John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
In this day and age, it is a fact that the church sometimes has tended to get very sloppy and inexact when discussing the various doctrines that we believe. I think it very important not only to be able to answer questions for ourselves, but also in order to have an answer for those who are enquiring.
The Bible is the source of truth for the church. But nowadays, truth is not very much in vogue. We are awash in a sea of vagueness, situational ethics and relativity. There are not many fans of objective truth anymore, except maybe in the fields of mathematics and science.
But Jesus himself stated "I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me." Here is the death sentence to every false religion, and man made system since the dawn of time.
Jesus defined himself as the only way by which men might be saved. This is an incredibly unpopular teaching in these days. But as believers in Jesus Christ, we cannot shy away from His statements as unpopular as they may be.
We know that Jesus himself was not incredibly popular in his day for saying these same things.
I. SIN - THE DESTROYER OF MANKIND!
Rom 1:21-23For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Rom 1:28-32 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
There is a force in the world that many are going to great lengths to avoid. That force is sin. Sin is also an incredibly unpopular subject these days Why? Because the word "sin" implies certain things that men would rather not deal with.
A. What is man's problem? To this we get various answers nowadays.
1) The first one is that he has no problem. "I'm Ok your Okay. Live and let live."
2) Man is not fully mature yet. He's been evolving for thousands of years and he is improving, eventually he will evolve his way out of all his problems and be more fully human.
3) Man is not fully educated. Education is the answer to his ills. His problem is ignorance.
4) Man's problem is that he is repressed. He needs to overthrow all these authority structures and false guilt, then he will really be himself and happy.
5) The only real problem with man is having a negative attitude. If he will only have a better attitude and a positive mental outlook, all will be fine.
Now you may have subscribed to these views or even subscribe to them now, but what I hope to show today is how the Christian view of life is completely different from these views.
The Christian or Biblical worldview has this little word called "Sin".
What is sin? A good definition is sin is the act of turning away from God and his will.
The reason this definition is so devastating is because sin is intensely personal. It's a violation against a person. The person of God.
You see, some things follow if we are to take the Bible for what it says, that are inescapable.
1) God is a personal God.
2.) He is the creator of all things.
3.) He created man as a free will, reasoning, moral creature.
4) Being the creator he has a right to govern his moral creatures through moral reasoning
5) Man rebelled against that moral command and that was a personal affront to God.
Now most people get defensive almost immediately when you start talking like this. Why?
Because what this implies is not popular. It implies....
A. Guilt- Guilty of what? Pride, Unbelief, and RebellionB. Blame- "God gave them over"C. Punishment= " they deserve death"
It is precisely man's turning away from God that has led to mankind's problems, and that is the reason for the frustration, alienation, guilt and anxiety we see in the world today.
All are guilty? "But pastor isn't it true that these laws applied only to Israel" But no, the Bible says that all of have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So we are all, in the course of things, under the same guilt, blame and punishment.
This is a bleak picture. But praise God because God so loved the world that he sent His only Son to Calvary's cross that we might be reconciled to God. Even though we were alienated from God because of sin. He dealt with sin on the cross that we might be reconciled to God.
II NO OTHER NAME BY WHICH WE MAY BE SAVED
A. No other Religion.- When we see sin in the proper light. We then see how crucial the blood of Jesus is.
1. Truth: faithful to fact or reality. Unfortunately when it comes to religious truth, many people think that there is no such thing. But let's see what isn't necessarily truth: Sincerity does not make something true. Some people say, "yeah but if they are sincere in there beliefs doesn't that make them all right?" No, if you were sincerely taking rat poison because you sincerely thought it was medicine, that would not make it medicine, and you would end up dead.
Pragmatism doesn't define truth. "Oh that's nice that Christianity works for you." But this confuses usefulness with reality. There is much in other religions that may be useful, but that doesn't make their core doctrines true.
Exclusivity does not make something wrong. There is such a cry in the world today for tolerance, seemingly for everything except Christianity, but truth, by definition, is exclusive. It is exclusive of all the error. If 2 plus 2 equals four. Then that is an exclusive answer. It is exclusive of 3 and 5 and six.
Other Religions
But aren't other religions basically the same?No they are not. The major religions differ in their perception of who God is, in their ultimate view of human destiny, and in their means of attaining salvation. Most people that would say that all religions are basically the same have little in depth knowledge of various religions. All non-Christian religions are based on “works righteousness”. That means that they say that you must do x, y, and z in order to be accepted by God. Christianity is the only one that says that there is nothing you can do but you must have faith in the person of Jesus Christ and receive His forgiveness through His sacrifice on the cross.
All these other religions are narrow and exclusive as well. They all claim to be right.
The Law of Non Contradiction:The most basic law of logic says that if there are two statements, made about one particular issue, that contradict each other then:Either A is false and B is true---or B is false and A is true----or they are both false. They both can't be true at the same time.
If Christ claims to be the only way to God and Mohammed says there is another way to God, then either Christ is right and Mohammed is wrong, or Mohammed is right and Christ is wrong or they are both wrong. They cannot both be right. Since the major religions contradict each other, we can apply the law of non-contradiction. They cannot all be right.
Why Jesus? Jesus said “I am the way and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.” (John 14:6) That‘s pretty exclusive. Let’s examine these claims. Either Jesus was telling the truth and is the Lord, or he is a liar or a lunatic.
The very character of Christ argues persuasively against him being a liar. He spoke of truth and virtue on every occasion. The consistent life and testimony of Christ make it clear as well that He was not a lunatic. We do not find inconsistencies and imbalances in His life.
It was the same Jesus who said he was the only way, who commanded that this message be taken to the whole world. If Christianity is true, then it would be unloving and rebellious not to share Christ's solution with others.
May Jesus continue to get our highest worship and adoration for truly He is the Only Savior!!
Blessings!
