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A. The Way to Heaven
The only way to eternal life, heaven, and all the good things God has waiting for us is through faith in Christ. You don't have to look through the Bible very long to discover that there are no passages which tell you that you can get to heaven by being a good person, but many that say that you can only get there through faith.

Why is this so?

Imagine if you will that you are a secretary trying to do the job of a chemical engineer.

You don't have the skills, do you? The more you try, the bigger mess you're going to make. You're trapped: damned if you do and damned if you don't.

We are like secretaries trying to be chemical engineers. We don't have the skills or wisdom that it takes to be righteous. Only the righteous can enter Heaven.   You may think it sucks.   You may have really great friends who are Buddhist and Wiccan and everything in between. Guess what? So do I. But its kind of like gravity. Gravity also sucks: just ask anyone who has fallen off a building recently. Gravity is patently unfair. But it is the law of nature and you don't try to fight it.

Have you ever tried to work your way into heaven?

I have. Oh man, have I.   It is one of the most painful processes you can imagine, for those of you who have never tried. For every good thing I did a thousand wrongs would spring up to haunt me. Jesus has the "skills to pay the bills," but I don't. The "bill" is death.   He paid it for me, and recognizing that at last has been a blessed relief.   It was also a struggle to realize how easy this was. Our society stresses "pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps." All you have to do is reach out your hand and take the gift by asking Jesus to redeem your sins, and then putting your faith in that. It is harder in some respects than it sounds. And a lifetime of trying to be a paragon can be a detriment. What if I was asking for the wrong reasons?   I didn't want to ask for fear of Hell. If I was to become a believer, I wanted to ask because it was the right thing to do. Does it sound crazy that a morally correct impulse can lead you to a spiritually incorrect action?   The Lord turns evil to good. Sometimes Satan twists good to evil.   As we work our way through these pages I hope that I will be able to show you how he used to accomplish this in my life.

Rebuttal 1: Intolerance

"The idea that the only way to be 'saved' is to follow one religion is intolerant.   How is it that Americans can come up with the idea of respecting people no matter what their beliefs, but God can't? I know plenty of (insert religion here) who are perfectly good people."

People are wonderful creations and we are capable of many fine things.   Just as many of you love your children's antics, so does God love ours. We're great at coming up with new ideas and inventions, art, literature, music, architecture. What we're not so good at is being godly. Children often make worse messes trying to clean up their own messes.   We're the same way.   For example, a measure to clean up our environment puts people out of jobs and keeps them from providing for their families. Fighting one evil only replaces another.   If you look for other examples you'll find them with no difficulty.

As for intolerance: its that whole gravity thing again. A Christian is not being intolerant when he says that only through belief in Christ can someone be saved. It is our DUTY to not be intolerant. "The Lord is not willing that any should perish." (Peter 3:9). This means ANY. Blacks. Whites. Gay people (more on that later.) Rich people. Asian people. Poor people. Indian people. Married people, single people, old people, young people, handicapped people. There is no choice involved in being of a particular race or gender, in being handicapped, in being old or young.   But there is a choice inherent in the decision to recieve Christ. Please don't let anyone tell you this is an easy choice. An easy conversion is doomed to failure. I recieved Christ no less than 7 times, sometimes weeping.   Always I lost my faith because there are many voices in the world that will try to tear you away from it. Some of those voices are between your ears.   This is not a throw up your hands and say, "Yeah sure I believe in God," type of thing.

We are not being intolerant but trying to spread the truth. The law is the law. Our judges must follow the law and so must Christ. We don't know why, exactly, the laws are set up like they are, though we can make some educated guesses based on the words of the Bible.   Refusing to accept other religions as being 'possibly right' is no worse than looking at someone and letting them in on a lie that a con man has told them. We are not supposed to treat those who believe differently like dirt -- Jesus treated nobody badly. That is intolerance. We are only supposed to spread the truth.   Is it being intolerant to try to convince your children to stay away from drugs? Hopefully you don't scorn a child who does, or treat him badly, but try to help him.   You don't deny that child their needs or comfort them. But you do not tolerate the drugs, and in every way possible try to lead your son or daughter away from that destructive influence.   That is what a Christian who proclaims the gospel is trying to do.