WHAT THE CROSS MEANS TO ALL OTHER RELIGIONS: DOMINATION ---

John 14:6 - Acts 4:12

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me….Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

Positive, persuasive, public conversation about Jesus Christ is more than many Americans can tolerate in our day of “enlightenment.” If you haven’t noticed, even with all our “enlightenment” there is a growing intolerance toward historic Christianity. Practicing Christians are being painted by the liberal media as narrow-minded religious bigots who represent as serious a threat to society as Muslim terrorist-bombers.

January 3, 2010, Brit Hume, during the “Fox News Sunday,” set off a fire-storm with his honest remarks after professional golfer Tiger Wood’s sinfulness surfaced. Hume stated that Wood should turn to the Christian faith.

“The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger is, "Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’ "

Hume went on to say, “Christianity is uniquely and especially about redemption and forgiveness. That is what the cornerstone of what the faith is about. Now other faiths aren’t hostile to the idea, but think of what the message of Christ and Christianity is. It is that the God of the universe sent His only begotten Son, who died a hideous death on the cross, to atone for all of our sins. And we are thereby offered through that act a new covenant in which we are offered forgiveness and redemption on a continuing basis in return for our faith in God and our continuing efforts to live the Christian life. That is a unique doctrine.”

As you can imagine, as Hume said, “All hell broke loose.”

Think about it. “If it was necessary for Jesus Christ, God’s Son, to die on the cross to provide the only way people can come to God, then….” Are you ready? “….all other religions are wrong….dead wrong….eternally wrong.” That is the historical tenet of Christianity and has been for two thousand years.

The immediate reaction is to label all Christians who believe and make that their open confession as arrogant, narrow-minded, uneducated, bigoted, intolerant (and those are the nicer, cleaned-up ones).

If you are able to follow logic it is really pretty simple. Two people who hold different and contradictory positions cannot both be right. They can both be wrong, but they cannot both be right. Are we to believe that all religious beliefs are wrong and that no road leads to God? That is the claim of atheism.

Those who claim that other paths to God are valid, at the same time exclude Christians who think Jesus is the only way. But if all these paths are valid, why isn’t biblical Christianity? And if biblical Christianity is valid, then these other paths are not. Also, the definitions of “God” in these religions are mutually exclusive.

Pluralists simply don’t understand the logical law of non-contradiction: You can’t have a personal God, which Christianity teaches, and an impersonal God, which Islam teaches, and it be the same. Or you can’t have someone saved by faith in Christ alone, which Christianity teaches, and others by good deeds, which most every other religion teaches, and not see the difference. Christianity and Islam teach people die once and face judgment. But Hinduism teaches people are reincarnated. Christianity teaches Jesus diesd on a cross, yet Islam teacher Jesus was crucified, but did not die.

Consider some of the numbers. According to the www.religionfacts.com, of the nearly 6 billion people on our planet, there are more than 1.5 billion Muslims, more than 900 million Hindus, more than 360 million Buddhists, and more than 394 million followers of Chinese folk religion. Only about 25 percent of the world’s population would even claim to be Christian, with the number of true followers of Christ being much less. Add to that number 14 million Jews and you have what we will consider the major religions of the world.

Islam declares Isa’ (Jesus’ true name) was one of the six major prophets, but contrary to Christian teaching that He died on a cross, and Jews claiming they killed him, in reality he was not killed or crucified, and those who said he was crucified lied (An-Nisa’ 4:157). ‘Isa did not die, but ascended to Allah.(An-Nisa’ 4:158). On the day of Resurrection ‘Isa himself will be a witness against Jews and Christians for believing in his death (An-Nisa’ 4:159). It cannot be lost in at day when the obvious is ignored, that the tactic of Islam is “conversion by conquest and violence” whose goal is world domination. Muslin theologians do not agree how another took the place of Christ. Many stories have arisen about it. One is that when the Jews determined to kill Christ, God took Him to heaven. Because leaders feared an uprising of the people, they killed a man by crucifixion and sought to deceive the people by saying he was Christ. One other explanation is that God cast Christ’s likeness onto another man (named Judas) who died instead of Him,” Dr. Anis A Shorrosh, Islam Revealed, p. 109.

The god of Islam is not the God of the Christian faith. “In the Christian faith, the God that is worship is the Almighty God, who has revealed himself in human form in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. The god of Islam is not a father and does not have a son, and to a Muslin, that very thought is blasphemous,” Franklin Graham, The Name, p. 72. As someone well observed, “The god of Islam requires you to give your son to die for him. The God of the Bible gave His Son to die for you.”

Hinduism worship and serve over thee hundred million gods—you read it right—three hundred million! Its basic teaching is that people must reap in one’s current life what they have done in previous lifetimes. In Hinduism a guru is a teacher. The Hindu scriptures cannot be understood by reading; they must be learned from a guru. These holy men are worshiped even after their deaths as supposed incarnations of the gods. Orthodox Hinduism insists that suffering people be left to suffer, because it is their destiny, as determined by karma .

Hindus’ most famous follower was Mahatma Gandhi. Ghandi admired Jesus and often quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. He had contact with many godly Christians, including missionary E. Stanley Jones. But when presented by the gospel Ghandi would not believe. “It was more than I could believe that Jesus was the only incarnate Son of God and that only he who believe in him would have everlasting life,” Gandhi, The Message of Jesus Christ, Bombay, 1940. And Ghandi concluded, “I could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice, and a divine teacher, but not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on the cross was a great example to the world, but that there is anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it, my heart could not accept,” An Autobiography, 1966, p. 113.

Buddha’s “Eightfold Path” to enlightenment demands selfless devotion, then through a series of unnumbered reincarnations, you reach enlightenment. The Eightfold Path is both a system of religious education and the moral precepts of Buddhism . It includes (1) right knowledge ('Four Noble Truths'), (2) right intentions, (3) right speech, (4) right conduct (no killing, drinking, stealing, lying, or adultery), (5) right occupation (which causes no suffering), (6) right effort, (7) right mindfulness (denial of the finite self), and (8) right meditation ( Raja Yoga ). Yet, at the end of his life, Buddha was said to still be looking for the truth.

Judaism believe that Jesus was a hero Jew who was born in Bethlehem, raised in Galilee, and killed in Jerusalem. Like other Jews in his day, Jesus spoke and wrote the Aramaic language. His own Aramaic name was Yeshua. According to the Talmud, Yeshua was the son of a Jewish woman named Miriam who was betrothed to a carpenter. "Betrothed" means she was legally married to him, but she was not yet living with him or having sexual relations with him. The story says that Miriam was either raped by or voluntarily slept with Pandeira, a Greek or Roman soldier. Miriam than gave birth to Yeshua, who was considered a "mamzer" (bastard), a product of an adulterous relationship. The Talmud describes Yeshua as a heretic who dabbled in sorcery and lead the people astray. Later, the Sanhedrin ordered Yeshua stoned to death and his dead body was hung from a tree until nightfall after his death, in accordance with the ancient Jewish punishment for heretics. The hardest things for Jewish people to accept is that their Messiah was not a political Savior, one whose mission was to liberate them from their oppressors. The number one need for Jews, as well as all other people, is for a spiritual Savior, one who rescues from sin — its penalty and power.

Jesus Himself said there are “many” in the broad way that leads to destruction, Matthew 7:13. And, that even “many” of His professed followers will be found out to be actually lost, Matthew 7:21.

How could so many be so wrong?

Psalm 106:36-39 says, “And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions.”

“Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions, v. 39. Religion is not from God. Religion is man’s idea. False religions are the result of human depravity. Religions have resulted because men rejected the knowledge of the true and living God, Romans 1:22-23. World religions are, in fact, organized, collective rebellion against the true God on one hand, and the flawed attempts of man to reach God through human effort, on the other hand.

False religions are, also, the result of satanic deception. “And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils,” vs. 36-37. The New Testament verifies this when Paul declares that those who followed false teaching were in reality following the “doctrines of demons,” 1 Timothy 4:1. “Satan is a liar and the father of it,” John 8:44. Satan’s sinister plan has been from the beginning to draw people away from the One in whom is salvation. Listen to 1 Corinthians 10:20-21. “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Y e cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lard’s table, and the table of devils.” Satan offers a smorgasbord of religious options, all in opposition to the gospel of Christ.

False religions are the result of self-imposed dumbness (ignorance). Romans 1:20-22 says, “For the invisible things of Him from the creations of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” There you have it. Religions were the result of men not honoring the true God. It is not so much men not have the right information about God as it is men rejecting or nor responding to what information they have been given...in creation, in their own conscience, in Christ Himself. Dr. Charles Ryrie says, “While such knowledge (creation) is not enough to save a person, it is enough, if rejected, to condemn a person.”

David Barrett, the editor of the World Christian Encyclopedia stated there are 9,900 distinct and separate religions in the world, and the number increases every year! While there seems to be an endless number of religions in the world there are actually only two. And the contrasts and conflicts between these two are dramatic and irreconcilable.

Dr. Curtis Hutson, former Sword of the Lord publication editor, worked at a Post Office before becoming a pastor. At the Post Office a lady once said to him, “Preacher, the way I see this business: we are all at the Post Office this morning. You came up Covington highway and you are here. So-and so came through Panthersville, and he is here. I came through East Lake Park and I am here.” She went on to describe how a number of people had all arrived at the Post Office, none having come the same way. When she finished, she said, “Now that is the way it is about heaven. We are all working for the same thing, and as long as we are sincere we will all go to Heaven when we die.” Then she asked Curtis Huston, “What do you think about that?” Brother Hutson said, “There is only one thing wrong with it: when we die, we are not going to the Post Office!”

“A Thousand Ways” or “One Way”

If you look into all the major religions, together they will offer thousands of ways to possibly prepare for eternity, whatever it is to them. Millions of Hindus bath in the river Ganges in northern India on the main day of the Ardh Kumbh mele, with sixty million people attending over the six weeks. Hindus believe that bathing will absolve their sins, ending the process of birth and death through reincarnation. But the Christian says there is just “one way.”

“D-o” or “D-o-n-e” All of the religions of the world list and insist that man “do” Regardless of their label, every other religion and ideology is spelled “d-o.” They pray, they go on pilgrimages, they give to the poor, they go through reincarnations, and on and on, they “do.” But Christianity is spelled “d-o-n-e.” The essence of the message of Christ is not what we do for God to gain His favor, but what God has already done for mankind in the person of Jesus Christ to atone for our sins on the cross.

“Works” or “Grace” “Cain and Abel disagreed on how to worship God. Abel brought the sacrifice from the firstlings of his flock; Cain was more creative, thinking he could come to God in whatever way he pleased. But God cared little about how much his offering cost him; he did not bring the correct offering, so he was rejected (Gen. 4:5). The New Testament speaks of those who ‘have gone the way of Cain,’ that is, those who think they can make themselves worthy to come to God,” Lutzer, Ten Lies About God, p. 28.

Pastor Erwin Lutzer says, “Before Ted Bundy, who killed twenty-three young women, was put to death for his crimes, the report was that he had accepted Christ as his Savior. If he did (who can know for sure?), he will be in heaven. If Bundy had brutally killed one of my daughters, I would want him to burn in hell. But God thinks differently than we do. He says I can even accept a Ted Bundy if he repents and takes advantage of the sacrifice of Christ. This is grace,” Ten Lies About God, pp. 19-20.

“Sincerity” or “Truth” Most people who talk to are betting their future on their supposed “sincerity,” believing if they are simply sincere that will be enough. If one sincerely pray, regularly or only occasionally, attempts to live a moral life, is generous to the poor and helpful to the homeless, will that insure that heaven will be our eternal home? But, it happens all the time—people can be sincerely wrong! The real test of one’s faith is not how it feels, but it is the truth; does it conform to stand the test of objectivity.

“Men’s Words” or “God’s Word—the Holy Bible” Religions have the works and words of men as their foundation. Christianity has as its foundation the words of God given and preserved for us in the Holy Bible.

Why is there a need to expose the truth about others religions in light of the cross. It is for these reasons.

First, all people are not worshipping the same God. There are not many roads to the true God.

Second, if you want to keep that analogy going, the only bridge on the only road to the only God is Jesus Christ, John 14:6.

Third, the cross of Jesus Christ can do for people what religion never can.

“Moses could mediate on the law; Mohammed could brandish a sword; Buddha could give personal counsel; Confucius could offer wise sayings,” said theologian R. C. Sproul, “but none of these men was qualified to offer an atonement for the sins of the world,” Reason to Believe: A Response to Common Objections to Christianity, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 1981, p. 44.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (December 11, 1918 – August 3, 2008) was a prisoner of the Soviet gulag. Required to work in the fields, his labor was backbreaking and he was slowly starving to death. One day he decided to give up and somehow kill himself. When he sat down waiting for a guard to come and bludgeon him to death, probably with his own shovel, something amazing happened.

As he sat awaiting his death, an old man with a wrinkled, expressionless face hunched over Solzhenitsyn and with a stick drew a cross.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the rough outline of the cross, he was immediately changed. The cross was the hope of all mankind and through its power anything was possible. He slowly got to his feet, picked up his shovel, and went back to work — not knowing that years later his writings on truth and freedom would cover the world. (Story from Chuck Colson’s A Dangerous Grace.