[Gary Petty] If you believe in this approach to
God you sort of custom design your own religion. You pick a little bit from Christianity and a
little bit from the New Age, a little bit from Wikipedia, a little bit from pop psychology
and you mix it all together and you create a God in your own image. It's simply a form of
paganism where you make yourself into an idol. A prayer given on January 2nd, 2021 by a Christian
minister before the United States Congress caused quite an uproar. And much of the
controversy was about the end of his prayer when he said, "Amen, and A-woman." Now, the word amen
has nothing to do with gender. It simply means so be it. And it's just said at the end of prayers
all the time. It's an expression of agreement. The minister later said that he was trying to make
a lighthearted pun in what he said, but you know, there's something else in that prayer that
should cause great concern for anyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ. The last line of
the prayer was, "We pray to the monotheistic god, Brahma, and god known by many different names
by many different faiths." Now, this statement was intended to unify all faiths and
for many Christians, it was a prayer that was seen as an example of
Christian love and tolerance. You know, here on Beyond Today,
we believe that every human being was made in the image of God, every person has
purpose, has value, has meaning in your life. Now, at the same time I could never say amen
to that prayer. In reality this prayer is an example of a cultural trend to redefine
the teachings of the biblical Jesus Christ. A trend that challenges a fundamental teaching of
Jesus when he said that he is the only way to God. Now, today we're going to look at what Jesus meant
when He claimed to be the only way to God because knowing what He meant is absolutely necessary
if you want to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. A Christian is more than just a person
who believes in Jesus Christ as good teacher. A Christian believes that
Jesus is the unique son of God and that they must dedicate their
lives to following Him and obeying Him. You know, the reason the congressional prayer
was agreeable to many Christians is because of the belief that Jesus wants all people in this
society to live in peace and love and harmony and to accept each other and not to judge. Now,
if you believe that this is what Jesus taught, that that's His purpose in this society today then
I want you to explain something because I want you to think about this. I'm going to read something
that is actually something that Jesus Christ said. And we know what He said in certain
circumstances because it's in the Bible. The only record we have of the actual teachings
of Jesus Christ is in the scripture. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is all we have. Those
are the oldest records of Jesus Christ. Read this with me. "Do not think." Now, this is
Jesus Christ. Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace
but a sword." Now, what did Jesus mean by that? I mean, first of all, read the rest of the
passage which we're going to do in a minute, we'll see that He isn't telling His followers to
take up arms or riot or to violently persecute people who disagree with him. Jesus leads
his followers by teaching and by example. One of the most dramatic events in all history,
Jesus Christ was dragged before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, and condemned
because He claimed to be a King. Pilate feared that Jesus followers
would rise up in armed rebellion. And here's what Jesus told Pilate. He said, and
these are the words of Jesus again, remember this is the only record we have of what He actually
said. Anything written later, because these men either were there or they collected what He wrote
from people who were eye witnesses. So this is the only eye witness accounts we have of the
teachings of Jesus. We have to understand that. Jesus, "My kingdom is not of this world. If
My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to
the Jews, but now My kingdom is not from here." What's amazing is after He said this, that very
same night, He allowed himself to be humiliated, beaten beyond recognition and suffer
the gruesome death and crucifixion. Jesus told His disciples that His sacrifice and
you'll see that in His teachings, was out of love for all human beings. So obviously when He said,
"Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword." He's not telling his followers to take up
the sword. It's like killing all believers. So what did He mean? Okay, what did He really
mean? Well, let's go back to what we just read and let's look at the rest of what he says,
because it's very important what he says here. He says, "For I have come." This in the same
context of he came to bring a sword. He says, "I have come to set a man against his
father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a
man's enemies will be those of his own household." Understand something Jesus just says here, if you
really follow Him, some people are not going to like you. And that may even mean some members of
your own family may turn against you. Now, this is the real Jesus. This is what He said. Now, what is
the Christian response to this kind of opposition from others? Well, if you read the Gospels, if you
read what Jesus actually said you find Him telling His disciples to love their enemies and to treat
others with kindness even if they abuse you. But you know one thing you'll never find Him saying,
accept the religions of all people as being equal. He doesn't say that. His followers, He said,
are to live as examples of his teachings, treat others with love and then be
prepared to suffer for their beliefs. Let's continue what He says here. He said,
now I want you to really listen to this. "He who loves father or mother more than
Me," this is Jesus, "is not worthy of Me. "And he who loves son or daughter
more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross "nd
follow after Me is not worthy of Me. And he who finds his life will lose it, and he who
loses his life for my sake will find it." Wow. Jesus actually says, you have to make Him more
important than any other relationship in life, your own children, the person that you're
going to marry, your husband, your wife, your parents. He actually said that, and you
know what? Either Jesus is revealing a profound truth about His uniqueness or the man has
serious mental problems. One or the other. Either He's actually revealing something very
true or He has mental problems. He's delusional because He says you have to
love Me more than anybody. How much do you really know
about the biblical Jesus? He claimed to have come to earth from heaven. He
taught that, He will reject those who reject him. Are you ready to confront the real Jesus Christ?
You know, today we're offering one of the most detailed and extensive Beyond Today study
guides, "Jesus Christ: The Real Story." Did you know that the Apostle Paul
actually says, that Jesus is the Creator of the universe? He's right. When
you get this study guide, don't just read it. It is filled with scriptural references. Take the
time to get a Bible and read these passages. The authentic Jesus Christ is one of the great
mysteries of all time. And here you can discover how God came into human history to save
us from suffering and death. Order your free copy by calling the number on your screen or go to
beyondtoday.tv. Okay, that's beyondtoday.tv. Jesus said that He had came
to teach the way of love but He also said that His teachings would cause
people to be offended. In fact, His teachings would be so offensive to some that it would divide
people even members of the same family. Now, think about this. Why would the teachings of
Jesus who promotes love and peace, be offensive. Okay, to understand that you have to realize
the story doesn't start with you and me. What we call Christianity has been evolving and
changing for almost 2000 years. And there are many practices and teachings accepted by Christian
churches today that are quite different than what the earliest Christians actually believed. And in
the past few decades there's been a new influence on Christianity that is actually redefining the
biblical Jesus. And this movement is often called the New Age Movement. New Age thinking isn't
based on a specific religion or even a specific text like the Bible. Although many of the basic
principles are actually from Hinduism and other Eastern non-Christian religions. It is a movement
made up of a variety of ideas and beliefs to determine what it means to be. And this
is a very important word, what it means to be "spiritual." Have you heard someone use these
phrases? "There's more than one way to God." "You need to discover your inner divine
spark." "When bad things happen to people, it’s karma." Watch for that word.
"Jesus taught to accept everyone, "no matter their lifestyle." "Jesus taught that
we can never judge another person's actions." And this is real important. "God is more
concerned with your mystical experience with Him than communal worship or
teachings about personal conduct." You know if you've heard these
kinds of statements in your church, then your church has been influenced by
New Age teachings. And you know what, Biblical verses are often used to support these
statements. And so it can be a little confusing. Now, listen to this. If you really want
to find out what Jesus taught, it's not difficult. All you have to do is get a Bible.
Remember these are the oldest listings of His teachings. These were written by people who
were there. Get a Bible, read the Gospels and see what He taught. If you listen to what I'm
saying and you say, well, that doesn't make sense I don't accept what he's saying. It's simple
to prove me wrong. Go to the Bible and read the Gospels. Just go see what He said and see if that
matches up with some of the New Age teachings. Now, there's two ways that New Age thinking
has affected Christian culture. The first way is, all religions lead to the same God. Now, John,
one of Jesus' original disciples described a meal that Jesus ate with His disciples on the night
that He was betrayed and killed. And Jesus said to them, now this is really important. When he
said to them, He said to them, "I am the way, "the truth, and the life." And then
notice this next part of this verse. Just go to the book of John and you'll see, this
is true. This is what He said. "No one comes to the Father except through me." The Father here is
the God of the Bible. Jesus said that no one is able to come to the way, the truth and the life,
and truly know God, except through Jesus Christ Hinduism, Islam, and all religions that call
on the various gods worshiped around the world, deny this. They deny that Jesus is the
only way to God. But Jesus said He is. This is the great barrier by the way, to
the worldwide ecumenical movement that the New Age wants to create. Well, He says He's
the only way. Well it can't be the only way, there can't be an ecumenical movement if there's
only one way. Here's the problem. And once again, we have to be very honest here, either Jesus is
telling the truth or He's not telling the truth. Either this exclusive teaching of Jesus
is true or He was a very troubled person. Now second influence of New Age thinking is the
belief that "spiritual" means creating a mystical, personalized individual religion. Now, if
you believe in this approach to God you sort of custom design your own religion.
You pick a little bit from Christianity and a little bit from the New Age, a little bit
from Wikipedia, a little bit from pop psychology and you mix it all together and you come to the
conclusion that all religious ideas are equal. Truth is determined by personal feelings. And this
is the basis of the New Age Movement. In reality, when you custom design your spirituality,
you know what you're doing? You create a God in your own image. It's simply a form of
paganism where you make yourself into an idol. I know that's a strong statement. Well, let's back
it up with Jesus. Let's go look at what He taught. In Luke, He says this, "But why do you call Me
'Lord, Lord', "and do not the things which I say?" He says, when you call me,
Lord, you have to do what I say. And then He gives a story to explain what
He's saying. There's sort of a parable here, "Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings
and does them, I will show you who He is like. He is like a man building a house, who
dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream
beat vehemently against the house, it could not shake it, for it was founded on the
rock." So He says, when you listen to my sayings, you know who He is. He's not just a good teacher.
He's the son of God. He's the savior. He says, when you understand this, and then you follow Him
it's like you're building your life on a rock and it doesn't matter what comes and beats at your
house. It survives, you survive. You're okay because of what you've built your life on. And
then He said, "But he who heard and did nothing, is like a man who built a house on the earth
without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently, and immediately it fell. And
there was ruin of that house, which was great." You see, Jesus expects His followers to live
by His teachings. He expects them not only to accept Him as savior, but as master
and Lord. And remember what He taught, remember what Jesus said. He actually
said that nobody can come to God except through Him. In fact, Jesus told His
followers to pray in His name. That's why you often hear Christians pray at the end of their
prayer in Jesus' name or in the name of Jesus. At the beginning of the program I quoted a
public prayer and here's what it ended with. "We pray to the monotheistic god, Brahma, and 'god'
known by many names by many different faiths." Did you notice that it's not a prayer given in
the name of Jesus? And there's a reason why. Public prayers are given in the name of Jesus
Christ many times because you know what happens when you pray in the name of Jesus Christ? You
claim that He's the exclusive way to God. You've made a claim that He is exclusive. You can't be a
follower of the New Age Movement and believe that. So you have to drop Jesus Christ's name
out of the prayer. This man, wouldn't say, by the way he doesn't believe in Jesus
Christ, he does, but that's not the point. This is the important question you need to
ask yourself, is Jesus the only way? Yeah, there's very many ways to feel religious that
aren't true ways to connect to God. Discover the life changing power that you could only experience
by understanding what God is doing through Jesus Christ. Order your free copy of, "Jesus Christ:
The Real Story." You know of the sections in this study guide are much more than a man talking
about Jesus Christ, was much more than a man and Jesus amazing fulfillment of prophecy. This
section will help you by going through the Old Testament prophecies that predicted Jesus' life,
and death in amazing detail. Order your free copy by going online to beyondtoday.tv or by calling
the number that's on the bottom of your screen. And you can download it, you can read it
online or we'll send a copyright to your home. Why would Jesus claim to be the only way to God?
Now, to answer that question we have to outline the core fundamental message of authentic
Christianity. So let's just do that in a few minutes. What is the core fundamental teaching of
Christianity? It all starts at the very beginning of the Bible where it says, let us make man in our
image. All human beings. All human beings, you, you may think you're worthless but
you were made in the image of God. God wants to have a relationship with you. Yes,
He designed you. He wants to reveal Himself to you and guide you through your life. Every human being to God has meaning and purpose and value because
He made you with meaning and purpose and value. All of us are designed to have a deep need for
God. That's the basis of the all religions by the way. They know they need, God, they just define
Him differently. That's not who He says He is. We are empty without God. We long for His
presence. We long to have some connection and Jesus Christ who claimed to be the unique son of
God said that, only He can supply the answers so that we can find our way God. We spend our lives
trying to discover God and His purpose for us. Okay, but why we separated from Him in the
first place? If He made us in His image, why are we separated from God? Let's praise God gave
all of His free will. There's that big problem. That means we get to make decisions and we
get to make choices. And now there's billions of us and we're all making wrong choices
all the time. And the result is you and I we have corrupted human nature. At the very core
of who we are, we're wrong. Oh man, that's tough. Where's the good news about Jesus? This is the
good news because you will never discover the true God and until you accept your absolute need
for him and how hopeless and helpless you are without him. You will never discover God until you
face your corrupt nature. That your thoughts and emotions and actions are against God's way. And
you need to be saved and healed and changed. And human salvation can only come through accepting
and following Jesus Christ. He said that. In other words, you're never
going to discover the true God until you accept that statement from Jesus
Christ. No one comes to the Father, except through me. This means accepting Jesus Christ as savior
and Messiah. Of all the major religious texts, only the Bible teaches that human beings
are separated from God because of their evil and are judged by God to deserve eternal death.
It is only in the Bible that we find the teaching that God loves us so much that He sent His
eternal son to be a sacrifice for our evil. And there is no other way to be able
to come before Him and be accepted. I understand how difficult this is if you
have accepted some of the New Age teachings. Maybe what I'm saying sounds so exclusive and so
judgmental. Well, are you ready to be confronted by the real Jesus Christ? You know, sometimes it
seems easier to believe that if we just love one another and accept each other, then we can live
at a new age of harmony and peace. Well you know if you really want to test that just tell your New
Age friends that you think Jesus is the only way. You may find there's a limit
to their love and acceptance. Another teaching of Jesus that offends New Age
ecumenicalism is His claim that He is returning to earth to establish God's kingdom. It's another
exclusive teaching of Jesus. He taught that He is returning to establish one world government, one
world religion, and the basis of his religion is He's the only way to the Father. He's the
only way to God. And this message is found throughout the Bible. Jesus, the Christ, the
Messiah he's prophesied in the Old Testament. His Kingdom will bring justice, love, peace and
not by having all people create their own vision of what it means to be spiritual. He's returning
to rule as a sovereign King over all nations. He told Pilate that He was a King, not a
president, not voted in the office. Yeah, how do you think most people will respond
to Jesus Christ when He returns to rule? He actually told us, He actually told us
in what is called the Olivet Prophecy. Okay, so I'm going to go here to the Olivet
Prophecy and read to you what He said. He said, "The sign of the Son of Man." That's a
term in the Bible used for the Messiah. "The sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then
all the tribes of the earth will mourn." People are going to be very unhappy when He comes back,
He's going to be quite unpopular. And remember He told his followers not to be surprised if they
are unpopular for following Him. And what does it mean to be a true Christian? Well, true Christians
are those who because of their dedication to Jesus Christ have the real God reigning in their
hearts and minds right now. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is the greatest adventure of
life. You see, He leads us to the Father, to God and God will give you meaning and purpose and
value and a vision of a wonderful future as His child. And this is the good news. This is
why God created you, to be His child forever. So let me just quickly remind you here to order
your free copy of, "Jesus Christ: The Real Story." You can call the number on the bottom of your
screen, or go to beyondtoday.tv. Go online, you can read it. You can download it. I just covered
five important points about the Bible's message from God to you. Let's quickly summarize them.
All human beings are made in the image of God. That's where these all starts. You have
purpose because God made you in His image. The second point is and we covered this, is
that human beings are corrupted images of God. You and I have to accept, we're messed
up. If you haven't figured that out yet, we're messed up every single one of us. And we
need God to restore us back to what we were. That means we need to be saved and human
salvation can only come through Jesus Christ. There's no other way to get
there. And that's what Jesus taught. Then we have to accept that Jesus Christ is
returning. This is a very exclusive teaching. He's returning to establish God's kingdom on this
earth. And when He does, there'll be one religion. That's why a New Age ecumenicalism can't work according to Jesus Christ. And you can't
claim to be a Christian if you don't start studying what He said. True Christians then
have God reigning in their hearts and minds. Reigning in their hearts and minds. You see, God
wants to give you a new mind and a new heart. Jesus Christ is the only way. That
seems a little overwhelming. I mean, that's not what you've been looking at.
That's not maybe what you've thought. So I'm going to leave you with something I saw a
number of years ago. It was on a child's T-shirt. And I remember the experience because I was a
little surprised that this profound message was on a T-shirt. And I was watching this little guy walk
up and he was walking towards me and on the front of his T-shirt I noticed it said, "Be patient
with me. God, isn't done with me yet." And I was chuckling, I was thinking that's really good. And
I watched the little guy walk by and as he walked by I saw what was on the back and on the back of
this T-shirt was, "And God doesn't do bad work." Be patient with me. God isn't done with me yet.
And God doesn't do bad work. That's the good news. New Age ecumenicalism isn't the answer. The gospel
is your Creator wants to forgive you. He wants to heal you. He wants to work in your life. And
the only way that can happen is through Jesus Christ for the work of God to be done in your
life. And remember, God never does bad work. [Announcer] Call now for the free
booklet offered on today's program, "Jesus Christ: The Real Story." Many Christians
who read through the Gospels are surprised to find a different Jesus than the one they were taught.
Jesus was more than a man. He was God who became a human being. He presented Himself as a way
to everlasting life for those who followed Him. But He also proclaimed the good news of the coming
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