#20 Atheism and World Religions (not shortened)
In this lesson, I combined parts of several posts from https://myimpressionisticlife.blogspot.com. This lesson is not really an academic “study” of atheism and world religions, but it’s a very personal account of why I could never give up my faith in Jesus, why those other options are not for me, and how I would explain salvation and faith in Jesus to a non-believer.
Due to many trials which have caused me to struggle deeply with my faith, I’ve become a little less polished and a lot more real over the years. This is why I included this lesson and the depression one. Because I really wanted to show the very real, human side of being a believer in Jesus, how we can struggle enormously with heartache and pain and doubt and fear . . . and yet still cling to Him.
This will be a long lesson (I tried to cut it down as much as I could) because I will be looking at several different things which all relate to what we choose to believe and why: atheism, world religions, evidence to support the Bible and Jesus, and how I would describe salvation and faith in Jesus to someone.
Why I Could Never be an Atheist
He has been so silent, so distant . . . and at a time when I needed Him to show Himself most. My soul has ached for more than what He is giving right now. I cry out, but hear nothing. I pray and pray about certain things. And . . . nothing happens.
Many prayers have not been answered - prayers for things to be healed, house problems to be fixed, friends to call me back, etc. I don’t even really want the particular answers as much as I want evidence that God is listening and cares. Just answer something, anything, clearly and obviously so that I can know You are there! Show me that You care!
And yet, the silence has been loud and long. The problems keep piling up. And I don’t even know how to pray anymore sometimes. I feel like I am not being heard, like the things I pray for are what get attacked, and like all my energy and emotions are just being wasted anyway. It feels like if I pray about something or care about anything, it’s bound to get ruined somehow. And I’m teetering on the edge of losing my . . . well . . . I don’t know. Losing my heart? My desire to enjoy life? My faith?
I find myself wanting to pull back from God, to retreat into a safe, little, protective shell and tell Him, “Fine, God, I can handle it. I don’t want anyone – even You – to care about me. I can accept it. I am used to it. I’m strong enough.”
I’m not strong enough. I’m cracking under the pressure. And I don’t know what to do anymore except wait on God for . . . well . . . for I-don’t-know-what. I don’t know what I am waiting for. I don’t know what to expect, what to wait for, what to hope for. I’m more broken than I’ve ever been. And I don’t know how to fix it.
I am sharing all of this as a way to say that I can totally understand how people who are going through hard times and who feel a huge void where God should be might think, “There is no God.”
They have my sincerest sympathy. It is really hard to cling to faith when God seems so very far away and prayers don’t “work.” When you feel like life has been too much to handle and like you are cracking under the pressure and like God just doesn’t care. And it makes you want to go, “Fine! Then I don’t care either.”
For one thing, I need God. No matter how quiet He is and how things don’t happen my way, there is a deep ache in my soul that cries out for Him. And I think we all have that ache. Just look at what happens during any tragedy in the world. We automatically cry out to Him. We ask Him, “Why?” We join together in prayer. We wonder where He was and why He let it happen. Even city officials get on camera and ask us to pray, and no one scolds them. We might raise our fists at Him or we might fall down on our knees before Him, but the point is that we turn to Him. Every tragedy turns our thoughts to God.
Deep down in all of us is a built-in need for Him, for Someone bigger than us who is watching out for us and who holds all things in His hands. And while many people explain it away or ignore it or soothe the ache with other things, we all know it’s there. And tragedies bring our need for God to the surface.
Despite the fact that He is so quiet and that I wish I could give up on prayer sometimes, my soul still cries out for Him. It’s always reaching for Him. Because deep down, I know He’s real. And I need Him. I know that we are not alone, that we are not accidents, and that He is always close to us, always listening, and that He does care and does answer prayer, even if life is hard and the trials are many and we get more “no” answers than we like.
And I am much more willing to believe that there is a God and that He is choosing to not do things my way, not answer as I want Him to, than to believe that there is no God just because things aren’t going my way.
I mean, look at this world. The order. The delicate balance. The miracle of life, of the human body, the eyeball, the brain. It is much more reasonable to believe in God than to not. Atheists have much more to explain when it comes to the intricate order and balance of this world and universe than I do. It takes much more “faith” to believe that all of this is accidental than to believe in a Creator.
And it is narrow-minded, self-centered pride to think that God should always answer my prayers the way I want Him to. It is foolishness to decide that there must not be a God just because life isn’t going my way. There is far too much evidence for a Creator for me to base my belief in Him simply on what He does or doesn’t do in my own little life.
While I might doubt and wonder about how God acts and why God does what He does, I do not doubt His existence.
And one major reason I don’t doubt is something I talked about a few lessons ago – the five months of spiritual, demonic harassment that I went through several years ago. It is as fresh to me today as it was then, although it is not scary anymore. In fact, I think of it basically every day. It has radically changed my life and my faith.
And although it was terrifying at the time, I thank God for that experience. Because that alone (along with the “light as a feather, stiff as a board” game that really worked when I was an adolescent) would be enough to convince me that there is indeed a supernatural world out there. I do not doubt at all the existence of angels and demons, heaven and hell, God and Satan.
So when these long, dry “spiritual deserts” come, I can still rest assured that I never “made up” God in my head, just to satisfy some need to have a god. He is real. And I know it. And I will cling to Him because I have had a small taste of what evil is like, and I didn’t like it at all. I choose God!
And another one is the fact that I once decided (in college) that I needed to study all the other major religions (which I will briefly explore later in this lesson), to see if they had any real answers or hope or truth.
What if I was wrong all along and one of them was right? I had to find out.
And I will admit that I was a little afraid to start that research. What if I did learn that I didn’t have real reasons to believe in the Bible, to put my faith in Jesus? What if I realized that I had built my faith on shifting sand? But I knew that I had to do this research, that I had to go into it with an open mind that really wanted to know the truth.
And I did.
And I was relieved and delighted to come through it only more convinced that the Bible was the truth and that Jesus is the Savior. None of the other religions offer the kind of hope and reasonable answers that I found in the Bible, in Jesus. And I was able to close the book on that research, on wondering if some other religion had it right instead of Christianity.
For me, there is no other choice. If Jesus isn’t the answer and isn’t the way, then there is no other option in any other religion. It’s either Jesus or nothing! And so in that way, I guess maybe atheism would be the only other option for me. Yet, as I said, atheism isn’t the answer for me, either. So it’s really only Jesus!
Atheists spend their days, their lives, fighting for a future full of nothingness, for the idea that people don’t really matter eternally, that we have no real lasting value, no real purpose, and no real hope of things ever being better. What a hopeless and discouraging view!
And the funny things is, the vocal atheists spend their days actively fighting against the idea of God, who they believe doesn’t even exist. So basically, looking at it from their perspective and considering that they don’t believe in an afterlife, they spend the only life they have fighting against nothing and for nothing. So nonsensical! So sad!
Why would anyone waste so much time and energy trying to convince people that we don’t really ultimately matter? That no one is looking out for us? That we are accidents with no real value or purpose? That what happens here on earth doesn’t really matter in the long run? Why would they want to believe that themselves?
But with that comes a life and eternity away from the real God, away from the Creator who loves us and sustains us, who gives our lives meaning and purpose, and who will right all wrongs in the end and dish out ultimate justice.
Can you imagine telling a child who is dying early of a disease, “Sorry, that’s a tough break. But this is nature’s way. You are really nothing more than a ball of accidentally-alive cells anyway. And don’t worry, you won’t remember any of this later because you are going to simply vanish. And it won’t really matter that you suffered. It won’t really matter what happened in your life, because we all just disappear in the end anyway!”
Or how about telling a person who was horribly abused by someone who never got punished for it, “Well, I’m sorry that it happened but it doesn’t really matter. Nothing really matters in the end for any of us. It doesn’t ultimately matter if you were the abused or if you were the abuser. We all go to the same place and have the same ending: nothingness. And I am sorry that there is no real justice for you in the end, no consequences for the person who abused you. But they will end up in the same place you do. And it will be like they never did anything bad and like nothing bad ever happened to you. So it really is just a tough break that this is what your life has been like. I wish I could say that things will be better for you one day, that justice will be served, but I can’t. So sorry!”
Do we say that kind of stuff when bad things happen? (Of course, not even an atheist would say this because it is so insensitive. But it is essentially the gist of their beliefs, if they are honest with themselves.)
We say, “It’s not fair.”
And why do we say, “It’s not fair”?
Because we know – deep down – that we were made for something more, something better, that life is supposed to be a certain way. You can’t say “It’s not fair” unless you have something to compare “fair” against, unless there is some ultimate standard by which to measure the quality of life.
In a world without God and without eternity, it really should not ultimately matter what happens. If life is accidental and random and unplanned and created by unthinking forces, we can’t complain when it isn’t the way it’s supposed to be . . . because there would be no “supposed to be” about it. And death and disease and harshness would be as “fair” as life and health and goodness. (And you could even consider them beneficial, if they serve a purpose for mankind as a whole.)
And eventually, we would all end up in the same place anyway. It would not ultimately matter if we lived long, healthy, kind, gentle lives . . . or if we suffered tremendously . . . or if we made others suffer . . . or if we died early of a disease. “Fair” and “supposed to be” would never enter the picture because there would be nothing solid to measure the quality of our lives or our choices against.
We know that when a person is abused, it is wrong and unfair. We know that they should have had a better life than that. They should have been treated better than that. We know that the abuser was in the wrong, that there is a standard that all of us should be - will be - held to. Not just a human standard of what is socially-acceptable behavior, but a real, deep, abiding, binding standard of right and wrong ways to live and treat people. And so, we want to see justice done. And we are outraged when it is not done on earth.
We know that when a child dies, their life was snuffed out too early, that it wasn’t fair because they had a lot more living to do. We know that they mattered tremendously and that their value goes much deeper than what they could contribute to society. They matter because they are human. And there’s something about being human that gives us incredible value, no matter our skin color, health, physical ability, circumstances of life, etc.
And deep down, we all know that our value isn’t determined by society (oh, the horrors that can happen when society determines our worth!) but by something that transcends our frail, tiny, human standards and values.
And Christians know that it’s because God made us in His image, that He loved us enough to send Jesus to die for our sins so that we could live, and that our souls will live after the body dies. We matter because God made us and loves us. And our lives on earth matter because death isn’t the end of us. Our lives will greatly affect our eternities.
It wouldn’t ultimately matter if you were Hitler or Mother Teresa.
If there is not an ultimate, supreme, objective standard for right and wrong then there is no real right or wrong. If there is no Creator and no Supreme Judge then it doesn’t ultimately matter how we live because, in the end, none of us has any lasting value and we are accountable to no one and there are no real, lasting consequences.
And then how do we determine “right and wrong”? If it hurts someone else? But why should hurting people be considered wrong, especially if it benefits someone else? Just because we, at this time, in our society, say it’s wrong? If we were in a primitive, lawless society, would violence all of a sudden be okay, just because we allow it and because that’s the way things are?
And how do we determine the value of people if there is no objective morality? Is the value of a baby’s life based on if the mother wants it or not? Or on if it has some sort of genetic defect or not? Does the value of a human change if they end up severely crippled in an accident? Was feeding the Christians to lions “morally acceptable” because the Romans believed it was? What about primitive societies that used to bury live babies with their dead parents? Is that okay just because they think it’s the way things should be done? Could you whisper those words of comfort to that baby as you placed it in the ground, crying and kicking, and shoveled piles of dirt over it?
Think a moment about the big questions of life: Why are we here? Where are we headed? Do we really matter?
What answers can atheism give to these?
“Why are we here?” We are accidents. All this amazing order and complexity and the delicate balance of life developed over billions of years by accident. If any one thing had been different, none of this would be here. So life is just a lucky, lucky accident.
“Where are we headed?” Well, if we are cosmic accidents then we have no soul. And no part of us will live on after we die. We are headed to nothingness.
“Do we really matter?” If we are accidents with temporary bodies and no souls then there is no ultimate lasting value to us, no real purpose or meaning. We matter only to those who know us for the brief time we are here, and it doesn’t really ultimately matter how we lived or what happened in our lives.
Compare that to the answers we find in the Bible, in Jesus:
“Why are we here?” Because God is a relational Being and He wants to have a relationship with people. He wants a family of those who want to be with Him. Any of us who date or get married or make friends or cherish our families can relate to that desire. God made people because He wanted people to love and He wanted people to love Him back.
“Where are we headed?” God created us with souls. He created us to be a part of His eternal family, to live with Him in eternity, if we choose it. And this lifetime is our chance to decide if we want to live with Him or apart from Him. And in eternity, we will get what we wanted. We will either spend eternity with Him in heaven or apart from Him in hell. We do not simply cease to exist, fading into nothingness. We have a soul that will live on. And this is either comforting or terrifying, depending on where you are headed.
“Do we really matter?” Yes! We really matter to the One who created us. He loves us because He created us. We don’t have to do anything to deserve or earn that love. He loves us just because we are His creation. Because He wants us. And He loved us enough to send Jesus to die for us, to pay the price for mankind’s sin, to bridge the gap between us and Him that was created when mankind rebelled against Him in the Garden of Eden. To Him, we – every human being - are worth the price of Jesus’ life. That is some major value! Some real hope! To know that we matter eternally to the One who made us and that He made a way for us to once again have a relationship with Him . . . if we choose to allow Jesus’ death to pay the price for our sins. And if not, then we choose to pay it ourselves, to live with eternal separation from God. The choice is ours!
I could never be an atheist because there is no real hope in it. No real meaning or value or justice or purpose or answers or anything. Does it really matter if you get to live life the way you want for a short time, without having to follow the rules of some dusty, ancient Bible!?! Does it really matter if you get to pursue whatever you want and be sexually free for awhile!?! (And isn’t that really what draws a lot of people to atheism, the love of money and success and pleasure. They get to do whatever they want and focus on themselves and have sex when they want and with whom they want, without anyone telling them that what they are doing is wrong?)
But rather than having that kind of so-called “freedom,” I would rather have the hope that things will someday be better than the pathetic-ness of this life, that people really do matter, that we don’t just cease to exist when we die, that all wrongs will be made right again someday, and that God is watching over me and I am not left here alone on earth to navigate it all by myself. To me, believing in God is hope-filled and comforting and freeing, not restricting.
Atheists might think they are having more fun in this lifetime than Christians. But Christians have a strong Father to lean on, more hope of true and lasting rewards, and the joy of knowing that God cares for us and that the best is yet to come. And that is a wonderful trade-off for being willing to bend a knee and let God be God.
I have no problem admitting that I need Him, if it means that I don’t have to carry the weight of the world on my own shoulders. Nothing is more exhausting than that. I would much rather fall down in His arms in desperate need and let Him carry me than try to do it all on my own.
I recently saw a post that someone wrote, meant to encourage mothers who are struggling. And what she said was something like this: “You can do it! You are enough!”
And while I appreciate the encouragement and cheerleading, I think it helps me more to say it this way: “No! I am not enough. I cannot do it on my own. And I don’t want the burden of having it all rest on my shoulders. Lord, please help me! I am not enough and I cannot do it on my own. I need You! I need You to help carry my concerns. I need You to pick up the pieces that I drop, to use my feeble efforts for Your purposes and glory, to turn my messes into successes. I even need You to just help me stand sometimes and to be my strength when I am weak and falling down and can’t carry on anymore. I cannot do this thing called ‘life’ on my own! I need You!”
I don’t have to fix it all or always know what to do or make everything all better. I get to run to God and seek His help. I get to rest in Him. I get to let His strength fill me when I have none left of my own. How refreshing and reassuring! When I can’t trust myself, I can trust Him.
And I wouldn’t trade that security for anything.
He gives our lives meaning and purpose. He gives us hope and a future. He offers healing for our brokenness and makes something beautiful and worthwhile out of the messes. In fact, He does His best work with broken, flawed people. If we will let Him. If we are not too self-sufficient and proud to admit that we need Him. We are never stronger than when He is holding us!
Can science – can impersonal, environmental forces - offer that kind of hope? No!
While science might let us “play god” in our lives for a short while, giving us temporary pleasure and wishy-washy meaning, science without God is a let-down. It fails at giving us answers for the truly meaningful questions: Why are we here? Where are we going? Is there any real hope or future for me? Do I really matter?
Science cannot bring us true hope and healing and meaning and a future. But Jesus does!
A Little Girl’s Sign
I saw a picture online of a little girl holding up a sign. She had a great big smile on her face, yet she was clearly too young to understand what the sign meant. But the sign said something about how religion says that people are broken, imperfect, sinful, etc., and how science (a world without God) says that people are intelligent, beautiful, capable of great things, etc. And then it asks us to decide which one is more harmful, obviously implying that religion is negative and damaging, while science is positive and affirming.
This sign that the little girl was holding bothered me. Because it doesn’t give an accurate picture of Christianity. And so, in response, I want to make my own list, which I think more accurately represents Christianity and science.
[Of course, there are some damaging religions out there and there have been bad representatives of Christianity throughout the course of history. And those bad representatives will be held accountable someday for not accurately handling the Word and living the faith. But the people who reject Jesus based on someone else’s bad example will be held accountable for their choice. They won’t be excused when they say, “But I didn’t want to be a Christian because I didn’t like the Christians I knew.”
And to be clear, I do value science. I think that God has created the scientific ways that the world/universe works. And I think science points back to a Creator. (Scientists who deny a Creator generally have a predetermined bias against Him and will not let anything convince them that He is real. They do their research from the basis of “There is no God, so how else can I explain and understand this?” Not very scientific!) But for this section, I am talking about a science that excludes God, that takes the place of God, because that is how this little girl’s sign meant it.]
My List:
Science (a world without God) says that we . . .
- are broken, imperfect, and sinful. Despite the little girl’s sign, science cannot deny that we are broken, imperfect, and sinful. Just look at history and today’s newspaper. Look at what we are capable to doing to each other and to ourselves. Consider those who “have it all” but who are miserable anyway or who kill themselves to escape the hopelessness of this life. Can science dare claim that we are “whole, perfect, and sinless”? No! It has to still admit that we are broken, imperfect, and sinful, but then it leaves it up to us to dig ourselves out of our messes because it says that there is no God out there to help us.
But Christianity – God, Jesus – says that we . . .
1 John 4:9-10: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
Luke 19:10: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
Psalm 34:17-18: “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
Psalm 40:1-2: “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”
Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make your paths straight.”
- are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Genesis 1:27, 31: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them. . . . God saw all that he had made and it was very good.”
Psalm 139:13-14: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. . .”
- are extremely valuable simply because He created us, He wants us, and He loves us. No one is worthless or disposable, no matter how broken or flawed they are or how little they contribute to society.
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Emphasis added.)
2 Peter 3:9: “[The Lord] is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
Matthew 10:29-31: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
Romans 3:38-39: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
- are worth dying for, even in our broken, imperfect condition.
Mark 2:17: “Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Romans 5:8: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Emphasis added.)
- are not alone because He is watching over us and will help us through this life.
1 Peter 5:6-7: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.”
Psalm 23:1-4: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me besides quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Deuteronomy 31:6: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified . . . for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
- have a future. We will live on after we die, which can be comforting or terrifying, depending on where you are headed.
John 10:10: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
John 3:36: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”
Matthew 25:31-34: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.’. . . Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’”
(Hell was never made for us, but for the devil and his angels. We, however, choose to follow the devil to hell if we reject Jesus as Lord and Savior, if we choose to pay the penalty for our sins ourselves. A penalty that has already been paid by Jesus, if only we will accept it on our behalf.)
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Emphasis added.)
And so I ask, “Which one is more hope-full?”
Which one has real answers, real hope, and a real future?
We all put our faith in something. Which one are you putting your faith in?
We all stake our futures on something. Which one are you staking your future, your soul, your eternity on?
I will look specifically at Christianity later, but for now I want to briefly present what some of the major religions of the world believe. I’m not covering all of them, just an overview of the main ones. It’s important to know what these religions teach so that we can decide if they hold any real answers, truth, or hope (compared to Christianity), and so that we as believers can have biblical responses to them. (This is my paraphrase of things I’ve learned over time and information from a religion comparison guide called “Christianity: Cults & Religions” and from a book by Fritz Ridenour called, So What’s the Difference?)
Judaism:
The founders of Judaism are Abraham and Moses, of the Bible. Jews do not consider the whole Bible to be scriptural, but only the Old Testament (called the Hebrew Bible), especially the first five books (the Torah). There are four kinds of Jews: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Messianic.
Orthodox Jews are strict “rule-followers.” Besides the Old Testament, they also live by additional rules in the Mishnah and the Talmud. To make sure that they follow the rules completely, they take things to an extreme. Such as Exodus 23:19 says to not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk, but they take it even further, always eating meat and dairy separately, never in the same dish. Conservative Jews are a little more relaxed in their rule-following, more concerned about trying to keep Jewish traditions alive. Reformed Jews are not concerned with strict rule-following either. They believe that following the principles of Judaism are more important than following all the fastidious rules.
Christianity and Judaism are similar in much of their values and beliefs. However, the great difference is how we view Jesus. The only Jews who follow Jesus are Messianic Jews, who still observe Jewish customs yet believe Jesus is the Messiah. The rest generally believe He was a false messiah or a good teacher who had an unfortunate death. (Would a “good teacher” deceive everyone by claiming He was God and the only way to heaven?) Since they don’t believe Jesus is God (as Christians do), most Jews don’t believe in the Trinity, that God is three persons in one (see note below), but they believe He is one Being.
Conservative and Reformed Jews believe God is an impersonal and unknowable spirit, whereas Orthodox Jews believe He is personal and knowable. Some Jews think the Holy Spirit is just another name for God’s love/power and some think it refers to His activity on earth. Most Jews believe salvation is obtained by commitment to God and moral living. Christians and Messianic Jews believe salvation is only through Jesus’s atoning death.
(A huge difference between Christianity and all other religions is that all other religions are about man working his way to God, to heaven, but Christianity is about God reaching down to man, paying our way to heaven for us because we could never be perfect enough to earn heaven on our own. In all other religions, man struggles to make his way to heaven. But in Christianity, God made the way for us, and all we have to do is accept it.)
NOTE: Christians believe the Bible teaches “the Trinity,” that God is three persons in one God: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. Each has a distinct personally and role, but they all together make up one God, being one unit with the same nature and essence. It’s hard for us to fully understand this because there’s nothing else like it on earth, but various analogies have been given to help us grasp the idea of the Trinity (all analogies fall short at some point, so don’t read into them too much), such as:
H20, which comes in three distinctly different forms: liquid water, gassy steam, solid ice. Each has its own role and purpose, but they’re all made up of the same thing: H2O.
An egg, which has three basic parts (shell, yolk, and albumen, the clear goopy part). Each part has its different role, but each is genetically “egg.” And all three parts together make up one egg, not three. If any part was missing, it would not be a full egg.
A Totem Pole with three faces. Each face is distinct from the others, but all three are made of the same materiel, and all three together make up one Totem Pole.
Or even a family of three people, where each has their own personality and role, but each is made up of the same “human” material (ignore the fact that they don’t have the exact same DNA), and all together they make up one unit, one family.
(Can you think of other analogies?)
Here are some verses on the Trinity:
Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness …” (Notice that God said “us,” talking to the three persons of the Trinity. But He also says “image/likeness” in the singular, not the plural. The three persons have one image, one likeness, because they are one God. If they were three different Gods, it would be “images/likenesses,” in the plural.)
Likewise, Matthew 28:19 indicates that the three together make up one name, singular (which would be “God), not three different ones: “… baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.
John 10:30: “I and my Father are one.” [Jesus says He and God the Father are one and the same, which is why the Jews wanted to kill Him, thinking He was blasphemous. And Acts 5:3-4 says that when Ananias lied, he lied to the Holy Spirit, and that it was really lying to God. In the Word, both Jesus and the Holy Spirit are identified as God (not a god or gods, but God), along with God the Father.]
Luke 1:35: “The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” [In this verse, an angel tells Mary, a young virgin, how she will become pregnant with Jesus, the Messiah. Each member of the Trinity is here, working together in this: the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary, God the Father will overshadow her, and she will become pregnant with God the Son, Jesus, to bring Him into the world as a human so that He could fulfill His role in the redemption plan, dying for our sins to save us. If Jesus is not God, then He died as a sinful man, nothing more, and His death means nothing and cannot save anyone. But it is because He is God (perfect, righteous) that His death could pay the price for sin that sinful man could never pay. It is because He is God that He alone could bridge the gap between God and us which was created when mankind rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. Man, in his fallen, sinful condition, could never be perfect enough to reach God, to “earn” heaven. But God could reach down to us, paying our way to heaven Himself, which is what He did when Jesus came to earth to die for our sins.]
1 John 5:7 (KJV): “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word [Jesus], and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” [One of the clearest verses on the Trinity. However, most translations, but the KJV, just say “There are three that testify,” making the rest of the verse just a footnote. But from my research (a whole other topic I won’t get into here), the KJV is the most reliable version, so this verse should be included.]
And here are verses about each member of the Trinity being “creator,” being there in the beginning: Genesis 1:1-2 (God the Father and the Holy Spirit): “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…. and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” and John 1:1-3 (Jesus): “In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God [the Father] in the beginning. Through him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made.”
Christians do not worship three different Gods, but one God of three persons, each having their own role. Very briefly, God the Father is chief Creator who is over and above all, overseeing all things and working all things into His plans. God the Son (Jesus) came to earth in a human body to die for us and to represent God the Father to us, pointing the way to Him. And God the Holy Spirit works in the Spirit realm, making sure everyone senses that God is real and that they need Him, and He lives inside each Christian, marking us as believers, sealing us for the day of redemption, and helping guide us and grow us in Him.
Another way to say it: God the Father made the redemptive plan, Jesus carried out the plan, and the Holy Spirit applies the plan to people, helping us understand and embrace it. (What other verses can you find about the roles of each member of the Trinity?)
Catholicism:
While both Catholics and Christians believe in the Bible and God and Jesus, there are a few BIG differences between the two. Catholics believe that new revelations are given to the bishops. Therefore, scriptural authority is not just “the Bible” (as Christians believe), but “the Bible plus the bishop’s new revelations.” And the leaders – Rome – are the only ones with the ability to understand and correctly interpret what the Bible teaches. (But Christians believe that God’s truth is made available to everyone in the Bible and can be understood by everyone.) The pope claims papal infallibility, meaning that he has complete authority over the church and cannot be wrong in what he decides. (Christians would say that all men are fallen, and so you should never consider any man as perfect.)
Catholics hold Mary in higher regard than Christians do, basically to the point of worshipping her. They believe she was born sinless, died sinless, and remained a virgin her whole life (despite verses to the contrary), that she was taken up bodily into heaven, and that she shares Jesus’s job of being a mediator between man and God.
[Catholics have their own Bible, the New American Bible. And to maintain the idea of Mary’s eternal virginity, they changed Matthew 1:18 from “before [Mary and Joseph] came together” (which according to the concordance means “conjugal cohabitation”: marriage, which would include marital sex) to “before they lived together,” which could happen without sex. And in the footnotes, they explain that when a verse refers to Jesus’s human brothers and sisters, it means cousins/extended family.]
Catholics pray to Mary, angles, and dead saints, asking for their help. They believe priests are mediators between us and God, so they confess their sins to priests. And the priests pronounce forgiveness, after commanding them to do certain things to atone for their sins, like praying many prayers including several “Hail Mary’s.” Christians do not believe we can earn or secure our forgiveness by doing these kinds of things (God alone forgives sins, and only because of Jesus’s death for sins). We do not believe in praying to anyone other than God. And we believe that we can confess our sins directly to God.
[From what I understand, Catholics believe in having the priests (and Mary, the angels, and dead saints) mediate between people and God out of respect for God’s high position, believing that the common person should not approach God too informally. While I appreciate the respect they are trying to show to God, they forget that God lowered Himself to a “human” level by putting on flesh and coming to earth to make Himself accessible to us. Making Him inaccessible to people again is reversing/denying what God did, regardless of their good intentions. Ephesians 2:18: “For through him [Jesus] we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” Hebrews 4:16 10:19: “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need… we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus…”]
Salvation for a Catholic comes through faith plus their good works, including adherence to the Seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church: baptism, confirmation (the final step of baptism), taking communion (which they believe has been transformed into Christ’s actual body and blood, instead of being just symbolic, as Christians believe), the regular confession of sins to the priest, being anointed by the priest with oil when you are sick or near death, the ordination of Catholic ministers at three different levels, and Holy Matrimony (being married in the Catholic Church).
Catholics also believe in purgatory, a place your soul goes to when you die where you work out any unconfessed sins so that you become fit for heaven. (What did Jesus’s death accomplish then, if we are still required to pay for our sins? And where is this taught in the Bible?) Living Catholics can help those in purgatory get out of it faster by praying for them, by doing good things on their behalf, and by being granted “indulgences” by the leadership. “Indulgences” is the idea that the Catholic Church has accumulated God’s favor over the years through prayers and good works, etc., and that a priest or bishop can dip into that “bank account” and take some of God’s favor and extend it to a person in purgatory as a “pardon for sin,” declaring that the person can now get out of purgatory so many days early. (Huh!?! Where is that idea in the Bible?)
Here are some verses to consider when examining Catholic theology:
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” (1 Tim 2:5). Jesus Himself is the only mediator between men and God. How wrong it is to elevate mere humans to Jesus’s level and to blatantly defy Scripture.
“And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.” (Matthew 23:9) Catholic priests are called “father.” This verse isn’t about genetic fathers but spiritual fathers, saying that there’s only One who should be called “Father”: God! Of all the titles they could pick, they pick the very one that’s forbidden.
“They [false teachers] forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods …” (1 Tim 4:3). Priests are not allowed to marry, according to the Catholic Church. However, the Bible claims that church leaders are to be “the husband of but one wife … He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.” (1 Tim 3:2-4) You can’t have a family or wife if you’re not allowed to marry (a rule made up by men, not God). And Catholics are forbidden to eat meat on Fridays during Lent, another rule made up by the Catholic Church, not God.
“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” (Matt 6:7) What do the priests require of you so that you can earn forgiveness for your sins? That you repeat a certain number of prayers over and over again. And you are required – as a good Catholic – to pray the rosary. More repetitive prayer, most of which are prayers to Mary.
And yet who did Jesus tell us to direct our prayers to? “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven …’” (Matt 6:9) Jesus also instructed us a couple verses later to ask God to forgive our sins, but in a Catholic church, you ask the priest to do it. Because in the Catholic church, he is the one who grants (or withholds) forgiveness, requiring you to jump through their hoops first, as if they have the authority to grant or withhold forgiveness or to require more than what God does in the Bible. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins …” (1 John 1:9). And who is “he” in this verse? The priests, those self-appointed “fathers”? NO! It’s God Himself.
“… should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?” (Isaiah 8:19) And I think we can also apply it like this: “… should not a people pray only to their God? Why pray to the dead on behalf of the living?” (They might say that they don't pray to Mary, just that they ask her to pray for them. But once again, "why consult the dead on behalf of the living”? Why consult another human instead of God?)
Look even at what an angel told John when he fell before it in worship: “At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, ‘Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God!” (Rev 19:10) And what’s the Catholic church doing? Worshipping servants of God and dead humans and requiring that their followers pray to them. It's quite disturbing to see the many pictures on-line of Catholics kneeling before statues of the Pope and Mary and the "saints." Kneeling in worship! God commands us to not make images and to not bow down to them, but this is exactly what the Catholic church does.
“But wait,” a Catholic would say, “Mary wasn’t just a mere human! She was sinless!” And what does the Bible say? Not one verse about Mary being sinless (or ascending bodily into heaven or being called the "Queen of heaven" or “Mother of God”)! However, there are many verses about Jesus being sinless, which is why His death alone could satisfy the payment required for mankind’s sins (2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Peter 2:22, Hebrews 4:15, 7:26, 1 John 3:5). And furthermore, it clearly says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) Not “all but Mary have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
While I do respect the fact that there are a lot of good, God-fearing people in the Catholic Church and that it’s been a stepping-stone to real faith for many people, I think that the Catholic church itself has become more about "religion" and less about biblical faith, less about a true, saving relationship with Jesus. It has added many rules that are not in the Bible and many layers to the true gospel that are not biblical, corrupting the Truth and the church and, I believe, leading many people away from the real truth of the Bible. (To convince people that they’ll be saved if they just follow the man-made, extra-biblical rules of the Catholic church - when the Bible says that the only way to be saved is to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus - is heresy. Damnable heresy.)
[Update 5/21/18: I just watched something alarming online, a clip of Pope Francis telling people that a personal relationship with Jesus is dangerous and harmful. He's basically saying that it's dangerous to attempt to have a relationship with Jesus Christ without the mediation of the church - the Catholic church, of course. He says that being a Christian means belonging to the church (Catholic, of course).
Umm ... NO! Being a Christian means being a follower of Jesus Christ. The church is simply the followers of Christ coming together for fellowship, to lift each other up, to pray together, to worship together, and to study the Word together. Jesus came before the church. Jesus is the foundation of and head of the Church. Not the other way around.
Yes, we Christians need to be in fellowship with other believers ... BUT the church is not the way to salvation; Jesus is. The church doesn't save us; Jesus does. The church isn't God on earth; Jesus is. The church isn't the way, the truth, and the life; Jesus is. The church does not supersede Jesus. The Catholic Church, the pope, has not taken Jesus's place here on earth. And there will be consequences for the pope claiming so!
Furthermore, the Catholic church is working on forming an alliance between Islam and Christianity (actually, I should say “their brand of Christianity”). Anyone who is actually a faithful follower of either Muhammad or Jesus knows that these two cannot be reconciled, that they cannot both be true, not when they both have very different foundational truths.
To my Catholic friends: I suggest you get out of the Catholic church. You don't need the Catholic church to be a Christian or to tell you what God's Word says. Read it for yourself and find out who Jesus really is and what it really means to be a follower of Christ.]
Islam:
Founded by Muhammad in the 600s A.D., who claimed to be a prophet but did not claim to be divine. The Qur’an (Koran) is their holy book, which they believe supersedes all other holy writings, even the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). Muhammad claims that the angel Gabriel dictated this book to him. There is also the Sunnah which contains teachings and sayings of Muhammad, and the Shariah which is a collection of strict laws that govern a Muslim’s life.
According to Islam, there is only one God - Allah. The idea of the Trinity is highly offensive and blasphemous. And Muslims believe that God cannot be known. To a Muslim, Jesus was not God but a respected prophet who was sinless and did miracles. He did not die on a cross nor rise again. But God took Him to heaven before he went to the cross (because no prophet could die such a humiliating death) and someone else was in His place, disguised as Jesus (such as Judas). Also, Jesus will not come again before judgment. Muhammad, the last and greatest prophet, will be the one coming to usher in the End.
In Islam, man is born as a clean slate, as opposed to the Christian belief that man is born in sin and separated from God. And each Muslim has to make up for their own sins by being a faithful Muslim and following Islam’s Five Pillars of the Faith: converting to Islam through a Statement of Belief, praying five times a day toward Mecca, giving alms, celebrating Ramadan, and taking a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Muslims are taught that God does not love people who do wrong, whereas Christians believe that God loves all sinners and has paid the price for their sins. For a Muslim, heaven is a place of sensual pleasure where a man is given a bunch of virgins to pleasure him for all of eternity. (Would that really be a deeply, eternally-satisfying reward? How long before those 72 virgins are old news, before the constant sex loses its appeal? And do you know what the married women get as a reward? To be with their husbands for all of eternity, yet to feel so beautiful that she won't be jealous about him having sex with the 72 virgins. WHAT KIND OF FREAKIN’ REWARD IS THAT!?! That ought to make any woman today enraged! What kind of an eternity is that!?! Definitely a religion made up by a man!) And hell awaits those who oppose God and Muhammad.
On a different note, there is much contention and confusion nowadays over the idea of “Muslim extremists” versus “moderate, peaceful Muslims.” (In fact, many Muslims say that the word "Islam" means "peace," whereas it really means submission to God ... and then you will find peace. Islam is about forcing people into submission to God, often through violence or extreme control, where they will then find "peace.") While most Muslims in America do seem to be peaceful, it cannot be ignored that Muhammad did, in fact, teach of warfare and killing those who disagree with him. I believe his earliest writings promoted tolerance and a “live and let live” kind of mentality. But his later writings promote killing “infidels,” subjugating those who disagree, Shariah law, and Jihad (warfare against their enemies). And these later writings are supposed to override the previous ones. Therefore, those who are “extremists” are not really misrepresenting Islam. They are actually the most committed and are following the whole Qur’an to the letter.
[Some Islamic passages to consider:
Qur'an 9:5: "... slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush ..."
5:51: "O you who believe! do not take the Jews and Christians for friends; they are friends of each other."
9:29, 73, 123: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day... O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them… O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness."
48:29: "Those who follow Muhammad are merciless for the unbelievers but kind to each other."
Also see Qur'an 4:95-96, Qur'an 47:7, Sahih Muslim 30, Sunan An-Nasa'i 3099, Sunan Ibn Majah 2763, Sahih al-Bukhari 6922, Hadith 1:13, Hadith 19:4294, Hadith 9:4, etc. It's all there, in Muhammad's own words. This is not a religion of peace, but of warfare, of forcing others to submit, and of killing those who don't.]
And if I remember correctly, they believe that Jihad (holy war) will help usher in the End, the coming of Muhammad. This is why they (the “radical extremists”) are not afraid to declare Jihad on people and why trying to negotiate peace with them will not work. They want the war because it will bring them rewards, and it will bring Muhammad back again.
To those who say that Muhammad taught peace, that Islam is a religion of peace, I would say that, looking at his own words, Muhammad himself would disagree. Christians are to love their enemies. Muslims are to kill their enemies. Christians are to be willing to die for their faith. Muslims are to kill for theirs.
But let me say again that many Muslims seem peaceful and just want to practice their faith in peace. We don’t have to fear those who aren’t violent, nor should we be lashing out at them. Instead, we need to show them the same kind of grace and love that we should be showing everyone. Jesus died for them, too, that they might believe in Him and find everlasting life. (How can we tell the difference between violent and non-violent Muslims? I don’t know. But until someone proves to be violent, show them Jesus’s love and grace. And pray for them. This is what we Christians are called to do.)
And from what I’ve heard recently, many Muslims are coming to Christ because they are having visions of Jesus, revealing to them the truth of who He is and that they need to believe in Him to be saved. It seems that God is working in special ways to save these people. And you know it’s real when a Muslim converts to Christianity, because they do it at the risk of being attacked, banished, or killed. They would never make this decision lightly, unless they were fully convinced, because it could cost them everything.
Hinduism:
It has no founder but began sometime in 1800-1000 B.C. in India through the mixing of people groups and their polytheistic religions. Hinduism has no particular central theology or doctrine, but it allows for many various beliefs, such as believing in whatever gods you want or none at all. Oftentimes, they worship a god in just about everything in nature. But all Hindus believe in the idea of reincarnation and karma.
Basically, they believe that souls are repeatedly reincarnated into various forms on earth (human or animal), going through various levels of suffering while they work out their karma in order to reach the highest level of being united with the infinite spirit, Brahma (their idea of “God”).
Karma is a sort of “point system” based on the good or bad things you do. And karma determines what kind of body/station you are given in your next reincarnation. And, last I knew, they believe in not interfering with someone else’s destiny. So if someone is suffering, it is their karmic destiny. They brought it on themselves from the way they lived their previous lives, and no one should interfere with them while they work out their karma. (This is why they did not help those in the lowest rung of the caste system – the Untouchables. They believed the Untouchables deserved what they got because of their past lives and that they had to work out their own karma. They may have changed this recently, though.) And once you tip the scales enough to the “good” – through yoga and meditation and good works and faithfully living within your reincarnated position – you will be released from the endless cycles of reincarnation and be absorbed into Brahma.
(Yoga is a form of Hindu worship. Those poses are prayer poses to Hindu gods, meant to align you with the universe and with Brahma, where “all are one” and where you learn “I am Brahma.” And yet the Christians who practice yoga act like it’s just a harmless, “spiritually neutral” form of exercise. But is it really!?! Would God say it is? See my post "Is Yoga okay for Christians? Here's a hint: It's not!")
They believe that “God” (Brahma) is in everything and that everyone is part of God, which is why they worship so many different gods and allow different beliefs. They believe that all beliefs might take different paths, but that they all lead to the same thing, to the only reality out there: God (Brahma). (This is why it's so weird that they have recently been violently attacking Christians. Their beliefs allow for any and all beliefs. Apparently except Christianity now, I guess.) Idol worship – worshipping physical items of stone and wood – is common in Hindu homes. And the dot that they wear on their foreheads represents a spiritual “third eye.”
[In comparison, what does the Bible say about the way to heaven?
Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all sinners, which is why we need a Savior.
Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Because of our sins, we are all headed towards death, spiritual death, eternal separation from God. But out of His love for us, God offers us the free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. We don’t work for a free gift; we can only accept it.
John 3:16,18: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life… Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” Romans 3:24: “God presented him [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Jesus (God in the flesh) paid the penalty for our sins so that we don’t have to. He died the death we deserve so that we could live. And all we have to do is believe, to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That’s how we accept the gift. And if we don’t believe - if we reject His gift, His death in our place - then we choose to pay the penalty ourselves, which is spiritual death. Hell.
John 14:6: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” Acts 4:12: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” There is no other person who can save us because no other person, but Jesus (God in the flesh), died in our place, for our sins.
Romans 10:9,13: “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved…. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” It’s that easy. No struggling to pay for your sins. No trying to constantly tip the scales to “good enough,” never quite sure when it’s really “good enough.” Just call on Jesus, believe in Him as Lord and Savior, and you will be saved. God made it that easy because He loves us and wants us all in heaven with Him.
2 Peter 3:9: “He is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” He doesn’t want anyone to perish. There are no “Untouchables” to Him. He reaches down to us all, to pull us out of hell and into heaven with Him. And all we have to do is grab onto His hand and let Him do it.]
Buddhism:
Founded in the 500s B.C. by Gautama Siddhartha (a.k.a. Buddha). Buddhists do not believe in the Bible, God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. If they do believe in Jesus, they believe He was an enlightened teacher or an avatar (the savior of your choice), but He was not God. Buddhists believe that life is about suffering, brought about by selfish desires (and all desires are bad and need to be eradicated). If you can get to a point where you master your desires and no longer crave anything, you will be released from the suffering-filled cycle of reincarnation. And the way to overcome cravings and selfish desires is through mastering the Noble Eightfold Path. This is when you get to the point where you have the right viewpoint, intentions, speech, behavior, job, effort, mindfulness, and meditation. If you can do all this properly, you will not suffer anymore and will reach a state of nirvana, a sort of perfect consciousness.
Jehovah’s Witnesses:
In the beginning was the Almighty God, Jehovah. He created Jesus, who isn’t really God but who can be considered a “lesser god.” Jesus actually was Michael the archangel when he was in heaven. After he was created, Jesus created everything else. But Jehovah is really the only God. There is no Trinity – no “three in one” of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is actually a teaching of Satan (according to them).
The founder, Charles Taze Russell, predicted that Jesus’s coming and Armageddon would happen in 1914. When it didn’t happen, he claimed it was an invisible, spiritual coming of Jesus. The next leader changed the date to 1925, and then claimed he was “misunderstood” when it didn’t happen. He also claimed that only the first 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses would get into heaven. The rest (those who became Witnesses after 1935) can’t get into heaven because “it’s full,” but they can earn everlasting life on earth as part of the “great crowd.” The next leader changed the date of Armageddon to 1975.
[Here’s some of what the Old Testament says about false prophets:
Ezekiel 13:9: “My [God’s] hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations.” Deuteronomy 13:1-5: “If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he spoke takes place, and he says, ‘Let us follow other gods … and let us worship them,’ then you must not listen to the words of the prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death [Old Testament/Jewish rule, not for nowadays], because he preached rebellion against the Lord your God …” Deuteronomy 18:20-22: “But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death. You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?’ If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.”
And here are some warnings for the Christian Church from the New Testament:
1 John 4:1-3: “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in the flesh [not just that Jesus lived, but that He was Christ, the Messiah] is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”
2 Peter 2:1-2: “… there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them – bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.”
2 Corinthians 11:13-15: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.”
2 Timothy 4:3-4: “For a time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from truth and turn aside to myths.”
It is a serious thing for a person to claim that they speak for God. And it’s even more serious if they are wrong or lying about it. Be careful who you listen to.]
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus was a perfect man when He was on earth but nothing more. And His death was a “good trade” for Adam’s sin, basically buying us the right to earn our salvation through good works, such as by evangelizing door-to-door. Of course, this is only for Jehovah’s Witnesses. And after dying, Jesus stopped being human and once again became the archangel, Michael.
The leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses teaches their followers that they must not try to read and understand the Bible themselves, but they must learn their theology from headquarters, from the Watchtower. And they are never to question the Watchtower.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have their own Bible translation: The New World Translation, which alters certain verses to fit their teachings. Such as, they took John 1:1 “... and the Word was God” and changed it to “... and the Word was a god,” thereby making Jesus sort of “a god” but not the God. And they add the word “other” when talking about created things to make it sound like Jesus was created first and then he created all the other things.
And while they talk about grace and salvation, they do not say that salvation is by faith in Christ alone. They claim that you earn your salvation – your spot on the eternal earth (because remember that heaven is full) - by working for it through your faithful obedience, faithful attendance, and door-to-door work. And there is no hell. All non-Jehovah’s Witnesses will be annihilated, simply ceasing to exist. (While new Jehovah’s Witness publications admit that Russell was the founder, they distance themselves from his beliefs and teachings. Interesting! How can one follow a religion made up by a man whose authority and theology they refuse to acknowledge?)
Mormons (Latter-Day Saints):
In the 1820’s, a teenage Joseph Smith, Jr. had a vision where the Father and Son (or so he believed) appeared to him and told him that all Christian denominations are off-track and that he should not join any of them. Several years later, supposedly through an occultic “seer” practice, the Book of Mormon was “shown” to Smith. And Mormonism was born. (Modern Mormons deny his occultic practices.)
According to Mormons, new revelations have been given to Mormon leaders which should be added to the Bible. So while they do acknowledge the Bible, Mormons base their faith primarily on the Book of Mormon, along with two other Mormon books, considering them to be inspired words of God. (Yet they feel the Bible has been corrupted, making it the least reliable book.)
One of these extra Mormon books (Doctrine & Covenants) is a book of prophecies made by Smith which did not come true. And ironically (considering their belief that the Bible has been corrupted), the book of Smith’s prophecies has been altered over the years. (To make them less inaccurate? I guess that when you can still get new revelations from God, you can make all the changes you want and still call it “God-inspired.”)
The other Mormon book (Pearl of Great Price) was partly inspired from a papyri fragment that Smith bought in 1835, which he thought was the writings of Abraham. But in the mid-1900s, it was reexamined and found to be about Egyptian funerals and how to embalm people. Yet the Mormons today claim that God supernaturally revealed the “Book of Abraham” to Smith through it.
According to the Mormons: In the beginning was a race of “gods” who were all created by previous “gods.” Somewhere along the line, God the Father was created and sent to a planet to live as a man, where he worked his way to godhood. Then he returned to the heavens and had a bunch of “spirit babies” with his goddess-wife. The first spirit-baby was Jesus. (However, it’s also said that Jesus was created when God the Father came to earth, took on a human body, and had sex with Mary.) And the next was Lucifer, Jesus’s younger brother. And then, God created all the rest of the spirit-babies who would eventually inhabit bodies on earth and become people.
God’s plan was to test people on earth while they lived in human bodies, and then they would return to him after death. But he needed someone to make amends for Adam’s sin. And when he chose Jesus, Lucifer got jealous and rebelled. And after a Great War in heaven, Lucifer was banished to earth where he was condemned to live as a spirit, never getting a human body. Jesus and the other spirit-babies then made human bodies out of the earth’s material. However, some spirit-babies who fought against Lucifer in the Great War didn’t really fight that hard, and their punishment was to be born with black skin.
Smith initially taught that there was a Trinity. However, he eventually changed it to say that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate gods. (The Holy Spirit was never able to get a human body.) To attain godhood, according to Mormon teaching, Jesus would have had to have been married (most likely having multiple wives). And after Jesus died, he fully reached godhood. Eventually, Jesus will take God the Father’s place when God the Father moves on to a higher realm.
While Mormon’s claim that salvation is only possible because of Jesus’ death, His death only covered Adam’s sin, but we are responsible for our own sins. His death simply earned us the right to pay for our sins and gain our salvation, through our strict adherence to Mormon doctrines and practices. Like Jesus, humans can earn godhood through our works and rituals and proper Mormon living. We can even eventually earn our own planet. But there is no eternal life for those who are not members of the Mormon Church.
Mormons strongly reject the label of “cult” or “false religion,” claiming that they are indeed biblical Christians who believe in the power of Jesus Christ to save. But like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they use many of the same terms Christians do, but they have redefined them, ending up with a completely different gospel.
[2 Timothy 3:16 says that “All Scripture is God-breathed…” 2 Peter 1:21 says that the prophecy of Scripture was not from men, but it was given to men by the Holy Spirit. And so what we all need to decide is “Which one will we believe and put our faith in: the Bible or the other writings which contradict the Bible?” And if the Bible is true, then all others that worship different gods and teach different ways to get to heaven are wrong, from false prophets. Galatians 1:8: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned.” It can’t be the Bible and other writings, but it has to be the Bible or the other writings. And I, for one, think it’s easier to trust and worship a God who loved us enough to die for us.]
Freemasonry:
This is a secret society, a sort of fraternal brotherhood, surrounded in rituals, symbolism, and mystery. According to them, man is basically good, we can reach perfection, we need to live good, moral, charitable lives, and there will be an afterlife with rewards and punishments. However, the Bible is not the inspired Word of God. And Jesus wasn’t God but just a man. (They are not even allowed to speak Jesus’s name in their meetings, so they delete His name when using the Bible.) And we improve our standing before God (and gain salvation) through good works. Also, they believe that all religions essentially believe in the same God. So as long as you believe in a “supreme being,” you can be a Mason.
While they initially think that they were getting into a God-based religion, as they climb up the various levels of freemasonry, it reveals itself to be more pagan and occultic than they thought. The higher you go in the levels, the more pagan rituals you perform, the more prayers you are required to pray to false gods (even praying allegiance to them, even to Lucifer), the more blasphemies against God you are required to pronounce, and the more you learn you don’t need God (that there is no God) because you are a god. You are even required to pronounce curses of pain and death upon you and your family if you share the secrets of Freemasonry.
[Col. 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophies, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” 1 Cor. 10:20-21: “… the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.” Exodus 20:3: “You shall have no other gods before me.”]
Freemasonry is widespread (even my neighbor has the “Freemason” emblem on his door), and has ties with or is similar to Shriners (those who reached the highest level of freemasonry), Job’s Daughters (girls related to Masons), Eastern Star, Elks, Moose, Buffalos, DeMolay groups, International Order of the Rainbow for Girls, Knight’s Templar, Illuminati, Skull and Bones Society, and many others.
Christian Science:
Founded in the 1870s by Mary Baker Eddy. She taught that there is no physical reality. Everything is basically just a metaphysical idea. Nothing really exists as matter. Therefore, there is no sin, no sickness, no death. It’s all in our minds. And since nothing really exists except ideas, you can control your health and healing by believing that you cannot really be hurt or sick. Even God is just a principle, not a person. And heaven and hell are just states of the mind, based on whether we do wrong or right. And there is no need for a Savior – for Jesus – because all people are already eternally saved. Christian Scientists say that Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures supersedes the Bible and that the Bible can only be understood in light of it.
Scientology:
Founded by L. Ron Hubbard in 1954. They don’t have anything to do with the idea of the God of the Bible or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as sin or heaven or hell. They believe all people are immortal spirits who control their own bodies and universe. And as you work with an “auditor,” you can progress up the ladder to “total freedom” where you will gain total control over matter, energy, space, and time.
Hare Krishna (ISKCON):
Founded in the 1500s, with a foundation in Hinduism and the Hindu writing, Bhagavad-Gita. Having a personal relationship with the god “Krishna” is the way to salvation. And you earn your salvation by total devotion to Krishna and by tipping the karmic balance with an abundance of good works, by constantly chanting Krishna’s name and by obeying ISKCON rules throughout your reincarnated lives. Jesus wasn’t the Savior. He was either an enlightened teacher or may have been the son of Krishna. But either way, He is not as important. Krishna is the one to follow.
[Isaiah 64:6: “… all our righteous acts are like filthy rags …” In God’s eyes, the good things we do to try to earn heaven are “filthy rags,” no good. Because we cannot earn salvation. And thinking that we can is an insult to God, acting like He owes us salvation for the good things we do. It’s thinking we can save ourselves, snubbing the costly sacrifice Jesus made for us when He died on the cross in our place.]
Church of Christ (International Church of Christ, ICC):
An evangelistic church determined to save the lost and make disciples. The leader, Kip McKean, said that the Bible teaches that every city should only have one church. And, of course, he claimed that the church he founded – the Boston Church of Christ – was the church and that none of the others in the city were of God.
In order to obtain salvation, you must be baptized into and totally committed to the ICC, and you must live righteously. And if you want to join the ICC but were baptized by a different church, you must be baptized again by them because only their baptisms are valid. As a member, you must fully obey the leadership (with McKean at the top), even if asked to do something un-Christ-like. You must submit all parts of your life to their authority, even your marital relationship. They claim authority over a person’s every aspect of life because of Hebrews 13:17: “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.” You must also undergo intense discipleship, confess all sins to your mentor, and attend every ICC meeting. And once you are a member, there is to be no sin in your life. To accomplish this, many members pull away from family and friends and get more and more involved in the Church of Christ. The leadership often confronts those who want to leave the ICC, bringing up their previously confessed sins (to harass them? intimidate them? blackmail them?) and telling them that they will go to hell if they leave the church.
[The Bible does say we are to obey leaders, but it also says that church leaders are not to lord it over people but should be examples to them (1 Peter 5:3), that whoever wants to be great (leaders) among us must become a servant (Matthew 20:26), and that not many should seek to be teachers because teachers will be judged more strictly (James 3:1). And Matt. 23:13-15 condemns terrible spiritual leaders, showing us that not all spiritual leaders are good and godly: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to…. You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” Never just blindly trust any old leader. Not all leaders are worthy of being followed: “… they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit” (Matt. 15:14). Always go back to Scripture to evaluate what any “spiritual leader” tells you. Be a Berean! “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).]
Unification Church (The Moonies):
Founded by Sun Myung Moon in 1954. (In the US, it’s “Lovin’ Life Ministries.”) Moon claims to have had a vision at the age of 16 where he was called to complete the mission that Jesus failed at. They believe that Jesus (a perfect man, but not God) was supposed to save humans by getting married and having sinless children. Obviously, since Jesus died (and didn’t rise again, according to them), he failed. So Moon stepped in to finish the job. (What a guy!) He teaches that the mass weddings that he and his wife perform and bless will result in sinless offspring for the couples they marry. (I bet it doesn’t take long for that illusion to come crashing down on the new parents.)
They don’t use the Bible. They use Moon’s writing, The Divine Principle. Moon believes that he is the Second Coming of Messiah. Moonies pray in the name of Sun Myung Moon and his wife, the “True Parents.” They believe that even Jesus bows down to Moon. The Moonies believe that people are basically good, even divine, and that we can save ourselves by our good works. And eventually everyone, even Satan, will be saved.
Moonies support the idea of contacting the dead and channeling spirits because they believe that dead ancestors can help you become divine. [But what does the Bible say? “Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.” (Lev. 19:31) and “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God.” (Deut. 18:9-13) and “When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?” (Isaiah 8:19)] In fact, after his “vision,” Moon claims he spent years contacting spirits of “great teachers” like Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, etc. for guidance and knowledge. He even claims that Satan revealed to him the real reason for mankind’s Fall - that Eve had sex with Satan and then with Adam, causing sin to be passed down through their children.
Unitarianism:
Jesus wasn’t God, but He’s just a man who reached perfect levels of god-consciousness. The Bible is not God-inspired, but just a myth. And God is not a conscious being, but just a force. Since they’re not bound to a book like the Bible, they can update and change their theology. In their theology, people are not “sinners” by nature and don’t need a Savior. Mankind is his own savior. And all that’s required for salvation is to live a good life and treat others as you want to be treated. It’s a “Love everybody ... It’s all good ... No rules, no judgment, no guilt” kind of religion, which I’m sure is very appealing in this age of moral relativity. They focus only on this lifetime, believing that heaven and hell don’t exist. Even the very idea of hell offends Unitarians (because that would imply rules and judgment and “right and wrong”). They try to find and embrace spirituality in everything, such as in nature, but also even in things like neo-paganism, allowing Wiccans to join them.
[One of Satan’s best tricks is to get people to think that he and hell don’t exist. But…
Matthew 25:41,46: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devils and his angels…. Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
2 Thess. 1:9: “They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord …”
Rev. 20:15, 20:10: “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire… And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur … they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
1 Peter 5:8: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
John 8:44: “You belong to your father, the devil … He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
2 Cor. 11:14: “… Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”
2 Cor. 4:4: “The god of this age [Satan] has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
Which is eternally riskier: believing or not believing there’s a devil? What are the risks of both? What if you’re wrong?]
The Emerging/Emergent Church
This is a new-ish movement, from the 1990’s. And it’s going to be one to watch, to be carefully discerning about. These churches want to get away from the stiff, organized way churches traditionally operate, making themselves inviting, fresh, relevant, more informal. And I don’t have a problem with that, but they seem to be trading in biblical truth in order to do this. (A BIG problem!) Emergent churches seem to have a fluid, undefined, shifting doctrine and way of living, depending on the culture around them. They don’t have a clear “faith statement,” no defined stands on doctrine or biblical truths. In fact, some of their biggest leaders deny the authority of Scripture and basic doctrines like eternal hell and the virgin birth. They say things like, “We are all God’s children. He loves everyone, so eventually everyone will be saved, and no one will spend eternity in hell.”
[Well, no wonder these kinds of churches are popular then! Because it’s all warm and fuzzy. But did you know that Jesus spoke often of hell, more than anyone else in the Bible, warning people about it, to help them escape it? In Luke 16:23, He calls it a place of “torment”; in Matthew 8:12, a place of “darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”; in Mark 9:43, a place of eternal “fire”; in Matthew 25:46, “eternal punishment”; etc. To ignore the truth of hell is to not only to ignore much of what Jesus taught, but it’s also failing to warn people, failing to tell them how to avoid it.
And while we’re all God’s creation, we’re not all His “children.” His children are those who call Him “Father,” who accept Jesus as Lord. John 1:12: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
And, yes, God is love. But there is another side to Him: His holiness, justice, and wrath. His holiness cannot tolerate sin, which is why we sinful humans could never reach God on our own, Hab. 1:13: “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.” His justice demands that the penalty for sin be paid. (If He let sin go unpunished, it would be as if He didn’t care that we lie, cheat, steal, hurt, kill, that we disobey Him, reject Him, worship other gods, etc.) And His wrath punishes sin. Col. 3:5-6: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” Romans 2:5: “But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.” Isaiah 13:9,11: “See, the day of the Lord is coming – a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger – to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it…. I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins….”
But the world ignores this side of God because it’s not what they want to hear. They excuse their sin and idolatry by viewing Him as a gentle, squishy, all-loving grandfather who winks at sin, who doesn’t enforce rules or punish anyone, and who just wants to make us happy, whatever it takes. (Or maybe they think He threatens us with hell if we don’t behave, to squash our fun or keep us in line.) But when God’s holiness, justice, and wrath is denied or downplayed - in favor of just His love - there will be a major imbalance, major consequences. And a lot of people will be shocked to someday meet the other side of Him.
Hebrews 10:31: “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
The thing is, God’s love and justice are both part of His redemptive plan to save us. Because He is just, He couldn’t let sin go unpunished. But because He loves us so much and doesn’t want to punish us, He took the punishment on Himself. He poured out His wrath against sin on Himself, to spare us from it. It would be like a righteous judge who has to apply the law, to demand that the penalty for a crime be paid. But he is also a loving man who loves the law-breaker, who doesn’t want to punish them, and who knows they can’t afford to pay the penalty themselves. But since he can’t let the crime go unpunished (for then he wouldn’t be righteous, just, or trustworthy anymore), he has to demand the penalty be paid. And so he does … but then he pays it himself. His love and his justice come together in this one act: paying the penalty that he had to require.
Contrary to what the world thinks, God doesn’t threaten people with hell if they’re not good enough. He knows we could never be “good enough,” and so He does all He can to save us from hell. And His love doesn’t excuse sin. His love paid for it.
1 John 4:10: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loves us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 2 Cor. 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 1 Peter 3:18: “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God...” Gal. 3:13: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…” Isaiah 53:5: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Romans 5:8-9: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” Romans 3:23-26: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice… so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus…”
God cannot take sin lightly. It cost Him His life. He died on a cross to save us, paying the penalty for our rebellion against Him. And all He asks us to do is believe. But if we refuse Jesus’s sacrifice for our sin, His death in our place, then we choose to take the punishment for our sin on ourselves. John 3:16,18: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life… Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”]
The Emergent church acts like they believe Scripture while at the same time questioning it or dismantling it. In effect, they end up teaching half-truths, watered down so much that it’s not truth anymore. However, straying from clear biblical truth opens the door to all kinds of heresy. This church sounds like a Christian version of Unitarianism, a sort of “It’s all good and everyone’s just fine” view. It seems to be more about a feel-good spirituality than biblical truth, more about blending in with the world than about taking the firm biblical stands that make Christians stand out from the world, more about telling society what it wants to hear than about preaching the hard truths that might offend them, more about being popular than being faithful. 2 Timothy 4:3-4: “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from truth and turn aside to myths.”
I don’t care how popular or appealing it may be, if it contradicts the Bible then it’s not good. Scripture matters. Truth matters. And people will be held accountable for embracing and spreading falsehoods and feel-good half-truths, whether they call themselves Christian or not. Shifting, flexible truths are no truths at all. Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing. Matthew 7:15-23: “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them… Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire… Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
And remember that Jesus taught that the world will hate Christians because of the stands we take, the truths we teach. They won’t understand it or like it because it convicts us of sin, of our need to get right with God, of our need for a Savior. And so if everyone loves everything you’re teaching, if New-Age-y people like Oprah praise your church, if worldly people think it’s just swell and are comfortable there, then you’re probably doing it wrong in God’s estimation.
2 Tim. 3:12: “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” John 15:18-20: “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you… If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also...” 1 Cor. 1:18: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…”
And what is the gospel, in a nutshell? That we are separated from God because of sin, that Jesus died for our sins to save us and He rose again to prove He is God and has power over death and sin, that we need to believe in Him to have eternal life, and that if we don’t believe in Him then we reject the only way to heaven and will end up in hell eternally.
Biblical truth is offensive and convicting to those living in sin, who don’t think they need to be saved from anything. And that’s why the world will hate us.
[Unless it’s because you’re a smug, judgmental, jerky Christian who isn’t reflecting Jesus’s compassionate heart, graciousness, and “truth in love.” In that case, you need to get right with the Lord before you try to force others to do it. Eph. 4:15,32: “But speaking the truth in love… Be kind and compassionate to one another…” Phil. 4:5: “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” Gal. 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” 1 Cor. 13:1-2,4-8: “If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing… Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails…”]
And finally, other groups to be cautious and discerning about are Bethel Church in Redding, California, the New Apostolic Reformation, and Word of Faith churches. I am just now learning about these, but they seem to be drifting really off-track: elevating emotions and exciting experiences over Scripture, elevating “love” over Truth, putting on rock shows and entertaining people, glorifying themselves more than the Lord, using occultic and New Age kinds of practices, focusing more on signs and wonders and spiritual gifts than on the gospel, watering down the Truth so much that it’s basically meaningless, teaching that we can basically bring heaven to earth and do the same things Jesus did, denying His full deity, spreading the "prosperity gospel," etc. Mega-churches in general seem to be more about attracting people than preaching the Truth, more about making people feel good than warning them about the hard biblical truths of sin, hell, wrath, obedience, godliness, our need for a Savior, etc. But once you throw out sound doctrine and spiritual discernment, once you elevate personal experiences over Truth, anything goes. Not everyone who does signs and wonders is godly. Not everyone who preaches is preaching Scriptural truth.
Matt. 24:24: “For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect – if that were possible.”
2 Cor. 11:14-15: “… for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.”
These people fell facedown, trembled, covered their faces, cried out in distress about their sinful condition, passed out.
I want to take a brief moment to introduce some of the current heretical teachings that are coming from “Christian” churches nowadays and possible responses to them. This is just a taste to get you talking and thinking.
But what about Matthew 1:18, which says that Mary and Joseph hadn’t “come together” yet? They didn’t have intercourse, and yet she was found to be with child. But if it wasn’t through intercourse with Joseph and it wasn’t supernatural, then you would have to conclude that she had an affair. Are “Christians” who want to deny the “virgin birth” ready to claim that?
And what about the fact that the angel told Joseph (in Matt 1:20) that the child conceived in Mary was from the Holy Spirit? (Also see Luke 1:35)
And that John 1:14 and 1 Timothy 3:16 refer to the fact that God the Son came down to earth and put on human flesh?
And then there’s John 1:18, which says “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only [a reference to Jesus], who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”
Colossians 2:9 tells us that all the fullness of God lives in bodily form in Christ. Philippians 2:5-6 tells us that Jesus had the very nature of God.
Even Jesus Himself said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) because He and the Father “are one.” (John 10:30). In John 10:33, the Jews were going to stone Him because He was calling Himself God. Jesus Himself acknowledged His Godhood. The question is, “Do you believe Him?”
It’s not said in this way, but this is the belief going around out there.
Yes, God is love. And it’s critical to know His love, and to share His love and grace and forgiveness with others. But what people are forgetting is that God is also just and holy, as much as He is love. And He demands holiness and righteousness from people. He has rules and guidelines, and He expects them to be followed, and there are consequences for when we break His rules and stray outside of His guidelines.
You can only get a clear, accurate picture of God and a proper fear of Him when you keep His love and His holiness/justness in proper balance.
I fear that this “God is all about - and only about - the love” teaching is going to be what causes more people to stray from the Truth than anything. Because they think they are honoring God, yet they still get to live life the way they want. It probably seems like the perfect blend to them, the perfect teaching to tickle their ears, telling them what they want to hear so they can continue to live whatever way they want while feeling good about their “faith.”
But Scripture paints a different picture of God. It is very clear about His holy and just side, about His wrath, and about our need to fear the Lord and seek righteousness:
Psalm 33:5: “The Lord loves righteousness and justice…”
1 Peter 1:15-16: “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’”
2 Corinthians 7:1: “… let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”
Hebrew 12:14: “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.”
Ephesians 5:3-6: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. . . . For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.”
Ezekiel 38:22-23: “I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
Ezekiel 39:7: “I will make known my holy name among my people Israel. I will no longer let my holy name be profaned. . .”
Rev. 14:6: “… ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come.…”
Deut. 5:29: “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever.”
Proverbs 8:13: “To fear the Lord is to hate evil…”
Romans 1:18: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”
Romans 2:5: “But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.”
John 3:36: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”
Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death. . . .”
Matthew 10:28: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Hebrews 10:31: “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
2 Thess. 1:8: “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”
Matthew 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”
Matthew 25:41, 46: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ . . . Then they will go to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
And this is just a small tiny bit. And it’s far different from the popular teaching of “God is love and He just wants you to be happy, so go ahead and do whatever you want because He won’t say anything against you.” Far, far different.
[Additionally, our society has made the mistake of turning love into a god. And we define who God is based on how we want love to look and act, when we need to define love based on who God is. God is love, but love is not a god.]
And while we are promised that all things will be healed and made right again in eternity, it is not guaranteed to happen in this lifetime. We will face just as much poverty and illness and heartbreak as everyone else. Because that’s life. But thankfully, we will have the Lord’s help in getting through it, and we can trust that He will turn it into something good.
If your church is teaching you that God wants you to have an abundance of stuff and that He wants to give you everything you ask for and that He wants to shower you with the pleasures of this world, they are lying. Get out of there fast and find a church that teaches you the truth. We are not to store up our treasures on earth, but to store them in heaven.
As I said earlier, we are all God’s creation. But we are not all His children. His children are those who believe in Jesus, who call Him Lord and Savior.
‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this . . . ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” (Mark 12:28-31)
It is a very common teaching nowadays that “Love others” is the greatest commandment, the best way to show that we are following God. And loving others is crucial. It’s great. But what we seem to forget is that “love God” comes before “love others.” And when we put “love others” over “love God,” we base our view of God and His truths on how we want to show love to others. And this is wrong! We should be letting our love for God and His truth dictate how we love others. Not the other way around.
Many people believe that it’s not loving to call anything “sin,” and so they excuse everyone’s choices because it’s “loving” to be accepting and supportive and open-minded. They believe it’s not loving to hold up the Bible as The Truth or Jesus as the only way to heaven. To them, it’s much more loving to tell everyone that they are all going to heaven.
But the most important command is not “Love others.” It’s “Love God.” And we cannot define who God is and what His Truth is by the ways we want to show love to others. Our love for others needs to be based on the Word, on the Truth. Not the other way around.
And if I may point out one huge misunderstanding: Loving God does not mean having warm feelings toward Him. It does not mean simply acknowledging that there is a God. Loving God means obeying Him, living your life the way He wants you to.
1 John 5:3: “This is love for God: to obey his commands. . . .”
John 15:10: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”
John 14:15, 23,24: “If you love me, you will obey what I command . . . If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. . . . He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.”
Acts 5:32: “We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” (Who has been given the Spirit? Those who obey Him!)
Oh, the things that people try to get away with by claiming that “God is love” and that all God requires of us is to “love others”! [A recent post I wrote on this: "Love others" or "Love God"?]
“Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ.” (1 John 2:22)
“But he who disowns me [Jesus] before men will be disowned before the angels of God.” (Luke 12:9)
“This is how you can recognize the spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.” (1 John 4:2-3) (Notice that you have to acknowledge Jesus Christ, that Jesus is the Christ, not just that Jesus was a real person.)
“The god of this age [Satan] has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (1 Corinthians 4:4)
“He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” (2 Thess. 1:8)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matthew 7:21-23)
“ ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They replied, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved . . .’” (Acts 16:30-31) Believe in who? Buddha? Allah? Krishna? Mother Earth? The Force? No! Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. Scripture is so clear on this. Couldn’t be clearer!
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6)
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
I just don’t see how there is room for misunderstanding here!
“. . . They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.” (2 Thess. 2:10) They didn’t perish because God didn’t love them. They perished because they refused to believe in the truth, because they rejected Him, His love, His forgiveness, and the salvation He offers through Jesus. And according to the concordance, “perish” means exactly what you think it would mean. It means that something is utterly destroyed or ruined, but not as in “annihilation or ceasing to exist.” It’s about a conscious and eternal loss of well-being, eternal spiritual ruin.
“. . . They were broken off because of unbelief . . . And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in . . .” (Romans 11:20, 23) Once again, the people ended up in hell by their own refusal to believe. Not because God didn’t love them. In His love, He made a way to save us. But it’s our own resistance to His ways that lands us in hell.
“But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself . . .” (Romans 2:5) And again, it’s we who bring hell on ourselves.
“For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die.” (Romans 8:13)
Also, according to Hebrews 9:27, man is destined to die once and then “after that to face the judgment.” And according to the next verse, Jesus will return to bring salvation . . . to everyone? No! He returns to bring salvation to “those who are waiting for him.” This doesn’t sound to me like there are multiple judgments or opportunities throughout eternity to make Jesus your Lord and Savior. It sounds like you are judged for the decision you made in this lifetime at the judgment that we face after we die.
After He returns, we face judgment for the decisions we made in this life. And He will separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the weeds. (Matthew 13:30, Matthew 25:31-46)
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ . . . Then they will go to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41, 46) Hmm? Eternal fire. Eternal punishment. Eternal life. At the final judgment. Sounds pretty final to me. Not temporary at all. (And remember that hell wasn’t made for man. It was made for the devil and his angels. But we end up there when we choose to reject Jesus and the offer of salvation that God made available through Jesus’ sacrificial death.)
And this “eternal fire”?
“If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Rev 20:15)
“But the cowardly [those who turned their back on their faith], the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” (Rev 21:8) The second death? Once again, it sounds pretty final to me. And you don’t have to be evil or immoral to end up in hell. You simply have to not believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior. “Being good” is not the path to heaven. Believing in the Lord Jesus is.
I see nothing in the Bible to indicate that this is a temporary separation or that there will be future, ongoing judgments as each person finally reaches a decision to choose Jesus as Lord. I see that our decision is made in this lifetime, and it’s made final at the time of our death, and then there is judgment which leads to either eternal life or the second death. Permanently.
“He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day that he [returns].” (2 Thess. 1:9-10)
“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4: 3-4)
"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God." (1 John 4:1-3)
If someone does not acknowledge that Jesus was the Christ, that He was God in the flesh and that He is the way to salvation, then they are not speaking truth. These are the people who claim that He wasn't born of a virgin, didn't really die on the cross or rise again, that we can work our way to heaven by being good or simply loving others, that any of the other faiths are just as good, etc. And these kinds of falsehoods are coming from "Christian" churches, too.
Doctrine matters. Truth matters. Many Christians (or I should say “Christians”) are changing Scripture nowadays to fit what they want to hear, to be popular and to fit in with society. But while we can deny Scripture or refuse to accept what it says or ignore it, we cannot change it. It is God’s Word, God’s truth. And we will all be judged by it in the end.
We cannot let our feelings determine our faith. This is what is happening all over the place. And it’s causing chaos and confusion about what the Truth really is. Truth is not determined by what you feel or by what you wish were true. Truth is truth, whether you agree with it or not.
In this day and age, it’s critical to get back to the basics about what the Bible says, to really get to know it. Because far too many people are changing the truth based on their feelings. And far too many are presenting half-truths which lead people astray, such as “God is love!” Yes, God is love, but that’s a half-truth. The other half is that He is just and holy, too.
(I think one of the biggest, most subtle heresies in the evangelical church today is Calvinism. For more on that, see "Why is Calvinism So Dangerous?" and "If Calvinism is True Then God is a Liar" and "When Calvinism's 'Bad Logic' Traps Good Christians". If you are part of an evangelical church, make sure to educate yourself on what Calvinism is, how to spot it, and how it differs from - contradicts! - the Bible.)
Support for Christianity, Jesus, and the Bible
Extra-biblical Support for Jesus:
There are several first- and second-century historians who refer to Jesus.
Josephus (born a few years after Jesus’ death) refers to both James and Jesus in one of his writings, The Antiquities. In it, he talks about how the high priest had James killed and how Jesus was known as “the Christ.”
Tacitus was a first-century Roman historian who refers to Nero’s persecution of Christians and the death of Jesus (whom he called Christus, from whom Christians get their name) at the hands of Pontius Pilate.
Another first-century historian, Thallus, refers to the day that the earth went dark (when Jesus was crucified and darkness came over the land), calling it an eclipse. This event is also recorded by Phlegon (a Greek author), who says that there was also a great earthquake at the same time.
Pliny the Younger, a Roman, refers to the Christians whom he had arrested and executed. (I am paraphrasing what Pliny wrote around 111 A.D. It’s referenced in Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for Christ.) He talks about how dedicated they were to their belief in Jesus Christ (treating Him as their God) and how they shared Bible verses with each other and vowed to abstain from sins. Then he talks about how he was sure that they must be guilty of something more evil than that, that they must be hiding something darker. This is why he has them tortured, to get them to confess to what’s really going on (what he thinks is really going on).
Suetonius, a Roman historian from 120 A.D., refers to “Chrestus” (another spelling for Christus, which is another name for Christ) and how He caused the Jews to create disturbances.
Lucian of Samsota was not a historian but a satirist in the second century. He refers to Jesus’ crucifixion and calls Jesus a cult-leader.
In addition to these historical writers who referenced Jesus, there are early Christians from the first and second century who referenced Jesus and the disciples, but whose writings were not part of the Bible. Some of these writers even knew the people of the New Testament.
- Ignatius (martyred for his faith, knew all the apostles, and was a disciple of Polycarp)
- Polycarp (a disciple of John and martyred for his faith)
- Clement of Rome from 95 A.D., affirmed the validity of the Bible
- Irenaeus (martyred, disciple of John)
- Papias/Eusebius (Papius got writings from John, which referred to John, Mark, Peter, Matthew, and Jesus. And Eusebius preserved the writings.)
- Etc.
So the question is not “Did Jesus live?”
The question is “Who was Jesus?”
Jesus was crucified because He put Himself on the same level as God. And throughout His ministry, He called Himself the only way to God.
People who don’t believe that He is God, that He is Christ, want to at least say that He was a “good, wise teacher,” maybe even a “prophet.” But what good, wise teacher would tell people that He was God and that He was the only way to salvation if He really wasn’t. That’s not “good” or “wise.”
People cannot call Him a good, wise person if they won’t also call Him God and Christ. Because if He knew that He wasn’t God but told people He was then He was a deceiving liar. And if He didn’t know He was God but thought He was then He was a delusional schizophrenic.
The only other option is that He was telling the truth, that He told people He was God because He is God.
These are the only three options we have when figuring out who Jesus was: Liar, Schizophrenic, or truly the Son of God, the Christ. But we cannot patronize Him by calling Him “good and wise” unless we also admit that He was telling the truth.
Support for the Validity of the Bible (updated Dec. 2021):
Time Gap – The writings of other religions have a much greater gap of time between when the founder of the religion lived and when his teachings were written down, oftentimes hundreds of years. Such as, Buddha lived in the 500s B.C., but his life and teachings weren’t written down until after Jesus’s time. And Muhammad’s teachings of the Qur’an (Koran) were not written down until a century after his death. And yet these writings are still considered reliable and authentic, even though they were written down long after the founders died. But the Bible has the shortest amount of time between Jesus’s life and when the Scriptures were written down, ensuring accuracy and reliability. The books of the New Testament were written between 40-100 A.D., within a hundred years of Jesus’s death, and many were written by the very people who knew Jesus personally. But even Paul, who never met Jesus when He was alive on earth before His crucifixion, wrote his books within a few decades (in general) of Jesus’s death, when he could still talk to those who did know Him personally.
Accurate Facts - Time and time again, the events, people, and places of the Bible have been proven to be accurate by archeological research, further confirming the Bible’s credibility. For example, and briefly:
- Various archeologists confirm that archeological research doesn’t contradict, but confirms, the Bible, calling it one of the most historically accurate records we have.
- Evidence has been found to confirm the census that was taken in the Bible’s account of Mary and Joseph travelling back to Bethlehem to be counted.
- Nazareth, where Jesus spent his childhood, was thought to not exist in Jesus’s day because there was no reference to it in historical records (except the Bible) until the 4th century. If it was only in the 4th century, how could the Bible say Jesus lived there in the 1st century? But an expert in this area said that after the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple in A.D. 70, the temple priests would have been relocated. To support this, archeologists eventually found a list of priests who were relocated, and one of them was sent to Nazareth. (Also, Nazarene tombs with objects from the 1st, 3rd, or 4th centuries have been found.)
- Evidence continues to be found that confirms the Bible’s account of who the political leaders were back then, of people who existed, and of cities and their locations, even when it was previously thought by scientists that the Bible was wrong.
- The court where Jesus was tried, before his crucifixion, has been found.
- Archeologists believe they have unearthed and can now identify the “pool of Bethesda,” which is only mentioned in the New Testament and which scientists did not think really existed. Until now.
-There are historical references to the “eclipse” and earthquake that happened when Jesus died (Matthew 27:45,51: “From the sixth hour to the ninth hour darkness came over the land… At that moment [when Jesus died] … the earth shook and the rocks split.”) According to science, there should have been no reason for an eclipse to happen at that time because of the location of the sun. Yet early historian Phlegon records that, in A.D. 33, there was a great earthquake and a great eclipse which made the noontime look like night. And 2nd century historian Africanus refers to what an earlier historian, Thallus, wrote in A.D. 52 about an “eclipse” that happened at the time of Jesus’s death, calling it a fearful darkness, and about an earthquake that destroyed many places in Judea and other districts. Also, geologists have found evidence in sedimentary layers around the Dead Sea of an earthquake that happened sometime between A.D. 26-36; Jesus would have been crucified around A.D. 33.
- And even very recently (2021), scientists unearthed a city in the Jordan Valley which had been melted, destroyed by a fire so strong that it couldn’t come from any natural heat source known to man. And so they speculate that it must’ve been an asteroid that exploded over the town, melting everything. And they speculate that the reason no one lived there afterward was that the asteroid impact might have brought over so much salt from the nearby Dead Sea that nothing could grow. This, they say, must be what inspired people to make up the story of Sodom in the Bible. But I say, here's your "asteroid": "The Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah - from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities - and also the vegetation in the land." (Gen. 19:24-25) And here's your salt: "The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur - nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger." (Deut. 29:23) The Bible literally gives the answer the scientists can't figure out, but instead of accepting it, they make up their own explanation and then say that the Bible story was inspired by that. Though they have eyes, they will not see. Though they have ears, they will not hear. (Also, ancient tablets were recently unearthed in Tell Mardikh which refer to and confirm the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah, which scientists previously considered mythological.)
Number of Copies – The Bible has more extant manuscript copies (ancient copies of the original writings) in existence than any other historical writing, further supporting its authenticity and accuracy. According to Josh McDowell, there are over 24,000 manuscript copies of parts of the New Testament in existence. I’m not saying that they’ve made 24,000 copies of the New Testament on modern printers, but that they have found over 24,000 copies of sections of the New Testament which were written way back when. And they all affirm the message and accuracy of the Bible. The ancient writing with the second highest amount of copies is the Iliad, which has only 643 copies. The Bible far surpasses any other historical writing when it comes to the amount of ancient copies in existence. We can also compare the Iliad and the New Testament by the “time gap.” The Iliad was created in 900 B.C., but the earliest copy is dated 400 B.C. That’s a five-hundred-year gap of time between when Homer composed it and when the earliest surviving copy was written down. And yet people accept that the earliest copy accurately reflects the original story. However, the New Testament, as I said, was composed between 40-100 A.D. and the earliest surviving copy is dated 125 A.D., which is about an average of 55 years.
[But what about "errors/differences" in the Bible? Wouldn't that prove it's not reliable? According to William Lane Craig in his article "Establishing the Gospels' Reliability" (Reasonable Faith),the Greek text of the New Testament has been so faithfully and accurately translated and passed down to us that only 1,400 words - out of its almost 138,000 - remain in doubt, whereas 99% of it is proven to be accurate and reliable. And none of these possible "errors" affect any Christian claim or doctrine (according to Erhman and Wallace in The Reliability of the New Testament). From other sources I've read, the "errors/differences" are almost entirely made up of spelling errors or differences like saying "he picked up the mat" instead of "he picked up his mat" (imaginary example because I can't remember the exact one). None of these kinds of differences or errors would affect the message of the Bible.]
This is all evidence from outside the Bible that support its validity and reliability and the existence of Jesus. Christianity is not a “blind faith.” There is a lot of intelligent, scientific support for it. And you could also go further and bring up rational arguments like these for the Bible, Jesus, and the Creation story:
1. To discredit the resurrection, some say the disciples stole Jesus’s body from the tomb and hid it, to make it look like He rose again. And some say He never really died on the cross but only appeared to be dead, that after the cool tomb revived Him, He rolled away the giant rock that sealed the tomb and made it past the Roman guard (after He had just been whipped to shreds, nailed to a cross, stabbed in the side, and nearly died).
But if anyone knew that Jesus was a fake, that His body was hidden, or that He was still in a beaten-up body, it’d be the disciples. Yet, history says that most of the disciples were martyred: Simon Peter, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the zealot were crucified (another source says Simon may have been sawn in half), James son of Zebedee and Matthew were killed by the sword, Thomas by a spear, and Thaddaeus by arrows. It’s reported that John was first immersed in boiling oil and, when that didn’t work, banished to an island to die (this is when he wrote Revelation). (And the apostle Paul - who met Jesus after, not before, His resurrection - was beaten, stoned, and whipped for his belief in Jesus, and was most likely beheaded.)
These disciples, who were previously timid, who fled in fear when Jesus was arrested, who lost hope when He died, were all martyred for their faith. If they stole His body or knew He didn’t rise again, you’d think at least one of them would recant and say, “No, it’s just a joke. We stole His body. Don’t kill me.” But none did. They all chose to cling to Jesus till the end, to go boldly to their deaths for their faith in Him. Why?
Because it wasn’t a lie. Because they knew better than anyone that He died and rose again, proving Himself to be God, the Messiah, their Savior. They knew the miracles He did, the compassionate heart He had, the eternal life He offered. They knew He died and rose again, because He appeared to them after He died. And so they knew that to deny Him would be to deny the Truth, to deny God, to lose their eternal souls in hell. And so they chose death instead of denying Jesus.
1 Corinthians 15: “For what I [Paul] received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living… Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also…” Paul’s writing this when many eyewitnesses were still alive. If he was lying about this story, hundreds of people could’ve refuted him. But there is no evidence that anyone did. Why? Because they knew Paul was telling the truth. They saw Jesus too. How many people today would be willing to die for a lie? Would you? The fact that all these disciples were willing to die for Him greatly affirms the truth that Jesus was worth dying for, that He is who He said He is.
John 20:29-31: “Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ [That would be us, those who don’t get to see Jesus in person after He rose again but who still believe in Him anyway.] Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
2. But maybe they didn’t know it was a lie, someone might ask. Maybe they really thought Jesus rose again because the tomb was empty somehow.
Well, then, what happened to Jesus’s body? There’s no record that Jesus was revived in the tomb, escaped past the Roman guard, and then appeared to people in a beaten-up body. If He did appear to anyone in a beaten-up body, it would’ve been the disciples, but none of them wrote about it. Instead, they all died as martyrs saying He rose again. The Roman soldier at the tomb, guarding it so that the disciples didn’t steal the body, wouldn’t do anything to the body because his life could be forfeited if he failed at his job. The Jewish people, Jewish leaders, and Roman leaders had nothing to gain, only everything to lose, if Jesus went missing from the tomb, because then it would look like they were wrong and the disciples were right, that Jesus really rose from the grave like He said He would, that He really was God and that they had killed Him.
So what happened to the body? Whatever it was, it was enough to cause the disciples to die for their faith. They chose to die for Jesus because they believed Jesus died for them, to save their souls. John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” They believed He really is God and that He rose from the grave to prove it.
But the Jewish religious leaders refused to believe. Here’s how they handled the news that Jesus was missing from the tomb (Matthew 28:12-15): “When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this day.”
And remember, the disciples didn’t die for their faith just because the tomb was empty. In fact, they were confused and distressed when they learned the tomb was empty, unsure of what happened or what to think. But then they saw Jesus. They saw His nail scars and where the sword pierced His side. They talked with Him and ate with Him for 40 days. And then they saw Him leave earth for heaven. And that’s what convinced them.
3. How about the fact that the world and universe show incredible balance, complexity, and intricate design and precision? Consider the intricate complexity of the eye, the brain, and reproductive systems. Can something this complex really be accidental?
If evolution was true, then as animals changed from one kind to another, they would’ve been picked off by predators. If an animal was both fish and bird, then they are neither a strong fish nor a strong bird. They are freaks with deformities, making them the weakest of both species and the easiest to be hunted. Deformed creatures don’t often live long enough to reproduce. Females don’t choose deformed males to mate with. And it’s unlikely they would pass their deformities on anyway. Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” actually contradicts the idea of evolution, of one species changing to another. Plus, for evolution to be true, you need to have not only one freak that survives, but at least two that have mutated at the same rate and in the same way to make mating and reproduction possible. A scientific improbability.
And then there’s the fact that the earth is the perfect distance from the sun, with the perfect tilt and perfect rotation patterns/speed, for life to be possible. If anything was different, if it was slightly closer to or farther from the sun or angled differently or rotated differently, then life wouldn’t be possible. And the earth and moon are the perfect distance apart, with the perfect rotational pattern, to make the gravitational pull exactly what we need it to be. There is the perfect blend of gases at the perfect amounts to support life. Earth has the perfect atmosphere to protect us from the sun’s dangerous rays and excessive heat. There is the right humidity level - just wet enough, just dry enough - to support human life, to prevent us from drying out or from molds, funguses, and slimes taking over. In fact, scientists who believe in evolution even say that life is so precise, complex, and balanced that if even one tiny thing had been different way back during the evolutionary process, then life as we know it wouldn’t exist.
Do you really think something this carefully ordered doesn’t have a Designer, a Creator, that it’s merely the result of random, accidental interactions and processes over billions of years? Have we ever seen even one life form develop into another or grow more complex and ordered, without the help of scientists? [Consider that Newton’s second law of thermodynamics, the Law of Increased Entropy, says that nature will inevitably tend towards disorder and deterioration over time, not towards greater order and complexity. Therefore, if things really did evolve over billions of years, they would evolve to worse conditions that make life less complex, less possible, not better conditions that make it more complex, more possible.]
People accuse Christians of being unreasonable because we believe in a God we can’t see. But how much more unreasonable is it to think that all the things that make up the complex, intricate balance of life happened randomly by accidental, unthinking forces over billions of years? It takes more “blind faith” to be an atheist or evolutionist than it takes to be a Christian. The Bible neatly, clearly explains what the scientists can’t explain, and yet they refuse to believe: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Ps. 19:1-2: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.”
4. What about all the supernatural things that we hear about, that defy logic and science, the things that make you go “hmm”? We’ve all had or heard of those unexplained moments, those confounding experiences that defy natural explanation. There is enough supernatural activity to know that there is something else out there, that there is more than just what can be seen.
Keep in mind, though, that not all supernatural activity is “good” supernatural activity. There are demons out there trying to cause trouble, to trap people. And many supernatural things like tarot cards, fortune telling, Ouija boards, seances, etc. – especially if it “works” – are meant to ensnare you into deeper demonic things.
The good angels don’t play those kinds of games. Heavenly angels are helpers, messengers, and ministering spirits doing God’s work. Ps. 91:11: “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” Heb. 1:14: “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”
It’s the fallen angels – demons - who play those games, to entice or trap people. Don’t give them any access into your life through occultic things like these (and if you already have, repent). Demons will come in on any “welcome mat” you roll out for them, through any door you open for them. Eph. 4:27: “… do not give the devil a foothold.” 1 Cor. 10:21: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too…” Eph. 6:10-12: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” James 4:7: "Submit yourself, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." 1 Peter 5:8-9: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith …” Lev. 19:31: “Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.” Deut. 18:10-12: “Let no one be found among you who … practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord…”
And do you know what I find interesting? That many people will believe in aliens but not in angels or demons or God or Satan. To them, aliens are possible, but not God. Why? My guess is because they don’t have to bend a knee to aliens if aliens are real.
Side note: Recently, the US government released their report on UFOs, and they concluded that UFOs are real but they haven’t yet proven the existence of aliens. Be warned: I believe that UFOs and “aliens” will be a major End Times delusion. I believe that after the rapture of the Church, demons may appear as “aliens,” convincing many people that it wasn’t the rapture that happened, that the Bible isn’t right, but that aliens are real and that they are the reason why many people disappeared. This could be the delusion spoken of in 2 Thess. 2:9-12: “The coming of the lawless one [anti-Christ] will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie, and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” (Another possibility is that the delusion is the lie that the anti-Christ is really God, not Jesus. Whatever it is, God allows a lie to be spread to force people to make their decision: Will they believe the Bible or not? Will they put their faith in God or in the anti-Christ? And if they have chosen to reject Truth, God allows them to believe the lie, to seal their decision, their punishment.)
Aliens and ghosts are demons in disguise. Not all signs and “miracles” are godly. You don’t have to agree with me, but keep it in mind as the End Times get closer.
5. The Bible was written by over 40 different authors, over a span of 1,500 years, and yet it has continuity in its message and has accuracy in its details, making it seem as though it was really written by one Author. The Bible is not “one” book, but 66 books. And these books all support and agree with each other, making it “one” book. What are the odds that 66 books written by over 40 different authors over the course of 1,500 years (before copies were abundant and could be easily obtained) all agree and are consistent in sharing the same basic truths? How is that possible if it wasn’t God-inspired?
A lot of atheists and skeptics won’t believe in the Bible because of “discrepancies” or things they don’t like, such as God wiping out entire nations, innocent people. Yet I wonder how many of them have actually read the whole Bible for themselves before forming their conclusions. How many realize that those so-called discrepancies have really easy, reasonable explanations, proving that they aren’t really “discrepancies” at all? How many have researched the history of these nations God wiped out, to see that these “innocent” people weren’t so innocent at all, that they were very wicked people who sacrificed children in fires to false gods, who engaged in all sorts of sexually-depraved practices in their idol worship, and who tried to spread their perversion to those around them? How many realize that God gave them many chances repent so that He wouldn’t have to punish them? How many realize that God doesn’t want to exercise His wrath and judgment, that He is loving, gracious, and merciful enough that He would spare entire wicked nations if just a few righteous people could be found in them? He would have spared the whole wicked city of Sodom if only 10 righteous people could be found in it. He’d have spared Israel from punishment if He could have found only one person who did what He wanted, one person who “stood in the gap” for the rebellious nation: Ez. 22:30-31: “‘I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them in my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done,’ declares the Sovereign Lord.” God wanted one righteous man to plead for His mercy, but He found no one who could or would do this. So He dealt with Israel out of His wrath instead. (Who has God asked you to “stand in the gap” for?)
Do any of these atheists or skeptics want to know this? Do they want to know the truth? Or do they just want “reasonable-sounding” excuses for not believing? Will those excuses hold up when they stand before God in the end?
Romans 1:18-21: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For 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.”
6. Scientists believe that millions of years is needed to explain the many layers of sediment seen in the earth’s crust. However, when the Mount St. Helen’s volcano blew in 1980, 25 feet of stratified deposit was laid down in just 3 hours. And since then, in just a few decades, deposits of up to 600 feet thick have been laid down in various spots. Also, as a result of a mud flow after a 1982 eruption of St. Helens, a “Little Grand Canyon,” about 100 feet deep and a bit wider, opened up rapidly. As a result of this one volcano, geological events occurred that scientists would say normally take many, many years to form. And speaking of canyons, several years ago a record amount of rain fell on a New Zealand town in one weekend, opening up a huge, deep cavity in the earth which looked amazingly like a mini-Grand Canyon (which scientists say was formed by a little water and millions of years).
But if all this could happen after one weekend of rain in New Zealand and after eruptions from one volcano in the 1980’s, I wonder what might happen after this: "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life ... all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of heaven were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights." (Gen. 7:11-12) If a giant, canyon-like sinkhole could open up overnight after a weekend of rain, if a canyon could open up in one day of mud-flow from a volcano, if 25 feet of deposit could be laid down in 3 hours after one explosion, then it’s totally possible that the catastrophic events of the worldwide flood explain the existence of so many things that supposedly took “millions of years” to form [and things such as marine fossils being found on mountaintops, and fossils of whole trees being found standing up vertically through many layers of sediment (if those layers took centuries to form, the tree would have decayed before it could be preserved), and the fossils of fish eating other fish (a fish who’s about to die wouldn’t be eating, so for fossils like this to be found, something dramatic and “unnatural” must have happened quickly to interrupt their eating and to preserve them in mud before they died).] Maybe "a little water and millions of years” is really just "massive springs bursting through the earth's surface and 40 days of rain and flooding”.
There’s even an article in Newsweek (“The Universe Should Not Actually Exist, CERN Scientists Discover,” 10/25/17) where scientists working at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research) said that the universe should not exist according to natural laws, that there’s a symmetry in nature that shouldn’t be possible. Well, if it’s not possible for it to exist by natural laws, then maybe it exists because of supernatural laws! Because God created it. Because He is real and the Bible is true. I think it takes more faith to believe all this happened accidentally than to believe in God.
7. And then there are the biblical prophecies that have been fulfilled, such as these ones fulfilled by Jesus: The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), to a virgin (Is. 7:14). He’d be a descendant of Isaac (Gen. 21:12), Jacob (Num. 24:17), from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10), and from the family of Jesse (Is 11:1), through his youngest son, David (Ps. 89:3-4, Jer. 23:5). He’d be betrayed by a friend He shared bread with (Ps. 41:9, many of David’s words about himself in the Psalms foreshadow Jesus) for 30 pieces of silver that would be used to buy a potter’s field (Zec. 11:12-13). His disciples would scatter (Zec. 13:7, which happened at Jesus’s trial). He’d be silent before His accusers (Is. 53:7). He’d be pierced (Ps. 22:16, Is. 53:5, Zec. 12:10), be given vinegar when thirsty (Ps. 69:21) and be killed among wicked men but buried in a rich man’s tomb (Is. 53:9). His bones would not be broken (Ps. 34:20, it was common to break the legs of crucified men so that they couldn’t hold themselves up anymore and they died quicker, but when the soldiers saw Jesus was already dead, they didn’t bother to break His legs). And the soldiers would divide up His clothes between them by gambling for them (Ps. 22:18). And this is just a sample.
(From Josh McDowell…) According to a professor whose stats were confirmed by the American Scientific Affiliation, the odds of one man fulfilling just 8 prophecies is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. It would be the same odds as this: Imagine covering Texas in silver dollars, 2 feet deep, with one coin marked with an X, blended in randomly. Then as you randomly walk across Texas blindfolded, you randomly stop once and reach down without looking and grab a coin. The chances that you grabbed the coin with the X are the same as one man fulfilling just 8 prophecies. Basically impossible … unless the Bible is true.
And if the Bible is correct about the prophecies that have been fulfilled, we can trust that it’s correct about the ones that will be fulfilled, such as about the rapture, the tribulation, the judgment seat of God, heaven and hell, etc.:
1 Cor. 15:51-52: “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”
1 Thess. 4:15-17: “… we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”
1 Thess. 5:2-3: “… the day of the Lord [which I think starts with the rapture] will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”
Rev. 3:10 (I think it’s about true believers who’ll be raptured): “Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial [the tribulation] that is going to come upon the whole earth the test those who live on the earth.”
In the end, believers will spend eternity with the Lord: Acts 16:31: “… Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved …” And they won’t be judged for their sins because they accepted Jesus’s payment for their sins, but they will be judged by and rewarded according to what they did for the Lord: 1 Cor. 3:13-15 “[the believer’s work] will be shown for what it is, because the Day of judgement will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping the flames.”
But unbelievers who rejected Jesus’s sacrifice for them and the eternal life He offers will be judged according to their choices and sins. “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead [unbelievers] were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books… If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Rev. 20:11-15) And after facing judgment, they will hear God tell them “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).
These days, everyone can see the prophetic pieces of the End Time puzzle rapidly falling into place (all because of one virus): the beginnings of a world-wide government, a cash-less society, a Jewish peace treaty, the Mark of the Beast (“And he causeth all … to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name (666),” Rev. 13:16-17, KJV), wars and rumors of wars, potential famine (from worker shortages, supply problems, locust plagues), etc. And the Jews have been ramping up preparations for a new temple and the religious rituals that go with it. And I even think the increasing evidence of UFO’s is because Satan can see that time is short, and he’s getting his deceptions in place. The pieces are falling into place everywhere, and quickly. No one will be able to say “I had no warning.”
If you don’t see the warning signs, it’s because you don’t want to.
All of this is just a bit to help you see that there is enough evidence to support the Bible and Jesus’s life and resurrection, enough to change the minds of an investigative journalist (Strobel) and a pre-law student (McDowell), enough to prove it makes sense, it’s reasonable, it’s true.
How I Would Explain Salvation:
God so loved the world. He didn’t just love the world; He so loved the world. He so loved the world that He (Jesus) would die in our place before He would miss out on an eternal relationship with us. He knew that we would disappoint Him and hurt Him and fail Him, but He still so wanted a relationship with us that He made a way. He knew that there would be many, many people that would reject His gift of love and salvation, but an eternity spent with those who would choose Him was worth the price of dying on the cross. That is some amazing love!
I think one thing we need to understand when sharing the gospel is the difference between having a “relationship with Jesus” and having “religion.” I believe that confusing these two things has prevented a lot of people from having the kind of relationship with Him that we were really meant to have.
So let me clearly say this: A relationship with Jesus is not the same thing as “religion.”
I believe that religion is best defined as “Man’s attempts to get to God.” We try to follow all sorts of rules or traditions in the hopes that they will score us enough points on God’s big scoreboard to get us into heaven. If we could just be “good enough,” He has to let us in, right? But these are our attempts to get to God. And they won’t work.
Biblical Christianity, however, is all about God’s attempt to reach out to man. A relationship with God is only possible because God reaches out to us. He calls to us. He makes Himself known to us. He guides us toward Him if we are willing to listen. And He has made a way for us to get into heaven that isn’t left up to chance. He’s provided a sure way, instead of leaving us to wring our hands and wonder, I hope I’ve been good enough.
You know, I have to ask: What kind of good, loving God would He be if He allowed something as important as the eternal home of our souls to be decided by a vague definition of “good enough”? If He left us to wonder if we made it in or not, not knowing until we die? I can’t think of a crueler cosmic joke.
And yet, for some reason, humans seem to want that. We would rather try to work our way to heaven than to simply accept God’s sure, easy way. Why is that? We need to be in control? We want to live the way we want and yet still feel like we can get into heaven?
But with God, it’s not about earning enough points on His scoreboard. It’s about what He’s already done and made available to us. All of human history has been about God’s attempt to reach out to us. And it will ultimately end with us getting what we wanted: an eternity with Him or apart from Him.
In the beginning, God created us because He wanted a close, genuine relationship with us. And Adam and Eve had this with Him in the Garden of Eden. And it could have remained that way if they had chosen to obey God’s one, simple command to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God knew that if they did eat from it, they would introduce severe, heartbreaking consequences. And He wanted to spare them the knowledge of evil and the consequences that come with it. And so that is why He clearly warned them not to do it.
But they did it anyway. They chose to disobey and they ate from the forbidden tree. (Any of us would have done the same if we were in the Garden long enough.)
Now before this, they were unaware of evil. They only knew good. But by their sin, they became aware of evil and let it loose on the world. And as a consequence, they introduced pain, disorder, and death into the human race. But by God’s loving mercy and forgiveness, we can again have the kind of eternity that we were meant to have. If we choose it.
And that’s the most important truth we could share: We choose where we spend eternity! And we only have this lifetime to make that choice. And there are only two options: God’s Team and Not God’s Team (not official names).
Because of the Fall, we are all born on Not God’s Team. We are all born separated from God. And we will stay there unless we deliberately choose to go over to God’s Team. We cannot accidentally end up on God’s Team. Nor do we end up there by default. It has to be a deliberate, conscious choice - a choice to leave Not God’s Team and to join God’s Team.
And we cannot earn our way onto God’s Team. There is no mysterious “good enough” scale. There’s no giant scoreboard in heaven. When we stand before God, it will be “I chose Jesus as my Lord and Savior” or “I rejected Him.” It’s clear-cut and sure.
Of course, we can deliberately choose to stay on Not God’s Team if we want to, by refusing God and His offer of salvation. And there are plenty of people that consciously reject Him and serve their own gods: nature, false gods, themselves, etc. And that is their choice.
But I fear that far more people will end up in hell not by “choice”, but “accidentally.” Because they ignored the truth about God and decided to not make a decision about Him. And they thought that it would still be okay, that they would up in heaven by default because they didn’t deliberately choose against God.
These are the people who say, “I hope I’ve been good enough to get into heaven” or “Sure, I’m spiritual. I believe in a God out there somewhere.” But they ignore what the Bible says about the only way to salvation. But even not making a choice about God is still not choosing God’s Team, and that automatically keeps them on Not God’s Team (the team we start out on).
People usually wonder, How can a loving God send people to hell? The truth is, I don’t think God “sends” anyone to hell. He doesn’t threaten us with hell, as in “If you’re not good enough, this is where you’re going.”
He warns us of hell, as in “This is where you are headed, so please take the way of salvation that I made possible.”
He wants all people to come to Him. He waits patiently over the course of history for as many people as possible to come to Him, pursuing them for years and years. And He doesn’t give up on us, because He wants us with Him in eternity. He is far more concerned with where we’re going than where we’ve been, which is why He is so ready and willing to forgive, no matter what we’ve done in our pasts.
He doesn’t “send” us to hell . . . but He does reluctantly allow us to choose to go there ourselves. And as I said earlier, according to Matthew 25:41, hell was created for Satan and the angels who rebelled against God. It was not made for humans. It's we humans who choose to follow Satan there by choosing against God.
People also wonder why God made humans in the first place if He knew we would sin. I say, “Why do we still make friends, get married, and have children if we know that they are going to do something wrong someday or hurt us or let us down?”
We do it because we want to have relationships, even though we know they won’t be perfect. Well, God is a relational being. He is not an unemotional, uninvolved wooden statue. He is relational and He wants a relationship with people. He wants to love us and have us love Him. Not because He needs it, but because it brings Him glory and because He enjoys it. And so He made people, even though He knew we would sin.
And He allows us to choose Him or to reject/ignore Him because He doesn’t want to spend eternity with robots. He wants to spend eternity with those who want to be with Him.
That’s no different from us humans. We want to be around people who want to be with us, not who are forced to be with us. And I think this is a reason why He allowed evil to exist in the first place. In order to have the ability to choose God, we had to have the right and the option to choose against God, to choose a different “lord.”
When Adam and Eve disobeyed, they introduced a “sin nature” into all of mankind. And because God is holy, He cannot tolerate sin. Because He is just, there had to be a penalty for disobedience. He couldn’t just ignore it or excuse it. There had to be a penalty.
We would expect any judge worth his position to demand justice and the payment of the penalty for crimes committed. What would we think of a judge who turned a blind eye to someone who stole or murdered? That wouldn’t be right. There has to be a penalty that fits the crime. This is what justice is.
Well, the penalty for rebellion against God was separation from God, which naturally leads to eternal separation at our deaths. Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden and separated from God’s presence. And this “separation” is passed down to all of us because sin is in the human race.
People get offended sometimes that Christians say that we are sinful and that we will be punished for it if we don’t accept Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf. They erroneously think we are saying that "we are bad people who deserve hell."
Or they think "we are all born good and on our way to heaven but committing one sin causes God to switch our destination to hell instead." And then they think that God is so unfair to be so harsh and unreasonable.
But I think the better way to explain it is to say that being “sinful” doesn’t mean that "we are bad people who deserve hell” or that "we lost our rightful place in heaven because of one sin." It's not a comment about your personality or level of morality or what kind of person you are. It simply means that (because of the Fall), we are all born already separated from God, already on our way to hell, and that’s where we will end up eternally if we don’t find a way to bridge the gap between us and Him.
But here’s the thing, none of our attempts to bridge that gap on our own will work. We can't earn or work our way to heaven.
That’s the bad news.
But this is the good news: God made a way. We can choose to get off that path of separation and into an eternal relationship with God (heaven) because of what He has already done for us.
Yes, God is holy and just, but God is also love. And in His love, He couldn’t bear to have us separated from Him. He so desires a relationship with us that He made a way for us to spend eternity with Him. And what He did was pay the penalty for sin Himself.
The payment required – the penalty for sin - was death. A physical as well as “spiritual death,” eternal life apart from Him. And so Jesus (God the Son, who took on human flesh) came down here and died a physical death that He didn’t deserve so that He could pay the price for our sins, so that we could trade in eternal death for eternal life.
This enormous act of love met the requirements of justice. He showed His justice by requiring the penalty for sin; but He showed His love by paying it Himself.
Jesus’ death bridged the gap between us and God, making it possible for us to be forgiven and to enter God’s presence again. His death bridged the gap. We just have to be willing to cross that bridge. And if not - if we die in our state of “separated from God” - we will remain eternally separated from God. It’s our choice to cross that bridge or not.
Another crucial difference between religion/false religion and Christianity is how we view Jesus Christ. What we decide about Jesus Christ determines if we have religion/false religion or biblical Christianity.
When it comes to religion (or a generalized spirituality), God can be anything to anyone. He can be found in us, in the trees, in unity, in music, etc. He can be Buddha, the universe, a woman, or a cow. He can be whatever the person wants Him to be. And we can get to God in any number of ways: meditation, drugs, good works, giving money, being sincere in whatever faith we have, sex, etc. And that is what makes it “religion” or “false religion” or a “cult.”
“Religion” doesn’t have to acknowledge Jesus as God, Lord, and Savior. “Religion” doesn’t have to claim that Jesus is the only way. “Religion” doesn’t have to believe that we cannot work our way to heaven, no matter how good we act. “Religion” can be whatever tickles our fancy or makes us feel good about ourselves, life, the universe, and the end. What a mess!
I know that people want to believe that all religions are right, as long as the person is sincere in their faith. But the truth is, they cannot all be right, not when they all believe different things about who God is, who Jesus is, what heaven is and what hell is and how we get there. If each religion has a different map . . . written by different people . . . with different directions . . . to different places, they cannot all be essentially the same thing. They can all be wrong, but they cannot all be right.
This “all religions are the same thing and all roads lead to the heaven” idea is a very sweet-sounding, “love everybody,” naïve way to convince oneself that you don’t have to make a decision about it all. That no matter what you believe, it’s all okay.
But I am here to say that – like it or not - it does matter what we believe. Tremendously! Eternally!
While “religion” can be whatever we want it to be, a faith grounded in the Bible - biblical Christianity - knows that “religion” will not save. It is only Jesus that saves. And He doesn’t save just because He was “a good person, a good teacher.” He saves because He is God.
Because of Jesus’ death - because God paid the penalty that His justice demanded- we now have the option of going to heaven. The ticket has been paid for. We can accept His payment on our behalf so that we can once again have a relationship with God. Or we can choose to pay it for ourselves by ignoring or rejecting Jesus as Lord and Savior, by rejecting His sacrificial death. Thereby, remaining on that path of separation that leads to hell.
But if we want spiritual life, the only option God has given is to allow Jesus’ death to pay the price for our sins. And all it takes on our parts is a decision. It is a decision to believe that Jesus alone made the way for us. It is choosing to make Him Lord and Savior of our lives. He has closed 99% of the gap between us and Him. He has done 99% of the work to make salvation possible. And all we have to do is turn toward Him, open our heart to Him, and believe. And we will cross the bridge that He built. It's that simple and sure.
Romans 10:9 tells us what’s required to restore that relationship with God. “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” It’s all about Jesus.
And I have to say, that’s a mighty fine option - letting Jesus’ death do all the work of getting us into heaven. And all we have to do is choose it, like accepting a gift. How merciful! It is so much easier than we make it out to be, with our “good enough” scoreboard and our efforts to earn heaven. (As a Christian, “being good and living right” isn’t something we do to get into heaven. But it is how we will want to live after we accept Jesus, living out our thankfulness, our love, and our desire to honor Him.)
Well, I say, “Welcome to the club!”
The way I see it, we can choose to believe in God and Jesus . . . even with doubts. In fact, the only way that we can believe in God and Jesus is while we still have doubts. Because whether we admit it or not, we all have doubts and unanswered questions, all the time. (We are just more unaware of them when life is going well.)
This is why we have to step out in faith.
It doesn’t mean “blind, unreasonable faith” – because there is more than enough evidence for the validity of the Bible and the existence of God and Jesus. But if we had all the answers to every question (which is not possible anyway), then it wouldn’t be faith.
The very fact that we can’t see God (although we can see Him in His creation) requires faith to believe in Him. It takes faith to believe Him when He says that He will forgive us of any sin, if we repent and accept Jesus’ sacrificial death on our behalf. It takes faith to believe that Jesus’ death built a bridge between us and God and made eternal life possible again . . . and that all we have to do is cross it. It takes faith to trust that God’s love, forgiveness, and grace is freely available to us . . . and that all we have to do it open our hands and reach out and accept it. It takes faith!
But atheists shouldn’t kid themselves. They have faith, too. They have faith in the idea that the only things that exist are what we can see, that there is nothing invisible or supernatural out there, that there is no God, and that all of this life is accidental and haphazard. They can’t see the evolutionary processes that they think happened over the course of billions of years, and yet they still believe in it. Talk about faith!
[And if I am wrong in what I believe – if we really all just die and disappear – then what do I lose for believing in God during my lifetime and trying to live accordingly? I will end up in the same place as the atheist and everyone else: in nothingness. So I will have lost nothing but my opportunity to live as my own god during my lifetime. But I am okay taking that chance.
But if an atheist is wrong – if Jesus really is the only way and if there really is a God that we will all stand before and be judged by – then what do they lose for believing that there was no God? Sure, maybe they got to live life however they wanted, but they will miss out on eternal life. And they will spend an eternity in hell, consciously aware that they were wrong all along. While this thought might not convince an atheist to believe in Jesus, it should at least get you to take this issue seriously.]
If we wait to come to God until we have no doubts, we will never come to Him. Because there will always be doubts and unanswered questions. But we can choose, as an act of our wills, to accept that He is telling us the Truth in the Bible.
Faith isn’t saying, “Wow, I am totally convinced of You and my need for You.” (Although that would be wonderful, of course.)
Faith is saying, “God, I don’t understand everything. But I will choose to take You at Your Word, even though I have doubts and questions. Help open my eyes and help me believe.”
And here’s a secret: Faith isn’t something that we have to drum up within ourselves or force ourselves to have. It is actually a gift from God. God wants us to choose Him. He wants us to accept Him. But He knows that we humans are full of doubts, questions, sin, rebellion, the need to be in control, and the need for absolute proof. And so, left to ourselves, we would never come to Him.
But just as He made the way for us to get into heaven, He also gives us the necessary “tool” to believe in Him: Faith!
Galatians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.”
What this means is that we get to heaven only by the fact that He made the way and that He develops our faith in Him. We do not get to heaven by anything that we do. It’s all Him! Our part is not to climb our way to heaven; it’s simply to accept His gift of faith and eternal life, turning our face toward Him and saying, “Okay, I choose You. I want to believe. Help me! Give me faith!”
(To be clear, I am not saying that He forces us to have faith – as in “predestination” – I am saying that He offers us the gift of faith. And we can accept it or reject it.)
If we will just open the door to Him - honestly telling Him where we are in our level of faith and doubt, and asking Him to help - He will grow our faith, our understanding, and our belief in Him.
And as we walk with Him, we will learn to trust Him more and to believe in Him more. And we will come to know that doubts and questions are a part of life and the Christian journey. And when they come up, the best thing we can do is not to feel bad about ourselves and doubt our faith, but to take those doubts to God in prayer and ask for His help.
God is doing all He can to reach out to us - through nature, through His Word, through Jesus coming here in the flesh, through knocking on the door of our hearts, through implanting within us a deep sense that Someone is out there, through offering us the gift of faith. He gives everyone the chance to come to Him.
He says in Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
No one will be able to say, “But I didn’t know that God was real.” Because God says that we will not have any excuses when we stand before Him and He asks, “Why didn’t you believe in Me?”
He will hold us all accountable for the choice we make (or don’t make). And in the end, He will give us what we asked for. If we ask Him to cover the penalty for our sins, He will do it. (He already has!) But if we ask to be left alone, He will allow it. He won’t like it and it will grieve Him; but He allows it because He has given us the freedom to choose.
[Now, to put some people at ease, I do believe the Bible teaches that there is an age of accountability, an age when we are old enough to choose or to reject Jesus’ sacrifice. If a child dies before this age, they are under His grace and mercy and automatically end up with God in heaven for eternity . . . because they never made it to the age where they became accountable for their choice. But after that age (I have no idea what age that is), we are held accountable for the choice we make or don’t make. But if you lost a baby or child, I believe that you can rest assured that they are already safe in His loving care and will be there to meet you when you get there.]
As we end this lesson, here is a sample prayer to share with someone (or to lead them in) who wants to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I am including it in case you ever need it. Or find a better one on-line or come up with your own. (And of course, people can use their own words.) But it helps to have a prayer ready. I never fumbled my words more than when trying to lead my children in a prayer of salvation. Our prayers don’t have to be fancy. They just have to be real.
In Jesus’ name, Amen
Questions (updated Feb 2022):
Acts 4:12: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
