THE BRIDGE THAT GOD BUILT

0:00 You know, Lisa and I were at a hamburger restaurant this past summer, and it's one of these restaurants where they had all these picnic tables outside. And Lisa goes, honey, look at this guy. And we saw a guy across the way. And he was walking around, and he had a T-Rex tail of toilet paper. I mean, 30 feet behind him, tucked into his belt, just walking around. And I started laughing. I kind of did the face palm thing and then I thought surely someone's got to walk up to him and say bro listen you've got a t-rex tail you know of toilet paper and someone did and I was I was happy that that happened but that's that's embarrassing you know definitely a wardrobe malfunction I think it's true when you think about the world religions that a lot of world religions are walking around with a T-Rex tail.

0:59 They're walking around with about 30 feet of toilet paper and no one has said anything. No one has said, hey, you have a wardrobe malfunction. Here at Fellowship, we've been doing that over the last several weeks. Jesus said these words in Matthew 22, 39. Love your neighbor as yourself. If we truly are going to love each other the way we should, we need to understand one another. So to understand one another, we need to go, all right, is that what you believe? Interesting. Is that your faith system? That's fascinating.

1:44 As believers, the more we know about other world religions, the more we can converse and connect and get to know one another. And I believe we have an opportunity to share with them the difference that Christianity makes. Because we've been saying here, Christianity is unique compared to all of the other world religions. It really, really is. And today, we're going to do a flyover. We're just going to kind of look at three major world religions. I'm not going to get too specific. If you want to get specific, they're great books to read. The best book is a book I recommended last week by Lee Strobel called The Case for Christ. Lee talks about some of these world religions there, and you can study and find other resources. And another resource that I love, he's a close friend of mine, is Cliff Connectly.

2:46 And we're going to be hearing from Cliff in this message, believe it or not, about some of these issues. of these issues because no one has talked to more people about world religions than cliff connectly millions of people around the world it's it's exciting though to discuss these these these issues these these things because a lot of people say like i i told you a guy told me on a flight the other day hey man all religions are kind of the same i mean all religions are basically different bridges that lead to one destination. And I responded by saying, hey, I understand where you're coming from, but I said, that's not really accurate. I said, the more you study, the more you're going to realize, whoa, Christianity is different. Here's the difference. The major difference in world religions and other faith systems, they are a colossal construction project where man has tried to build a bridge from his side all the way to God's side.

3:49 That is religion. Man attempting to build a bridge from his side to God's side by being good, by being philosophical, and so forth. Christianity is different. God took responsibility upon himself. He saw the gap caused by our sin. He saw the delta. God took responsibility upon himself. He sent Jesus Christ, and it took 33 years, because Jesus was 33 years when he ascended into the heavenlies. And Jesus was born, and he lived this righteous life. that's the bridge deck. He died on the cross for our sins.

4:42 Then, three days later, he rose again. So in essence, the ribbon-cutting ceremony took place Easter Sunday 2,000 years ago because the bridge was complete. Jesus said, the project is finished. Well, let's talk about some of these world religions right quick. One of them is Hinduism. Hinduism. We have a lot of Hindus in our world, 1.2 billion Hindus. Hinduism is as cultural as it is religious. Hinduism is one of the oldest religions, specifically 1400 BC. It's highly complex.

5:37 Isn't it funny how we like things that are complex? Have you noticed that? Ask someone a question. Oh man, it's just complex. Wow, I really like that sermon. It was just so complex. No, I don't want things complex. I want things understandable.

5:58 So it's easy to keep the complex complex, but it's another thing to make the complex simple and understandable. So Hinduism is highly, highly complex. One sect has over 330 million gods. 330 million gods and one of the difficulties that a Christian has in sharing with a Hindu is often times Hindus will go yeah Jesus I'll add him to the mix that's great man I'm down with that and it's Hinduism to really understand it is like trying to tackle Patrick Mahomes you can't I mean isn't Mahomes unique It kind of does this.

6:49 You can't tackle him. You can't tackle him. Hinduism is basically a cocktail of folklore, mythology, and gods of fertility. That's what it is. It's all jumbled up into that. But basically, you've got the big four in Hinduism, and you want to remember these. Number one, Brahma. Brahma or Brahman. Brahma is the impersonal force, the absolute one. You'll hear them talk a lot about that. Also, karma. Karma is the law of reaping and sowing. So number one, Brahma. Number two, karma. And number three, Atman. Atman is kind of like the soul, sort of. And the soul transmigrates into higher life forms in Hinduism. So basically, you start out as a bug.

7:41 And hopefully, if you have good karma, you'll become a billionaire. Then, samsara is the cycle of reincarnation. Think about your washing machine. Think about loads and loads of dirty laundry you put in the washing machine. The washing machine just goes round and round and round. If you, as a good Hindu, have enough good karma, and you put that in the spin cycle of reincarnation, hopefully you'll spin out and enter nirvana or moksha, which is total and complete detachment. Isn't that interesting? Now there's some good elements here. I'm not, I'm not here to hate on Hindus or to bash the Buddhists or to malign the Mormons. No, no, no, no. We're talking about their religion. We're not attacking someone personally. So, so if you think that's our vibe, it's totally not the deal. I am saying though, that, that Hinduism is a very small bridge. I mean, if you, if you try to compare a bridge for ants, some of you got that Yeah.

9:08 Now that was funny. A lot of people did not get that joke. You just Google that when you get home. A bridge for ants. Or maybe a bridge for people that don't read good. Is that it? Okay. So anyway, this is like the bridge of Hinduism compared to the bridge God's built. I mean, that's the kind of scale that we're talking about. Does it have some good elements of good stuff? Yeah, it does. But if you think about Hinduism, it basically brings together good, evil, justice, and injustice. So it's very sexy for the relativist, you know, the A-listers, you know, those cool people. because there's no sin. There's no real issues. There's no really immorality.

10:03 You just, you know, I'm a Hindu. I'm a Hindu. And many Hindus don't even really know what they believe. And we're seeing, though, a lot of Hindus come to Christ. So the overarching illustration of Hinduism would be the Peloton. Anybody have a Peloton? I do. Okay, Peloton is a stationary bicycle basically on peptides, and you ride it, and you ride it, and you ride it, and you burn all this energy and all this effort, but you don't really get anywhere. That's Hinduism. That's Hinduism. Now let's move on the map northeast, and let's talk about Buddhism. Let's go to Japan, China, and Korea. Let's talk about Buddhism. Buddhism is basically a dial-down form of Hinduism. And a lot of people in our culture are Buddhists, not anywhere near the number of Hindus.

11:03 I think there's about 500 million Buddhists worldwide. This religion started in 525 BC. There was a gentleman named Siddhartha Guantama. Don't you love that name? And Siddhartha was a Hindu. He grew up in a very strict Hindu household. And one day he thought, you know what, I'm going to bolt from Hinduism. And he left. And he decided to become an ascetic monk. He found himself one day meditating under a Bodhi tree. And when he emerged 40 days later, he said, I am Buddha. The enlightened one.

11:51 Hmm. So he came up with this system and we would call it, obviously we call it today Buddhism. Four noble truths. Number one, here we go. This is, if you want to be a Buddhist, suffering is universal. Now, I'm not sure it's taken me 40 days and 40 nights to figure that one out, but wow, it's enlightening. Suffering is universal. I mean, I'm not making fun. I just, this is like, are you kidding me? Number two, craving is the root cause of suffering. Hmm. Number three, the cure for suffering is to eliminate craving. Number four, you follow the eightfold path and hopefully you become detached and you erase desire. When you think about Buddhism, think about a giant eraser.

13:01 You're just erasing desire. I admire Siddhartha's desire to help the poor and the suffering I admire that and we should admire that but it takes desire to help the poor it takes desire to live the life it takes desire to be the right kind of husband the right kind of wife it takes desire so to eradicate desire you see it's just paradoxical it's again like trying to tackle Patrick Mahomes Oops. Hinduism, Buddhism. Let's jump to another one.

13:44 And this is always controversial when I talk about this topic. And I'm going to talk about Mormonism. Yesterday morning, I got up. I was doing some studying. And Lisa made me this omelet. She delivered it to me in my study. It was great.

14:08 It doesn't happen every day. I'm not trying to put any pressure on any wives here. I'm just saying, I'm just going to tell you what happened yesterday. So I'm eating this and I'm studying. And I've taken a deep dive in all of these religions. Again, I don't want to get you all mixed up and messed up with all the complexities and the nuances. is I'm just trying to give you kind of a vibe. I've talked about the Peloton. I've talked about the eraser. The Peloton is Hinduism. You know, spin cycle of success. Hopefully, you know, if you have enough good karma, you'll get thrown out of that into moksha. So that's the word picture. The word picture for Buddhism is this giant eraser. We erase desire, which is odd because we are people of desire.

15:02 Desires are divine. They're given to us by God. So I want you to get those word pictures and think about when you're talking to people from another faith system, you understand kind of where they're coming from. Well, Mormonism, I call it the maze of Mormonism, is a unique faith system. If you talk about Microsoft, if you talk about Apple, if you talk about Nike, you would go, oh, Ed, those are some of the best. I mean, those companies have some of the best marketing ever. Well, they pale in comparison to the Mormon church. The Mormon church has hired some of the best marketers in the universe, and they have positioned themselves aside and along Christianity. Mormons are not Christians. The religion is not a Christian religion. so I'm eating my omelet yesterday and I'm thinking I'm going to call Cliff my man Cliff Connectley and I'm just going to talk to him about some of these some of these things and because again he's talked to squillions of people one on one about world religions and and so I had Lisa after she made this omelet to record this conversation do you mind if I show you this it's from my house it's a little you know invasive but you don't care do you here's my conversation with Cliff yesterday why is it important Cliff to know about the various faith systems as a Christian I'm talking to Christians now why should we know about these things because to love someone means to listen to them one of the most active forms of love is listening and if I'm talking to a Muslim I better listen carefully to understand what they believe and why they believe it and then I better be able to communicate what what i believe about jesus and why i believe what's the evidence that christ is true and then i'm praying that god will use by his holy spirit that new information from my muslim friend to draw them to christ jesus is not just a good prophet as muhammad taught

17:13 jesus is more than a good prophet he's god in human form that's why we worship him and a muslim cannot worship him because a muslim just worships allah and views jesus simply as a good prophet but unfortunately the evidence is christ claiming to be more than a prophet claiming to be the eternal pre-existent god in human form so he's either a quack a madman maybe he's just another man who was deluded or he is who he claimed to be god in human form but he's not the middle ground that muhammad chose which is jesus the good prophet by his clear claim to be god in human form he's either a blasphemer out of touch with reality or he's who he claimed to be. And I think the resurrection of Christ clearly points to the fact he was not a quack. He was not out of touch with reality. He was amazingly in touch with reality. He is reliable. Talk to me about the maze of Mormonism because like you, I have great friends who are Mormons.

18:10 Respect them. They're amazing people, but Mormonism is not Christianity. Every Mormon friend I have is a very nice person. And every Mormon I've ever met is a very nice, kind, loving person. But Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, I am convinced, were deeply, gravely mistaken when they talked about Jesus not being the unique son of God. The idea that we all are going, we Mormon men who follow Mormonism are going to have a planet of our own and we're basically going to become gods. Yes. No, that's polytheism. And Jesus and the whole Bible teach monotheism that there's only one God, not many gods. Secondly, Mormonism teaches that Jesus and Lucifer once were brothers. Well, if that's true, it means Jesus had a beginning. But the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is the eternal God. He's not a created being.

19:06 Obviously, also at one point, Brigham Young and Joseph Smith supported polygamy. Now, I know that polygamy is in the Bible, and obviously David and Solomon were polygamists. But that does not mean that the Bible is teaching us that polygamy is good. You go right back to Genesis 2.24, and it's one man and one woman. That's right. It's not many. So I'm convinced that polygamy is not what the Bible teaches. Brilliant. Cliff, how do you, okay, over the years in speaking about world religions and faith systems like I have, not anywhere near to the degree that you have, it's been interesting because a lot of times people really do a pushback, even though I say people matter to God. I love Muslims. I love Mormons. But let me just talk about the religion. How do you negotiate that, Cliff?

19:58 And have you had, I'm sure you've had people get angry at you as well. Tolerance does not mean there is no such thing as truth. Tolerance does not mean we agree on everything. Tolerance means in spite of the fact that we disagree, I still respect you and I still love you as a fellow human being created in the image of God. So I think often it comes down to a misdefinition of tolerance, which is we all believe the same thing. No, that is disrespectful. An atheist and I do not believe the same thing. A Buddhist and I do not believe the same thing. And a Muslim and I do not believe the same thing. And it's highly disrespectful to say, oh, no, we really do believe the same thing, so let's be tolerant. It's not tolerance. If you and I agree, I don't have to tolerate you. It's when you and I disagree that I have to tolerate you. And I would argue that tolerance is respecting someone in spite of the fact that you disagree. Cliff, I'm going to end this conversation with a question you probably never had lobbed at you.

20:57 You've had millions of questions from millions of people, especially college students. Here's the question. What is your most favorite thing about shark fishing? Being with Ed and Lacey. No. Okay. No. How about what did it feel like when you hooked up to that big lemon shark?

21:19 I don't think you want to hear about my feelings, brother. Yeah. Well, I knew you were struggling when you said, brother, this thing is not giving up. That's right. That was one persistent dude. But Cliff, next time, sharks get bigger and bigger. Oh, glory.

21:40 mercy. Oh, what a great guy, great friend. I love Cliff and Sharon connectly. So again, hope you're tracking with us. Hinduism is a Peloton religion, a washing machine religion, spin cycle religion of reincarnation. You start as a bug, maybe they'll spit you out. I don't know, as a 20-something influencer. Who knows? Then you have the big eraser. That's Buddhism, erasing, eradicating desire.

22:20 Mormonism, and I'm not saying this to make light of Mormonism. It reads like a celestial, spiritual Star Wars book. It's out there. mormonism uses terms and they're taught to do so that seem to be copacetic to those of us who are christians it's like oh salvation yes grace oh yeah forgiveness yes the bible is an authoritative book yes but stop them and say define those terms because the terms mean something totally different to a Mormon than they do to those of us who are in Christ. When you study Mormonism, you got to study and talk about the founder. Hinduism has no real founder. Buddhism's founder is Siddhartha Guantama. The founder of Mormonism is a very troubled man named Joseph Smith. He was highly confused. He was from New York. And one day he walked out into the woods. He was like 14 years old. As he was walking through the woods, he claims that God and Jesus appeared to him and told him that all churches, every church is an abomination. And he was the guy to restore the church. So that's how it began. Then you have this angel Moroni appearing to him.

24:04 He found some golden tablets and through some mysterious Mormon sunglasses, he used the sunglasses to read the gold tablets, which ended up becoming the book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith said it's a chronicle of the lost civilization recording of Christ's post-resurrection appearances here in the Americas. There's not one shred of archaeological evidence that substantiates anything in the Book of Mormon. So again, it's allegedly a history of a lost civilization in the Americas descended from the tribes of Israel. chronicling Christ's post-resurrection appearances in the new world.

24:59 Joseph Smith himself had some issues. He was pegged for the demonic practice of glass-looking, adultery, polygamy, illegal banking, and he was killed in a shootout. This is the founder of Mormonism here. So Dr. Walter Martin, who wrote a classic book called The Kingdom of the Cults, said this about Joseph Smith. With one dogmatic assertion, Joseph Smith pronounced everybody wrong. all Christian theology an abomination, and all professing Christians corrupt, all in the name of God. How strange for this to be presented as restored Christianity when Jesus Christ specifically promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church. So when you think about Mormonism, think about three S's. The first S is our savior. You heard Cliff say it. Let me say it again. They will say, Mormons will say, oh yeah, Jesus is my savior. Okay. Define Jesus. Well, his brother was Lucifer and it just goes into star Wars from there. So we see, we, we, we, we see a major problem. Then salvation, salvation in the Mormon church is through works. They'll say it's through grace. Grace is part of it, they say, but it's also following the doctrines, the ordinances. And have you ever heard about the Mormon underwear that you're supposed to wear?

26:44 That's a whole nother subject that we won't get into right now. In 1982, the book of Mormon in this brilliant marketing campaign added this phrase, another testament of Jesus Christ. So the Mormons pray, P-R-E-Y, on Christians who really don't know their theology, if that makes sense. I do believe there are a number of Mormons who want to become Christians. I truly believe that. They just have never, ever really studied it, and they've never, ever really had a chance to understand what it means to know Christ personally. Another S, the third S, is going to be Scripture. They'll say, oh yeah, the Bible is our authority. Well, not really. Anytime you have a truth text, you're dealing with the false religion. A truth text is like, okay, yeah, I believe the Bible, but this text over here is just as important.

27:37 In Mormonism, the Bible comes in fourth. You've got the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, the Doctrine of Covenants, and then the Bible. So we see these issues, these problems already. So Jesus is not in the Mormon church who Jesus is to you and to me. So just think about those. Mormons also believe, this is really weird, that God was once human. And he was obedient to his heavenly father and now lives on his planet with his wives. God, are you ready for this? Again, I'm not joking when I say Star Wars. and he's procreating spiritual babies. And these spiritual babies enter physical babies on earth. And the goal of Mormonism, if you're a good Mormon, if you do all these things and work and the ordinances and the doctrines and you follow Joseph Smith's teachings and everything, if you're a really good Mormon, guys, you will have your own planet and you'll have all these wives and you'll have celestial sex forever.

28:54 I'm not sure what's in it for the ladies, but you can definitely tell the guy thought this religion of, can't you? there's a there's a little bit of vibe of reincarnation into Mormonism as well here's what Joseph Smith said about the book of Mormon this is an interesting quote he said I told the brethren that the book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth and the keystone of our religion and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than any other book since the writing of the Book of Mormon there's been over 2200 changes in it the pearl of great price is another book which talks about the importance of the baptism of the dead baptism for the dead and it talks about temple marriage and the doctrine the covenants is another book and it it it talks about uh various subjects and then you have the the book of Abraham. It's translated from papyrus found inside mummies Joseph Smith bought from a traveling salesman. And of course these were deemed fraud. So that's just a little bit about Mormonism.

30:17 Mormonism, if I had to do this, I would say Hinduism takes us in Buddhism about right here. Mormonism maybe takes us about right here. Judaism almost gets us halfway. See, we have a shortfall, don't we? We have a problem, an issue. And all of these people, many of these people are well-meaning. I'm not, again, let me say it again. I'm not hating on Hindus or bashing Buddhists or maligning the Mormons. I'm just talking about their religion. so you can be sincere yet sincerely wrong. People say, man, he's sincere. She's sincere. Oh, okay. I can sincerely go, I don't believe in the law of gravity. After this service, I'm gonna climb on this ladder, jump off the roof of Fellowship Church.

31:10 I just, I sincerely don't believe. Well, bam, I'd face plant on the asphalt, wouldn't I? That's why we need to speak the truth in love. That's why we need to pray for everyone. That's why we need to understand what people believe and what people are dealing with. A couple of quick texts, and then we're done. Revelation chapter 22. Here's the difference. 18 and 19. I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. Man, I wish the Bible was direct.

32:07 Matthew 7. Watch out, Jesus said, for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. Again, the big picture. Hinduism, escape. Buddhism, detachment. Mormonism, becoming. Christianity, grace and mercy. So if you're on this construction plan, this man-made construction plan with your hard hat and safety goggles and red wings, trash that, park the crane, and accept the bridge God has built to you. Because the bridge God has built to you is not a bridge to nowhere, it's a bridge to somewhere, and that somewhere is someone named you. In the early 90s, we just kicked off Fellowship Church, and there was a billionaire.

33:10 That was before billionaires were cool. Now everyone's a billionaire. And there was a billionaire that came to our church, and he was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And just because you're a billionaire doesn't mean you're brilliant. Did you know that? If you find a niche, it'll make you rich. Now, a lot of billionaires are brilliant. I'm just saying, you know, you find out someone's a billionaire, don't go, well, he must be, she must be so much more intelligent than me. I mean, yeah, they're smart and everything, but they're regular people. Anyway, this billionaire invited Lisa and I over to his house and he questioned me about Christianity. Here I am. I mean, I'm 29, 30 years old. And he's talking to me about all these world religions and things. and I'm just sharing with him the gospel and bringing him back to the person of Christ. So it was time for us to leave.

34:03 So we walked through this house. It was so big, we had to pack a lunch to go from one side to the other. And we finally walked outside and he looked at me before we got into our car and he said, you know, Ed, I appreciate you talking to me, but I'm kind of a cafeteria style guy. I want to take something from Buddhism, something from Hinduism, something from Islam and, you know, kind of something from Christianity and kind of mix them all together. Kind of that's, that's, that's where I am.

34:35 And I looked at him and I know the Holy Spirit gave me, gave me these words. I said, you know, if you go to all of the tombs of the leaders of the world religions, they're occupied, but you go to Christ's tomb, it's empty. and I said, I don't know about you, but I'm putting my money on the one who came back from the grave.

35:01 Lord Jesus, thank you for this message. Thank you for your grace and love. Thank you that we can just openly and honestly talk about these world religions. And I pray God, if there's someone here and you're from another world religion or from another faith system. Maybe you're on this construction plan. It's time to trash the construction plan.

35:26 If you're a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Mormon, I'm gonna challenge you to throw away the red wings, put away the safety goggles, park the crane, and say, God, I wanna walk your bridge. I believe you, God, sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins and rise again and to build this bridge. not to nowhere, but to somewhere, and that somewhere is someone named me, and I give my life to you. Just reach out to Jesus and say, Jesus, I give my life to you. Others of you might be like, well, you know, I'm not quite ready for that, Ed. I need to study some more. If that's you, awesome. You continue to kick tires and test the waters, but if you're open, I'm telling you, God's gonna reveal himself to you. He already has today by you being here. so Lord we thank you for this time and we give this time to you and we ask all these things in Christ's name