Do All Roads Lead to Heaven?

But Jesus Paid It All Video

It's only the sacrifice of Jesus which imparts eternal life. Our works alone fall far short of meeting the requirement of righteousness for entering into God's presence. Even other religions don't hold the key to God's kingdom. I'm not that perfect of a person and yet my works are as good or better than those of Mohammad. I've never committed all the murders that he did and at least I'm repentant for the lies, deceits and falsehoods that I've committed. Actually, old Mohammad comes across pretty bad in the works department. If he depends on his works to enter heaven, he's blown it; but if he depends on the blood of Christ, he stands a chance. The problem is his writings don't indicate that he was able to declare Jesus as Lord.

Is this a narrow-minded, intolerant view? Yes, I suppose it is. Is it bad to have this view? No, this is the only view a follower of Jesus can hold... we are given no other options. There are so many scriptures which point to the exclusivity of the gospel message it would be pointless to list all of them, but they are summed-up by this simple statement from Acts 4:12: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

God consistently revealed His goodness and righteousness through His patience, mercy and deeds. The picture of man stayed consistent throughout history, portraying man as rebellious and unlawful to God.

If we acknowledge the implications of God's Word, then we have to question or reject every other belief system there is. We are not left with the choice of accepting them on their own or unifying them with Christian doctrine. God's Word becomes the measuring stick by which other beliefs stand or fall. The life and person of Jesus sets another precedence by which other belief systems must be measured. There are numerous aspects of the Christ which make him vastly different from the rest of us and set him apart from all other religious leaders and/or founders. Only he had divine insight to fully have.... the ability to know people's thoughts and motives; his resurrection and death; his ascension to heaven and his fulfillment of a minion of prophecies... the list could go on and on!

(1) His predefined purpose... fulfilling prophecies

Of the many hundreds of accurate prophecies given by God, the central focus of the majority of them is the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is easily the most important figure in our world's history from a prophetic perspective. While on earth, Jesus knew when and where he was fulfilling prophecies regarding himself. His fulfillment of prophecy went far beyond any predictions in which his own efforts might have been able to successfully fulfill. There were literally dozens of prophetic fulfillment which were completely out of his capabilities to physically carry-out, such as: his birth, his death, his resurrection, the time, the place and the actions, deeds and attitudes of other people. The chances of Jesus, or any other person, to fulfill all the Messianic prophecies is entirely implausible... and yet he did just that! When Jesus states, "I am the truth and the life," he has God-ordained proof that he's telling the truth. The heavens, time and space accurately declare him truthful!

(2) His pure, sinless life

There are no recorded instances of Jesus ever committing any type of sin. This is even more remarkable when observing other religion's writings about their own founders, prophets teachers and holy men and their sins or misdeeds... which have unwittingly been reported by their adherents. Even though the followers of Jesus might stumble and fall into sin, our Lord never did! He is the only person who ever lived who was perfect, pure and sinless!

(3) His foreknowledge of events

All of us can make educated guesses at what will transpire in the future, but Jesus had true knowledge of future events. Many times he would tell various people what would happen with them personally... and it would always come to pass. Even with this insightful knowledge, they couldn't prevent it from happening. When Peter was told he would deny Jesus three times before the cock crows, it came to pass even though Peter didn't want it to. Jesus' knowledge of the future included more than individuals, he knew events on both a regional and global scale.

(watch for part two)


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