“Do All Roads Lead To Heaven?”
Romans 4:5-8
My goal today is to convince you that all roads do not lead to heaven, but that any spiritual road that is not paved with the blood of Jesus is only a road to hell! Any road that’s not covered with the gold of heaven is only covered with the fool’s gold of hell!
Romans 14:5 “Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.”
“Convinced” = assured, persuaded
In one of Peanuts comic strips, Linus and Charlie Brown are engaged in serious conversation.
“I have a theological question,” says Linus, “When you die, and go to Heaven, are you graded on a percentage or on a curve?”
“On a curve, naturally,” Charlie responds.
Linus looks rather puzzled and asks, “How can you be so sure?”
Charlie brightly answers, “I’m always sure about things that are a matter of opinion.”
According to U.S. News & World Report:
78% believed in heaven and believed they were going there. Only 60% believed in hell, but only 4% believed they were going there.
In an article in San Francisco Chronicle 2 months ago about religion in the 21st Century it had a quote from Rev. Mary Kraus who said… “My Congregation would be stunned to hear a sermon on hell.’ Her
Parishioners, she says, are ‘upper middle class, well-educated critical thinkers’ who view God as ‘compassionate and loving, not
someone who’s going to push them into eternal damnation.”
The natural question I have, by whose standard are you depending on to keep you out of hell? If you ask the Buddhist, Hindu, Mormon, Muslim, New Ager or even some Christians…you will get wildly different answers!
Dr. Wayne Dyer writes in his book, “Your Sacred Self”… “That glowing celestial light and to let you know the wonder of having your sacred self triumph over demands of the ego… which wants more than anything to hold you back.”
Hollywood Produce Marty Kaplan said in Time Magazine June 1996… “What attracts me to meditation was its apparent religious neutrality. You don’t have to believe anything…I was happy to learn that 90% of meditation was about showing up.”
In the “Watchtower” the JW says…“We conclude that the Watchtower theology it is not God’s sovereign grace that saves even then 144,000, but rather man who saves himself by grasping the ransom, by showing himself worthy of being selected as a member of the anointed class…”
In the Koran, Sura 23:104,105 “In the Day of Judgment they whose balances shall be heavy with good works, shall be happy; but they whose balances shall be light, are those who shall lose their souls, and shall remain in hell forever.” “God loves those who cleanse themselves.”
Masonic leader Rev. Joseph Fort says in, “The Masonic Lodge Temple Edition of The Bible”… “By the honor which Masonry pays to the Bible, it teaches us to revere every book of faith…joining hands with the man of Islam as he takes the oath of the Koran, and with the Hindu as he makes covenant with God upon the book that he loves best…Masonry invites to its altar men of all faiths, knowing that, if they use different names for the nameless one of a hundred names, they are praying to the One God and Father of all; knowing that while they read different volumes, they are in fact reading the same vast Book of the faith of Man as revealed in the struggle and sorrows of the race in its quest for God.”
But Peter says in Acts 4:12 “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Paul states in Ephesians 2:8,9 “For by grace are you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift from God, not of works lest anyone should boast.”
Can all of these views be right? Somebody stop the spiritual spin!!
Why Depend on The Bible For Salvation?
1. Because of it’s Reliability.
It contains no contradictions and no error.
Titus 1:2 “God cannot lie…”
Since we must take God at His word, we must depend on Him to give us eternal life truths!
Psalm 119:160 “The entirety of Your word is truth and every one of Your righteous judgments endure forever.”
Luke 16:17 “It is easier for heaven to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.”
Spiritual truth despite what liberal scholars say, does not fall into gray areas, but is always black and white. What does come into gray areas are certain passages that we don’t understand completely. For example:
- End time prophecy. The book of Daniel, Revelation…
There is no room for broad-mindedness in a chemical laboratory. Water is composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. The slightest deviation from the formula – is not allowed.
There is no room for broad-mindedness when it comes to music. The skilled director will not permit his first violin to play even so much as 1/2 note off from what is written in the music.
There is no room for broad-mindedness in the mathematics classroom. Neither geometry, calculus, nor trigonometry allows any variation from exact accuracy. The solution of the problem is either right or it is wrong.
There is no room for broad-mindedness on the athletic field. The game is to be played according to the rules with no favors shown.
There is no room for broad-mindedness in the garage. The mechanic says the piston rings have to fit the cylinder walls within one thousandth’s of an inch – and that’s the way it has to be.
2. Because of it’s Integrity.
Integrity falls into 3 categories:
· It’s Christ.
Where does the Bible get its integrity? Jesus is its source! If there is no flaw in Jesus than we can conclude that what he gave us through His word is flawless.
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the word and was with God and the word was God…”
Haven’t you heard people say that, “Jesus was a good teacher, a moral teacher.” What is goodness and moral connected to…truth! Can Jesus be a moral teacher and lie about His claims? If He’s lying, then he is not a moral teacher to be believed on such important issues as eternal life!
To put Jesus Christ into the same category as other religious leader is blasphemy! No other person in history has been investigated and interrogated and remains spotless.
Mohammed’s life was very colorful! Compare just the two lives and there are striking conclusions!
· It’s claims.
The resurrection is where the bible should be tested.
Lee Strobel is a great example of putting it all on the line! He put his faith (atheism) and the facts (Bible) on the line.
The Koran is highly flawed in many ways. For example:
-- Location of certain events
-- Contradictions in its claims
I firmly believe that if an original source document can’t get the location right it will not get salvation right!
· It’s called ones.
The apostles were men of integrity and that is so important. They’re not found to be lying about the events that they wrote about. And they even died for their cause! That’s one of the highest acts of integrity!
Proverbs 11:3 “The integrity of the upright will guide them…”
Put them under a microscope and these men hold up without any blemish. Put them under cross-examination and they can persuade the most hard nose atheist!
3. Because of it’s Authority.
The Bible is just not another idea thrown together for the sake of man and his eternal destiny!
- The resurrection
- Miracles
In Southern California there is a seminary (Claremont School of Theology) that’s very liberal. Here is an actual syllabus description for a course they tried to get me to enroll in:
“The course seeks to help students to learn to formulate a new theology and methods that are relevant and meaningful in pluralistic, multicultural, postmodern world in which they are called to minister. It is basically an attempt to articulate a hermeneutics…based on dialogue, a sincere effort to go beyond the limits of one’s own worldview, that is, a hermeneutics of humanity.”
Seminaries like this are working double time to strip our biblical grip on its authority! You see if we make the Bible a “hermeneutics of humanity” then we no longer have a Bible of a hermeneutics of Christ’s deity.
Society is trying it’s hardest to strip Christ of his deity, why? Because Jesus is the only one that claimed to be God, forgive sin, and establish a spiritual kingdom by his power!
Titus 2:1 “…Speak the things which are for proper doctrine.”
Matthew 28:18-20
Jude 3 “…Contend (agonize) earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”
Question: If all spiritual teachings are valid to get into heaven, why are we told to contend for the faith? Why agonize for THE faith?
4. Because of it’s Reality.
Only the Bible deals with the reality of man in a sensible way.
An ancient Hindu story tells about six blind men who were brought to see an elephant:
"It’s very like a wall," said the first man as he touched the side of the elephant.
“It’s very like a spear," said the second man as he stroked the elephant’s tusk.
And the third man taking the elephant’s squirming trunk in hand said) "It’s very like a snake."
"Nonsense!" the fourth man shouted. Stretching his arms about one of the legs, he concluded, "This wondrous beast is very like a tree."
The fifth man, touching the elephant’s ear, cried, "even the blindest man can see that this animal is very like a fan."
And the sixth, grabbing the tail, assured his friends that "the elephant is really very like a rope."
There are those who hear different people from different religions saying that they have touched God. But the gods they describe are as different as the blind men and the elephant.
This has led many to conclude that - just like the blind men of the parable - everybody’s right, they just have hold of different parts of the same God. And, since everybody is "right" then their different faiths must all lead to the same place - Heaven.
The only reality is found in Christ!
So We Must Consider The Reality of Our:
(These are fundamental guidelines with all religions)
a. Approach to God.
Key: If we approach God incorrectly nothing else really matters!
Isaiah 6:3 “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty…”
Even the angels realize this!
Leviticus 10:3 “Among those who approach Me I will show Myself holy; in the sight of all people I will be honored.”
Before this the two sons of Aaron had been killed by fire that consumed them! Why did this happen? They approached the right God in the wrong way!
God is holy before He is anything else, that is everything we know about God comes through His holiness…love, mercy, forgiveness, etc.
Most other religions get this backwards!
Donald McCullough in his book “The Trivialization of God” said, “One may appear before other gods with a sense of confidence, with no sense of being threatened. They will stay put; they don’t stray from the places assigned to them by human egos desperately trying to maintain control. But the God revealed in Jesus Christ is holy and a holy God cannot be contained or tamed…”
b. Acceptance by God.
This comes by way of the proper mediator. The same principle works with the President of the United States, the most powerful man on earth! Unless I have the “inside track”, I will never see him in the Oval Office.
Hebrews 10:11-14
The only way any man is accepted in God’s presence is through the right mediator who is able to get God’s attention!
Hebrews 7:26 “Such a High Priest meets our need - one who is blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.” NLT
1 Timothy 2:5,6 “For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men.”
In his autobiography Mahatma Gandhi, a devout Hindu, speaks of his own struggle with this when he says: "Oh wretched man that I am. It is a constant source of torture to me that I am so far from the one I know to be my very life and being, and I know that it is my own sin and wretchedness that hides Him from me."
The Grand Canyon is 6 to 18 miles across, 276 miles long, and one mile deep. The chances of a person jumping from one side of the Grand Canyon to the other are greater than that of someone attempting to establish fellowship with God through his own efforts.
To settle this question: Let me ask, what makes you and I think that God is more pleased in our good deeds than He is with the one great deed of Jesus?
LifePoint: God is a God of mercy not merit! How unfair and unjust to judge some people on merit and others on mercy!
c. Attitude to God.
Hebrews 10:22 “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
Romans 5:1,2 “…We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into His grace in which we now stand.”
All roads do not lead to heaven because all other roads are full of spiritual potholes that stop man in his travel to heaven!
In the 1800’s a famed British preacher named Alexander Maclaren once got a skeptic to promise him that he would attend his church for 4 Sundays and listen as Maclaren presented the basic tenets of Christianity.
The skeptic was faithful. He listened intently to Maclaren’s sermons. And after the fourth message he became a believer. Maclaren was delighted and could not resist the impulse to ask which of the four sermons brought him to this decision.
The skeptic replied, "Your sermons, sir, were helpful, but they were not what finally persuaded me." What changed his mind, he said was an elderly woman he helped on a slippery walk. He said “She looked up into my face and said, ‘I wonder if you know my Savior, Jesus Christ. He is everything in the world to me. I would like you to know Him too.’”
