days when Ravi was still alive. While I cannot verify the accuracy of his comments about other people whom he considers to be heretics, I think that Darrell captured some very important points about Ravi.
I found in my research that, just as Darrell described the indirect, "complex" answer that Ravi gave to the question about whether Muslims worship the same God as Christians, I also found the same sort of answering style when asked about Roman Catholicism. I saw a video of a street evangelist in the audience asking Ravi during the Q&A period to advise him on how to address the difficult cases he encounters with Roman Catholics to whom he witnesses on the street. Rather than quote directly from Scripture the truth about the Roman Catholic Church as I have done in my article by that name, Ravi gave a rather ambiguous answer apparently to avoid any criticism from evangelicals or Catholics.
I hope that this article helps to wake up the church to its own apostasy and bring it to repentance, beginning with the big-name, famous ministers that everyone puts upon a pedestal to their own ruin. Please do not put men on a pedestal or make idols out of them. From the least to the greatest, everyone in the Church needs to repent for his own sins and return to the Lord now. I also hope that this helps to highlight the need for serious accountability in the church among all disciples, especially those are preachers and teachers.
Suggested Prayer Points: Pray for yourself that you will not become a castaway like him (1 Cor 9:27), and for the apostate church to be awakened and purified, and for the souls of all the people he defrauded and exploited to be healed, delivered, and saved; and for those who still follow him through his books, sermons, videos, radio programs, as well as his Institute, to disassociate themselves from him completely as the Scriptures command us to do.
Attribution: Most Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible NIV, copyright Zondervan, used by permission.
Author's note:
I also recommend reading
The Forgotten Sin of Worldliness,
Separated from the World,
Sins That Will Keep You From Heaven,
Ask for the Ancient Paths,
Holding Fast the Faithful Word,
Avoid Becoming a Corrupted Christian,
Holy Living in a Perverted World,
Exposing Heresy, and
Popularity of the Gospel. You can access the
Home page of this blog for more articles on Truth and heresy, as well as my complete blog directory at "
Writing for the Master.
"Do You Want to Know Him?If you want to know Jesus personally, you can. It all begins when you repent and believe in Jesus. Do you know what God's Word, the Bible says?
“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mar 1:14b-15). He preached that we must repent and believe.
Please see my explanation of this in my post called "
Do You Want to Know Jesus?"
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Len Lacroix is the founder of
Doulos Missions International. He was based in Eastern Europe for four years, making disciples, as well as helping leaders to be more effective at making disciples who multiply, developing leaders who multiply, with the ultimate goal of planting churches that multiply. His ministry is now based in the United States with the same goal of helping fulfill the Great Commission.
www.dmiworld.org
