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JESUS - THE WAY

By George W. Sinquefield

John 14:1 through John 14:6 (KJV)
¹Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. ²In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
⁴And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. ⁵Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? ⁶Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

        Jesus was talking very intimately with His disciples. The time of His departure was near. "I go," He said, "to prepare a place for you. I will come again and receive you unto myself." Thomas said, "We know not wither Thou goest and how can we know the way?" Little did Thomas realize the "The Way" was standing before him, that he had associated with "The Way" through the short ministry of Jesus. Jesus did not rebuke him. He simply said, "I am the Way."

        This world is in dire need of the truth about how one is saved - how one gets to Heaven. Henry Drummond said, "The amount of spiritual longing in the world is absolutely incredible." Many years ago a poet in India cried out in the darkness of heathenism.

        The world's answer is that there are many ways.

Proverbs 14:12 (KJV)
¹²There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

        The same is said in 16:25.

Proverbs 16:25 (KJV)
²⁵There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

        I am so glad that I can show you the Way according to the Bible. "What in your lifetime has caused you the greatest satisfaction?" an old Chinese philosopher was asked. He replied, "A child that went down the road singing after asking me the Way."

        A lady was saved on the mission field under the ministry of Edith Vaughn. She came to Miss Vaughn and said. "I'm not going to say anything about this until I'm stronger and have more courage." She pointed to her 9 year old child saying, "For two years this child has said she is a believer in Christ. I have slapped her, abused her, cursed her, and laughed at her. So have the neighbors. Through it all she has smiled and said, 'Whatever you say or do to me I'm still a believer in Jesus. He is my Savior!" Her mother continued, "I'm not as strong as she. I must wait until I have more courage to talk to my neighbors about it.' The next morning she returned to the good will center, announcing to Miss Vaughn, "It was too good to keep. I just had to tell others how Jesus saved me?" We can all tell what Jesus has done for us, and we should as we have an opportunity.

        Some years ago a commuter on the Long Island Railroad was known to every regular patron on the 5 o'clock local. He was a well dressed, soft-spoken young man who lived at Jamaica. Every evening after the train left the subway, he would rise and go to the front of the car. As he walked back, he would speak to every passenger, saying, "Excuse me, but if any of your family or any of your friends are blind, tell them to consult Dr. Garl. He restored my sight."

        We who are saved can say to the lost world "If you or any of your family or friends are lost, Jesus can and will save them. He saved me.."

        Many do not know the way to be saved because the devil has blinded them.

2 Corinthians 4:3 through 2 Corinthians 4:4 (KJV)
³But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: ⁴In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

        The world gives many answers to the question, "How can I be saved and go to Heaven?"

I.    One answer is that we are saved by our good works.

        What does the Bible, God's Word, say about this?

Ephesians 2:8 through Ephesians 2:9 (KJV)
⁸For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: ⁹Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Titus 3:5 (KJV)
⁵Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

        We are saved by God's mercy, not by our merit -- by Christ's dying, not by our doing. If we could work our way into heaven, Jesus would never have died the awful death on the cross. It is by His death, His blood, that we are saved.

Romans 5:9 (KJV)
⁹Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

1 Peter 1:18 through 1 Peter 1:19 (KJV)
¹⁸Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; ¹⁹But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

II.    Another says one gets to heaven by imitating the life of Jesus.

        Joe Henry Hankins in his book, "Old Time Religion"  says; "The modernist would tell us that we are to be saved by imitating the beautiful life of Christ. But if you tell me that that is my only hope of salvation; I will tell you that you have not offered me any hope of salvation; for when I look at that marvelous life, I tell you frankly I can't live like that. The man who sentenced Him to death and turned Him over to be crucified testified: "I find no fault in him." Pilate's wife came and said, "Have thou nothing to do with that just man." Judas, who sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, said, "I have betrayed innocent blood." He was such a man that He could stand in the presence of His bitterest enemies and say, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" Not a sin, not a stain, not a fault, not a shortcoming! He never made a mistake. He never said or did the wrong thing, nor had the wrong attitude. And you tell me that I must imitate that life n order to be saved? I will tell you, as I look into my poor sinful heart, that you have not held out to me any hope of salvation."

III.    Others believe one is saved by observing the Old Testament law -- the Ten Commandments being the very heart of the law.

Galatians 3:7 through Galatians 3:13 (KJV)
⁷Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. ⁸And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. ⁹So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. ¹⁰For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. ¹¹But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. ¹²And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. ¹³Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

        There is a vast difference between the law and the grace of God.
 

  1.    The law prohibits -- Grace invites and gives.
  2.    The law condemns the sinner -- Grace redeems the sinner.
  3.    The law says "do" -- Grace says "It is done."
  4.    The law says, continue to be holy -- Grace says, It is finished.
  5.    The law curses -- Grace blesses.
  6.    The law slays the sinner -- Grace makes the sinner alive.
  7.    The law shuts every mouth before God -- Grace opens the mouth to praise God.
  8.    The law condemns the best man -- Grace saves the worst man.
  9.    The law says, pay what you owe -- Grace says, I freely forgive you all.
10.    The law says, "The wages of sin is death" -- Grace says, "The gift of God is eternal life."
11.    The law ways, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" -- Grace says, "Believe and live."
12.    The law reveals sin -- Grace atones for sin.
13.    By the law is the knowledge of sin -- By grace is redemption from sin.
14.    The law was given by Moses -- Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
15.    The law demands obedience -- Grace bestows and gives power to obey.
16.    The law was written on stone -- Grace is written on the tables of the heart.
17.    The law was done away in Christ -- Grace abides forever.
18.    The law puts us under bondage -- Grace sets us in the liberty of the sons of God.

IV.    Jesus is the way.

        U. S. history records the building of a great transcontinental railway line which would unite the country by rail from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The finances were raised with some difficulty and the construction began. The day came when the last rail was to be laid on the border line between New Mexico and Colorado. It was planned to be a great event.

        A special order was sent to California for a laurel wood tie and two silver spikes - one for New Mexico and one for Colorado. The governor of each state was invited. They were to drive the two spikes into the laurel wood tie, thus completing the work, making a way of transportation from ocean to ocean.

        As the governor drove the spike the crowd applauded. a telegraph wire bore the news to the world. It was a great accomplishment. But yonder one day four spikes were driven into a cross and through the hands and feet of Jesus, the Son of God. Because of that reconciling death, that peace making death, we can now proclaim to the world that a way is open whereby one can go not from ocean to ocean but from sin to salvation, for death to life.

        Our message to the world is that now a way is open whereby lost people can be saved from sin and death and that way is Jesus Christ.

        As he came to the end of his distinguished ministry at City Temple in London, the great British Methodist preacher Leslie Weatherhead said: "I am to be asked shortly on a radio program to answer the question, 'What have you learned from life?' Well, I have learned a lot of things from life, but from my own failures, from the confidences of innumerable men and women, from the rough and tumble of forty-five years in the Christian ministry, and from my observations as a student of personal, national and international affairs, I will tell you the outstanding thing I have learned. It is this: Life will only work out one way, and that is God's way. He made it like that. Every other way has across it a barricade bearing a notice which says, 'No thoroughfare this way.' If you surmount the barrier, there is a precipice. Men will not learn the truth of half a dozen words: 'OUTSIDE GOD THERE IS ONLY DEATH.' After all, Jesus did say, 'I am the Way'"

V.    Jesus is the only Way.

        Dr. Herschel Hobbs said: "We are living in a strange age indeed! It is one that demands dogmatism in matters of relative unimportantance But at the same time it draws back from dogmation  in the matter of one's salvation. And of all the places it is here that men demand broadmindedness. How often have you heard someone say, 'Well, it doesn't matter what we believe. We're all trying to get to the same place.' -- namely heaven."

        A Hindu said once to a missionary, "You are such a broad minded Christian." The missionary replied; "My brother I am the narrowest man you have come across. I am broad on almost anything else, but on the one supreme necessity for human nature. I am absolutely narrowed by the facts to one Jesus."

        Dr. Stanley Jones tells this: A Brahmin came to me confidentially one day and said, "Your addresses have been very much enjoyed but there is one thing I would suggest. If you will preach Christ as a way, all right, but say that there may be other way as well. If you do this, India will be at your feet." I replied, thanking my brother for his concern, but said, "I am not looking for popularity and it is not a question what I should say. It is a question of what are the facts. They have the final word. I should be glad, if I could say that there are others who are saving men, but I know of only One to whom I dare actually apply the term, "Savior."

        It is said that the ancient city of Troy had but one entrance and from whatever direction travelers approached the city they could not enter except through that one entrance.

        There is only one door into salvation and from whatever direction lost sinners approach it, they cannot enter except through this door. Jesus said, "I am the door: by Me if any man enter in he shall be saved..." John 10:9.

        I like these words of another: "Salvation is in Christ, not about Christ. It is He, not His. If we could have been saved by doing what Christ taught, or living as Christ lived, then Calvary need never have been enacted. It would not have been necessary for Christ the Son of God to have become incarnate. The Virgin Birth would have become and idle gesture. The resurrection of Jesus would have been a meaningless miracle. But all this and much more add up to the Christ of God, Redeemer of the race and Savior of mankind. So that "in Him was life, and the life was the light of men." Herein is salvation. There is salvation in nothing less."

        One preacher relates this experience:

        I talked to a druggist about Christ in Michigan a few years ago. when I asked him if he were on his way to Heaven, he said, "Why, of course. I believe there are lots of ways to get to Heaven, and that as long as a person is sincere he is all right." As an illustration, he told that when he was a boy, it was his responsibility to take the wheat in a big farm wagon up to the mill to be ground into flour. This druggist said that there were two roads to the mill. One road led down by the river. The other led up over the hill. Both roads were about the same length, and it didn't make too much difference which way he went. Both roads led to the mill. Then he said that when he got to the mill, the miller never asked him by which road he had come, but only asked him if his wheat was good. The druggist went on to make the application that he believed there were many roads to Heaven and that after all, if a person were perfectly sincere, he would get there, and that would be all that would matter.

        It was a Spanish Roman Catholic who said, "Many are the ways by which God carries His own to heaven."

        Dr. Bailey E. Smith tells that one time his little boy, Stephen, had a high fever. He asked the doctor what he could do to bring it down. The doctor told him to fill his bath tub full of ice water and submerge little Stephen in it. He got it ready -- went into Stephen's room. Stephen was warm in bed in pajamas with feet in them. He took him in his arms, carried him into the bathroom, removed his pajamas and submerged him in that ice water. He said, "I have never seen such a horrified look on anyone''s face in my life." He said Stephen asked, "Daddy how could you do this to me? How could you treat me this way?" Dr. Smith said, "If there had been an easier way, I would have done it. I got no pleasure out of treating little Stephen that way but it was the only way."

        God gave His Son to die an awful death. Why? Because it was the only way. He died to satisfy the righteous demands of God. He died to pay our sin debt.

Acts 4:12 (KJV)
¹²Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

        D. T. Niles was asked, "How do you present Christ to the heathen on the mission field?" He said, "Oh, I repeat the words of Jesus, "No man comes to the Father but by me."

        John Dyer: A man may go to heaven without health, without riches, without honors, without learning, without friends but he can never go there without Christ.

        "Jesus is the only Way to Heaven. All other paths are detours to doom."

        We sing the old hymn;
 

I must needs go home by the Way of the cross.
There's no other way but this;
I shall ne'er get sight of the gates of light,
If the Way of the cross I miss.

Romans 3:23 through Romans 3:24 (KJV)
²³For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; ²⁴Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Revelation 21:6 (KJV)
⁶And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

Revelation 22:17 (KJV)
¹⁷And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

        Dr. Herschel Hobbs tells of this experience:

        Recently Mrs. Hobbs and I were riding with a man in Holllywood, California. Seeing a large white cross on a hill she asked about it. Misunderstanding as to what she had referred, he replied, "That is the Freeway." He spoke a greater truth than he realized. For it is by the cross that God can offer you the "freeway" to salvation and eternal life. It is free to you but it cost God dearly. Soon we were riding on the freeway. No one stopped us to collect a toll. We simply drove on it. Now the freeway cost millions of dollars but it was free and ours simply for the using. Our refusal to ride on it would have been our loss.

        John Oxenham said that "every man decideth the way his soul shall go."

        I heard a story about a man who decided to walk to a town called Smithfield. He walked quite a way down the road until he came to a dividing of the road where there stood a sign post with two arrows telling him that one road would get him to Smithfield and the other would not. That was simple enough. One road was well paved, smooth delightful sort of road. But that was not the road to Smithfield, it was the other road. This road was rough, stoney, steep and unattractive. The man stood and looked at the signs for a while and then he climbed up and just changed the signs around. Then he went off singing happily down the delightful road. He walked and walked and walked, but obviously he never came to Smithfield.

        Jesus is the way, the only Way. Refuse Him and you'll never get to Heaven.

John 3:36 (KJV)
³⁶He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

        That's what Jesus said, "I am the way -- and no one ever comes to the Father except by me."

        A missionary told an old Indian chief about Jesus Christ, God's only way to heaven. "The Jesus road is a good road," the aged chief said. "But I have followed the Indian road all my life, and I cannot change now." A year later he lay in his hut, deathly sick. The missionary hurried to his side and once more told him of Christ.

        "Can I turn to Jesus now?" the dying chief asked. "My own road stops here. It has no way through the valley!" Every road that a man walks in life ends up at the grave. The roads of religion, fame, wealth, and success can never take you through the valley of the shadow of death, Only Christ can do that! And He will -- if you will but trust Him.

        An old sign on the Oregon Trail to the great western part of our country reads, "Go this way and you'll get there." Jesus is the  only way. Would you choose Him today if you haven't already done so?