Okay, I've got to get this out now before I forget it all. I woke up at 2am with all this stuff in my head and couldn't go back to sleep until 5 so I'm getting it out now so I can sleep tonight. Last night we did a survey with our youth group. It was called, "What Do You Believe?" and we were going over the basic Christian doctrines with them and how a person gets to heaven and everything. I was so shocked because these kids were saying things like, "What does the word 'Trinity' mean?" and "What is salvation?" and I was like, "Whoa! Okay, back to square one." and when we got to the question that said, "How many ways are there to God?" I was equally shocked at all of their answers. Here were the choices:
A. Just one, through Jesus
B. Many ways
C. As many ways as there are people
D. It depends on the religion
So many of the kids said either B,C, or D, but very few picked A. RED FLAG! RED FLAG! MAYDAY! GOING DOWN! S.O.S. HELP!!!!!!!!
So, I got on my little soapbox for as long as I could keep their attention, which was like 2 minutes and drew the illustration of a cliff, a ravine, and another cliff. Then I put man on the left and God on the right and I said, "How does a person get from one side to the other? In other words, how does man get to God?" and they didn't know. So, I drew a picture of the cross with the word Jesus across it to illustrate how He bridged the gap for us and I said, "This is the only way that ANYONE can get to God." They also said that Jesus was just a good man when "God in flesh" was one of the answers, and the right one I might add. They also said that salvation was attained by "obeying all of God's laws" and totally missed "grace through faith". A lot of them kept saying, "But there's things we HAVE to do in order to please God and get to go to heaven." and I said, "All of our righteousness is like filthy rags! There's nothing we could ever do to work our way into heaven!" and they were totally lost! So, here is all I wanted to say to them, but there wasn't enough time, and I have just got to get it out:
#1. There is only ONE WAY to get to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ alone. If that is not true, then Jesus died for nothing. That makes Christianity the only true religion. Because Christianity is true, buddhism, islam, judaism, mormonism, and all the other isms are WRONG! There is no way we can all be right. If Jesus died on the cross for our sins and raised to life again, and the only way to get to heaven is by admitting we've sinned, believing that Jesus died for those sins, and confessing those sins and committing our lives to the Lord is the ONLY way to get to heaven, then whatever any other religion claims is the way is WRONG. It's NOT true! One of the kids kept saying, "Well, just because this is true for me, it may not be true for somebody else if they don't believe the way I do. This is my personal belief, not someone else's." This is all I have to say about that, if the above belief is not true for you, then you are going straight to hell. No one likes to talk about hell, it's offensive, but if we sit there and say, "Well, I know I'm going to heaven, but you can believe whatever you want." you're allowing that person to go straight to hell.
Let me put it this way...if I were to walk outside with a friend of mine and we both look up in the sky and see a plane flying overhead and I say, "That plane is flying east." and my friend says, "No, that plane is flying west." one of us is wrong. Make sense? So, in that sense you can't say, "Jesus is the only way to get to heaven." and in the same breath say, "Buddha is another way to get to heaven." because one of you is wrong. Same goes with evolution. You can't say, "I believe that God created the heavens and the earth and Adam and Eve." and in the same breath say, "I believe that the big bang is responsible for how we got here." It just doesn't work. You're either hot or cold, on or off, light or dark, black or white, right or left, you CAN'T BE BOTH! The same goes with the Bible. You can't claim that the Bible is true and call it the inerrant Word of God and then say, "Well, some parts aren't true, some parts don't count, and some parts we can just disregard." It's all or nothing. Either you believe it or you don't. Either it's true or it's not. Of course there were parables, of course there were illustrations, of course there were fictional situations that Jesus spoke of to prove a point, but if you don't understant it, don't discount it and throw it out, GO DEEPER! That's what Bible study is for!
Here's my last point. God created every single, solitary human being that has ever lived, is living, or will ever live on this planet. Black, white, Asian, Russian, French, Indian, African, and any other nationality you can think of. No matter what language they speak, He made us all. Every person you pass on the road, on the sidewalk, in the hallway at school, in the mall or wherever you are in the world, God created them all...THEM ALL...so do you know what that means? That means that Jesus died for every single, solitary one of us. You know what else that means? Because of Adam and Eve's sin in the beginning, we are ALL born into sin. So, do you know what else that means? Jesus died for every single, solitary sin that every single, solitary human being has ever, or will ever commit. Do you know why? The reason why He died for you is so you wouldn't have to. Now, you may know that, but here's the kicker, everybody else doesn't know it. Like I said, God created everyone, but does everyone know that? Jesus died for everyone, but does everyone know that? No. Do you know why they don't know? I'll tell you why...because YOU haven't told them. That is our job. Yours and mine. That is all the work that Jesus Christ left all of us to do before He left this earth and ascended into heaven. He gave us the Great Commission and told us to go out and make DISCIPLES. So, we're supposed to be Disciples of Christ right? So, let's get out there and make some more! Making disciples does not mean forcing a denomination of the same name on anyone. Making disciples means sharing the Good News with people, letting them know there's a God who created them, and He had a Son who saved them from hell. If we waste our time talking about anything else, especially from the pulpit, we've sent the listeners straight to hell if we haven't shown them the Way to get to heaven and offered them a chance to accept it. SO GET TO WORK!
A. Just one, through Jesus
B. Many ways
C. As many ways as there are people
D. It depends on the religion
So many of the kids said either B,C, or D, but very few picked A. RED FLAG! RED FLAG! MAYDAY! GOING DOWN! S.O.S. HELP!!!!!!!!
So, I got on my little soapbox for as long as I could keep their attention, which was like 2 minutes and drew the illustration of a cliff, a ravine, and another cliff. Then I put man on the left and God on the right and I said, "How does a person get from one side to the other? In other words, how does man get to God?" and they didn't know. So, I drew a picture of the cross with the word Jesus across it to illustrate how He bridged the gap for us and I said, "This is the only way that ANYONE can get to God." They also said that Jesus was just a good man when "God in flesh" was one of the answers, and the right one I might add. They also said that salvation was attained by "obeying all of God's laws" and totally missed "grace through faith". A lot of them kept saying, "But there's things we HAVE to do in order to please God and get to go to heaven." and I said, "All of our righteousness is like filthy rags! There's nothing we could ever do to work our way into heaven!" and they were totally lost! So, here is all I wanted to say to them, but there wasn't enough time, and I have just got to get it out:
#1. There is only ONE WAY to get to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ alone. If that is not true, then Jesus died for nothing. That makes Christianity the only true religion. Because Christianity is true, buddhism, islam, judaism, mormonism, and all the other isms are WRONG! There is no way we can all be right. If Jesus died on the cross for our sins and raised to life again, and the only way to get to heaven is by admitting we've sinned, believing that Jesus died for those sins, and confessing those sins and committing our lives to the Lord is the ONLY way to get to heaven, then whatever any other religion claims is the way is WRONG. It's NOT true! One of the kids kept saying, "Well, just because this is true for me, it may not be true for somebody else if they don't believe the way I do. This is my personal belief, not someone else's." This is all I have to say about that, if the above belief is not true for you, then you are going straight to hell. No one likes to talk about hell, it's offensive, but if we sit there and say, "Well, I know I'm going to heaven, but you can believe whatever you want." you're allowing that person to go straight to hell.
Let me put it this way...if I were to walk outside with a friend of mine and we both look up in the sky and see a plane flying overhead and I say, "That plane is flying east." and my friend says, "No, that plane is flying west." one of us is wrong. Make sense? So, in that sense you can't say, "Jesus is the only way to get to heaven." and in the same breath say, "Buddha is another way to get to heaven." because one of you is wrong. Same goes with evolution. You can't say, "I believe that God created the heavens and the earth and Adam and Eve." and in the same breath say, "I believe that the big bang is responsible for how we got here." It just doesn't work. You're either hot or cold, on or off, light or dark, black or white, right or left, you CAN'T BE BOTH! The same goes with the Bible. You can't claim that the Bible is true and call it the inerrant Word of God and then say, "Well, some parts aren't true, some parts don't count, and some parts we can just disregard." It's all or nothing. Either you believe it or you don't. Either it's true or it's not. Of course there were parables, of course there were illustrations, of course there were fictional situations that Jesus spoke of to prove a point, but if you don't understant it, don't discount it and throw it out, GO DEEPER! That's what Bible study is for!
Here's my last point. God created every single, solitary human being that has ever lived, is living, or will ever live on this planet. Black, white, Asian, Russian, French, Indian, African, and any other nationality you can think of. No matter what language they speak, He made us all. Every person you pass on the road, on the sidewalk, in the hallway at school, in the mall or wherever you are in the world, God created them all...THEM ALL...so do you know what that means? That means that Jesus died for every single, solitary one of us. You know what else that means? Because of Adam and Eve's sin in the beginning, we are ALL born into sin. So, do you know what else that means? Jesus died for every single, solitary sin that every single, solitary human being has ever, or will ever commit. Do you know why? The reason why He died for you is so you wouldn't have to. Now, you may know that, but here's the kicker, everybody else doesn't know it. Like I said, God created everyone, but does everyone know that? Jesus died for everyone, but does everyone know that? No. Do you know why they don't know? I'll tell you why...because YOU haven't told them. That is our job. Yours and mine. That is all the work that Jesus Christ left all of us to do before He left this earth and ascended into heaven. He gave us the Great Commission and told us to go out and make DISCIPLES. So, we're supposed to be Disciples of Christ right? So, let's get out there and make some more! Making disciples does not mean forcing a denomination of the same name on anyone. Making disciples means sharing the Good News with people, letting them know there's a God who created them, and He had a Son who saved them from hell. If we waste our time talking about anything else, especially from the pulpit, we've sent the listeners straight to hell if we haven't shown them the Way to get to heaven and offered them a chance to accept it. SO GET TO WORK!
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