The
By
Shelby G. Floyd
One of the favorite figures of speech applied to the
church is that of a way, a path, and a road that leads from one place to
another.
Do All Religious Roads Lead to Heaven?
Christianity is a definite way over which the redeemed pass from earth
to heaven. In a day when highways and roads are so familiar, it is easy for
some people to get the idea that there are many ways for one to reach heaven.
It is a popular doctrine that we are all going to heaven in different ways.
While this is popular, is it the truth?
The Highway of Holiness
About 700 years before Christ made his advent into the
world, the prophet Isaiah, looking through the telescope of prophecy, pointed
out the way over which every child of God must pass in entering the city that
hath foundations whose builder and maker is God.
A highway shall be there, and a road,
And
it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.
The
unclean shall not pass over it,
But
it shall be for others.
Whoever
walks the road, although a fool,
Shall
not go astray. (Isaiah 35: 8 NKJV.)
The prophecy of Isaiah
found its consummation in Jesus Christ. Jesus, in his sermons during his earthly
ministry pointed the people to the only true and living way. He said that he
was the way, the truth and the life, and that no man could come unto the Father
except by him. (John 14: 4, 6.)
Jesus Is the Only Way
Today, there are many who are trying to circumvent
Jesus Christ who is the only way, and are trying to find some other way for
salvation and eternal life. Jesus, said on another occasion,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter
the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief
and a robber.” (John 10: 1.)
According to Christ anyone who tries to go up some other way is
a thief and a robber; therefore, not walking in the God approved path. There is
just one way, and some other way is the wrong way.
Two Roads
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ classified
all ways into two categories, a broad way and a strait and narrow way. The
broad way is the way of error and falsehood; it is the way of the crowd, the
multitudes who follow evil; it is a way of indifference; it is a way that leads
to death and destruction. In contrast, the strait and narrow way is a hard and
difficult way; it is the way of truth and righteousness; it is the way that
leads to everlasting life; and it is a way which few ever find, or having found
it, enter it, or having entered it, continue in it; it is a way that must be
found, entered, and a way in which a person must continue all the days of his
life,
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and
broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by
it. Because narrow is the gate and
difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew
7: 13-14.NKJV.)
The strait and narrow way of our Lord Jesus Christ is the way of
Christianity. It is, “A new and living way, which he hath consecrated for
us, through the vail, that is to say, his flesh.” (Heb. 10: 20. KJV.)
The Church Is the Way
After the church was established on the first Pentecost
following the resurrection of Christ, it was often spoken of as the way.
Before Saul of Tarsus became a Christian, he persecuted the church with all of
his fury and power. Later, in looking back upon those terrible events, he
characterized his works as persecuting “this way.” (Acts 9: 2; 22: 4.)
He speaks of it as “this way” because he is now walking in the very way
he once persecuted. Sometimes, the church is spoken of as “that way.”
In the city of
Some Forsake the
It is sad to notice that many people who find the
right way do not continue in it. In the days of the apostles, there were some
which had “forsaken the right way, and are gone astray.” (2 Peter 2: 15.)
Of that class of people, the apostle Peter says, “For it had been better for
them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known
it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.” (2 Peter 2: 21.)
In a day when so many people are trying to go to heaven any way that they might
choose, let us remember the words of the wise man Solomon, “There is a way
which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
(Proverbs 14: 12.)
The
Really there are only two ways, the broad way and the
narrow way--the way that leads to destruction and the way that leads to
everlasting life. One is the way of the righteous and the other is the way of
the ungodly. David, the sweet singer of
John Oxenhaur has well expressed the two ways that
open up before each person, and the choice that everyone must make:
To every man there
openeth
A way, and ways and
a way
And the high soul
climbs the high way
And the low soul
gropes the low;
And in between on
the misty flats
The rest drift to
and fro
But to every man
there openeth
A high way and a low,
And every man decideth
The way his soul
shall go.
Let
each person do everything possible to find the narrow road and faithfully stay
in it until we are welcomed into the celestial city. Copyright © 2006 All Rights Reserved