Warren Buffet, commenting on his huge contribution to charity said, “There is more than one way to get to heaven, but this is a great way.” I commented yesterday on the part of the quote which suggested he intended to purchase a place in heaven, today I’d like to look at the first half of the quote: “there is more than one way to get to heaven.”  (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/27/business/main1753895.shtml)
I would argue that most people in our world today agree with Warren; pluralism is the acceptable religion of our day. Pluralism removes the urgency to seek for truth because it presents all systems as the truth. But this is a logical impossibility. One writer put it this way, “All paths but one lead away from God. It is critical to understand this so that we will be motivated to seek after the true God. Unless He is found, we will never discover religious truth, we will never discover the true path to salvation, and we will never discover how to live a more abundant life in the here and now. Everyone’s eternal destiny rests on the outcome of this quest.”

One of America’s most committed abolitionists before the Civil War was William Lloyd Garrison. He was uncompromising in his opposition to slavery. He often shocked slave owners and moderates alike in his attacks on the system that allowed such a practice. Just to stand by and allow such a thing was unthinkable to him. He attacked the Northern states particularly for tolerating the system to continue in the south without intervention. Garrison was called an “extremist” in his position in an environment that was desperately attempting to avoid polarization on the subject. Although mocked, ridiculed and ostracized for his position, his cause won out and he became a hero of the just cause against slavery. Everyone admits that he was absolutely right today.

Jesus was viewed by his opponents as an extremist as well. He argued that His truth was uncontestable. He, and only HE, had the truth about eternal life and the procedure by which man might obtain it. He insisted that one had to totally disassociate himself from all others who have claimed to have found the true way to God. His teaching sounded radical then. It sounds just as radical now, for the modern mind thinks it is incredible that there is only one way to heaven. But it is simple, really. If Jesus is what he claimed to be, he is the only way to God—no other way exists. Once he is accepted as God, all his claims and demands are simply expected.” There is still criticism, ostracism and often persecution for those who continue to hold out the message which Jesus boldly proclaimed: He is “The way, the truth, and the life and no one can enter into the presence of the Father in heaven except through Him.” (See John 14:6) But as it was with slavery, so will it be with Jesus. He will overcome and reign supreme. “Every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11).