This morning I am going to ask a simple question.  The question is simple but perhaps the answer is not.  Or maybe the answer is simple and the question is confusing. Or perhaps we don’t want the answer to be simple and it is.  Or maybe the answer is complicated and we want it to be simple.  Most valuable answers are not simple but they ultimately are simple. I think it is a simple question but now I’m not sure.  “Come on Tim, you are driving us crazy.  What is the question?”  Alright, the simple/or not question is, “Do all roads lead to heaven?” 

Obviously, we are dealing with a metaphor here.  As far as I know there isn’t any asphalt, concrete, gravel, dirt, country or yellow brick road that leads to where God dwells.  So, the question is, un-metaphorically speaking, do all religious belief systems ultimately have the same result? Regardless of what you belief or practice, as long as you are sincere, are we all going to get the same thing when all is said and done?  Is life a kid’s game; where all the participants get the same Oriental Trading Company trinket regardless if they win or not?  Do all roads get you to heaven?  

Here is why I have chosen to ask this question today; in Acts 17 Paul finds himself in the middle of, “Do all roads get you to heaven?” 

Acts 17:15-16  The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.  While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 

The Greek word here for “greatly distressed” is the same word used in the Septuagint for God’s own anger at idolatry. Paul was irritated, upset, disturbed; he couldn’t stand it that there were so many pagan gods!  It broke his heart to see so many different roads to heaven.   One scholar translates the “full of idols” as a “veritable forest of idols.”  I can relate to Paul.  When we look at the religious world around us it breaks my heart to see all the confusion, silliness and even hatefulness in the name of spirituality.  Certainly, there are a lot of roads out there, but do they all lead to the same place?

Acts 17:17-18  So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.  A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 

So, Paul took his distress to the marketplace and began to tell them the good news of Jesus and the resurrection!  Instead of just fretting over all the roads, he begins to do something about it. 

Acts 17:19-21  Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean."  (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) 

Athens was a center of learning in Paul’s day. It was here that the idea of democracy took root. Many of the world’s early philosophers and thinkers had lived in Athens.   Paul was standing in the same spot that Plato and Socrates and others had changed their world. Here in Athens they had one of the greatest universities of the ancient world. It was a center of philosophy, literature, science, art and religion.

The Areopagus was a council of men who were in charge of religious matters for the city. It was a big job.  They were interrogating Paul to find out what he was teaching. Paul, in essence, stood before the politically correct police of his day and delivers a sermon which will answer our question, “Do all roads lead to heaven?’

Acts 17:22-23  Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said:
"Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.  For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”

He begins his sermon very subtly.  His opening remarks are both complimentary and critical.  They were very religious but their philosophy of so many gods that they have to cover all the bases with unknown ones is a bit ridiculous.  How do you worship an unknown god?  So, Paul is going to tell them about their unknown God.  And here is where we begin to learn the answer. 

Acts 17:24-26 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.  From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” 

Paul begins to tell them about the God who made everything.  He is the God who rules heaven and earth.  He is not some local deity.  He is not someone’s pet god.  He made everyone in the whole earth and rules all.  Because he is the one ruling God, he is too big for a temple.  We don’t need to go out and build another temple or my God. 

Paul is beginning to answer our question.  Watch what roads he has already eliminated:
-Polytheism: there are lots of gods.  There is but one God who made everything.  The way of 1,000s of gods is not a road to heaven. Any religious system with multiple gods and demi-gods and things, is not a way to heaven.
-Pantheism: is the view that everything is god. Our Universe, nature, and God are equivalent.  As Obi Wan would say, “The force is in everything.” All the religions who want to become one with universe, or think the created is the creator or anything like that are not going to get you there. 
-Animism: All the roads which say God is in the creation. The rocks are god. The trees are god.  The eagle is a god.  God made the creation he is not the creation.

Already, we are seeing Paul is not going to buy the all roads philosophy. 

Acts 17:26-29 “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.  'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'  Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone-- an image made by man's design and skill.”

-Deism: Which states God cranked it all up and left to it to run on its own.  No; God is not far!

-Idolatry:  Since we are his offspring it doesn’t make any sense for God to be a rock.  For Paul it was real graven images in all kinds of detestable shapes. But I would like to advocate idolatry is anything we use to manipulate God. Any religious system which does things to force God to bend to our will is idolatry.  Paul rejects all forms of idolatry. We don’t make God in our image.  He makes us!

Here is the root of the problem; the reason there is so many roads.  We want a god made to serve us.  That is the whole point of idolatry and why there are so many religions.  We want to be able to manipulate God.  We want to be able to do what we want to do and then force God to play along.  Paul says it doesn’t work that way.  We reach out to him.  We are his children. We don’t dictate the rules to God!    

-Legalism: is a form of idolatry.  If I keep my set of do’s and don’ts then God has to save me.  God has to take me into heaven because I am a good person.  It is not up to us to decide how to reach God.  It is up to us to follow what God says we need to do to reach him!  God is the creator!  He dictates to us how we reach out to him.  It is a matter of who is in control! Legalism in all of its forms won’t get you there.  

Now we get down to the bottom line.

Acts 17:30-31 “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.  For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

In one word Paul destroys the all roads metaphor.  It only takes one word: Repent.  If all roads go to heaven then there is no need to repent!  It does make a difference what you believe.  God has in the past tolerated the ignorance of people who had not chance.  But with the spread of the Gospel, God expects us to repent!  To repent of all the silliness of manmade religious belief systems and recognize God is the one who has already paved the way to himself!  There is only one road to God and it is the man he has appointed and proven; Jesus the Resurrected one! Paul eliminates any road that is not through Jesus. Twice in this chapter Luke mentions the resurrection of Jesus; why?  Because that is the center of Christianity.  That is Christianity.  That is the way to God! 

Do all roads lead to heaven? The Simple answer is, no.  Only Jesus provides salvation and leads us to the Father.  Any road that denies the resurrected Son cannot be a road to the Father! 

The more complicated answer is, no.  All roads do not go to the Father.  But we can fall off the over side of that road as well.  We can speak for God by saying more than God says.  We can assume that anyone who is different, at all, from us is not on the road.  It is like the old saying, “My wife and I are the only ones going to heaven and sometimes I worry about her.” The road to heaven is the road grace of God. 
 
Let me speak as clearly as I can.  There are things I call “Salvation Issues.”  These are the heart of what it means to be on the road to salvation.  These are things that are stated clearly in scripture. These are not the disputable matters of debate which are fuzzy.  Before we can say something is a Salvation Issue there must be clear scripture which says it is. Stuff like:

1 Corinthians 15:3-4  For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

Galatians 5:4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

1 John 2:22-23  Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist-- he denies the Father and the Son.  No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

The complicated answer is we need to be careful about throwing people off the road; it is the road of grace.  But the answer to our question is actually straight forward; All roads do not go to the same place.  It does matter what your belief system is.  Let’s finish the Paul’s story in Athens.
 
Acts 17:32-34  When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. 

I see us in these 3 verses.  Here in Los Alamos we preach the resurrected Jesus.  Many will ignore us.  Some will listen. A few will believe.  And that is why we continue to be his witnesses.