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Let's use our imagination for just a few minutes. Imagine you are on an overnight business trip. Your employer puts you up for the night in a very nice motel. The room is on the fourth floor. You settle int, watch a little TV then decide to turn in early for the night because you know your going to have a full day tomorrow. In the middle of the night you are startled awake by an ear piercing loud alarm. You instantly sit straight up in bed. You rub your eyes and try to figure out what is going on. You make your way to the door, open it up and look out into the hallway. In the hallway are strobing lights in addition to the blaring alarm. With each strobe of light you see that the hallway is filling up with smoke. You go back into your room put on your shoes and grab your essentials. Once back out in the hallway, you make your way down the hallway towards the elevator and staircase. As you look around the corner towards the exit you realize it is blocked and you see it's fully engulfing in flames, both the staircase and elevator, so you make your way back to your room. Once in your room again you go over to the balcony, slide the glass door open and look outside. As your surveying the situation you see that the building is fully engulfed in flames. Emergency vehicles are gathering on the street below, which looks like organized chaos. Using your cell phone you call 911 and tell the operator the floor and room your in. The 911 operator tells you to remain calm help is on the way. A few minutes pass by, which feel like an eternity, when finally a fire fighter on a ladder shows up at your balcony. He tells you to make your way to his ladder that he is going to get you down. You go to the edge of the balcony and the space between the railing and his ladder to you seems to be to great and your tell the firefight you can't get to him. He assures you that you can. As your climbing over the railing you look down at the street below and your are overwhelmed with fear because of the height. So you begin arguing with the man who is there to save you. You ask is the only way! He assures you that this is the one and only way to salvation and that if you do not follow him you will perish in the flames! Finally after much fear and trepidation you yield your will to the one who has came to save you.
John 14:6 NIV Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
This story illistrates the way the lost world approaches receiving salvation, there simply must be another way! A survey conducted by an Arizona Christian University found that a majority of people who describe themselves as Christian (52%) accept a works-oriented means to God’s acceptance. The study found that huge proportions of people associated with churches whose official doctrine says eternal salvation comes only from accepting Jesus Christ as savior believe that a person can qualify for Heaven by being or doing good. That includes close to half of all adults associated with Pentecostal (46%), mainline Protestant (44%), and Evangelical churches (41%). A much larger share of Catholics (70%) embraced that point of view. 54% of U.S. adults believe they will get to Heaven after they die and only 2% believe they are going to hell. As Americans we are abandoning our moral standards and traditions, and replacing them with inclusive and conditional preferences and practices in an effort to not offend anyone who may not believe the truth of the bible.
Matthew 7: 13-14 NIV 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
