Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey, podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes.

Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day. This Bible teaching program on today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 3

When you tell people Jesus is the only way to be saved, you are simply representing the words of your master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Franklin Graham has written, a loyal follower of Jesus does not create personal ideas about these matters. All he or she does is faithfully represent the words of the Master.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and doctor Robert Jeffress. You know, there are thousands of different religions around the world these days and thousands more that have disappeared with ancient civilizations.

So how can we be certain that Christianity is the only true religion? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress explains why Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.

Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message. Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 2

Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. If you've been a Christian for any length of time, you've undoubtedly spoken to friends and family who don't believe the things you do. And one of the common sticking points is this one. They say, don't all roads lead to heaven? And they add, after all, why would a loving God deny someone who is deeply religious?

Well, in a moment, I'm going to tackle these relevant questions. But first, I'm compelled to remind you that time is running short to receive your copy of the Power of the Cross. My book includes more than 90 pages of striking images from the Holy Land. And I want this illustrated guidebook to help you reflect on seven days of Jesus' ministry. I would like to send you this beautiful pictorial essay right away. It's yours when you give a generous gift to support the growing ministry of Pathway to Victory.

When you request this book today, let me challenge you to become one of our pathway partners at the same. Our pathway partners are like missionaries who send the gospel of Christ through the airwaves, the Internet, and every other place where Pathway to Victory can be accessed. We've been praying that God would lead at least 50 people to join us as missionary partners. As a pathway partner, you agree to send a generous gift each month in the amount that best suits you. Would you help us reach that goal this month?

We'll give our contact information after today's message. But right now, let's give our complete attention to the topic at hand. Our primary text is Acts chapter 4. I titled today's message "What to Say to Those Who Deny There Is One Way."

Speaker 3

I was in Washington D.C. I had been invited to come and speak to the Religion Writers of America's newspapers. There were about 180 reporters there from USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other major papers. I was there to debate a topic, and the given topic was whether a political candidate's religious faith should make a difference in our selection or voting for that candidate. I was debating against Jay Sekulow, a well-known Christian attorney who appears on television regularly. He's argued several times before the Supreme Court, and Jay's a friend. He was taking the side that no, we should not consider a candidate's religious beliefs when we vote for him; that competency, not faith, was the real issue. I took the position that yes, it does make a difference whether our leader is a Christian leader or not. A person's faith impacts every part of his life.

I quoted from the very first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, who said, "God has given this Christian nation." By the way, isn't it interesting that the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said America is a Christian nation? He said, "God has given this Christian nation the right and the responsibility to prefer Christians as our leader." Why believe that? I wish I had that much applause Friday. But anyway, thank you very much. Not everybody—most people—don't agree with that position. They opened it up for questions, and one of the reporters raised his hand and said, "Dr. Jefferson, you have said that Hinduism, Islam, and Mormonism are all false religions. But what about Judaism? You didn't mention Judaism. Do you believe that Judaism is a false religion?"

I said, "Well, it's funny you asked that question because this Sunday in my church in Dallas, I'm preaching a message entitled 'Why Every Other Religion is Wrong.'" The reporter started laughing, and they broke out in laughter. I hadn't tried to be funny; I was just telling the stated topic for this Sunday. But it reminded me, as they laughed, how preposterous it is to the average person to make the claim that every other religion in the world is wrong. If you make that assertion, you'll be met with ridicule, if not outright anger.

What do you say to those objections? I want to share with you today four things you can say to those who deny that there's only one way.

**Response number one:** When people object to the exclusivity of Christ, you can always say your argument is with the Bible, not with me. When people argue against this idea of exclusivity, they're really arguing against God's word, not against us. I think it's critical that we point out what the Bible itself says about this topic. For example, Jesus, Peter, and Paul were all faithful Jews. And yet these faithful Jews said Judaism is not enough. You cannot be saved through Judaism. It is through Jesus Christ alone that you can be saved. That really takes the sting out of the anti-Semitic argument. When people say, "Well, you must hate Jews if you believe that," no, the three most prominent Jews of the Bible said Christ is the only way to be saved.

Now, when you point out what the Bible says, be prepared for two responses. Some people will say, "Well, that's your interpretation of the Bible." And of course, you can always come back and say, "Well, fine, suggest to me some other logical interpretation of Jesus' words: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.'" If he didn't mean he's the only way to God, what was he saying in that verse? Most people will stutter and stammer and won't come up with an explanation.

More likely, people will say to you when you claim Christ is the only way to be saved, they'll come back with, "Well, who are you to decide who gets to go to heaven and who gets to go to hell? Only God can decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell." Now, when people say that to you, you say, "You're absolutely right. I couldn't agree with you more. Only God can say who's going to heaven and who's going to hell. But God has already made that decision, and it's found in his Word." It's very important that we point out we are not concocting our own way to be saved. We are simply repeating what God has already said. We do so not to hurt people, but in order to help people. Franklin Graham has written, "A loyal follower of Jesus does not create personal ideas about these matters. All he or she does is faithfully represent the words of the master." When you tell people Jesus is the only way to be saved, you are simply representing the words of your master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

**Response number two:** When people object to the exclusivity of Christ, truth by its very nature is exclusive. We pointed out several weeks ago that we live in a world that rejects the notion of absolute truth, especially when it comes to matters of spirituality. Yet there are other areas in which we readily accept the idea of absolute or objective truth. For example, you can ask a person how many possible different answers there are to the question, "What is two plus three?" How many right answers are there to that question? Or how many right answers are there to the question, "What is the capital of Pennsylvania?"

Now, people come back and say, "Well, I know what you're getting at. But laws of mathematics, laws of geography, laws of science, those are precise, those are exact. But when you get to areas of spirituality, well, that's subjective truth. That's a matter of one's own opinion." You see, people make a great error when they assume that just because things are unseen or invisible, that somehow they are not real or less exacting. Whenever you make that mistake of believing just because we can't see something, there aren't exact laws that govern that something, the result can be a disaster for us.

On Friday afternoon, August 2, 1985, Captain Ted Conners was preparing to land his jumbo jetliner at DFW Airport on Runway 17 left. As he was on his final approach, he noticed a strange cloud formation at the end of the runway. At first, he thought he might fly around that cloud, but then he reasoned to himself he had hundreds of thousands of pounds of jetliner underneath him. Three powerful Rolls Royce engines, 43,000 hours of experience between himself and his other co-pilots. What damage could a little wind and rain do to his aircraft?

But what Captain Connors didn't realize was that inside that cloud were invisible but very real forces at work: microbursts, wind shear, vortexes. As Delta Flight 191 made its way through that cloud, those invisible but real forces of nature grabbed hold of that jetliner and threw it to the ground, killing all 131 passengers aboard. You see, in an instant, Captain Connors and the air traffic controllers made an error in judgment—an error that all of us are in danger of making when dealing with the unseen. It's the error of thinking that just because we can't see it, somehow it must not be exacting.

Ladies and gentlemen, just as there were very real laws of aerodynamics and physics that governed that doomed jetliner, so there are very real spiritual laws that govern your and my relationship with God. We can say, "Well, we don't believe in those laws; we're going to alter those laws," or "We're going to try to go another way and approach God in a different way." And when we do that, the result will be spiritual disaster. God has said there is one way and only one way to Himself, and that's through Christ Jesus. Truth, by its nature, is exclusive.

**Response number three** to those who object to exclusivity is that we ought to always say God wants to save as many people as possible, not as few as possible. Whenever we point out to people that, yes, God has said there is only one way to be saved, we need to quickly add, but God wants to save as many people as possible.

Well, then the person asks, if that's true, why has God only said that he will save those who come to know Christ as Savior? Does it make sense that God would condemn people to hell because they haven't heard of Christ? Have you ever had people ask you that question before? How could a loving God send people to hell because they have never trusted or even heard the name of Jesus? When people say that to you, there are two biblical responses to that.

First of all, the fact of exclusivity—that faith in Christ is the only way to be saved—should lead us to evangelistic fervor, not spiritual smugness. The very fact that Christ is the only way to be saved ought to motivate us to share the gospel with others. Evangelistic fervor, not this feeling, "Well, we've got the truth and we're going to sit on it, not let anybody else hear about it." This idea of exclusivity ought to lead us to evangelistic fervor, not spiritual smugness.

But secondly, I think the Bible clearly teaches that God will reveal Himself to those who want to know Him. We ought to always say that to people when they say, "Well, what about the heathen in Africa or the people in China who've never had a Bible? What do you say about those people?" You can always come back with the assurance that God will reveal Himself to those who want to know Him. By the way, that's what Romans 1 is all about. Romans 1 says anybody can look into the heavens and see the stars and the planets, or look around and see the trees and the plant life and animal life, or even look at himself and realize this didn't happen by accident.

Anybody can look at nature and know there is a power greater than himself; there is a God. You don't have to have a Bible to know that. That's what we call in theology general revelation. Everybody who's ever been born has that knowledge of God. Is that enough to save us? Can I look up in the heavens and say, "Gee, there must be a God; therefore I'm going to heaven?" No. If we believe what we heard just a few moments ago—that faith in Christ is the only way to be saved—then a knowledge and even a love for God is not enough to be saved.

But listen to what Paul said in Romans 1. He said many people have that truth, but they have rejected that truth. They have replaced the worship of a true God with the worship of a false God they've manufactured with their own hands. It's like Dr. Charles Ryrie says: this general revelation about God is not sufficient to save a person, but it is sufficient, if rejected, to condemn a person. And people who have that knowledge that there is a God, but they reject or neglect that truth and never search for that God, Paul says they are without excuse. All mankind is without excuse.

Well, Pastor, what about people somewhere across the globe or across the street from me who do respond to that truth but have never heard about Jesus? They've never seen a Bible; they've never heard a gospel sermon preached. How in the world can those people be saved? I believe the Scripture is clear. When somebody responds to the general revelation God gives them, if they have a right heart, a right attitude toward God, God will send them the knowledge they need in order to be saved. God will send to them the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Why? Because God is trying to save as many people as possible. He wants people to be saved. He wants all people to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Wherever on this planet God sees a man, a woman, a boy, or a girl who wants to know him, you can rest assured that God will send to that person the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You say, "Now, Pastor, do you really believe that? How can you believe that?" By reading the Bible? Think about the Book of Acts. Let me share with you real quickly three precise examples where that happened—where somebody had the right heart, attitude toward God, didn't know about Jesus, and God sent them the Gospel.

Think about the Ethiopian official. Remember his story in Acts 8? He loved the God of Israel. He went to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel. On the way home, he was in his chariot. He opened up the Old Testament scripture, the Book of Isaiah. He couldn't understand what he was reading. It was a passage about the Messiah. And what did God do? He saw a heart that was right toward him, so he miraculously sent Philip the evangelist to share the gospel with him. Philip helped make sense of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, and that Ethiopian official was saved and was baptized.

Or two chapters later, in Acts chapter 10, here is Cornelius, the Roman centurion. He too loved God. He wanted to know God, but that wasn't enough for him to be saved. What did God do? He miraculously dispatched the apostle Peter to come and share the gospel with him, and Cornelius became a believer. Or Acts chapter 19. Remember the story about the apostle Paul? He stumbled over 12 disciples of John the Baptist in the upper regions of Ephesus. As he questioned them, he realized these disciples of John were not believers. They were lovers of God, followers of the law, but they didn't know Jesus. What did God do? He sent the apostle Paul in order to share the gospel with them.

What I'm saying to you is, whenever God sees a heart that wants to know him, God will send the truth into that person's life. And by the way, he does the same thing today. Do you think it is just by accident we have missionaries where we have them? Is it just at random that somebody sitting in a hotel room who wants to know God just stumbles across a religious television program, or driving in their car listens to a radio program, or halfway across the continent tunes into an Internet broadcast sharing the gospel through the airwaves? Do you think that is just by accident that those things happen?

When I was walking across the square, a woman from India of Indian descent came up to me and she started saying, "Pastor, pastor, pastor, pastor." I thought, does my black suit and red tie just scream "pastor"? Is that a dead giveaway? She said, "Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory." She went on to say how blessed she is by the ministry of our church every week by watching that program—that's her church. It's not just by accident.

What I'm saying to you is the technique, technology is available, the manpower is available today. Not that God has to have those things, but he uses those things to get the message of Christ to anybody who wants to hear it.

**The fourth response** that I make to people who reject the idea of exclusivity is that the fact that God has provided one way of salvation demonstrates his love, not his hatred. As our plane was making its descent into Dallas and I realized I had a limited amount of time with my newly found friend here, I decided to save my very best argument for last. You know, we preachers like to do that. We like to kind of move toward a climax.

So I said to him, "Suppose this jetliner were to crash and burn right now. And just suppose that the cabin were filling with smoke, the interior lights went off, and the flight attendant was standing at the front of the plane with her emergency flashlight, waving it, saying, 'This way out, this way out.' Would you accuse her of being intolerant because she was insisting there is only one way out of the plane in the middle of the darkness? If I grabbed your hand and said, 'Follow me, I'll help you out,' would you say I was being hateful because I was trying to say there is only one way out of this burning jetliner?"

For the first time, my new friend began to see the point that I was making. And by the way, let me point out one flaw of that illustration, if you use it: that illustration is only good when people understand that their lives have crashed and that they are in danger of facing God's judgment in their life. Not everybody agrees with that. Not everybody understands his own sinfulness and need for forgiveness. Malcolm Muggeridge said one time, "The fact of human depravity is the most empirically verifiable and yet philosophically resistant truth in the world today." People don't like to accept the fact that they are sinners.

But my friend, he didn't resist that truth. He didn't need a preacher to tell him he had fallen short of God's plan. His own failed marriage and some other problems in his life convinced him that he was in need of forgiveness. As we landed and our plane was taxiing toward the gate, I wish I could say that in that moment, he bowed his head and prayed to receive Christ as his Savior. Perhaps if I had been Billy Graham, that would have happened. He didn't do that. But he said this: "Pastor, you've given me something to think about. And although I'm not fully convinced yet, I promise you this: when I get home, I'm going to start reading my Bible and check out what you said."

That was good enough for me. See, the fact is, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot force people to utilize the way of escape that God has planned. But that shouldn't keep us from courageously waving the light of God's truth in this sinful, dark world, encouraging people to utilize God's way—the only way to salvation.

Speaker 2

I'm hoping that today's message has inspired you to break out of your comfort zone and speak the truth about God's plan for salvation as Christians. We are ambassadors for Christ, and it's our privilege to bring light where there's darkness. Along those lines, we're extremely excited about this week's pursuit of new Pathway Partners because we're getting close to reaching and even exceeding our goal.

In recent days, we've been asking God to help us add 50 more people to join our family of Pathway Partners. A Pathway Partner agrees to give a generous gift of their choosing every month. You set the amount that's right for you. In doing so, you'll receive two benefits.

First, as a Pathway Partner, you become a virtual missionary who empowers us to carry the message of Christ all across our country and around our world. And second, we're saying thanks by providing an exclusive coffee table book from Pathway to Victory. It's called the Power of the Cross. This book includes my favorite photos and images from the Holy Land. Each one tells an important story about the final seven days in the life of Christ.

With your first gift as a new Pathway Partner, be sure to specifically mention that you'd like to receive this beautiful keepsake called the Power of the Cross. These days in our country, the contrast between light and darkness has never felt greater during these urgent days. Please join us in the campaign to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word.

Here's David with all the details.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. If you'd like to become a Pathway part, simply go online to ptv.org and follow the easy sign-up instructions. And when you give your first monthly gift or when you give a one-time gift, we'll say thanks by sending you the Power of the Cross, a beautifully illustrated coffee table style book based on the teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress.

Plus, we're going to send you a one-of-a-kind brochure called Three Days that Changed the World. Call us toll-free at 866-999-2965 or give online at ptv.org, and when your gift is $75 or more, you'll also receive a special collection of messages that Dr. Jeffress preached on location in Israel. It's titled Live from the Holy Land: Eight Powerful Messages by Dr. Jeffress, and you'll receive both the DVD video and MP3 format audio disc.

Time is running out, though, to take advantage of this offer, so get in touch right away. Again, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. If you'd prefer to write to us, here's that mailing address: P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. That's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222.

I'm David J. Munn, inviting you to join us next time when Dr. Jeffress answers this troubling question: Why does God send good people to hell? That's coming up Friday here on Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible.

One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His word. To become a Pathway partner, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes.

We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.