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Perhaps the mother of all questions when it comes to religion is: Does it really matter which belief system one chooses to plug into, because all roads lead to Heaven, right?
The answer is terribly important, of course, because if only one road leads to eternal Heaven we had better make sure we're on it.
Popular thinking would have us believe that an all-loving God will welcome everyone into Heaven providing we do our best while on earth. Broader still, God will embrace even the atheist who, while alive, may have loudly blasted that there is no God. God is all-forgiving, all-merciful. He's a sponge of love. Hmm.
The Bible says Jesus is the only way to Heaven. John 14:6 says, “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’.”
I recently overheard a conversation between a Bible-believing evangelical and a guy who maintained that God is not so narrow as to restrict Himself to one Book, one Way. The conversation went like this:
Broad-is-the-way Guy: “The route we choose is not determined by us, really. I have to believe that Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, the lot, will all be welcomed to some kind of a great after-life. Don't expect me to believe that those who don't accept your Jesus are doomed to an eternal Hell. Many other books are considered as sacred as your Bible.”
Bible guy: “I do base my spiritual beliefs on the Bible and that it is the one-and-only inspired Word of God. The Bible claims that it is God's way to Heaven, and is the only way to Heaven. It describes the Way to Heaven as being narrow and the road to Hell as being broad. God's route to Him is through His Son, Jesus Christ, who died and rose again for all mankind.
"Under freewill, He allows us to accept that or reject it. Because of that absolute position, Christianity cannot be part of a religious smorgasbord alongside the teachings of eastern philosophy, cult propaganda, or other man-made, feel-good thinking. Christianity is all about Christ being the only true way.”
Broad-is-the-way Guy: “We all have our own truth.”
Bible guy: “There can only be one truth. The Bible is replete with the statement, ‘Thus saith the Lord’.” Proverbs 14:12 in the Old Testament states "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” It matters little what we think. If we reject what the Bible states, we face the consequences of what the Bible warns about—a literal, eternal Hell. Our eternal salvation can be determined right now. It may sound simplistic, but Christ did say we must come as a child and simply call upon the Lord.”
The Bible says:
1. We have all sinned.
2. Christ died for our sin and shed His blood to remove our sin.
3. Unless a person is born again he will not enter Heaven.
4. Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
5. Jesus said, "No man can come to the Father but by Me."
If we choose to reject or ignore that, we must be prepared to face the consequences of eternal, wide-awake separation from God.
Broad-is-the-way Guy: “What about those who have never nor will ever hear this? How will they be judged?”
Bible guy: “Good question. The Bible says that those who seek truth will find it. Matthew 7: 7 says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” God IS fair. He will direct a searcher to truth. The Holy Spirit is in the world to rush to seekers with truth regarding God's reality and saving power. This insight may come in many forms such as the written or spoken Word of God, through dreams or revelations, etc. God responds to every seeker, giving us the opportunity to be saved. God speaks of this in John 6:37 which says, "Him that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out."
“Well-meaning Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims must turn from their man-made religions and bow to Christ who died for all. Christianity is the only religion where God reached down to man and completed our salvation. But we must call out and embrace Christ.”
Broad-is-the-way Guy: “Why would any thinking person rest their future on the writings of 66 books that make up the Bible?”
Bible guy: “The Bible proves itself on many levels, from fulfilled prophecy to recently-discovered science. Such as…”
The Bible is miraculous in many ways because of its -
1. Human diversity.
2. Different authors, locations, languages, generations, audiences, occupations, writing styles, subject matter.
3. Divine Unity.
4. Same Messiah: Jesus Christ.
5. Message: Redemption of man.
6. Means: Atonement through the blood sacrifice.
7. Motive: Reconciliation of man to God.
Manuscripts
1. More than 24,000 handwritten copies of portions of the original manuscripts still exist.
2. By contrast, there are only 643 copies of Homer's Iliad (900 BC) available.
3. One fragment of Scripture dates back to within 25 years of the original writing.
4. There is a gap of 500 years between the oldest copy of the Iliad and the original.
5. There is more evidence for the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts than any 10 pieces of classical literature combined.
6. The Biblical manuscripts we have today are in far better shape than Shakespeare's plays of the 17th century.
7. Without printing presses prior to 1450 AD, manuscripts were copied by hand. Jewish scribes were fanatically meticulous in copying and preserving the "oracles of God."
8. The Biblical manuscripts have miraculously survived banning, burning, criticism, cynicism, scrutiny, skepticism, vicious external and internal attacks.
9.Accuracy: a) No recently-found manuscripts contradict earlier ones.
b) The "Isaiah Scroll," among the Dead Sea Scrolls found in a cave in 1947, predates the previous earliest Isaiah manuscript by 1,000 years, yet is exactly the same.
Canon means a standard or code of laws established by a church council. The Bible meets the following _
1. It is authoritative ("thus saith the Lord".)
2. Its prophecies are accurately fulfilled.
3. The manuscript are authentic.
4. Is it dynamic. It impress scholars as a true Word of God.
5. It is accepted as God's Word and used as such by God's people.
Adoption of the 27 New Testament books into the Canon took place at the Synod of Hippo in North Africa in 393 AD. This was a meeting of Roman Catholic bishops in church council. Before the Synod, the 39 books of the Old Testament were accepted as God's word.
Does the Bible itself claim to be inspired by God?
1. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." (2 Timothy 3:16)
2. "Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God." (Romans 3:2)
3. "Not...the word of men but...actually...the Word of God." (1 Thessalonians 2:13)
4. "Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (1 Peter 1:21)
5. "The revelation came...by the Holy Spirit." (1 Corinthians 2:13)
6. "God spoke...through the prophets." (Hebrews 1:1)
(Throughout the Bible, the expression "thus saith the Lord" appears 434 times.)
Biblical prophecies
1. Approximately one quarter of the Bible deals with prophecy.
2. Many prophecies were recorded hundreds of years prior to the event. For example, the prophet Micah proclaimed in Micah 5:2, "O Bethlehem, you are but a small Judean village, yet you will be the birthplace of my King who is alive from everlasting ages past!" This was written over 700 years before Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem!
3. Prophecies concerned
a) individuals
b) cities
c) nations
d) Israel
e) the Messiah
f) future events, etc.
4. Approximately three-quarters of the recorded prophecies have been precisely fulfilled.
5. One quarter remain to be fulfilled.
6. Israel
a) No other nation can document its history in such astonishing detail.
b) Scores of Bible prophecies predict its scattering among the nations (70 AD to 1948 AD), persecution, re-gathering in Israel (Israel declared statehood on May 14, 1948) and future glory (during the millennium).
7. Messiah
a) There are more than 300 Old Testament prophecies predicting a coming Messiah.
b) These predictions were recorded hundreds of years prior to the arrival of Jesus Christ.
c) While 40 other "messiahs" claimed the title, only Jesus fulfilled all of the prophecies.
d) The probability of only 48 of the 300 prophecies being fulfilled by pure chance is mathematically impossible.
Archaeology
1. "Archaeology has confirmed the history of the Old Testament." (William Albright)
2. "Archaeology has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the Scriptural record." (Millar Burrows, Yale)
3. "The evidence of archaeology has been to establish the authority of the Old Testament." (Sir Frederic Kenyon)
4. The famous Dead Sea Scrolls refer to the Old Testament authors as "prophets."
5. Archaeology supports 85 very specific Bible events.
6. No archaeological discovery has disproved Scripture.
Science
Although written in pre-science times, scientific references are accurate.
1. Seaworthiness of Noah's Ark.
2. Sphericity of the earth (Isaiah 40:22).
3. Earth hanging on nothing (Job 26:7).
4. Innumerable stars (Genesis 15:5).
5. Mountains and valleys in the sea (2 Samuel 22:16).
6. Paths or currents in the sea (Psalms 8:8).
7. Hydrologic cycle (Job 26:8).
8. Life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11).
9. Rules of health and sanitation (Genesis 17:9).
10. Second law of thermodynamics—things tend toward randomness (Psalm 102:25-26).
History
1. Acclaimed Jewish historian Josephus, who lived in 100 AD and documented many first-century events, declared, "No one is so bold as to add, remove, or change anything in them (Old Testament).We esteem those books to contain divine doctrines and would willingly die for them."
2. Historian Dr. Clark Pinnock states, "There exists no document from the ancient world so excellent a set of textual testimony and offering so superb an array of historical data...skepticism regarding the historical credentials of Christianity is based on an irrational anti-supernatural bias."
3. The Bible is supported by the testimony of ancient historians and bishops—Sophocles, Cicero, Virgil, Eusebius, Ignatius, Polycarp, Iraneus, Clement, et al.
