When
we look around the world there are more religions than countries on the
earth.
Most claim that if you follow their rules/doctrine, you will get to
heaven or
their form of heaven.
What
are we to make of all this?
Did
you know there are actually only two (2) religions? All religions in
the world
can be summed up as either a “DOING” RELIGION or a “DONE”
RELIGION.
LET
ME EXPLAIN: As the
Authorized King
James 1611 English Bible says “Study to shew thyself approved unto
God, a
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth.”
(2 Timothy 2:15)
All
modern Bible translations are based on corrupt manuscripts and this is
one of
the verses they have changed. You will find that the modern
translations have
changed the word “study” to phrases like “be diligent” or “do
your best”
The
purpose of this tract is to get the reader to study and examine
himself.
The
question, dear reader, is
“do
you have A DOING or THE
DONE religion?”
THE DOING RELIGION
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
All
religions except one, focus on what a man has to do to
get right
with God.
These
include religions like Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, Jehovah’s
Witnesses,
Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists and many other forms of counterfeit
‘christianity’.
They
are taught they must be pleasing to God or they won’t get into heaven.
All
these religions are full of very zealous people who are intent on
trying to live
good and moral lives … but their efforts are futile. The
scriptures say
“…they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”
(Romans
10:2)
THEY
ARE TOLD GETTING TO
HEAVEN
DEPENDS ON …
- Doing good works
- Keeping the Ten
Commandments
- How much money/tithes they
give
- How many prayers they say
- Believing in God
- Confessing their sins
- How zealous they are
- Speaking in unknown tongues
- Getting water baptized
-
Becoming a member of a church etc etc
Their
eternal destination depends on them and how good/perfect and
obedient to
the rules they can be. But do you realize, even your best works are
nothing but
filthy rags in God’s eyes?
“But we are all as
an
unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;”
(Isaiah 64:6)
Now the weakness of
all these
religions is they provide no security for their millions of
believers.
Their followers spend years focusing on their self-efforts and never
being sure
if they have been good enough.
Then after they
die, they
find themselves burning in hell for all
THE DONE RELIGION
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
All the doing/works
needed to
get to heaven have been done by another man.
WHO IS THIS PERSON
AND WHAT
DID HE DO?
1. His name is the Lord Jesus Christ - the only
true
God. He is called the Word.
“In the beginning
was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)
“For there are three that bear record in
heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
(1 John 5:7)
2. He fulfilled the
righteous requirements of the law of God the Father “For Christ
is the
end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Romans
10:4)
3. He kept the law of
God
perfectly and this means He never sinned “For we have not
an high
priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but
was in
all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews
4:15)
4. His blood was shed
for our
sins - “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even
the
forgiveness of sins:” (Colossians 1:14)
NOW, GOD THE
FATHER DEMANDS
PERFECTION TO ENTER HEAVEN.
We all know that we
can never
be perfect. In fact the harder we try sometimes the more we see how
sinful we
actually are!
But God says “Be
ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
(Matthew 5:48)
NOT ONLY THAT, IT
TAKES ONLY
ONE SIN TO KEEP US OUT OF HEAVEN
The scriptures say “For
whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty
of all.” (James 2:10)
So we see what an
impossible
task it is to depend on our own good works to get to heaven.
There is only one
man, Jesus
Christ, who was perfect with perfect works. As He hung on the cross
at the
end of His life, He declared “It is finished”. No further works for
salvation needed!!
WHAT DOES ALL THIS
MEAN FOR
THE BELIEVER?
1. The works that we
do are not
meant to get us right with God for our salvation/entry into heaven.
2. Yes, if you are
saved, we do
good works. The purpose of these good works however, is to glorify
God and
secondly to be judged for eternal rewards. They were never meant
to make us good enough to enter heaven.
3. Once we understand
this, the
focus of our Christian life shifts off our works and onto the
perfect
works of our precious Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
4. This gives us a rest/peace
because we are not trusting in our works to get
to heaven.
5. We are now
trusting the Lord
Jesus Christ, who was God himself manifest in the flesh, who
kept the
law perfectly and shed His blood for our sins.
“And without
controversy
great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified
in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on
in the
world, received up into glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16)
WE CAN DAILY BE
THANKFUL …
that we are no
longer
trusting in our works, but the finished works of God himself. The
burden of
“good works” falls off us. We are now free to serve the Lord out of
love
instead of the fear of the loss of our salvation.
The scripture “And
ye
shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John
8:32) now takes on a whole new
meaning. The lie
about ‘our good works for salvation’ shifts the focus from us to our
Saviour.
WHICH RELIGION
DOES GOD
WANT?
Certainly not the one
of doing
and trusting in our good works, but the one that has been done – the
one that
trusts in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
“For by grace are
ye saved
through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not
of
works, lest any man should boast.”
(Ephesians 2:8-9)
HERE IS A PRAYER
TO GUIDE
YOU:
“Heavenly Father
we thank
you that you satisfied the righteous requirements of the law to get to
heaven.
We thank you that you shed your precious blood for our sins.
We are so grateful
that we
no longer have to trust in our own righteousness, because we will
always fail.
We thank you Lord
Jesus that
you did it all and we can now serve you out of love instead of fear.
We thank you that we are saved. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
By Harley Hitchcock
This
website’s front page is:
www.
www.AustralianBibleMinistries.com
