That's not a very popular thing to say today or a very popular thing to believe.
Oprah said .... one of the biggest mistakes humans make is to believe there is only one way to God. Actually there are many diverse paths to what you call God...(other similar assertions are described....) One Rabbi called this assertion as nothing other than spiritual racism. In our age of pluralism, this question, is there only one way to God, is the most toxic question you could ask.
On the night of his arrest, Jesus addressed this very question with his disciples. .... quotation is in John 14:6. (The apostle John was present when Jesus said these words....).
this statement by Jesus answers the 3 greatest questions of the human heart:
1. How can I be saved...Jesus said "I am the way." 2. How can I be sure....Jesus said, "I am the truth." 3. How can I be satisfied..Jesus said, "I am the life."
These words have caused more trouble in our day and in Jesus' day than just about anything Jesus ever said.
Many of you are thinking, how can you say your way is better than my way or any other way such as through Buddha, or Confucious or such....how could you be so bigoted and narrowminded.....There is only one reason we can say this- because Jesus said it and He is God.
(Much more in the sermon in the video.,..)
A late night meditation and post.
Dr. Jeremiah goes back to Adam and Eve and how Adam walked with God but then ate of the forbidden fruit....as the head of the human race, they lost all of their privileges with God just like that....Their communion was broken and the Bible says they his from God. They were evicted from the Garden and they began the process of dying. The condition that all of us are in before Christ is exactly like that. Because we are all descendants of Adam, we have inherited all of the problems of his/their rebellion against God.
We are separated from God, we cannot know Him.
Before we know Christ, we know that...we sense that something’s wrong, something’s not right.....There’s this emptiness in our lives....
Somehow, I think/believe that an infinite, benevolent God would had made some provision for the souls of people who died before Jesus’s time, or who never heard of Him. I don’t know what it is, or how it works, but in Charity, I suspect He has some way to hold out Hope of salvation to all those others.
This essentially covers it however the pre-Christian Jews who believed in a coming Messiah are also (imo) saved) because they could not believe in the person of Jesus before Jesus was alive on Earth.
Secondly, there will be a lot of “Christians” who will be disappointed when the souls of Christ’s followers are called up to be with him and *they* were left out. The Good Shepherd knows His sheep and His sheep hear His voice. IMO, if a person has not developed a personal relationship with Christ where He is Lord of their life but merely went through the motions of “playing church” or “trying to be good”, I could not guarantee their salvation no matter how generous or saintly their behavior seems to the outside world.
Many of those will be the ones claiming Christ is too narrow-minded or bigoted. Yet even applying those terms to the Holy and perfect God displays a mindset that thinks their own value system is superior to God’s. We are to be trusting as children before God as He knows what we don’t and our ways are not His ways. It is a sin of pride to think we know better.
IMHO, most Christians and others get it wrong. It's not that hard to understand, but harder than most care to think about.
I totally believe Jesus, and scripture backs his words, that no one comes to the Father except through Him.
What Jesus did was to establish a new covenant, a new and better way of getting to the Father, by believing in Him.
John 14:3 ...I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.
)
This doesn't mean others, those who never knew him, are excluded from the Father. He plainly states in Matt. 21:32, that even those who speak against him will be forgiven (Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven...
).
What will not be forgiven is to be against the Holy Spirit (unrighteous sinners), Matt. 21:32 (...whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the one to come.…
)
Jesus IS going to judge everyone, now or at the end (i.e., no one comes to the Father except through me
).
Even the prophet Daniel must wait until the end.
Dan. 12:13 You will rest, and will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days
Who would judge Daniel unworthy of having earned a heavenly reward?
really like Pastor Jeremiah—on the radio i hear Bible based preaching, encouraging, edifying and equipping the Body of Christ.
Is there only one way to god? I don’t know. But I DO know there is only one way to rock.
bump
There is only one way to God.
By going within and through Jesus.
However, people, including most Christians don’t understand the Journey to being “One with God.”
They think of it as following Jesus down a path to a destination. It doesn’t work that way as the journey is within self.
When you go within, your conscious awareness expands beyond your physical body. You are born of the spirit as you begin to perceive directly from your consciousness rather than being limited to your five senses.
As your soul is cleansed and expands as we accept Jesus within us, it keeps getting larger and larger.
Let’s use a different model for the journey. A model of Russian Nesting Dolls where we are the little doll in the middle and God is the big outer doll. We can not get to God without going through ALL the dolls between us and God. Thus the only way to God is through Jesus and He is my savior.
Are there other dolls between us and God that we must go through to find Him? I will leave that question for you to find out on your own journey.
Read John 14 where Jesus describes that “He is in the Father, and Our Father is in Him.” And later on in John 14 where Jesus states that if “He is in us”(which is what communion is all about) then His Father that is in Him is also in us.
Imagine interpreting scripture with any other model than the Russian Nesting Dolls? It makes it all easy to understand. It is also my personal experience.
For example, the concept of Rapture is being “raised up” in consciousness as that is what is necessary for it to expand.
Oprah said .... one of the biggest mistakes humans make is to believe there is only one way to God. Actually there are many diverse paths to what you call God...(other similar assertions are described....)
All roads lead to God, Oprah’s correct. But, only one leads to salvation and Heaven. The others will get you a meeting, but not past judgement.
That all depends on which type of God you favor, and then which brand within that group is your specific tribe of choice.
The earth is four billion years old. Most people think the most recent beliefs are almost as old. They don’t realize that the current “brand” of God is less than 2,000 years old. And that the particular brand most on these threads adhere to is less than 500 years old.
You can believe whatever you want. Just don’t dismiss billions of soul to damnation because they were not alive or they just happened to be born in a place that did not even know the current “rules.”
If a man constructed a building and only put in ONE door..
said that only His family can come it, but that He is willing to adopt ANYONE who sincerely asks Him to...
Is He wrong?
Are there other ways in? After all, HE built the place with only ONE door. He knows.
Or should we listen to folks who choose not to humble themselves to ask for His adoption; who say that THEY belive you can get in some other way?
It’s pretty simple.
“Tolerance has replaced TRUTH in our culture.”
Even “good” Christians have been taken in by themes drawn from Yeshua’s compassion toward sinners. They often cite examples like the woman at the well who was accused of adultery and whom Yeshua refused to condemn. The cite only the part of scripture that satisfies their argument. In the case of the woman at the well, they leave off Yeshua’s closing words to her - go and sin no more.
Yeshua ate with sinners. He did so not our of acceptance or tolerance of their sins, but so he could preach His word to them. He met with them so he was present with them to try to reach them, not to tell them their sins were O.K.
None of that is the “tolerance” now being preached.