Study the Word

Announcer: Some think the entrance requirements set forth by God to enter heaven are far too easy and simple. Consider this from Pastor Tom Keller.

Pastor Thom Keller: They are fighting against grace, which they do not even know about yet, on principle. The principle being, “I just pray this little prayer, and everything’s fine.” You do not know what I have done, Tom. All the stuff I have done. And all I have to do is say this simple little prayer. I heard Billy Graham say it on the radio, and suddenly everything’s fine. God loves me, and everything’s just fine between us. One little prayer.

And I say to them, I say, “Isn’t it interesting, I find it interesting that God is criticized for making it so easy.” Isn’t it interesting he is criticized for making it easy? Think how he would be criticized if you made it difficult. What if he said you had to stroke a check for $100,000 to get into heaven? Think how that would play in the newspapers.

Announcer: Glad to have you on board as we present Study the Word with Pastor Thom Keller. Today, we continue our discipleship class. If someone were to ask you what it takes to become a Christian, would you know what to say? What if they had some questions or objections? Would you know how to answer them? Many of us could use some help in that arena. And today’s Study the Word will prove to be beneficial. Here’s Pastor Thom Keller.

Pastor Thom Keller: After you read the gospels, does he look like he was a liar? After you read the gospels, does it appear to be that he was crazy? Because if that is not who you find in the gospels, you have got only one option left.

C.S. Lewis said it so beautifully. He said, “I am paraphrasing. You know, let us give up on the nonsense that he was just a great prophet.” He said, he said, Jesus did not leave that option open to us. He did not intend to. It is not an option. He was just a great prophet.

The other thing is that there were, and really listen closely to this one, because this is important. There were 11 apostles that died for their faith, rather than recant, rather than turn away. They were killed for their faith. I have a book that describes how all of them were killed. James was sawn in two with a wooden saw. Peter was crucified upside down. Horrible deaths.

Now here is the point, and this is really important. A second generation, a third generation, a fourth generation person who drank the lemonade, who bought, who was told by someone that this is true, but it was not true, but believed it was true, they might die for that because they really believe it to be true. Does that make sense?

Someone told them, they never saw it, but someone told them, and so they believe it on the convincing argument of the one that told them. That would be second generation or beyond. These were first generation. All of them, they knew Jesus firsthand. If Jesus did not do the miracles, they would have known it. If Jesus was not who he said he was, they would have known it.

So just think about it. 11 of the 12, they go to burn him at the stake, and they say, “Ah, you want to take that back? You want to take that back? Well, okay, all right.” Listen, “Yeah, he really did not raise anybody from the dead. It was a great lie. We got a lot of popularity. We thought we would be important and famous someday, and that kind of happened, but I am not going to die for this. Game is over.” You know, 11 of the 12.

And John, they tried to poison John with poison. That is why his symbol is a chalice. They tried to burn him in oil to death, and that did not kill him, and he ended up dying a natural death. But he sure paid a price. So again, would someone die for a lie?

Now that is a great question. The question was, is belief in Jesus rational or irrational? Belief, I would take that in two parts. First, do I believe there was a Jesus? Because I have had people say, “I do not believe there was a Jesus.” There are extrabiblical accounts. There are accounts in literature. There is, there was a play that was written after the time of Christ by a by a non-Christian Roman. And he mocks this Jesus that died in the play. There are a lot of extrabiblical accounts of Jesus. The even the Talmud speaks of Jesus. Josephus, the trusted Jewish historian speaks about Jesus.

So was there a historical Jesus? That is a rational question, and that can be answered rationally. Now, is it rational for me to put my trust in Jesus? I would go back to the same argument that he claimed to be God, and is the Bible true? If he was God and the Bible is true, then it is it is more than rational. It is, in fact, it would be irrational not to.

And then, what makes you think you are right and every other religion is wrong? Some of you have heard this before. Some of you probably have not. What makes you say you are right and everyone else is wrong? So you say Christianity is right, and you are so sure. Well, the Muslims, they follow the Quran. They are so sure. You have people that believe in reincarnation. They are so sure. What makes you right and them wrong?

I mean, really, I mean, or or someone says, “This is my reality. You know, my reality is reincarnation. That is what I choose to believe. That is what I choose to believe.” So, I say, “You know, a lot of people think, they picture religion being like a wagon wheel.” And you have the center hub, and then you have all the spokes coming out from the center hub. And in that analogy, the center hub is God, and all the spokes coming out are, they would say, valid expressions emanating from one God.

So God is here. Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Shintoism, Daoism. Yeah, it is all those spokes, and they would say, “Those are all valid expressions emanating from the same God.” And most people they will be with you to this point. They will say, “Yeah, that is right. That is what I believe.” And then I will say, “Well, let us let us analyze that a bit. If we can agree on just two things, that God cannot lie, and he cannot contradict himself.” It is kind of the same thing.

If we can agree on that, and most people will say, “Well, yeah, I believe God cannot lie. It is outside of his nature, his character to lie. And so he cannot contradict himself.” So then I say, “Well, here is the problem. This spoke says this is how you get to heaven.” So, and they say they got their message from God. So, this group of people, God says to this group of people, “Hey, listen, you Buddhists, when you die, you come back as a butterfly. This is the truth. You can count on it. Now you come, you live a good life, work off your bad karma, and you come out as a higher form, and someday you could get to Nirvana. That is the truth.”

And then he turns to the Muslims, and he says, “You know what I just told the Hindus? I lied to them. Here is the truth.” Because he cannot contradict. He cannot contradict himself. So, “This is the truth. This is how you, these are the 99 attributes of God.” And you know, you pay alms and you, I do not know much about what you have to do in Islam to get to heaven. And then he turns to the Christians, and says, “Now you know what I just told the Hindus and the Muslims? That was a lie. This is how you get to heaven, only through Jesus Christ, only through my son.”

So I say to the extent that there are contradictions in those different spokes, they cannot all be coming from one God. It is not possible. So, then I say, only one, and I say, mathematically, logically, this is absolute. All of those spokes are wrong or one is right, but two or more cannot be to the extent there are contradictions in them. Not possible.

And I say, “Now, you can choose to frolic through life, choosing, refusing to acknowledge that, because you are more comfortable with the spoke thing.” But if you are going to be honest, if you are going to really be honest with facts, you cannot get there. And then they always say this to me. They say, “Oh, well, you are saying Christianity is right then, huh? So you are the spoke that is right.” And I say, “No, logic does not take it that far.”

All I am saying is, your analogy does not work. So could Christianity be true? Yeah. Could Islam be true? Yeah. One of those could be. Maybe none of them are. Maybe none are. But let us get off this fact that they all are, because they cannot be, not if they have contradictions within themselves. And people, I am telling you, of all these things, people do not like that at all because it is hard logic. You cannot argue it. You can walk away from it, but you cannot argue it.

And then people will say, “This is an inherent.” I do not think, “Yeah, it is. Okay, good.” Satan's best strategy. So, just think about this. I hate to even put this in your head, but imagine, God forgive me for saying this, imagine you are Satan for a minute, okay? Just imagine you are Satan. And you have got to come up against, you have to come up with a strategy against God's plan of salvation, which is what? Jesus loves you. He died for you. He did all the work. He paid the price, so you could live forever. You do not have to buy it. You do not have to pay for it. You do not have to do works for it. You just have to accept it.

And by doing that, you get eternal life, and you avoid hell. Now you are Satan, and you have to work against that. That is a tough. You know, if it was money, “Where are you going to come up with a million dollars to buy your way in, huh? You do not have a million dollars. You are going to hell.” You know, you have to be, you have to be smart to get to heaven. “You are stupid. You were born stupid. You are never going to get there.” You know, he had all those tools available. What has he got? I mean, grace. How do you work against grace?

He creates false religion. The Bible says, Solomon said, “Eternity is written in the hearts of men.” There is something inside of men that believes that there there may be something after this life. Dogs do not think that. I do not think they do. Cats do not think that. I do not think they do. But humans do, right? What what is there after this life? And so, he comes up with the counterfeit.

So I use the example, and some of you, I told this a long time ago, to make the point. I say, “Let us say that behind those doors, I tell you each one of you individually, I tell you behind those doors there is a treasure chest. And in that treasure chest is a million dollars. And I am going to, I have a stopwatch here, because you all know I do.” I have a belt here, and I am going to put it to one minute, and I am going to say, “On your mark, get set, go, you go through those two doors, behind the two doors there is a treasure chest. Inside the room, there is a a nutcracker. You know the nutcracker, the nutcracker toys? There is a nutcracker, you open the mouth of the nutcracker, inside the mouth of the nutcracker there is a key. You open the nutcracker's mouth, you take the key, you open the treasure chest, and the money is yours. You have one minute to do it.”

And you say, as I would, skeptical as we are, “There is a catch.” And I say, “No, there is really no catch. It the key does not fit.” The key fits. “It is not a million real dollars.” It is a million real dollars. “The chest is five miles away.” And I have a I have a minute to get to it. “No, the chest is actually right inside the door. It is black and I cannot I will stumble my way.” “No, no, no, it is it is there is no catch. It is just what I said.” “What do I have to pay?” “You do not have to pay anything, just take me on it. One minute, you have one minute. You want to try it?” “Yeah, go on.”

So I start the watch. I say, “On your mark, get set, go.” You walk in, and there are 20,000 toy soldiers. One minute. You will be knocking a lot of toy soldiers over. Because the strategy is the decoy. All the false. And get people caught up in all the false religions. So the best strategy Satan has, since we already have a desire to want to believe in something beyond ourselves, that is instinctive within us, is to create a false. A false religion, something that gets us there. And and what is the best false religion? A religion of works, because we love works. That is why Catholicism is so popular, because you do Hail Marys, because you do penance, because you do works, and then everything is honky-dory.

And then, but that sounds too easy. You know, it just sounds too easy. And I and I say to people, I do, I say this when I do funerals, you know, when people say, “Oh, I just pray this simple little prayer, and everything is okay.” Really? Because they are they are they are they are fighting against grace, which they do not even know about yet, on principle. The principle being, “I just pray this little prayer, and everything is fine.” You do not know what I have done, Tom. All the stuff I have done, and all I have to do is say this simple little prayer. I heard Billy Graham say it on the radio, and suddenly everything is fine. God loves me, and everything is just fine between us. One little prayer.

And I say to them, I say, “It is it is I find it interesting that God is criticized for making it so easy.” Isn’t it interesting he is criticized for making it easy? Think how he would be criticized if you made it difficult. What if he said you had to stroke a check for $100,000 to get into heaven? Think how that would play in the newspapers. Only the rich can buy their way in.

Think think if there was a church in America that said, “We guarantee you a place in heaven if you write a check for $100,000.” Think how that would play. That would be that is horrible, right? Or or or what if only strong people could force their way into heaven? What about all the people God made that are not strong physically and can't? Or what if it was took great intellect to figure it out? What about people that God created without great intellect, that would never figure it out? Think how he would be criticized for that. But instead, he is criticized for making it easy. So easy, so easy that even just a child with a childlike faith can find their way into heaven, right?

I am going to tell you a little story. When I first, when we first started this church, in the first five years, I got a phone call from a woman who lived in Plaza Apartments. She was almost completely blind. She was probably 80 years old at that point, and she had a 50-year-old special needs daughter living with her that could not speak and could not feed herself and was at that level, okay? You with me? That is where she was mentally. This woman called me and said, “I heard you on the radio.” She said, “Would you mind stopping out at my house? I have a question to ask you.”

She told me she was blind, could not come to the church. So I went to visit her. When I get there, I see her daughter, and she is you know, not able to communicate. And she said, “I have not been in church.” I am going to make this up because I do not remember the details. It will make the point. She said, “I have not been in church for 10 years, 20 years,” whatever it was. It was a long time. She said, “The reason is, I went to this church.” She probably named it. And she said, “After I had been there a while, some women from the church came to visit me, and they looked at my daughter, and they said, ‘Your daughter is going to go to hell.’” And they she said, “Well, why?” She said, “Because your daughter is not able to pray a prayer to receive Christ. And without that, she is going to go to hell.” She said, “Is that true?”

I said, “That is a lie. That is a lie.” God does not hold your daughter accountable to understand something that he knows she cannot understand. His grace applies to her. No, that is not the truth. You know, my point is, think if God made people that because they were not smart enough to figure it out, they would be destined to hell. You know what I mean? It is horrible. It is horrible.

And you know, I tell people this too. If you ever get sideways on your own salvation, and you start thinking, “You know, I am not really sure I understand this all that well, all that he did. I am not really sure that I have I have prayed it right when I prayed it.” Or you get sideways on those issues. All I want you to do is think about this. A five-year-old little boy, little girl can pray to receive Jesus with a five-year-old understanding and get to heaven. Is that true? So why do you need some greater understanding at 20 than a five-year-old has? You do not. You just believe, right?

When I just taught in John where Jesus said, “Just believe.” He said, “Just believe.” After, as I was preparing that message, I thought, no, it is not true, after I delivered that message, I thought, “You know what? There are some people that are going to criticize me, because I should say, yes, just believe, but once you believe, you need to do good works. It is proof that you are saved. Someone that is saved wants to do good works.” I I thought, “You know, someone is going to criticize me for that.” And then I thought, isn't it interesting that Jesus did not add that after he said it? You know what I mean? He just left it wide open. No qualifier, no.

Now, should, of course, of course, of course, of course. But I think Jesus did not even want people getting all mixed up with works after he says, “Believe.” Does that make sense? Yeah, it is pretty pretty simple. So my line says, “Would God create a way to heaven through works, and then create individuals without the ability to achieve eternal life?”

And there is one that is not in here, and I think this is this is really helpful too. If somebody says, “I believe I believe that Jesus is a way to God. I believe that Jesus did it.” And you will get some people that are in this category. “I believe that Jesus is a way to God. I believe you can get to heaven through Jesus. But I also believe there are other ways to get to heaven, not just through Jesus.” This would be my argument. And boy, this is a strong one.

If that is true, if you can come through Jesus, but you can also get there through Islam, you can also get there through the Vedas, you can also get there through other religions, then why in the world would God let his son die on the cross when all he would have to say is, “Go one of those other ways”? This is a bridge to heaven. I do not want to have to pay with the blood of my son, because there are four other bridges you can take. How? The evidence that it is the only way? Listen, if you had a child, would you let your child die?

You know, the story is told, I am not sure this is a true story. The story is told of a man that was a switcher. This is back before they had mechanical switches for for train tracks. And he had a little house out there. During his work hours, he was to be in this house. And he was there was a big switch, a big lever, and he would get on the top of that thing with leverage, and yank it, and it would switch the tracks from one to the other. And he had a schedule, and at a certain time of the day he would have to switch that track. Well, the one day he had his little boy with him, and was playing with his son out there near the track, and time got away from him. And he heard the train coming, and he realized that he was behind his schedule. And he ran back to the switch.