Bayside Baptist Church

Paul Harvey: If I were the devil, if I were the prince of darkness, I’d want to engulf the whole world in darkness. And I’d have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I wouldn’t be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree: thee. So, I’d set about, however necessary, to take over the United States. I’d subvert the churches first. I’d begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: "Do as you please."

To the young, I would whisper that the Bible is a myth. I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what’s bad is good and what’s good is square. In the old, I would teach to pray after me: "Our Father, which art in Washington." And then I’d get organized. I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting. I’d threaten TV with dirtier movies and vice versa. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. I’d tranquilize the rest with pills.

If I were the devil, I’d soon have families at war with themselves, churches at war with themselves, and nations at war with themselves until each in its turn was consumed. And with promises of higher ratings, I’d have mesmerized media fanning the flames. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects but neglect the discipline of emotions. Just let those run wild until before you knew it, you’d have to have drug-sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door.

Within a decade, I’d have prisons overflowing. I’d have judges promoting pornography. Soon, I could evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, and then from the houses of Congress. And in His own churches, I would substitute psychology for religion and deify science. I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls and church money. If I were the devil, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle.

If I were the devil, I’d take from those who have and give to those who wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And what do you bet I couldn’t get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich? I would caution against extremes in hard work, in patriotism, and in moral conduct. I would convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned, that swinging is more fun, and that what you see on TV is the way to be. And of course, I could undress you in public and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there is no cure. In other words, if I were the devil, I’d just keep right on doing what he’s doing.

Jason King: Those words of Paul Harvey spoken in 1965 seem somewhat prophetic today, don't they? Yet in that day when they were spoken, they seemed so far off and so unreal that they would never happen. But it is where we live now and even beyond that. Even though these words may have seemed far off and impossible in that day, they were so unlikely that they were forgotten or maybe filed away in the pages of history.

I want to talk about something over the next few weeks that I believe that over time for the church—not the organization the church, the people the church, God's people—that we have been lulled to sleep by the enemy with an intentional plan to replace what is true and what is right in our minds with something that sounds good and seems right, but it is not from God's word.

With repetition and time, just like he foretold 61 years ago of what things were going to happen and how the devil would work if he was going to go to work, fast forward several years through the repetition and time that has passed, many of us inside the church have begun to believe these things. These are things that I would call folk theology.

That is what we are going to talk about for the next few weeks. We are going to address things that are passed down that are half-truths combined with other things and other parts of our culture and our day that are melded together. Over time, as we have heard it so many times and it has become normal and a part of what we are, we have begun to believe these things over what is actually true.

According to Google, folk theology refers to the informal popular religious beliefs and practices that people adopt within a culture rather than through formal theological training. It relies heavily on traditions and cultural norms and personal experiences, often simplifying or misinterpreting official doctrine or truth to make sense of everyday life.

Some characteristics of folk theology that have woven its way into our midst are that it is informal and unreflective. That simply means that it is things, sayings, and beliefs that are parroted as we have heard somebody else say them. We just simply repeat them because they sound good without actually ensuring that they are true.

It is pragmatic. It is focused on immediate felt practical needs rather than what is true. It is also culturally blended. It is a mixture of superstitions and folklore and front porch wisdom that was overheard somewhere else and passed down. Now it has become a part of our lives.

Over the next few weeks, we are going to look at some popular and common beliefs that are more folk theology and spiritual urban legends than they are truth. I understand that as we jump into this, we could jokingly call this series, "How to Empty the Church in Eight Weeks."

Some of the things we are going to talk about during this series are probably going to challenge you. You may not like it. You may not want to hear it. You may be inundated and even captivated by folk theology at the very core of who you are and not even realize it. When we talk about some of these things, there may be something in you that rises up.

I want to challenge you not to run from it, not to get mad and get on your favorite social media, but to lean in and investigate what is true and what is right, even if it is different than what you have heard. Each week we are going to challenge folk theology and spiritual urban legends from a biblical perspective. We are going to let the truth of God's word be the foundation of who we are.

That is uncomfortable at times because I don't always like what it tells me about myself. You are not going to like it either. But we believe that we come under the word of God. Over the next few weeks, beginning with today, we are going to compare all these little sayings that are floating out in our world that maybe are making their way into our hearts with the words of scripture.

Today, the first spiritual urban legend that I want to tackle is that all roads lead to heaven. It is a claim that is made often today. James Emery White wrote in a book that one of the most pervasive, fundamental convictions of contemporary American society is that all roads lead to God. He says that to say one way is right and all the other ways are wrong is narrow-minded, bigoted, and prejudicial. What is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me is true for me.

He goes on to say that today searching for God is like climbing a mountain. Since everybody knows there is not just one way to climb a literal mountain—mountains are too big for that—each person can just choose from a number of paths. All the ideas about God contained in the various religions of the world are just different ways up the mountain. In fact, the different religions have different names for God, but the names refer all to the same God.

That is what is said today. It sounds so tolerant, humble, kind, accepting, empathetic, and loving to say that nobody really has a corner on the truth. As we have become more sophisticated and we have learned more and understand our world more, we feel that we just can't say with certainty that there is only one way. We are just doing the best we can. We are all just trying to climb the mountain to get to God.

People think it is great that you chose your way and I have chosen mine. I am not going to judge you, you don't judge me, and we will all be good together. We will just coexist. Maybe somebody should make a bumper sticker about that.

If it were true that all roads lead to heaven, it wouldn't really matter what road you are on. You wouldn't have to worry about it. The claim today is that no person, no religion, no group, and no book has a handle on the truth. The idea is that all world religions are basically the same and all religious leaders are of one mind, so ultimately all spiritual pursuits lead to the same place.

If that were the case, then really you don't need to look for spiritual truth. You just need to choose your spiritual preference. It gets sticky if you are one who says there is only one way. I think there is a right and true way in our culture today. There are some folks that if you get into a conversation and you deviate from this culturally accepted approach to religion, it is going to escalate.

I can run through in my mind a list of friends that if I start this conversation, they get very angry very quickly, all in the name of love and tolerance, of course. If that is where you find yourself, do we need to take the approach of the great theologian of yesteryear, Sammy Kershaw, who said let's talk about anything in this world except politics, religion, and her? Some of you may need to Google that to find out who Sammy Kershaw is.

An estimated 75% of the world population is not Christian. Can they really all be wrong? It is said today that Christ can be the only way to God for you, but people ask how you can be so intolerant to say that that is the only way for everybody. Even in the church, while you may say we believe in Jesus and that is why we are here, this also comes into play when thinking about the people who have never heard.

There is a part of us that wants to say that they should get a pass because they never heard. How do you know what is right? How do you know what is true? Does it matter what you believe? Is the choice of your religion just personal preference? People say that as a parent, you should just let your kids explore it and figure out their own way.

All that sounds good if you say it fast. But how does it stand when you actually compare it with what scripture says? Unapologetically as a church, we stand upon the truth of God's word. Like I said a minute ago, I don't always like what it tells me about myself. You are not going to like it either.

We believe that we come under the word of God. For these next few weeks, beginning with today, we are going to compare all these little sayings that are floating out in our world with the words of scripture. All roads lead to heaven, it is said. But how does that compare with scripture? I am going to be in several different passages of scripture this morning. I encourage you to write those down and check them out later.

The first passage is John 14:6. Jesus was responding and he said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me." That is an exclusive claim of Jesus saying this is the only way. Throughout the pages of this book, God's word reveals a message that is consistent. Jesus said he is the only way to God, the only way to the Father, and there is no other way for people to know God except through him.

When somebody makes a claim that Jesus is the only way to God in today's world, that is where the tension mounts. That is where the problem starts. If you are in here today and you say you are following Jesus Christ, you and I have a more significant problem if that is where we find ourselves. From a biblical worldview, this is clearly what God's word says: Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father.

We have a problem to solve because everyone can't be right. Recently, I read a book called *I'm Glad You Asked* by Ken Boa and Larry Moody. It is a great resource. Some of what I want to talk with you about today has been shaped by what they have said. Essentially, when it comes to this question of whether all roads lead to heaven, there are three options for us to wrestle with regarding what the Bible actually teaches.

Option one is that you can deny that Christianity claims to be exclusive. You can say you are going to deny that Christianity really claims to be the only way. Here is how it is said today: Christianity is just one part of a grand mosaic that links God and man, and any claims to exclusivity within Christianity are misguided.

If you understand the Christian faith to be exclusive, people today would say you are misguided. They would say you have misunderstood what Jesus actually said. They would say Jesus was all about love, and so you should be too. It is a very common approach today. It sounds so kind, loving, and tolerant to say that Christianity is this broad and accepting religion that would eliminate no one who truly seeks God. Only extremists would say otherwise.

Some people see the journey as different caravans seeking the same destination from different directions. They say God is the hub of a wheel, and the spokes of the wheel represent the major world religions. Regardless of which way you choose, you can get to God however you go.

It may sound appealing. It is the mantra of the day. It is what you are being told. It is maybe what people in your family believe. But the problem with that approach is that it is not based upon the claims of Jesus and his disciples. Jesus and his disciples clearly said that he is the only way to God. It is not a universal system where when you get up to the pearly gates, St. Peter says you are all good. That is not what the scriptures teach. There is a requirement of belief in Jesus Christ to find God.

In John chapter 3, verse 16, it says, "For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. People say Jesus doesn't judge, but look at the next verse. It says there is no judgment against anyone who believes in him, but anyone who does not believe in Jesus has already been judged.

Jesus, in saying he is the way to the Father, says he came to solve a problem: that you and I were judged already just by being born. We were separated from God and we were born in judgment. Jesus came to reverse that. He said anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God's one and only Son.

The judgment is based on this fact: God's light, Jesus, came into the world, but people love the darkness more than the light because their actions were evil. What Jesus is saying is that if you refuse to believe in Jesus Christ—not a figment of our imagination, not a cultural tradition, but Jesus Christ—then you have already been judged.

That applies to all of us, whether you have heard the gospel or not. That is one of the ways this slips into even the body of Christ as we think those poor people on the other side of the world who have never heard are surely doing what they believe is best, so they are going to be okay.

Jesus says he is the only way. God says the only way is through belief in Jesus Christ. It is for everybody. God sent Jesus to this earth to save people from the judgment that was already assigned to us. In this way, Christ is unique among the founders of world religions. Some of the founders of world religions promoted their teachings as the way to God, but only Christ promoted himself as the way to God.

He could say this because he is the only one who was equal in every way to God in a way that no other human in history could claim. He was able to reconcile God and man because of a sinless life, like no other person or system could. That is why Jesus said later on in John chapter 8, verse 24, "Unless you believe that I am who I claim to be, you will die in your sins." That judgment is going to continue.

Today, some people will say that really couldn't have meant what the apostles said that it meant. They think his message is just a softer thing. But not only did the disciples clearly understand exactly what Jesus was saying, his opponents also understood exactly what Jesus was saying.

The Jews accused him of blasphemy. They understood what he was saying; they just chose to reject it. Jesus' words and his works cannot be redefined today because in his day, both his friends and his enemies recognized exactly what he was claiming: to be God and to be the sole means of access to God. We cannot redefine the terms to fit our day.

Ken Boa said all religions and non-religious systems acknowledge that there is a difference between our ideal behavior and our actual behavior. The Bible calls that gap sin. All religious systems offer a plan to close that gap. But Jesus taught that our sin separated us from a holy God. There is no amount of good that we can do that will undo this situation. The only way for man to bridge the gap between himself and God was through his acceptance of Christ's payment for his sin.

If it were the case that all roads lead to heaven, would it not have been the most supreme blunder and the tragic waste of a life for Jesus to die if it didn't really matter? Paul knew we were going to ask that question. In Galatians chapter 2, verse 21, he says, "I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die."

To say that Christianity does not claim to be exclusive is a faulty way to approach faith. For us to say that Christianity did not claim to be exclusive is to skip some very core and clear parts of what God has revealed in this book. It contradicts actually what is in the Bible. It is a very weak position and a weak choice to take.

Christianity, the Christian faith, by very definition is narrow because in it God has revealed how we find faith, how we know him, and how we end up in heaven. The key issue is not whether Christianity is narrow. It is in here and it is clear. The choice that you and I have to make is to decide if Christianity is right.

Which leads us to option two. Option two is that you can acknowledge Christianity's claims to exclusivity, but you can believe that it is wrong to hold such a position. The assumption is that we have no right to declare the sincere beliefs of others as wrong. People ask, "Who are you to say that you have a monopoly on God?"

It sounds so good and peace-loving. But the different religions of the world actually have very different views and understandings of some key realities. They have different understandings of who God is, man's destiny when life is over, and how you reach that destiny. What you may not realize is all the major religions of the world claim that they alone are right.

Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Even though it is portrayed today that Christianity is the only one that is saying it is exclusive, in their documents, each of these major religions would say that they are exclusively right and others are not. People often say all religions are just different paths up the same mountain, but if you look at a quick survey of the five major world religions, I would submit to you that they are not even on the same mountain.

That way of thinking is built on a couple of false assumptions. The first assumption is that if something is exclusive or narrow, then it has to be wrong. In our tolerant society, exclusiveness makes something suspect. The second assumption is that if somebody sincerely believes something, it has to be right.

Those two faulty assumptions often undergird the way that we approach religion. As long as you sincerely believe what you believe, that is really what counts. As a result, no religious group thinks they are better than another. Only fanatics and extremists do that. If you believe that, it is something we have to talk about. The reality is that truth is always intolerant of error.

For example, this past week our family was traveling and we needed to get gas. I pulled over into a major chain gas station. I was looking at the pumps and I noticed a little bitty sticker at the top of each pump. That little sticker said that there is a higher ethanol content than normal in all of their gas.

If you get too high of a content of ethanol in your gas, it can mess up your car pretty significantly. If you were to do that and your car does not take that grade of gas, you are going to find out really quickly that truth is very intolerant of error. It is going to be an expensive trip to the mechanic. If you drive a diesel truck and you put gasoline in there, it is not going to work for you. Truth is always intolerant of error.

Faith is not exempt from this. The law of non-contradiction says that if there are two statements about one particular issue and they contradict each other, then only one of them can be true, or both of them are false. They can't be true in the same sense and at the same time together. Since each major religion makes exclusive claims, I believe this law applies when it comes to religion. Either one of them is right and the rest are not, or all of them are wrong. They cannot all be right.

Let's don't parrot the nonsense that someone's sincerity defines truth. You and I can be sincerely wrong. It is simply not possible that what Jesus said is true and that what other religions say is true too. Jesus isn't just one option among many. Jesus offers a cure. That is what is different about the Christian faith over any other religion.

Christianity is narrow in the *how*, but it is not narrow in the *who*. Many other world religions are narrow in the *who*. Hindus are often trapped in their caste. Jews are bound by their bloodline. In many religions, the only path for a woman is to be married to a practicing man.

The Apostle Paul knew this was going to be something that was going to come up. In Galatians chapter 3, verse 28, he says, "There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you all are one in Christ Jesus." At the foot of the cross, the ground is level. It is not narrow in *who*; it is just narrow in *how*.

Truth is intolerant of error. After all, you want a narrow-minded pilot when you fly on an airplane. You want him to be intolerant of error. You want him to land on the runway, not in a field. You want him to put the landing gear down correctly. Truth is always intolerant of error, and the same is true with faith.

Option number three is that Christianity is exclusive and is right. You can deny that the Christian faith is exclusive, but that doesn't hold up to what scripture actually says. Or you can reject what scripture says and believe that it is wrong. But the real issue is that you and I need to figure out if we really believe the Christian faith is true.

If Christ is not who he claimed to be, then we have some really difficult realities to face. We don't have all of the other options of religions in this world when Jesus Christ claimed to be the only way. If he is not who he claimed to be, then we have some very difficult things to face. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 17, it says, "And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins."

C.S. Lewis said it leaves us with three options with Jesus: either Jesus was a liar, he was a lunatic, or he is Lord. If Christ is not the only way to God, then he has to be either a liar or a lunatic because he said he was. He cannot simply be a good man or a great teacher. To do that, you have to ignore what he says about himself and what his disciples say about him.

It is hard to substantiate that he is a liar. He spoke of truth constantly and his life was consistent. A lunatic demonstrates incredible inconsistency and imbalance, and you don't find that in his life. So if he is not a liar and he is not a lunatic, then he is who he says he is. He is Lord.

At the end of the day, Jesus claimed that he alone was the only way to God. So for you today, you have to decide whether you believe this is true or false. But please don't buy into the spiritual urban legend that the faith is just a cafeteria plan and you can take a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It is just simply not true.

Christianity is narrow and right because it is true. Without Christ, there is no solution to the problem of our sin and our separation from God. In Acts chapter 4, verse 12, it says, "There is salvation in no one else. God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved."

1 John 5:11 and 12 says, "And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God's Son does not have life." 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 5 says, "For there is one God and one mediator who stands between us and God, the man Christ Jesus."

It is not enlightened, tolerant, or loving to say that there are many paths to God. It is just simply not true. James Emery White said when he was a freshman in high school, he tried out for the varsity basketball team. He was so excited. He is waiting on the sidelines and then it is his turn.

He says he runs in there, jumps up, and makes an athletic play. He goes all the way the length of the court and lays the ball in. Right as he did that, the coach blows a whistle. He is thinking the coach is going to tell everybody that this is how you do it. He thought Nike was going to be waiting on him with a shoe deal.

The coach pulled him over to the bench and said, "Son, that was impressive. You demonstrated your athletic ability. That was great anticipation. You went all the way through. But there is one problem. You scored on the wrong goal."

I want you to hear my heart. You can do all the other stuff right, but if you score in the wrong goal... I don't get to determine it, you don't get to determine it. God has revealed how you end up in heaven and how you become a part of God's kingdom. One way. In the most loving act and declaration that's ever been made, God invites you to experience this love and his power today. One way. Romans 10:9 says, "If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

All roads do not lead to heaven. There is one way and the way is narrow, and his name is Jesus. You can call upon him. For whosoever believes, he gives the right to become children of God. That is his offer to you today. Let's pray together.