Deo Gloria
Sermon for September 22, 2019
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: John 14:6 and Matthew 7:13+14
Theme: Do All Roads Lead to Heaven?
It’s the common belief in many Protestant churches now days and the prevailing sentiment among many throughout our society: “All steeples point to heaven.” Or another way of saying it, “All roads lead to heaven.” In other words, it doesn’t really matter what you believe or what religion you are—whether you are Muslim or Buddhist or Mormon or Christian—all religions basically teach the same thing and they all worship the same God. They just call him by different names. So no matter which religion you are part of and no matter which set of teachings you follow, they all lead to the same place—heaven. Is that the case, though? Is it really true that all religions are basically the same and that all roads lead to heaven?
We’re going to explore that question today by examining what some of the other major world religions teach about how a person gets to heaven and then compare that with what the Bible teaches.
Next to Christianity, the largest religion in the world, and the one you probably hear about the most these days, is the religion of Islam. Islam was founded by a man named Mohammed back around 600 A.D. Unlike many of the Arab tribesmen in the area, Mohammed believed there was only one God and that his name was Allah. He taught people that Allah was great and powerful and exalted and that people needed to submit to him, which is where the word Islam comes from. It means “submission.” Mohammed also taught that true followers of Allah had to follow the Five Pillars of Islam: (1.) is reciting the simple Muslim creed “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet,” (2.) is praying five times a day (which is why Muslims carry their prayer rugs around with them and why they want a place to pray even at work), (3.) is giving to the poor, (4.) is fasting during the month of Ramadan, and (5.) is making a pilgrimage to Mecca. If a Muslim faithfully practices these five things, he has a good chance of gaining entrance into paradise. There is no guarantee, of course, because Allah is such a great and awesome god and he is under no obligation to allow anyone into paradise, but at least you have a good chance. This is one of the popular roads to heaven, the one taught by the religion of Islam.
Another popular road is the one taught by Hinduism, a religion with approximately a billion followers around the world. Hindus believe that there is one, uniform force throughout the universe called “The Brahman.” This force is in everything—the trees, the flowers, the mountains, the rivers, the animals, the people—everything. If you think this sounds awfully familiar to something you heard about in the Star Wars movies, you’re right. What is described as “the force” in those movies is pretty much what Hindus believe about “god” or Brahman.
So there is this force, this energy, this goodness in all things. There is some in rocks and other inanimate objects. There is more in plants. There is more in animals. There is still more in humans. And at the top of the scale is the high caste Brahman priesthood. And what a person needs to do over the course of many different lifetimes is move up that scale; but you can go backwards too, so you need to be careful. If you live a really bad life, for example, and build up a lot of bad karma, in your next life you might come back as a cow or rat or a weed. On the other hand, if you live a really good life and build up a lot of good karma, in your next life you might come back as the member of a higher or more noble family or maybe you might even be born into a Brahman family. And then, if you did really well at that level, over the course of several lifetimes you might eventually store up enough good karma that you could become a demi-god. And then if you did really well at that level, over the course of several spirit-lifetimes you might eventually store up enough good karma that you would be absorbed into the force and become one with the universe. This state in which you lose all awareness and just become one with the force of the universe is called Nirvana. So according to the Hindu religion, you never actually get to heaven, you simply lose all consciousness and become one with the universe.
Another very popular road is the one taught in Buddhism. Buddhism was founded by a man named Siddhartha Guatama around 500 B.C. Siddhartha became convinced that Hinduism did not hold the secret to a satisfying life, so he secluded himself under a fig tree and meditated on the meaning of life for 40 days and nights. While he was meditating, he became enlightened, which is where the name Buddha comes from. Buddha means “The Enlightened One.”
What Siddhartha realized as he was meditating under that fig true is that there are Four Noble Truths: (1.) Life is about suffering; (2.) Craving is the root cause of suffering; (3.) The cure for suffering is to eliminate craving; and (4.) To eliminate craving you need to follow the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path consists of right views, right resolve, right speech, right behavior, right occupation, right effort, right contemplation and right meditation. If you practice these things, if you follow the Eightfold Path faithfully throughout your life, you could reach Nirvana. In other words, you could finally be released from suffering and become one with the universe. So again, according to Buddhism you never actually get to heaven, you just become one with the universe and you don’t have to suffer anymore.
A fourth rather popular religion, at least one that is becoming more and more popular here in our country, is the Mormon religion. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith back in the early 1800s. It’s one of the fastest growing religions here in the United States and has a membership of more than 14 million people.
According to the Mormon religion, the road to heaven consists of doing the following 5 things: believing in God, repenting and feeling sorry for your sins, being baptized, accepting the gift of the Holy Spirit, and obeying God’s commandments as Jesus did. If you do those things throughout your life, especially if you pattern your life after Jesus’ life and live a godly life as he did, you will be considered worthy to enter the celestial kingdom. And, if you are a man, you could even become a god yourself.
This is what is taught by the major religions around the world. This is what they believe and teach about heaven and how a person gets to heaven. Do you notice any similarities among them, any common threads that weave their way through each of them? One definite similarity is that they all teach that the road to heaven depends on you and what you do. In Islam it’s following the Five Pillars. In Hinduism it’s living a good life and storing up good karma. In Buddhism it’s following the Eightfold Path. In Mormonism it’s obeying God’s commands and living a godly life as Jesus did. In one way or another, whether or not you make it to heaven or become one with the universe depends on you and how you live your life.
And in a way that kind of makes sense to us, doesn’t it? After all, that’s basically the way things work in life. At work you get rewarded for the work you do. If you do a really good job, you might get paid a little more or might get promoted. If you do a lousy job, you might get paid less or even get fired. The same is true in school. If you study hard and do your homework, you tend to get good grades and move up to the top of the class. On the other hand, if you sluff off and don’t do your homework, you tend to get poorer grades and might end up failing. So I suppose it makes sense to us that that’s the way it should work in our relationship with God too, that if I work hard and try to live a good life, God will reward me and accept me into heaven. Is that true, though? Do people gain access into heaven based on what they do? Not according to the Bible.
The Bible teaches us that God is holy and sinless and perfect. And if we want to live with God in heaven some day, then we need to be holy and sinless and perfect. In other words, we can’t do anything wrong or say anything wrong or think anything wrong—ever. Imagine if that’s how things worked in school, that in order to pass a class or in order to graduate from high school or college, you could never get anything wrong. You had to get a 100% on every test and every quiz and every paper. And if you didn’t, if you even got just one wrong, you failed. That is the way it works in God’s kingdom. “Be perfect,” the Bible says, “as your heavenly Father is perfect”(Mt 5:48).
Would anyone here like to claim to be perfect? Would anyone here like to claim that they have never said or done anything wrong? We know that isn’t the case. We know only too well that we have said and done things that are wrong, more often than we care to admit. We have not obeyed God’s commands the way we should have. We have sinned. And that’s exactly what the Bible says too: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”(Romans 3:23).
So what happens when someone falls short? They don’t make it, right? If a pole vaulter wants to clear 15 feet, but he only makes it up to 14 feet, he falls short and doesn’t make it over. If the goal at work is $5,000 in sales and someone only makes $4,000 in sales, he or she has fallen short and doesn’t get the bonus at the end of the month. If someone wants to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope and he only makes it half way, he ends up falling short and doesn’t make it. When it comes to living a God-pleasing life, you and I have fallen short. We have sinned. We haven’t been perfect as God demands, so we don’t deserve to live with him in heaven—in fact, just the opposite. Because of our sins we deserve to be shut out of God’s kingdom and banished to that awful place called hell. And that’s exactly what would happen except for one thing: the grace and mercy of God.
You see, the Bible tells us that God is more than just a holy and righteous God. He is also a gracious and loving God, a God who loved us so much that he sent someone to rescue us from sin and death, someone to take away our sins and make us righteous so that we could live with him in heaven. In love he sent his own Son, Jesus Christ. As our Savior, Jesus lived a righteous and godly life for us. He lived the kind of life we should have lived, a life of perfect obedience to all of God’s commands. And secondly, as our Savior, Jesus also died on the cross for us to pay the penalty for all of sins so that we might be forgiven. And the Bible says that whoever believes in him shall not perish but shall have eternal life. So do you see what God has done? Since we had fallen short and could not reach heaven on our own, in love God provided a way for us, through his Son, Jesus Christ. That does not mean, however, that Jesus represents another way for us to get to heaven. He is not one of many ways. He is the only way, the only one who can save us from sin and bring us safely to heaven, which is exactly what Jesus himself said.
In the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday, after telling his disciples about the Father’s house, Jesus made the following statement: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”(v. 6). Likewise, in the Sermon on the Mount he urged his followers to “enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it”(Mt 7:13+14). And again in our Gospel lesson from John ch.10 Jesus put it like this: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved”(vv. 7-9). There is no mistaking Jesus’ words. His point is clear: There is only one way to heaven. There is only one gate. And he is it.
Popular opinion is exactly that: popular opinion; but it doesn’t mean it’s right. According to popular opinion all roads lead to heaven. According to Jesus and the Bible, there is only one that leads to heaven and all the rest are dead ends. Look to Jesus as your Savior. Trust in him as the one who can rescue you from sin and death and bring you safely to the Father’s house. You have his promise: “Whoever enters through me will be saved.” Amen.