Is Christianity the Only Way to Heaven?

It's important to understand the Bible's claim that true life is only found in Jesus Christ. If you and I want to experience life, Jesus Christ has the authority to give it, not only here, spiritually, but one day in heaven. For Christ says, look at that verse, the latter part of it, I am the life, no one comes to the Father except through me. While other religions will take bad people and try to make them better, only one is qualified to take dead people and make them alive.

I don't know how many different religions there are in the world, but all of them make claims and offers to those who choose to follow. A false religion might motivate someone to live differently, but it never solves the real problem. The real problem resides in the human heart. Life and healing for a troubled heart is only found in Jesus Christ. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, we continue through the series entitled Healing for Troubled Hearts.

Stephen Davey will open God's Word to you with this lesson that he's calling, Is Christianity the Only Way to Heaven? The land of America has seen some incredible changes, has it not? In fact, I was reading an article that I clipped and have with me here, if you were born sometime around the late 40s, you were born before the invention of television, before penicillin, before frozen foods, before Xeroxing machines, plastic cups, contact lenses, and the critical Frisbee.

How did you make it? In the last 50 years, everything from credit cards, laser beams, ballpoint pens, dishwashers, electric blankets, and air conditioners have been created. Fifty years ago, our country had never heard of computer dating, dual careers, daycare, group therapy, or nursing homes. In fact, it hadn't heard of FM radio either, or tape decks, electric typewriters, artificial hearts, and yogurt. Fifty years ago, the word hardware meant hardware.

And a chip referred to a piece of wood, and software wasn't even a word. What has happened to those of us in this room over the last 30, 40, 50 years has been nothing less than staggering. And yet there is also a shift having taken place in this culture along, or just sort of piggy-tailing along the back of all of these various changes and advances, so that now you have, according to something that I read, more than 35 different flavors of Crest toothpaste.

You have 156 shades of Revlon lipstick, and all of these potential varieties. What has happened is there has been what is called a paradigm shift. That is a shift in thinking that is much more important and basic than your credit line, or your credit card, or your hard files. It's a shift that demands a variety and selection in our basic thinking process so that now there is no such thing as a set of truths, or any such thing as absolute truths. For we must now be able, as we once went to the supermarket and selected that brand, or that flavor, or that style, now we go and we select the god of our choice, the religious beliefs of our choice, whatever they may be, in so far as they seem to make us happy. It's interesting, in a 1993-94 Barna research report, he talked about this paradigm shift, and the poll results were interesting because one, or I should say two out of three adults surveyed contended, quote, that the choice of one religious faith over another is irrelevant because all religions teach the basic same lessons about life. So it isn't unusual for you in the marketplace and the people that I rub shoulders with to make statements like this.

Well, I love Christ as much as you do, but I don't think God would ever be so narrow-minded as to say he is the only way to heaven. Have you ever heard that? You might hear somebody make the statement like, I don't really believe all of the Bible was expected to be taken literally or without some huge grain of salt. Besides, it's all a matter of your personal interpretation. You've probably heard that. Or you may have heard the statement of something along the lines of, I think all of the religions of the world are essentially the same.

Why should we spend so much time disagreeing about minor points of differences? I added to my library a couple of weeks ago a book by a man that I've enjoyed reading, Erwin Lutzer, who pastors Moody Church in Chicago and is a rather brilliant thinker, and he writes, well, he recently went, in fact, last year to what was called the Parliament of World Religions. 6,000 delegates converged on Chicago from all over the world, and he went, and he just walked around, and then he ended up writing a book, and he put some of his thoughts down on paper, and I have some of them here. He said that the 6,000 delegates had one message, and it was this.

Unite or perish. In fact, they had, he said, seminars to help people get over the thought that one religion could be superior to another religion. In fact, they said that is the crucial obstacle to unity, is the belief that one religious set of truths is superior to another, quote, unquote, set of religious truths. He also made an interesting observation.

He walked around, and there were over 700 workshops being offered, and he'd slip in and he'd listen a little bit, and he'd get some material and look at it, and he said the interesting thing to him was this. He said that in those workshops, Jesus Christ was admired, he was quoted, he was respected, but he was never worshipped, and we would expect the same. Whether we like it or not, the paradigm in thinking today is this, that the doctrines of differing faiths should not be held as truths, but as kernels of truth that are found in all the religious systems of the world. And since the claim for absolute truth, or the founder of what we call Christianity makes, it would be better for the sake of unity to get rid of the kind of talking that talks about religious truth, and we ought to instead talk about religious traditions.

And so today you can choose a little bit from Christianity, and you can choose a little bit from the Hindu religion, you can choose a little bit from Buddha, you can choose a little bit of New Age thinking, you can take a little bit of Protestant doctrine and a little bit of Catholic doctrine, and you can mix it all up and you can come up with a God of your choice, and he will stamp his approval on your life. You will feel comfortable. Trouble is, you won't feel comfortable. You will have a troubled heart, and you will not be at peace. You see, what Jesus Christ is about to say here, as we continue our study through this Gospel in John chapter 14, is he will shatter any attempt to pick and choose. Religion, he says, is not one buffet of many possibilities, and you just put into your shopping cart what you kind of like. I'd like to live by that thought, and I'll accept that as true for me.

It may not be true for you, but it is for me. He basically shatters any of that kind of thinking, and he will do it in the verse that we're going to spend our time looking at this morning. Now, if you were with us in our last session, we came to what I'm calling the chapter of answers, and it's because it's built around questions that the disciples asked.

There are four or five questions. We looked at the question of Peter in chapter 13, verse 36. Jesus said, I'm about to leave you, and Peter raises his hand and he says, Lord, where are you going, and why can't I come? And so Jesus comforts his hurting heart and all of the others by telling them, listen, there's a reunion coming in heaven one day where we'll all be back together face to face again. Now, the next question comes from the lips of Thomas, so let's pick our study up there, but for the sake of context, let's reread verse 1 again, John chapter 14. Let not your heart be troubled, Jesus says.

Believe in God, exclamation point, believe also in me, exclamation point. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also, and you know the way where I'm going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, implied so, how do we know the way? Now, don't you love it when you've been in class and the teacher has just said something that just went pew right over your head and you've been too afraid to speak and then Tom over there across the room raises his hand and he asks the question, which you were afraid to ask because you didn't want to appear foolish. Resonating in your mind is that old quote by Abraham Lincoln that sort of haunted me. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

You ever heard that? So, you're always grateful when somebody raises their hand like poor Thomas here who gets the bum rap for being the slow learner in class. However, I'm grateful for Thomas. He was the one asking for proof, evidences, and here he says, oh, wait a second here. I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. Thomas said, Lord, we don't know where you're going. You just told us, but I wasn't listening.

Besides, even if we did, here's the thrust of his question. Even if we knew where you were going, how do we know the way? How do we get there to the Father's house? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. Now, this verse is put together in a fascinating way. The Christ answer wasn't one thought, that is, I am the way in that I am the truth and the life. No, these are three distinct predicates. You could read them this way.

You could take your pencil and get ready. I am the way, period. I am the truth, period. I am the life, period.

Three thoughts. And you could also expand your translation by using what they did in this original language in the use of what we call the definite article, the. They did it for emphasis.

You could render it literally this way. Jesus is saying, I am the only way, period. I am the only truth, period. I am the only life, period. Sound dogmatic to you?

Sound exclusive to you? Jesus will shelve that cart because there's no picking and choosing by what he says. Now, what I want to do this morning is just to illustrate these three predicates in Christ's answer. He intended, by the way, to bring healing to troubled hearts because he just told them he was going to be leaving them. And I can tell you as well that his verdict here, no one comes to the Father but through me, is either going to comfort your troubled heart or it's going to trouble your comfortable heart.

Predicate number one, I am the way. Now, you notice right away that Jesus didn't tell his disciples here that he would show them the way to heaven. He said, I am the way to heaven.

And that's a lot more comforting. I love the story of Billy Graham who was preaching in a little town. This was when he was a young preacher. And he arrived and didn't know where anything was and he wanted to mail a letter. So a little boy was nearby on his bike and he said, Sonny, can you tell me how to get to the post office? And the boy gave him directions. Then Graham said, now, I want to invite you to the church tonight. He said, I'm going to be telling people how to get to heaven. And the little boy kind of stopped a minute and he said, I don't think I'll come. You don't even know how to get to the post office. But suppose that person you asked for directions said, you know something, I've got a little time here.

Why don't I just take you? In that instance, he becomes the way. He doesn't show you the way. He doesn't show you from the map. He is to you the map. So when Jesus Christ said, I am the way, he isn't saying, now listen carefully and I'll give you directions. It's past that galaxy and turn left, go two more and turn right.

No, he is saying, you just stay with me. I will be for you the way. That is comforting. But Jesus said, I am the only way. And that's exclusive. That's dogmatic.

That's intolerant. But I believe it's the truth. Now I want you to hold your finger here and I want you to turn over a few pages to Acts. Just turn ahead to the right to Acts chapter 4. Listen to Peter preaching to the religious leaders in verse 10. Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, verse 11, he is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the very cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. Jesus Christ declared the same thing. I am the only way.

Period. Now back to John 14, he said, I am not only the way, but I am the truth, predicate number two. One of the expositors of yesteryear has been helpful.

His name is G. Campbell Morgan. And he was careful to expound this threefold declaration within its direct relationship to the Father. And that is exactly what Christ is doing here. Jesus is saying, I am the way.

That is the only way to the Father's house. Now he says, I am the truth, that is the only truth about the Father. So in other words, if you want to know the truth about God, heaven, hereafter, if you want to know the truth about God, study Jesus. If you want to know the way to God, follow Jesus, basically is what he's saying. He is the truth of God. He is the way to God. He is the life of God. That's what Paul meant in Colossians chapter two, verse nine, where he writes, in him that is Christ, all the fullness of deity dwells bodily. What does God look like? You'll see him. You'll be looking at Jesus. He is the physical manifestation of the Father and the Spirit. That's what Paul meant. He is the exclusive representation of truth about God.

So the question is, is Jesus telling the truth? Kent Hughes has written a book where he had as an introduction some rather interesting things about fishermen and the tales that fishermen tell. Any fishermen here? I'm safe.

Oh no, put your hand back down. Well, at any rate, he talks about this one contest where the person who catches the biggest fish gets an award and so does the person who tells the biggest lie about his fishing expedition. He gets an award too. One year, the winning contestant's lie was this. He said he had found a place that was so good for fishing that the fish were just waiting for him to bait his hook and drop the line that he had to go and hide behind a tree to bait his hook. One time he forgot, and he was standing near the shore, and this six-pound bass just kind of cleared about 30 feet ashore and bit his hook. So he won the prize for that year. He also talked about a liar's club that's for fun.

In Burlington, Wisconsin, where you can join for a dollar and a good enough tail. Here are some of them. One aspiring member told how the fog was so thick the other day when he cut down a tree that it wouldn't fall. Another man said his wife's feet were so cold that every time she took off her shoes, the furnace kicked on. There might be some truth in that.

Oh no. Do you know how society views this book? Fisherman's Tales. Is this carpenter from Nazareth any different from the fisherman that he hung around? Is he just telling clever stories to get a following? Well, ladies and gentlemen, one of the reasons that I know that Jesus Christ is telling the truth is that if you go to all of the other major religions on planet Earth, you'll find something in common with them, something distinct from Christianity, and that all of the tombs of those founders are full. The tomb of this founder is empty. One of the members of our church was in Russia years ago, and he saw, written on the tomb of Lenin, these words. He was the greatest leader of all peoples, of all nations, of all times. He was the Lord of the new humanity. He was the Savior of the world.

The greatest proof that he wasn't was that he is in a tomb. And all the other religions, by the way, in the world will do the same thing. They will give you a myriad of things to do, things to say, things to join, all other things, whether it's giving money or your life, being baptized, joining some fellowship or church, and Jesus Christ stands apart because he says you don't have to do anything except believe that I've done everything for you.

Go back to verse 1 of John 14 and notice who's doing all the work. Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house or many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. Who's doing everything? Jesus is. What are you doing?

Nothing. Yet what Jesus is saying here is troubling because it's dogmatic to our flexible world. It's narrow-minded to our supposedly open-minded society. It is intolerant of other views in a society that applauds itself for supposedly being intolerant. And it's troubling. So much so that the famous historian Arnold Toynbee would write these words, I predict that the governments of the world will unite, either by force or federation, but that this unity cannot succeed without a universal religion.

It's like he was reading further east. Christianity, he said, should be purged of its sinful state of mind, namely its exclusivism. Exclusivism that maintains that God has revealed himself only in Jesus Christ.

Ladies and gentlemen, is that not what you and I read? That God has revealed himself in Christ and Jesus himself would say either the truth or this preposterous lie that I am the only way to the Father. I am the only truth about the Father. And I am the only way to the Father.

Well, isn't that exclusive? I like the comment of one writer who said, I discovered that the less people know about Christ, the more they like him. The baby in the manger touches the most cynical heart. The Sermon on the Mount is treated with reverence. He's worthy to be spoken of as first among equals. However, since Christ said that the world would hate him, we can be sure that if the world reverences him, it is because they have created a Christ unlike the Christ he is.

They just don't know him. You live next door to a Mormon couple. They are taught in their wards, Mormon theology, that Jesus Christ is the brother of Satan who is an angelic being himself. You believe that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, deity in human form. You cannot both be right. You may both be wrong, but you can't both be right.

In India, they teach that there are more than 300,000 gods. You believe that there is only one God, one Lord, one faith. You may both be wrong, but you can't both be right.

If you want to believe that every tree or bush or bird is a spirit being, great, they say, then you're right. But if you want to believe in one God, one Lord, great for you, that is right. Now, somebody is wrong, and I don't want to stake my eternal future on the fact that I might be wrong. I want objective truth outside of myself, outside of my personality, outside of my emotions. I want something that has veracity and authority to say, like Jesus said, I am it. I am the only way.

I am the only truth. Our society has become like that fellow who saw a scene. Like that scene, this fellow was driving down the road, and he came past a barn, and he noticed on the barn there were arrows stuck all over the side of that barn, and every one of those arrows was in a bull's eye. He was amazed. He got out, and he went out to congratulate the farmer who said, I didn't do that.

He said, that was done by a young guy in the village who came out, and he said he just shot arrows all into the side of my barn, and then he went and he painted bull's eyes around each arrow. The Western world now believes that you can shoot your arrow of faith in any direction, and a benevolent being will paint a bull's eye around it. There is no such God like that. In fact, according to Scripture, the Western world's rebellion against this truth would be illustrated by somebody drowning, and they are thrown a rope that would save their lives, but they, as they flounder in the water, begin to argue back with the people who would save them. No, I want a selection of ropes.

I want to be able to choose which rope I want to take, and I also want the option of being able to swim to shore if I want. That's the Western paradigm. I don't want one.

I want the choice of many. Jesus Christ says, you choose me or you perish. Look at the last part of this triple declaration. I am not only the way, the truth. He says, I am the life. The apostle John was captivated by this word zoe, life. It appears in different forms more than 50 times in this Gospel alone. You could read it for your own enjoyment and just circle the word life more than 50 times.

The Lord used the word for the first time when he said, straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leads to life. He comforted Martha, the grieving sister of Lazarus, outside of Lazarus' tomb. Before he would call out, Lazarus, come forth, he would turn to Martha and he would say to her, I am the resurrection and the zoe, the life.

Now let me prove it to you. Lazarus, come forth. If you and I want to experience life, Jesus Christ has the authority to give it, not only here, spiritually, but one day in heaven. For Christ says, look at that verse, the latter part of it, I am the life, no one, not even one, comes to the Father except through me.

While other religions will take bad people and try to make them better, only one is qualified to take dead people and make them alive. And that's the claim of Jesus Christ. And I can tell you, I can testify to you that he is life. I can testify to you that I know the forgiveness of sin. I can tell you that I know life in Christ. I can pillow my head without guilt, without fear, without shame.

No one else can do that for you. Only the one who said, I can give you life. If Jesus Christ is the only way, then you are lost without following his path. If Jesus Christ is the only truth, then you are deceived without believing his message.

If Jesus Christ is the only life, then you are hopeless without receiving his gift. Jesus Christ is not one God among many. He is the only God. He is not one kernel of divine truth. He is truth. He is not merely one way among many that will eventually reach eternity, paradise, heaven. He is the only way. For he himself declared that I am the way, the truth, and the life no one, not even one can come to the Father except through me. Our culture teaches that all religions are essentially the same. The truth is that Jesus is the only way of salvation.

Brothers and sisters, never compromise on that issue. This was lesson two in a four-part series. I want you to know that this series has been turned into a book, and it's called Healing for Troubled Hearts.

It might be that you want this resource in your own library, or maybe you want to share it with others. Well, it's available. Please call us for information. You can reach us at 866-48-BIBLE. Call today, and then join us next time here on Wisdom for the Hearts. .