No Other Rock

A recent poll of Americans revealed that 70 percent of those who were asked “Do you think all religions lead to heaven” answered “yes.” Of those polled in Ohio, 76 percent said “yes.” Now let’s be clear: the word “religion” means something different than the word “denomination.” Christianity is a religion. Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran; those are denominations. So seven out of ten people (almost eight out of ten in our home state)—at least the ones that were asked—evidently believe that no matter if you are a Christian or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Mormon or whatever—it’s all good! All the elevators go to the same floor! I have to tell you, as a pastor and as a thinking Christian, that makes me profoundly sad, because not only does that reveal how Biblically illiterate we have become as a people, but it also reveals how ignorant we are of other religions, because some of those I’ve just named don’t even believe in a heaven where you exist as a person for eternity! 70 percent of a so-called Christian nation doesn’t know or care what the Bible says about the matter—neither do they really have a clue what other religions teach. They’ve bought into the school of thought that says: “You be a good person, you go to heaven.” The only problem is, the principal of that school of thought is the devil, and he is having great success in teaching this lie, not only “out there” in secular society, but also within the Christian Church itself. If you think I’m exaggerating, consider the case of the Episcopal priest in Seattle who has defined herself as both Christian and Muslim. This priest has said about Jesus, and I quote: “I don't think God said, "Let me send this special person so that I can kill him for the benefit of the rest of humanity." That's not the kind of sacrifice I think that God desires.” End quote. Her bishop—the supervising pastor in her area-- says that her declaration that she is both a Christian and a Muslim to be “exciting” in terms of interfaith understanding. This is really happening, and it’s not going away.
What’s so wrong with the thought that all religions drop you off at the same heavenly hotel? Well, just this: If you believe in the God that reveals Himself through the Bible, and you take Him at His Word and you let Him define your reality, then the message you get is that He is the only way to heaven—He is the only true God. And it’s not like he’s silent on the issue of other religions. Consider our Old Testament lesson for today from Isaiah 44. There Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty says: “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come—yes, let him foretell what will come. Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one."
Does that sound to you like a God who would say, “Oh yeah, those other gods will get you to the same place anyway?” No way! The God of Israel; the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob; the God who led his people out of Egyptian slavery; the God who lived with his people in tabernacle and temple and who finally put on our flesh to die and rise in our stead will never share the stage with Allah or be put on a double-bill with Krishna. There is no other rock on which to stand when all other ground is sinking sand. It’s the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or it’s false. It’s reliance, faith, and trust in Jesus’ death and his resurrection or it’s wrong. If the Christian Church loses this truth, the church is lost. If we individual Christians ignore what God has clearly said in His Word and start inventing a God that thinks like we do, then we’re in danger. To say that “All religions lead to heaven” is really to rebel against Jesus, who said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” It’s also to rebel against apostolic teaching. It was Peter who said, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4: 12)” And really, it is to rebel against and call into question all that God has said; because nowhere are we given the freedom to cut and paste the parts of the faith we like and to ignore the rest. At that point, we’re just playing god. The God who said “There is no other Rock; I know not one” will not accept us as fellow gods either. Where we have remained willfully ignorant of what God says…where we have heard what God says but ignored it and gone our own way…where we have presumed to know better than God and adopted the world’s so-called wisdom…and where we have concluded that there’s really no sin that sticks to us… we need to repent. We need a wake-up call. We need to truly confess the words of the beloved hymn: “No merit of my own I claim; But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.” We need to go to the only true God asking for mercy, which really is a matter of asking the Lord to not punish us as our sins deserve.
So here is the mystery and majesty of the true Triune God: He will not punish us as our sins deserve when we wholly lean on Jesus’ name. He will show mercy, because contrary to what human wisdom suggests, God did desire the sacrifice of His Son as the payment of our sins’ debt. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, could not be clearer on this very point. Jesus’ mission was to be our substitute in death; to die our death; to take our punishment instead of us, which He did on the cross. Because He paid the ultimate price, you and I are forgiven, fully and completely. But God doesn’t stop there. He plants the gift of faith in your heart to believe this Great News. He did not forgive your debt in order to make you an indentured servant, but to adopt you as his child and an inheritor of eternal life. He gives his children his very name in Holy Baptism. The Good Shepherd feeds His flock in the Lord’s Supper. His Word is our Solid Rock through the storms of life. He loves you and lavishes these gifts upon you. And let’s be honest: we don’t deserve them. But that doesn’t stop the persistent love of God, who gives us the treasure Jesus earned again and again and again. This we call grace.
And it’s grace that sets the true Christian faith apart from any other world religion or philosophy. It’s grace that marks the true Christian faith as the one authentic expression of God’s love for His creation. Without exception, every other religion or worldview gives you a list of things to do, and you do the list to earn God’s favor. You do the list to improve yourself. You do the list to make the world a better place. And if you do the list well enough, there might be some rewards for you. But inevitably, people can’t do the list very well at all, and it becomes a burden as they try harder or simply give up. Only the Christian faith, with its focus on the saving words and actions of Jesus, presents the way of grace, of God giving us what we could never achieve as a gift because He loves us already.
When the grace of Jesus hits home, it really hits home, especially if you’ve been laboring under a “do-this-list” religion. Let me introduce you to a man named Joakim. Joakim lives in Africa, but he speaks French, and one day he met a man who as it turned out was a Lutheran missionary. That Lutheran missionary asked Joakim to help him learn the French language. Joakim agreed. So the missionary and Joakim got together and took turns reading from a French-language Bible. They had been doing this for many weeks when one day the missionary asked Joakim if he was a Christian. And Joakim said, “I was a Muslim until the first day that we read the Bible together. I had always thought that Jesus was a prophet like Muhammed and that Islam and Christianity were basically the same. I thought Jesus was a law-giver like Muhammed. I never heard that Jesus came as a Savior to pay for our sins. I had always tried to be a good Muslim but my sin haunted me. Now I know that Jesus came to die for me and because of what He has done, I can be sure that I will go to heaven.”
There are souls like Joakim’s on the line all around us, and the only way they will ever have peace is through the pure message of Jesus’ gracious life, death, and resurrection. Let us always pray for courage to boldly broadcast that apart from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there is no God; There is no other Rock who loves with such extravagant grace as Christ on whom we stand. Amen.