The post-modern "emerging" church propaganda are being revealed as we move further and further away from a faith founded on the Word of God.
Believers of a variety of faiths are worshipping together. Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Zoroastrian, Judaic, Christian and Islamic texts are read aloud during the same service at a Muslim Sufi religious retreat in New York. The Sufi Muslim retreat leader speaks about Jesus and the peace that he has inside. (warm fuzzies)
"Abode of the Message," a retreat center in New Lebanon, New York: guests are invited to deepen their faith without suggestion to convert to anything.
Buddhists at Zen Mountain Monastery say they see no conflict with Buddhist practice and any person's search for God. (more warm fuzzies)
Elat Chayyim Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut, welcomes "seekers who have walked other spiritual paths."
83 percent of mainline Protestants
59 percent of historic black Protestant churches
79 percent of Roman Catholics
82 percent of Jews
56 percent of Muslims
... agree that many religions can lead to eternal life.
So what's the problem with this?
Well, it should be unacceptable to Christians, BECAUSE Christians are those who believe in Jesus Christ and who follow him. Obviously, Christians, by definition, believe what he said. At least that's the way it has been up until this century.
Well, what DID Jesus say?
The New Testament record, written exclusively by eye-witness followers of Jesus, teaches that human beings are born in a state of fallenness. This means that all humans will sin, and sin will bring them to judgment.1 The good news of the Gospel is that God sent his son Jesus, to bear the judgment for sin on behalf of each sinner, and that those who receive him will have eternal life. The New Testament stresses that we are saved by the blood of the sacrifice God provided. This concept was introduced at the very beginning of the Bible2 when the sin of man brought death into the world, both physical and spiritual.
Satan's agenda3 is to dismiss every truth about Jesus Christ. He will attack his deity, his virgin birth, and everything written about Him. He will underplay, ridicule, and steer you away from the concepts of the Cross, and the Blood of Christ. And he will foster every and any other way of religion. From the beginning, Satan's hatred has been against the work of Jesus on the cross.
Do Christians really believe what Jesus said? He said that He came to be the atonement for sinful man, and as the atonement provided by God, there is therefore no other way to salvation.4
The Bible speaks of a global religion in "the last days."5 As one who has been watching these things for more than 30 years, I stand in shock and horror as this very thing evolves into just that. It raises the hair on my arms. As in the days of Noah, the human race is going to perdition on a toboggan slide into hell. Jesus said that the last days would be "As it was in the days of Noah ...." And so it is!6
Thirty years ago, it was a stretch to imagine how this global religion could come to be, because the people of most religions were immoveable in their beliefs. But now, in these "last days," that very thing is taking shape right before our eyes. Except, most aren't watching and they're falling for it by the masses.
For those who believe in the Lord Jesus, stay close to him, because it's going to get worse.7 Much, much worse. Many think revival is coming. I don't, but I sure hope they're right and I'm wrong. I see the great apostacy,8 the falling away as the world sets its heart on global peace, global environmentalism, global warming, the polar bears in the arctic, the fuzzy wuzzies, and all that avoids the one true God and his Word given to us in the Bible. Everything and anything except the Word of God.
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References:
1. Man is fallen. Redemption is offered."...through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin..." "...if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ."Romans 5:12;17
2. Redemption not by man's works, but by the shedding of blood
After Adam and Eve sinned, they "realized they were naked," and made coverings for themselves out of leaves. But after pronouncing judgment on them, God himself made coverings for them out of animal skins, portraying that redemption can not happen through man's efforts to cover themselves, but that redemption will be only by the covering of innocent blood.
Genesis 3:7-10, Genesis 3:21
3. Satan
"He (Satan) was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it."John 8:44
4a. Jesus is the way God provided. The only way.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."John 14:6
4b. "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.''
Acts 4:12
5. Global Religion
For Further reading on this see http://ldolphin.org/onereligion.html
6. World going to judgment, as in the days of Noah"But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."
Matthew 24:37-39
7. It's going to get progressively worse. This quote is in the context of a discussion of "the last days."
"But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived."2nd Timothy 3:13
8. The great apostasy of the "last days"
"Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away (Greek: apostasia) comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God."
2nd Thessalonians 2:3-4
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