The Lutheran Hour

"Similar, But Not the Same"

#78-37
Presented on The Lutheran Hour on May 22, 2011
Speaker: Rev. Ken Klaus
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries

Text: John 14:6

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Today by God’s grace and the Holy
Spirit’s power, we ask for a spirit of discernment. May we distinguish between
the real and the counterfeit, between a Savior Who is the only path to heaven
and any faith which is a dead end. God grant we see Jesus our Savior and Lord.
Amen.

In June of 2007, at a truck stop in northwest Louisiana, an ATM machine made a
mistake. Rather than giving out $5 bills, it started doling out $20s. The
Sheriff of DeSoto Parish said the machine’s records showed 26 people got some
serious bonus bucks over a period of five days. The folks who owned the
machine didn’t say “Hey, no big deal. Cash is cash. It doesn’t make any
difference if the machine handed out a 5 or a 20. It all spends the same way,
doesn’t it?”

In February of 2008, Benjamin Lovell was surprised when he received his bank
statement. That little piece of paper told him he had more money banked than
he had thought. 5 million dollars more than he had thought. Now Benjamin
Lovell is not like the folks at the ATM who took the money which wasn’t
theirs. Statement in hand he went to the bank. He informed the bank that a
mistake had been made and all this money didn’t really belong to him. The bank
thanked him for his honesty and they checked out his story. The bank folk came
back and said, “We are sorry, Mr. Lovell, but you are wrong. The money is
yours. You are free to do with it as you wish.”

Now Mr. Lovell, having done what he thought was right and proper took the bank
at its word. He withdrew some of the money, not all, but some and he gave it
away. In cash and gifts he gave it away. Some of the other cash he used to
make some investments. Pretty bad investments as it turned out, but Mr. Lovell
never claimed to be an entrepreneur. Altogether Mr. Lovell went through about
2 million dollars, which meant he still had $3 million left. Let me share what
happened next. I’ll make it short. The first thing which happened is this: the
day came when the bank realized it had made a mistake and they had confused
two account holders with the same name of Lovell. Would you be surprised if I
tell you the bank didn’t write off the 5 million bucks; and they most
certainly didn’t say, “Lovell, Schmovell… one Lovell is as good as any
other. It doesn’t matter which one gets the money.” Nope, the bank didn’t say
that at all. In fact the embarrassed bank didn’t say much of anything. On the
other hand, they had Mr Lovell, the poorer Mr. Lovell, arrested and charged
for grand theft larceny.

Now if I asked you, “What is the common characteristic, the binding thread of
those stories, you would probably say, both have to do with “Money.” Some of
you would say they share a theme of thievery and punishment. Either of those
answers would be correct and I wouldn’t try to talk you out of them. Still,
that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. Both of those stories say that a
few superficial similarities don’t make things the same. Let me clarify. In
the first story, the ATM owners said that although a 5-dollar bill and a 20-
dollar bill are both printed on paper with green ink, that doesn’t mean they
are the same. They’re not. The second story says that just because two men
share the same name that doesn’t mean you can take 5 million dollars from one
and give it to the other. Having similarities doesn’t mean they are the same.

Make sense? Good. But what does all this have to do with a Christian message?
Well, that’s easy. We live in a world which keeps trying to say all religions
are pretty much the same. True, they all travel slightly different roads…
but these are roads which ultimately and finally end up at the same
destination. This is a very open-minded perspective… and nowadays being
open-minded is the politically correct position to have when it comes to
religion and morality.

The amazing thing is… people aren’t so politically correct when it comes to
other subjects. Nobody expects the ATM owners to be politically correct and
open-minded when it comes to the twenty-dollar bills which were mistakenly
given out. Nobody expects the rich Mr. Lovell to be open-minded about his five
million dollars they gave to another guy. In my own life, I’m pretty sure my
wife Pam isn’t open-minded. Most of you know I do a fair amount of traveling.
When I come back into town, am I allowed to park my car in any driveway or
should I put it in my own driveway?

When I walk in the door, we hug each other and I give my wife a kiss. Of
course, if a person were being consistent, along with being open-minded and
politically correct and non-judgmental, then don’t you think that one wife
ought to be as good as any other? If you’re going to be constant in your
position, you would have to say it doesn’t really make any difference at all
what wife I give a hug and kiss to. Before you answer that one in an
incredibly foolish and dangerous manner, I can tell you, it does make a
difference. If Pam were here, she would let you, me and everybody know, let us
know in no uncertain terms, that wives are not interchangeable and one wife
isn’t the same as any other.

Now I could give you more examples of how similarities are not the same thing
as being the same. When you drive from here to there, does it make any
difference what road you take? Of course it does. One road will always be
better or more direct than the others. Indeed, some of the roads you could
take will dead-end and leave you stranded. When you file your income tax, does
it make any difference what number you give the government on the final line
of your tax form? The government would say, “It most certainly does matter. As
a matter of fact we have a lot of investigators examining a lot of returns to
make sure the preparers have that number right.” When you are ill, does it
make a difference as to what medicine the doctor prescribes or is one medicine
as good as any other? You already know the answer to that one, don’t you?

All of which leads me to ask, “If one road is better than the others, and one
medicine is more effective than the others, why do so many people persist in
holding to the damnably dangerous idea that all religions are the same and
they will all take you to the same place? It just isn’t so. Religions are
different. And Christianity is not the only religion to maintain that
position. For example, suppose you speak to someone who is learned in the
doctrines of Islam. I promise you they will tell you Christianity and Islam
are not the same. Yes, we share some patriarchs and prophets, and we both
believe in Jesus, but the god of the Muslim and the heaven of the Muslim, and
the way the Muslim will get to that heaven is a far cry from a Christian’s God
and belief.

All of which leads me to say that if there is any major similarity in the
religions of the world it would be this: we all agree that we are different.
True, most religions claim to have the truth and most religions have a holy
book and most religions have some really nice people on the rosters of their
church; but when it comes to doctrine, we are different. How different? The
answer to that question is found in the words of Jesus, the Founder and
Center, the Beginning and Ending of the Christian faith. In the fourteenth
chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus cuts through all the speculation, all the
conjecture and declares: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No man
comes to the Father except through me.” How’s that for a non-inclusive point
of view. Jesus’ words are narrow, non-politically correct and if they had come
from the mouth of anyone else, they would be a lie.

But Jesus isn’t lying. I know Jesus isn’t lying because He is uniquely and
miraculously able to back up His claim to be the only Path to forgiveness and
salvation. If you doubt Him, I encourage you to check out His claim and see
why He is the only Way to heaven. I encourage you to do an in-depth study of
the world’s religions. Seeing as how your eternity in heaven or hell hangs in
the balance, such a search is not going to be a waste of time. Please, check
it out, or, at the very least, check out what I am going to say to you in the
next few minutes. Evaluate and examine every word of this message. Judge these
words to see if they make sense; weigh them to see if they are true.

Jesus is humankind’s Savior, the only Way to heaven. That He is the world’s
Savior is Jesus’ unique and exclusive claim. That part is most certainly true.
Islam doesn’t have a Savior. Any number of times in the Koran Mohammed asks
for forgiveness. The best the prophet can do is produce a five-fold path which
a person is supposed to follow if he is to have any shot at getting into
heaven. And, of course, to a Muslim’s way of thinking, since Allah is not
bound by any rules and regulations, nobody is given an absolute, iron-clad
guarantee that he’s going to make the paradise cut.

Ask the Buddhist if he has a Savior. If that fellow knows his faith, he will
tell you that he has an eight-fold path which eventually, someday, in some way
is supposed to take him to a nirvanic enlightenment which is not much more
than a great, non-material, painless nothingness. Because the Buddhist has no
Savior, he’s forced to work things out on his own. Do you wish to speak to the
Hindu? He also searches for Nirvana… but without a Savior, he’s flying solo.
Again and again he must be born in this world; again and again he must try to
do better than he has in the past; again and again he is bound to fail until
someday he hopes to get it right and be with Brahm, the all-pervading force of
the universe. Will he accomplish it; will he manage it? He hopes, but he can
do no more than hope and struggle and strive.

Standing alone and separate from all of the other religions of the world is
Christianity. It stands alone not because of the wisdom or the excellent lives
lead by its membership. It stands alone because it follows God’s perfect Son
and humankind’s only Savior. It stands alone because every other religion says
we are on our own in climbing the sin-created stairway which is supposed to
take us into the presence of a deity who is displeased and disappointed with
our past performance. Only Christianity says that we are saved not by our own
works, but through faith in Jesus Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Do you understand? God is displeased and will always be disappointed with our
performance. He is dissatisfied with us because He is perfect and we are not.
WE are sinners. We have, through our words, our thoughts, and our actions
fallen far short of the lofty standard He has set for us. His perfection
becomes our unclimbable mountain.

All of which leads us to conclude we are spiritually sunk. Sunk good and
proper and eternally… We are sunk unless and until Someone helps us out.
That Someone, my friends, is Jesus Christ. According to His Father’s promise,
Jesus entered this world to do that which we could not do. While every
religion of the world says we must struggle and strive to reach up to God,
Jesus says and shows God has reached down to rescue us. While every other
religion says a person must endlessly study and seek to find a path which may
lead to God, Jesus comes and announces He is that path which takes believers
to heaven. While every other religion of the world tries to provide some way
for its followers to free themselves of their sin, Christianity proclaims that
God’s Son has taken our sins unto Himself… taken our sins and carried those
sins to the cross. There, as He was unjustly crucified, God’s innocent Son
paid the payment price which would ransom us. For us and for our deliverance
Jesus offered up His life as the sacrifice which would remove our sins and the
condemnation which they carried.

Of course, nobody could take you to task if you were to say, “Talk is cheap.
You claim to be true, these other religions claim the same. You have your holy
Bible, they have their sacred writings. You claim to offer the way of
salvation, so do they.” Look at all the similarities. True, but similarities
don’t make these religions the same. It is understandable if you have
concluded that there is no way a person can be sure he has selected the right
religion. It is understandable if you believe picking a faith must always be
an act of faith. It is understandable if you have decided the best we can do
is choose a religion, believe it sincerely, and hope for the best. Who knows,
maybe we’ll get lucky.

That is, more or less, what many people believe, what many of them have
concluded. For them, without proof, finding the right religion is, at best, a
guess. Would it surprise you if I told you God agrees? It’s true. God says,
“My doubting, cynical children, you’re absolutely right. Without proof finding
the right religion must always be a guess.” And God, knowing what you need,
knowing how much you want some kind of proof… has given it. Yes, God
provides proof that His Son is your Savior. He provides proof that you can be
forgiven and saved if you believe on Him as Your Redeemer.

And what is this proof? Well, I could point to the fact that Jesus fulfilled
all the Old Testament prophecies made about Him. Centuries before Jesus was
born, God inspired His holy writers to record more than 100 identifying marks
by which the promised Savior would be known. The ancient writers had said He
would be born of a virgin, that He would be born in Bethlehem and that wise
men would come great distances to worship Him. They predicted many things
including His suffering and His death upon a cross. These prophecies Jesus
fulfilled.

Do you need proof that Jesus the Savior is unique? Should I speak of His
miracles… miracles of nature where even the forces of nature were suspended;
miracles of healing during which the blind were allowed to see, the crippled
were given mobility, and the deaf could hear. There were even miracles where
the power of His divinity called people back from death and grave.

Do you need proof that Jesus stands alone and above all other religions? If
so, you should know that while all of these Divine actions of Jesus are signs
and seals that He is the Redeemer, they almost seem small, if such a thing
were possible, when they are compared to His resurrection from the dead.
Having defeated sin by living a perfect life; having resisted all the
temptations of Satan; having fulfilled His duty to die His commitment to die
for us on the cross, Jesus did one thing more. He rose from the dead.

Think upon that for a moment. What other religion in the world dares to claim
its founder has defeated death so all who believe on Him might be given
salvation? I know of none. As the prophets had predicted, as Jesus had
promised, three days after His heart had been pierced by a Roman spear, Jesus
rose from the grave. His regular appearances in the weeks which followed put
to rest any doubt that He was still dead, or His body had been stolen or
possibly misplaced. The resurrection of the Redeemer is proof positive that He
is Whom He claims to be: the only Way; the only Truth, the only Life. The
resurrection of the Christ is God’s guarantee that those who believe on Jesus
as Savior will not perish but have everlasting life.

In May of 2009, Leo Gao, owner of a New Zealand gas station, applied for a
$10,000 loan from his bank. The loan was granted. It was granted and then
some. Rather than putting $10,000 into Leo’s account, a bank staff member
goofed and added three zeros to the amount. Now, as you know a zero is
nothing… and three zeros is three nothings, but for Leo these three zeros
meant he had ten million dollars rather than ten thousand. After closing out
his account, Leo and his girlfriend immediately disappeared. Why? Thief Leo
knew there was a difference between $10,000 and $10,000,000. He knew one was
worth a lot more. It is my hope and prayer that you know the great value of
the Savior Who gave His life for your salvation. My friend, if you would like
to know more about Jesus Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, please, call
us at The Lutheran Hour. Amen.

LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for May 22, 2011
Topic: Two Ways To Heaven

Announcer: Are there two ways to get to heaven? That’ll be our topic today as
we answer questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer, here with our Speaker
Emeritus, Pastor Ken Klaus.

Klaus: And hello to you, Mark.

Announcer: Well, as you know, for more than 80 years now, this broadcast has
been preaching the message of salvation by grace alone, through faith in Jesus
Christ, alone.

Klaus: And that’s been our emphasis, in spite of changing speakers, changing
times, and a changing world. You’re not telling me we have do something
different now, are you?

Announcer: No, but we do have a letter here from a listener who wants to know
if there might be an alternative.

Klaus: That has the potential of being incredibly interesting. Please, Mark,
what do they have to say?

Announcer: Our listener begins by saying he’s always been a church-goer, has
been a church member pretty much his whole life, and he’s always accepted
whatever his pastor preached.

Klaus: Depending upon the preacher, that can be either good or bad.

Announcer: Right. Our listener continues. He says, “I always believed there
was one way to get to heaven and that was to believe in Jesus Christ as my
Savior from sin. I believe Jesus is God’s Son. He came to take our place and
He had our sins nailed to the cross with Him. When He rose again from the dead
on the third day, that was the sign that everyone who believes in Him would
also someday, rise from the dead.”

Klaus: Mark, I can’t think of too many things I could say that would improve
at all on what our listener has just written. So far I don’t see a problem.

Announcer: Well, that comes up in the next little part here. He says, “I heard
a fellow preaching on television one day. He was talking about Luke, Chapter
10, the story of the rich, young ruler who couldn’t bring himself to give away
all his possessions so that he could follow Jesus.

The preacher went on to say there is another way a person could get to heaven,
and that way is to be good enough to earn God’s approval, in other words, to
be perfect. So, our listener is confused. There’s that way that he was always
taught and the way he believes-and now there seems to be this other option,
the idea of being perfect and thereby earning God’s approval that way. So,
what’s the answer?

Klaus: Aw, it’s a good question. It’s such a good question I’m afraid I’m
going to give you two answers.

Announcer: That doesn’t sound like that will be much help here.

Klaus: Even so, it’s the only way I know to resolve the issue. One answer is
theoretical, the other is the real-world or practical one.

Announcer: All right. Well, let’s give it a try.

Klaus: OK. There are indeed two ways a person can get to heaven. A sinner can
get to heaven if he or she believes in Jesus as their Savior.

Announcer: Right. The traditional way most of us were taught.

Klaus: Yeah, and it’s also what Scripture teaches: Jesus is the only Name by
which we can be saved. So, as I was saying, a sinner can get to heaven if
they believe on Jesus as Savior. Now, the second way to get to heaven is only
for perfect people. Perfect people can get to heaven by being perfect, never
committing a sin.

Announcer: But, is that possible? Is there such a thing as a perfect person?

Klaus: Other than Jesus? No. Every single person in the world is born of
sinful parents, they are sinners. Given time, they’re going to commit a
multitude of sins on their own.

Announcer: And actually, all it really takes is one sin to condemn you.

Klaus: Very true. The answer is, yes, there are two ways to get to heaven.
Believe on Jesus or else be perfect.

Announcer: But really, the more realistic answer is: There really is only one
way.

Klaus: Bingo. Since nobody–other than Jesus–can lead a perfect life, that
other way is just not available to us. Although it exists, because of sin it
will never again be a viable way for you and me to get to heaven.

Announcer: So that leaves us with the message that we have to depend
exclusively on Jesus for the redemption we all need?

Klaus: Yes, Jesus has, through His innocent life, through His perfection, done
what we can’t. He has resisted temptation to sin; He has fulfilled the law, He
has defeated death. Now, because of His work, all who are brought to faith in
Him find their sins are forgiven and God will bring us to heaven to be with
Him forever.

Announcer: Anything else?

Klaus: Probably, just an apology for not being able to give a more direct
answer.

Announcer: But a good answer nonetheless. Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has
been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.

Music selection for this program:

“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.

“Jesus Lives! The Victory’s Won” arr. Robert Buckley Farlee. From Hymns for
All Saints (© 2006 Concordia Publishing House)

“Before You, Lord, We Bow” arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.

“At the Lamb’s High Feast” arr. Charles Ore. From From My Perspective, vol. 1
by Charles Ore (© 1992 Organ Works Corporation)