An Al Qaida spokesman-terrorist has just released a tape calling for Americans to convert to Islam. A similar "offer" was given to the Queen of England by Moslem clerics in London a few weeks or several months ago. This conversion to Islam is something either they are going to force on us, or we take the consequences with death and destruction at their hands--it is not really a matter of choice. Clear and simple, this a demand. But we know that they would not be doing this if we the Christians had taken seriously Christ's Great Commission, when he said to go to the whole world and preach the Gospel and make disciples of ALL men, teaching them the things He taught so that they would observe and do them most carefully and reverently. Instead the Catholic church for centuries fought the Moslem armies, sword to sword, cannon ball to cannon ball--and the stalemate resulted that only generated great, intense, festering hatred and resentment in the Moslem world. Unable to defeat each other, Moslem powers and Catholic powers in Europe more or less co-existed after some of the most bloody, savage battles in history, fought across the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, and in Eastern Europe (up to the walls of Vienna!), and in France and Spain. This
was not a solution--it only prolonged the issue.
The true issue is this: is Christ who He said He is, or is he not? Do we all belong to Him and need to follow Him alone, or is there someone else who is God's Son or supreme representative on earth? Is Christ the Son of God and the Savior of the World, or is Allah and Mohammed his prophet the way for earth to go?
Is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob God, or is Allah? The devils knows the truth, and chose to follow Satan to their doom. The devils know that Jesus is Lord and Savior, but chose someone else. But humanity is confused. Most do not know this basic truth: that Jesus is Lord and Savior of the World. And most people are trying vainly to work their way to heaven and God's approval by their good works, a terrible mistake.
We have to all make a choice
sooner or later. It is not something you can be "born into" or inherit from your parents, though millions of Christians so-called and Moslems (it is possible to be converted to Islam but not possible to be born-agin in Islam) think so. Yeshua's dealing with Nicodemus points out clearly every human being must be born again by the Spirit of God to be a child of God, accepted and forgiven of his or her sins by the Father. It is not a religion--it is the redemptive act of Christ on the Cross and our restored relationship with God resulting from that act that saves. Because we Christians failed to bring this Good News to the Eastern peoples and those in Africa and most of Asia too, Islam filled the aching void in millions of men's empty, hungry souls. Religion always will (or sex, or materialism, or money, or power) try to fill the void. But the void can only be filled with the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who sent His only son Jesus Christ (Yeshua, or Issa) into the world to save it by His subsitutionary death on the Cross. Mohammed died for no one. Buddha died for no one. It takes the death of a completely innocent, sinless man to do the work of the Lamb of God in substitution for our sins. Nothing less will do--and that man could only be Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, and conceived by the Holy Spirit of God. Jesus was sinless from birth to death. Now we know that Mohammed sinned, and Buddha sinned, and Zoroaster, and Confucius, and every other holy man sinned. So, no man born of an earthly father and an earthly mother, both born in sin by sinful parents, was ever good enough to die for us--only the man Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, and conceived by the Holy Spirit could be the holy, perfect, innocent, immaculate, sinless Lamb of God. There is no other way to be saved, to be born again
as a true child of God, to know true life and receive eternal life with God in heaven, except through this perfect Son of God, Jesus Christ and what He accomplished for us, which we could never do, nor could any holy man, do for ourselves since we were sinner s, condemned to death and hell.
All else will not work, for God has prepared only this one way--as the Bible testifies. There is no Mohammed or Buddha or Hare Krishna in the Bible--they are found in other books which God did not inspire--claims to the contrary, notwithstanding. Jesus Christ himself verifies and affirms again and again the Bible as God's word. He quoted from it many times, and there was no error in it! He said to the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar, "Salvation is of the Jews." How so? Well, God gave His Jewish people the Word of God, which was the only Word of God on earth still remains the only Word of God on Earth. The Jews could save nobody, not even themselves (for many of them went to hell for their sins), but the Word of God given to them could save if believed. God has only this one holy Book of Life. There is no addition, no sequel, no
series--there is only the Bible, the Word of God. All other "holy" books will not avail
for new life and eternity in heaven, because however inspired and exalted they may seem, they are not God's Book. Even a book cannot save, even if it is the Bible, if it is not believed and that Word comes into a person's soul, bringing forth repentance, a transformation, and new life! A Bible on the coffee table saves nobody. Even a theologian is not saved by how much he knows about the Bible, or how much he can quote from memory. Even parrots can quote scriptures (as a missionary aunt's of mine did to visitors at her house in Brazil!), but the parrot was not saved. Only God, acting through the Word, can save us by His Spirit. We are regenerated, brought to life from an utterly dead spirit to a living spirit of Christ--but the Word does it, activated by the Spirit of God. Otherwise, the coffee table would be saved--right--because the Bible is lying upon it! (That is the thinking of so many deceived people who suppose they are Christians by mere church attendance or association with Christians or being children raised by Christian parents, when they are not truly born again, regenerated, saved Christians!)
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," Yeshua (Jesus, Issa) says. "No man comes to the Father but by Me." That saves, when the Spirit of God
implants it in a humble person's soul, producing the regeneration of that person's spirit from a state of death to a state of eternal life and fellowship with God.
Nothing else will do! As the scripture says, "Let God be true, and every man a liar.
I personally did this--I went to God, and called on Jesus Christ to be my personal Lord and Savior, and I confessed my sins. God in an instant, forgave me all my sins, past, present, and future--and I was regenerated on the spot, made a New Creature in Christ, for all eternity. It was all God's doing, but I had to submit to God's way, I had to submit to Jesus Christ, the only Way God provided for me, a sinner, to be forgiven and saved and regenerated and made an heir of Christ and co-laborer with Him on Earth.
I choose to believe Jesus Christ speaking to me in the Word over any man, however many holy robes he has on, or turbans, or vestments, and how many holy orders he has to his credit, or how much theological training he has had. Jesus alone is necessary for my salvation, He alone is sufficient, now and for all eternity. All other claimants and pretenders will fade away and be utterly cast into shame and outer darkness, for no one can take the place of Jesus Christ and what He is and did for us sinners. All Praise to God and His Son Jesus Christ!--Ed.
