Christianity is an incredibly simple
religion. Christ did the hard part by
dying on the cross for our sins. Then, all
that we have to do is believe in Christ.
That's easy; all that we have to do is say
"I believe". After that, it's love God and
love your neighbor as yourself. Again,
that's easy. Everyone loves God. The next
part is easy also. We love our neighbor,
just hate their sins or things they do.
Not only that, if everything else fails,
all that we have to do is confess our
sins, ask for forgiveness, and our sins
are forgiven. Since Christ loves us and
died for our sins, He surely wouldn't let
us go to hell. Add to this the
supernatural help Christ promises us in
this life. It's like Christ giving us a
million dollars with no strings attached.
We would be crazy to not take it.
Everything would be great if
Christ had just shut up and left it at
that.
In Matthew 7:21, Christ said, "Not
every one who says to me, Lord, Lord, will
enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who
does the will of my Father which is in
heaven". Christ says similar things in
John: 15, 14:23-24 and 15:6. Christ can
tell very quickly who really believes in
Him and those who are just talking. It is
by our actions that He can tell what we
really believe. We can't buy our way into
heaven with good deeds; that comes from
God's grace. We also can't fake belief or
faith in Christ, all that Christ has to do
is look at what we do to tell what we
really believe.
In John 14:34, Christ says, "A new
commandment I give to you, that you love
one another; as I have loved you, that you
also love one another". Christ says this
again in Matthew 22:37-40, Mark 12:31,
Luke 10:27-28 and in John 15:12 and 17.
Christ is very clear about what happens to
us if our love isn't translated into
action.
Matthew 25:41-46
41 Then He will say to those on
his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed,
into the eternal fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels: 42 For I was hungry,
and you gave me no food: I was thirsty,
and you gave me no drink: 42 I was a
stranger, and you didn't take me in:
naked, and you didn't clothed me: sick and
in prison and you didn't care for me. 43
Then they will answer him, saying, 'Lord,
when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a
stranger or naked or sick or in prison and
did not minister to you? 44 Then He will
answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you
did not do to one of the least of these;
you did not do for me. 45 And these will
go away into eternal punishment: but the
righteous to eternal life.
Christ tells us that we will go to
hell for doing many things but this is the
only time He tells us that we will go to
hell if we don't do something.
This presents a huge problem for
religious leaders. If people spend their
time, effort and money feeding the hungry,
giving drink to the thirsty etc., as
Christ commanded, they can't build
churches or pay their religious leaders a
salary. We all have a limited amount of
time, effort and money that we can give to
religion.
Religious leaders have come up
with two very simple solutions. First,
they just ignore these passages or make
token efforts like giving some old clothes
in a clothing drive, a few cans of food to
a food pantry or work in a soup kitchen
every once in a while.
And yet there are literally
hundreds of millions of people who go
hungry every day. This is hundreds of
millions of people who will say that we
didn't give them food or drink or shelter
or clothing or medical help or visit them
in prison. What do we tell God then?
It is hard to care for these
hundreds of millions of people. A few live
in this country but most of them live in
Africa, Asia or Latin America. Out of
sight and out of mind, except to Christ,
of course.
The second thing religious leaders
do is to divert attention from doing what
Christ commanded. Here are some of the
many ways they do this.
Abortion is a common way that
religious leaders divert attention from
doing what Christ commanded. The Pro-Life
supporters consider themselves as doing
God's will in "thou shalt not kill" and
"Whatever you do to the least of my
brethren". They consider the fetus to be
the very, very least of God's brethren.
This is easy. All they have to do is pass
laws against abortion or otherwise prevent
abortions and they have done God's will.
Most of the supporters of the
"Pro-Life" movement view this disagreement
as being between those who are doing God's
will and those who find having a baby to
be inconvenient. In reality, it is a
disagreement between those who will take
responsibility for the child after it is
born and those that believe their
responsibility ends with the birth of the
child.
To understand what they really do
though, imagine a man who does God's will
of "go forth and multiply" Genesis 9:7. He
rapes as many women as possible to produce
as many children as possible. He is doing
God's will and thus insuring he will go to
heaven. He doesn't care what happens to
the children he fathers, his
responsibility ended when he fathered the
children. It is the woman's responsibility
to care for the child. If she can't or
doesn't, that's not his problem. This is
exactly what the people who support the
Pro-Life position do.
Since our fictitious man is
following a teaching in the bible, he may
be convinced that will earn him a place in
heaven. Most might disagree. But it really
doesn't matter what any of us think or
believe, the only thing that matters is
what God decides.
The people who support the
"Pro-Life" movement have no intention of
taking care of the children they force to
be born. They don't even know who or where
these children are. - Most of them live in
Latin America, Africa or Asia. - More
important, they don't think or care enough
about them to want to relieve the constant
hunger, thirst, and grinding poverty that
these millions of children suffer all day
every day.
Most supporters of the "Pro-Life"
movement can't imagine themselves being
cast into everlasting fire as Christ
promised. They think of themselves as the
"good guys" doing God's work. But
according to Christ, they aren’t doing
his work at all.
In Matthew 7:15-20 and Luke
6:43-49, Christ said "Beware of false
prophets...you will know them by their
fruits". It is so easy to call a fetus a
child and thus the fruits of the Pro-Life
movement would be saving the lives of
millions of babies. Certainly, many of
these children will live good, healthy and
happy lives. We also know that hundreds of
millions of these children will live lives
of hunger, disease and despair.
What about the "sanctity of life"?
It isn't one of Christ's teachings! Surely
he would have mentioned it but He must
have forgot. Actually, Christ does address
this issue. In Matthew 15:9 and Mark
7:6-9, Christ said, "full well you reject
the commandment of God, that you may keep
your own tradition". It is easy to come up
with all kinds of traditions and declare
them inspired by God. It is very hard to
actually practice love as Christ
commanded.
The concept of "the sanctity of
life” does one very important thing. It
gives people an excuse for NOT following
the teachings of Christ. Now people don't
have to look at the "fruit" of their
actions and see if they are "love". If you
think "love" means abandoning a child to
hunger, disease and hopelessness, please
trade your own children, grandchildren or
other loved ones with these children. Do
this without any chance of ever seeing
them again. After all, many times, Christ
commanded us to "love one another as I
have love you".
What if your parents aborted you?
If a soul exists, your soul would be with
all the other souls of those whose parents
had miscarriages.
Billions or even trillions of
fetuses die as miscarriages and good
"Pro-Life" couples just flush them down
the drain. If these fetuses have a soul,
what happens to it? The same thing whether
it died from a miscarriage or an abortion.
If it doesn't go straight to heaven, then
every Christian married couple is
condemning the souls of their fetuses to
hell or someplace else equally bad.
One thing we know for sure is that
if you go to eternal damnation, you will
wish to God that you had been aborted. Not
only that, but you will curse to hell
those who caused you to be born.
Some churches put crosses out to
symbolize fetuses that have been aborted.
They should display a thousand crosses to
symbolize the thousands of children they
have deliberately let starve so they can
go to a nice church and pay a clergy tell
them how God loves them for doing this.
Certainly, Christ has a special place for
them for letting all of these children
starve.
The real fruits of the supporters
of the "Pro-Life" movement are hundred of
millions of children who are hungry.
Some people pretend to believe in
a "literal" interpretation of the bible.
To them, this guarantees that they don't
make any mistakes and thus ensures that
they will go straight to heaven. They
don't really believe in a literal
interpretation of course. In Matthew
19:23-24, Mark 10:25 and Luke 18:25,
Christ says that "It is easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom
of heaven". It is literally impossible for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
Do they really believe that it is
impossible for a rich man to go to heaven?
Of course not! They picked out the belief
in evolution because it is so much easier
to deal with than feeding the hungry,
giving drink to the thirsty etc. They
don't even pretend to love their neighbor
as themselves. This is just an easy way to
trick themselves into believing they are
going to heaven. But according to Christ,
they condemn themselves to hell for not
putting love into practice.
Climate change is another topic
where Christ can easily see if we really
believe in Him. Parts of Africa, Asia and
Latin American are suffering from severe
drought or flooding because of climate
change. But many people, who pretend to
believe in Christ, would sooner enjoy
their good lives in this world rather than
reduce their energy use. They have all
kinds of excuses. Climate change really
isn't happening. It's a natural cycle. It
might improve our conditions here.
Ultimately though, they just don't care
what their actions do to other people.
Others talk about homosexuality
and other people's sins of whatever type.
It's a matter of looking at the splinter
in someone else's eye rather than the log
in our own. Of course, it is always so
much easier to worry about what someone
else is doing rather than do the things
Christ commanded.
What about forgiveness of sins? To
most people, these are magic words and all
they have to do is say them and they get
into heaven free. Actually, very few
people really want forgiveness. What they
really want is to continue doing what they
have always done and just not be punished
for their sins. They believe that God is
too stupid to know the difference.
These ideas must be the work of
the devil because they challenge so much
of "traditional" Christian thinking. Let's
use the teaching of Christ to determine if
this is the work of a false prophet
(Matthew 7:15, Mark 13:22 and Luke 21:
or of the blind
leading the blind (Matthew 15:14 and Luke
6:39). Christ said, by their fruit you
will know them (Matthew 16-20 and Luke
6:44). Which actions do you think follow
Christ's teaching to love one another as
He has loved us? Did we give money to
build a new church or did we give money to
feed the hungry? Did we spend our time
trying to convert others to our view of
Christianity or did we spend our time
giving drink to the thirsty? Did we spend
our effort forcing more babies to be born
or do we spend our effort feeding the
millions of hungry babies who have already
been born?
Keep in mind that doing what
Christ commanded isn't easy. There are
corrupt governments, warlords, drug lords
and crooks of all kinds out there ready to
steal the food, water, medicine and other
supplies given to those who need them. We
have to decide if we want to keep our hard
earned money for ourselves and our own
little congregation or tackle these
problems as Christ commanded.
In Matthew 4:4, Christ says, "Man
can't live by bread alone, but by the word
of God". That means we don't have to worry
about bread for the hungry, we just have
to tell them what Christ said, doesn't it?
Most people understand that Christ was
talking to people who have bread and not
those who need bread.
In Matthew 7:13 and Luke 13:24,
Christ tells us that the broad, easy way
leads to destruction. It is the narrow,
hard things that lead to salvation and
that few will be willing to follow it. For
so many people, that means protecting
themselves from the evils of this world.
That's easy. What's hard is to go out into
the evils of this world and practice the
love that Christ has given us.
Imagine that on your way to
church, you came across an infant that had
been abandoned. What would you do? Would
you call for help and take care of the
infant? Or would you just step over it
because you didn't want to be late for
church? What if you knew there was an
abandoned baby a couple of blocks away on
a street you don't normally take? What
would you do? What if you knew there were
millions of babies on different continents
that needed help and you didn't help
them?
For many people, their final ace
in the hole is Christ's teaching in
Matthew 19:26, Mark 10:27 and Luke 18:27.
The apostles ask who can be saved and
Christ answers "what is impossible for
human beings is possible for God". What
religious leaders want this to mean is
that every other teaching of Christ can be
ignored. God loves us and we can do
anything we want and He'll still take us
to heaven.
This presents a serious problem.
Does God love all of us and we're all
going to heaven no matter what we do? If
so, then why does Christ (Matthew 7:13,
7:21 and 13:49-50, Mark 13:22, Luke 21:8
and John 15:6) talk about some of us going
to heaven and some of us going to hell?
In John 14:26, Christ said that he
would send the Holy Spirit to “teach us
everything and to remind us of all that He
(Christ) told us”. Does anyone really
believe that the Holy Spirit is sent to
fix all of the things that Christ got
wrong? Apparently huge numbers of people
believe just that! They don’t believe
the teachings of Christ or in Christ, they
believe in the teachings of various
“saints”, religious leaders or
founders of different “Christian”
religions.
Now here is the most horrible
thought any Christian can imagine. What
if Christ got it right the first time and
didn’t forget anything? What if Christ
loves us and can easily tell who loves him
back by what they do about his teaching?
Hundreds of millions of hungry people will
be testifying on judgment day either for
us or against us.
None of us can imagine that we
personally are going to hell. To do so
might be a sign of mental illness. We
especially can’t imagine that our loved
ones who have died might be in hell rather
than heaven. We believe that if Christ
loves us, He can’t possibly let us be
led astray. We don’t believe Christ
when he tells us again, again and again
how our religious leaders will deceive us.
Get out your own bible and read it for
yourself.
Christ taught a good news, bad news
type of thing. For the people willing to
go out into the world and make it a better
place, He promises salvation. For the rest
who just sit around and praise the Lord,
He promises eternal damnation. Christ
clearly knew that most people would choose
the “Lord, Lord” route. He told us
that many are called but few are chosen
(Matthew 22:14). It's up to us to decide
which group we will be in.
