The Lie That Many Paths Lead To God – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Many people think they can come to God any way they like.

Lay aside your preconceptions. Listen to what God says about how to find Him. Today we'll learn why coming to God only happens through the right mediator. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. We're in a series on ten lies about God and why you might already be deceived. Pastor Lutzer, some might wonder why they need a mediator at all to get to God.

Well, the quick answer, Dave, is simply this. We can't come to God with our sin and He can receive us. As a matter of fact, it is so important for us to be perfect in God's sight, and because you and I are not perfect and no one is, what we need is someone who is perfect to stand in for us, and that is Jesus. You know, as I think about it, one of the great lies of this culture is the fact that we have taken God and we have domesticated Him. We have reduced Him to what we believe God is rather than going to the scripture and finding out who God really is, how holy He is, how just He is, and why it is that we must come to God in the right way.

I believe very deeply about these matters because we're living in a culture, as I've already emphasized, that wants to have its own vision of God. For a gift of any amount, we're making available for you a book I've written entitled Ten Lies About God. I trust that you'll take advantage of this offer because it will help you to understand the God of the Bible. Here's what you do, by the way.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Let us go to the God of the Bible through Christ our Lord. By one sacrifice He has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy. How do you get to God? Somebody showed up here at the church one time and said, you know, I don't know His number.

How do I get in touch with Him? Let me tell you how He must be approached. Number one, you must have the right mediator, the right mediator. God cannot be approached directly. All relationship with God is mediated. Medieval times there were mystics who thought they could just get through to God on their own.

It's got to be mediated. We think, for example, of the contrast, the Old Testament priests. There were many of them because they died and then they were replaced. There was one high priest, but when he died, he had a replacement and on and on it went because they were symbolic of the coming of Christ who would be the priest who would for once and for all become our mediator, our intercessor to stand between us and a holy God.

And so you see the contrast here in the text. Notice he says day after day, every priest, many of them performing his religious duties again and again, he's offering the same sacrifices. Furthermore, these priests were sinful and they had to offer sacrifices for themselves first and then they had to do it for others. Jesus never had to offer a sacrifice for himself because he was sinless. Some of you know how often I've told you the story of going to the parliament of world religions and looking for a sinless savior. I don't need somebody who's a part of my predicament. And I discovered that in the religions of the world, in the Palmer house represented downstairs booth after booth after booth, no other religion has a sinless savior.

They have teachers who are sinners just like the rest of us. I need something better than that personally. And so what we have here is someone who can respond to Job's need. You remember Job said, oh, if I could just get through to God, he said, would I ever unload?

I just give all of my complaints. But he said, I need an umpire. I need somebody, he said, who can put his hand on both of us and somebody who can bring us together. Only Christ, fully man, fully God, the God man. There is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

And we cannot go into the presence of God alone. We must have a mediator with us. And you'll notice that it says when this mediator gave his sacrifice, he sat down on the right hand of God. The other priest worked and worked and worked and worked and there was no end to it, but he could say it is done.

The right mediator. Secondly, we need the right sacrifice, the right sacrifice. The same passage speaks about sacrifices. Justice demands it. I'm always amused by people who say, well, you know, the idea that God demands a sacrifice is archaic and so forth.

My dear friend, and we'll do this as we look at this series. This is only the first in a series of 10 messages on God, but I have to tell you upfront, God is stuck with the attributes he has. I mean, he can't change his attributes. If his justice demands a sacrifice, it demands a sacrifice. And let us not think again that we have to recreate God according to what we would like to see or what we think is best. All that we can do is to accept his revelation.

Justice demands a sacrifice. Now we should not think of God the father as being angry and vengeful and Jesus appeasing him. After all, the Bible does say that God loved the world. God showed his love to us. God also loves us. God also cares. The father also cares, but it was an arrangement within the Trinity that God, the son would be a sacrifice so that we could be free.

Now notice again, the contrast. The contrast is between many sacrifices day after day offering the same sacrifice. The lambs constantly being slain and sin never permanently being taken away. God did allow them to enjoy forgiveness on the basis of Christ's coming, which was still future, but the sacrifices themselves never had the ability to take sin away. But he, notice it says, by one sacrifice for all time, he took sin away.

His actually worked. His actually is qualified to bring us to God. Something else. You think of those priests, what did they offer animals? The blood of bulls and of goats and of sheep. But Jesus, it says in Hebrews chapter nine, the preceding chapter, he did not enter heaven by means of the blood of goats and calves, but he entered the most holy place by his own blood. Now here's a priest. Here's a priest who actually becomes the sacrifice himself. What we need when we enter into God's presence is the right sacrifice and notice the completeness of it.

About 10 days ago, several of us in the staff were taking a cab here in Chicago and we came across a man who was very open to talk. He was a Muslim cab driver and we were trying to explain the wonders of Jesus and his forgiveness and this cab driver said, and I'm not sure whether or not he represents the Muslim faith, I'm just telling you what he said. He said, I know that I have to go to hell, he said. Justice demands it because he said, I'm not supposed to sleep with other women and I've slept with other women. I'm not supposed to get drunk and I've been drunk. But he says, when I get to hell, when I'm there long enough and pay for my sin, then I hope to get to heaven. Well, he was wrong on a couple of counts. First of all, when you go to hell, you don't get out.

Sorry. But second, no human suffering can ever possibly take away sin, even if it is eternal, if the suffering is eternal. But third, what a wonderful opportunity we had to share with him the beauty of the gospel. For by one sacrifice, Christ took sin away permanently forever, it says, for those who are being made holy. Last part of verse 13, because by one sacrifice he is made perfect, yes, forever, those who are being made holy.

There is no need for you to go to hell if Christ's sacrifice was accepted by the father, which it was. How do we get to God? And I'm not talking about simply living in his presence because everybody does that.

He fills the universe. I'm talking about getting his ear. I'm talking about getting his regard.

I'm talking about connecting. I'm speaking about going right into his presence, into that holy place. I'll tell you, it's a mighty bad idea and very futile unless you go with the right mediator and the right sacrifice. You say, well, God doesn't blow people away today like he did back then. No, but we're going to deal with that in the next message. The next message in this series deals with the lie that God is more tolerant than he used to be. Some people think, well, you know, old age, he's beginning to wink at sin. Well, that's next week's message.

You go with the right mediator, you go with the right sacrifice, and now you go with the right attitude. Look at it says in verse 19 of Hebrews, therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by this new and living way, which you opened to through the curtain. And he's thinking here of the veil that separated the holy place and the holy of holies. He's saying, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near. Now we're ready to come close. Now we can come close.

And how do we draw near? With a sincere heart. The word is honest. We don't have to pretend, you know, we all pretend in the presence of others in the presence of God, there's no use.

I mean, he knows the whole thing anyway. So you come and you honestly, finally, honestly admit who you are with a sincere heart, with full assurance. We come believing that we're going to be accepted on the basis of having come with a right mediator and the right sacrifice. And now we trust him.

We trust him. Last week, I was reading a book by a very fine Christian author in which he told the story of a prostitute here in Chicago who was selling her two year old child sexually to perverts so that she could get money to live. And someone thinking of this horrid situation said to her, in your need, why didn't you think about going to a church? And she said, why would I bother going to a church? I feel guilty enough and they will only make me feel more guilty. Now let's think about that response for a moment.

Let's not brush it off quickly. If people come to a church, do they feel guilty? Yes, there's certainly a place to feel guilty and maybe she will feel more guilty for a short time.

But there's something else that should happen at a church if it's worth existing and if not, may its doors be closed. And that is that in the midst of the guilt, there is also hope. There's also the recognition that, that yes, she too can draw near if she comes in the right name, the name of Jesus, the right mediator and she knows the right sacrifice of the cross of Jesus dying. Yes, she too can come into the very holy place of God. Do you notice what the text said?

Did I read it too quickly? It is there in verse 19. Since we have confidence to enter the most, oh I can hardly get through this, confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus. That woman and a thousand like her can be right in the most holy place by the blood of Jesus. Guilt drives us away from God, but it also draws us to God. And I say to those of you today feeling awash with failure and guilt, do not turn away from God but draw near to the most holy place.

But come with Christ, don't go alone. A number of years ago I was in Washington DC with our two oldest daughters and I was speaking at a retreat. And at the retreat there was a secret service agent who said to me, would you like to see the Oval Office tomorrow? Tomorrow was Monday, it was a holiday and President Bush at that time, he was the president, was out of town and he said I can show you the Oval Office.

Well here I am, you know, a farm boy from Canada thinking to myself I'll never have an opportunity like that. I often thought, you know, it'd be wonderful. You see it on TV, you see pictures, but it's wonderful to say this is the Oval Office. So I didn't even pray about it, I just said I'll meet you, just tell me the time and I'll be there. So we show up at the White House and he is there and we begin going through the guard stations to get to the Oval Office. I remember the first station, it's the one that's at the gate at the White House there and our umbrellas set off the metal detectors. Do you know that the guards scarcely looked at us? My daughter offered to open her purse so he could check it, he said no I don't want to check it, he said you're with him, go ahead. We came to the next guard station, they looked at the secret service agent, they didn't know who we were, I could have been a criminal as far as they were concerned, but they looked at him and they said you're with him, go ahead. You're with him, go ahead. And now we were in the hallway and I could already see the door of the Oval Office, I could see it partially and there's one more guard sitting right there at the door and I wondered is he going to turn us away?

But he came and he looked at the secret service agent and he waved us on by, you're with him, go ahead. In my mind's eye, if I may use my imagination and yours, let us suppose that all who are members and friends of Moody Church, what if we all died at the same time? And suddenly we find ourselves now on the other side of death and we look around and who do we have? Well, we have people, perhaps some women who at one time were prostitutes before they believed on Jesus. Women who've had abortions, who struggled with all kinds of guilt as a result of it. We have people who were into the homosexual lifestyle before they believed on Jesus. We've got criminals, we've got people who were guilty of thievery, people who spent time in prison and then we've got a whole bunch of really scrubbed up people who haven't done any of those things.

But if you knew their thought life, you'd know that they were just as guilty as the rest. So we're all there and Jesus comes and stands among us. Then I can imagine as we're on our way to the holy city that angels are like guard posts along the way and we come to the first one and they look at us and then they say, you're with him? Go on through. Then we come to another one and they say, you're with him? Go on through.

You're with him? Go on through. And then we can begin to see the glory of God. We're actually so close now that the God who dwells in unapproachable light. Oh, this is it now, unveiled.

You see, everything that God has in the Bible is veiled, but now this is the glory of God unveiled in blazing light and holiness. And then we have a flashback and we think of our sins and how miserably we lived and how we failed God and all the depths of our iniquity. It all comes awash on us and we say, we can't go any further. We just can't.

We can't. The angel says, you're with him. Go on in. My dear friend, don't you ever think it doesn't matter how you approach God. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, that's the way you go.

You have the right mediator. You have the right sacrifice. And the only, only, only reason we are admitted is because we're not going alone.

We're with him. Have you ever accepted this Christ as your savior? Do you understand now why it's, it's utter foolishness and stupidity to think that you can just get there however you wish, whatever religion, whatever you believe, not this God.

We need to go the right way. No man, no man gets to the father, not by me. Let's pray. Our father, we ask today that in grace you might reach down and save those who need to be saved, make them aware of their need for a qualified savior. And even at this moment, if you've never received Christ as savior, just like Mickey, who gave that wonderful testimony a moment ago, he was sitting in his seat and he prayed just like you can pray, say, Jesus, I am a sinner and I receive you as savior right now as my mediator, as my sacrifice.

You talk to him and you do that. And father in this age, when we have so blasphemed you by thinking that we can get to God, however we wish, grant that the folks who have listened to this message, that this message may know eternally why there's only one way to the father old grant that father we pray in Jesus name. My friend today, I want you to know that I deeply believe that you were listening to this program, not by accident, but by divine appointment. And the reason that I say that is I can't help but think that there are many of you who are listening, who have never savingly believed on Jesus. You have not come to God through Jesus Christ alone. Perhaps you think that you have made your own path to God, but what you must do is to humble yourself, repent, turn from your sins and turn to the only mediator who is able to save you and do that right now. You may be in your car, you may be in your home or an office wherever you find yourself. Take advantage of this opportunity to believe on Christ, the only one who can take us all the way to the father.

I've written a book entitled 10 lies about God and why you may already be deceived and we're making this resource available for you for a gift of any amount. Here's what you do and I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy so that you can write this down. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337.

And thank you in advance for helping us. Thank you for joining hands with us. You've heard me say before that Running to Win is now in 50 different countries in seven different languages, all because of people just like you. And this, my friend, is your ministry.

Thanks again, 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Many people believe God has evolved. No longer mean He's now gentler and kinder. And that's lie number two in our series about God. Get set because next time on Running to Win, another myth is going to be debunked. Plan to join us as Erwin Lutzer brings a message on lie number two that God is more tolerant than He used to be. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.