The Simple Truth

Is Sincerity Enough?

When contemplating religion and entrance into heaven does it really matter what you believe as long as you are sincere?  Here are a few thoughts...

• Obviously it is possible to be sincerely wrong.  Sincerity does not make a wrong thing right. Anatole France once said, "If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."  Proverbs 16:25 provides additional insight.
• Every action could be rationalized by sincerity.  How do you measure sincerity? Is anyone ever 100% sincere?  Where do we draw the line when it comes to sincerity being the standard for entrance into eternal life? If you are 50.1% sincere do you get in but if you are 49.9% sincere are you out of luck? Maybe God will grade us according to the curve.:)
• With sincerity as the only standard, a God of justice would be a joke and unnecessary. There would be no justice, only sincerity.
• A persons sincerity doesn't impact the essence of the truth.  An apple is a fruit.  One person may like it, another may not.  But the apple does not stop being a fruit just because someone doesn't like it.  Sincerity must be accompanied by truth.

I sincerely hope this post helps you!

Those Who Haven't Heard

In our Tough Questions series this past Sunday we tackled the monster question, "Is Jesus the only way to heaven?" We only scratched the surface in dealing with this very important question. As promised I'm going to use my blog this week to address some of the natural follow up questions and dig a little deeper into this topic.

When talking about the exclusivity of Christ the natural follow up question is, "what about all the people who have never heard of Jesus?"  In fact, this past Sunday as I finished the sermon I was approached by an individual who had that very question.  This is such a big topic that I may break up my response into a couple of posts.

The first thing I would say is that God is just and equitable, and therefore He will not treat anyone unjustly or unfairly.  We have to know this about the character of God.  He will do the right thing by all people.  Based upon that, it doesn't stand to reason that He would condemn someone solely based upon a lack of information or geographic location.  Having said that we must realize that God is constantly attempting to draw man to Himself. He is revealing himself to mankind - He wants to be known. I believe He is continually speaking into the heart of mankind.  Here are four ways that God is working to reveal himself to mankind...

• Thru the Creation (Romans 1:19-20) - it is possible to know God, even the deep things of God, through the creation.
• Thru our Conscience (Romans 2:14-15) - God has placed a moral code within every human being. We call it our conscience.  It points us to God.
• Thru the Comforter (John 16:7-11). God's Holy Spirit is at work, not only in the lives of believers but also in the hearts of the whole world.
• Thru Conversations (Romans 10:8-15). God is sending his followers to the world to share the good news of the Jesus Christ.

Could it be that God will judge those who have legitimately never heard of Jesus, and his gospel, by the general revelation of creation and conscience?  Very possibly! Again, I go back to the character of God. He is just. He is equitable. He will do what is right in these cases. 

Let me stop there. That should be enough to chew on for the day. I'll write some more about this tomorrow and we continue to grapple with Jesus as the only way and those who have never heard.

   

Great Post

Here is a great post from Dr. Jeff Adams, pastor of the Kansas City Baptist Temple, about the emerging, emergent, missional, post-modern church.

Check it out...

http://drjeffadams.com/?p=892

When Worldviews Collide

I'm starting a new study with my small group tonight called, "When Worldviews Collide."  I heard about this study while in Amsterdam from my friend Cathy.  I must say, I am really fired up about going through this study with my group.  I think its going to be a tremendous study and really minister to people living in central NJ. 

The study is done by Ergun Mehmet Caner, the dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, who happens to be a former Muslim who was converted to Christianity in 1982.  In the study he will show the differences between Christianity and other world religions, summarize the basic beliefs of four major world religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam), and also share ways to minister and witness to followers of other belief systems. 

I'll keep you posted on how the study is going.  Can't wait to grow through this with my group!

Yom Kippur

Kids throughout the tri-state area are off school today because of the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur.  What is Yom Kippur?  It is the most solemn and holy of Jewish holidays.  In scripture it is known as the day of atonement (see Leviticus 16, 23:26-32).  It is a time when the Jewish people where instructed to afflict their souls, confess their sins, and have the high priest make an offering for them.

From scripture we see that this was the time when the high priest would enter into the most holy place (before the ark of the covenant and mercy seat) and offer the blood of the sacrifice in order to atone for his own sin and for the sins of Israel.  This is a ceremony that the Jews have been celebrating every year since the exodus.

The pictures painted by this ceremony are astounding.  We see the writer of Hebrews instructing us on this very topic in Hebrews 9.  From this passage we see, among other things, that Jesus Christ is our great high priest that entered into the very throne room of God to offer his perfect blood as an atonement for the sins of mankind.  The big difference - Jesus only had to do this once (v.12) and in the process obtained eternal redemption for us.  There is no more need for an annual ceremony whereby a sinful man offers the imperfect blood of an animal which can never fully take away sin (Hebrews 10:11).  Jesus did it once and for all (Hebrews 10:10, 12).

Isn't it amazing how God paints a picture of his perfect plan of salvation thousands of years before the coming of Christ.  In Jesus we see the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament law, including Yom Kippur.