Avoiding Culture's Flytraps - All Roads Lead to Heaven part 1

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Video of Venus Flytrap in action (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PJiEP_z-F4&feature=PlayList&p=3FC9198C68E0484C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=40). Today we are in the second week of our series Avoiding Culture’s Flytraps. In this series we are confronting the commonly held assumptions that our culture wants us to entrap us and lead us away from God. Today we are going to talk about likely the most controversial idea of all that All Roads Lead to Heaven. This is belief held not only by those outside of the church but often inside the church as well. Evangelical Christians were polled and 68% believe that good people from other religions will go to heaven. The idea that all roads lead to heaven has grown larger as the world has grown smaller. In our day in age you can be basically anywhere in the world in 24 hours. On average 350K international students come to college in the US everywhere. And we get to know them and find that they are real people, good people and so to many it just seems to make sense that all roads lead to heaven.

The lines have become blurry because people all seem to believe that what they believe is based on personality, experience, heritage and part of the world. People like to make the assumption that just because you can climb at mountain from different paths, you can take the straight path or the winding path, you can start from the east, west, north or south and you will finally get to the top, so also you can take different paths to heaven. You can take the Christianity path, the Judaism path, Islam path, Buddhist path, Hindu path etc.,

Because after all, Don’t all religions basically teach the same thing and so it doesn’t matter? It is true that religions that we are talking about today talk about being a good person, to love and respect others, and connect with God so they all teach the same thing right? Well in the area of morality and ethics there are many teachings that are similar. All religions basically teach you to do unto others as you would have them do to you. Buddha teaches us to pursue honesty, charity, service and to abstain from murder and lust.

But in vivid contrast to this cultural belief that all roads lead to heaven, Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And people say that is bold, prideful and politically incorrect. Today Jesus is still pretty popular. Every now and then Jesus’ image is on Time. People look at him as a good man and perhaps even the best man ever. His teaching on morality and ethics are revolutionary. Then Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Now people cringe. Just stay with the morality and the ethics and it will be all good. Then he speaks of his deity. And now it sounds so exclusive.

Let’s look at a few things: Judaism, Islam and Christianity all teach that there is one personal God, creator of the universe. Islam teaches that Jesus is a good man who performed miracles with his own hands. So there are some things that if we jump to conclusions can lead us to say that they are the same.

But there are some significant differences. While Judaism, Islam and Christianity all teach that there is one God but Hinduism teaches that there is not 1 God but millions of gods, in fact everything is god. Buddha wasn’t sure there was a god. If there was a personal God, he couldn’t do anything to help you out. You have to do it through self-fulfillment, achievement, actualizations. If all roads lead to God which God are they leading to? One God? Many gods? No gods? How do you reconcile that.

In Islam and Christianity you and I die and face a judge. Now the judge is different in Christianity and Islam but we face a judge. In Hinduism you die and you are reincarnated over and over again into different life forms depending on how you lived your life based on the cosmic laws of karma. Buddhism teaches that there is no life after death. They can’t all be true because they teach different things - life after death, reincarnation, no life after death. How can they be the same when they don’t teach the same things? You see truth is exclusive. 2 + 2 = 4. We understand that and can prove that. But 2 + 2 = 22 no matter how sincere we are in that belief doesn’t make it right. 2 +2 = 4 and 2 + 2 = 22 can’t both be true if they contradict each other.

There are key differences but who is to say which one is true. Don’t all religions have equal claim to the truth? Doesn’t come down to what works for you. You have yours and I have mine. Now tolerance is a good thing. We are truly blessed to have the freedom of religion in our country. All religions are equally protected in the US and that is good. But what many have come to think is that since all are equally protected that then they must all be equally true.

Let’s open up Jesus’ resume and see if anything unique or one of a kind that stands out. First up on the resume are the prophecies to be fulfilled so that we can have relationship with God (next week we will consider the miracles, life, death and resurrection of Jesus). As we look at what are hundreds of prophecies here are some highlights: offspring of Abraham, descendant of the Jewish tribe of Judah, born in Bethlehem, betrayed by a friend for exactly thirty pieces of silver, a trial with false witnesses, his hands and feet would be pierced and this is before crucifixion had been invented, he would be offered wine and vinegar to drink, he would pray for his enemies (Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing), no bones would be broken (thieves legs were broken) cast lots for his clothing and buried in a rich man’s tomb. Every single prophecy Jesus has fulfilled. Now I know some would say, “Of course, it is his book. We would expect that. Do you know that secular historians have written about the Jesus of the Bible. Jesus backs up his claim of, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” by fulfilling the prophecies that were made over hundreds of years before he was born.

Here is the deal. If all that we needed was a religious system to make us better people that would be fine but you and I don’t need a religious system but a Savior. Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. Jesus came to make dead people alive. We are sinners not in need of a system but a Savior. Jesus is unique, a one and only, the Savior with the name above all names. The only name that leads to heaven. Amen.