Did you know that God has only one requirement for a person to enter Heaven?

Great Debates
1

Good News!

Dear Sir or Madam,

Do you know how simple it is to go to Heaven when this life is over?

Some people believe that belonging to a local church, temple, mosque or synagogue will get them to Heaven.

Others believe that water baptism, obeying the ten commandments or just being a good person will get them to Heaven.

There are many other beliefs as well, but the good news about God’s way to Heaven is found in the Holy Bible.

The good news is that God came from Heaven to earth in the person of Jesus Christ over 2000 years ago and died for our sins(misdeeds). He was born in the land of Israel supernaturally to a virgin Jewish woman named Mary. He lived a sinless life for thirty-three years and then sacrificed His sinless blood and died on a cross to pay the death penalty for our sins. After Jesus was placed in a tomb He rose from the dead three days later as He said He would. The Holy Bible also tells us that Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven and that all who accept Him as their Lord and Saviour will live forever with Him in Heaven where there is no more death, sorrow, sickness and pain.

The Bible says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

This verse in the Bible says, “For ALL HAVE SINNED, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

This verse says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

In this passage the Bible clearly explains how to be saved and on your way to Heaven, “For if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you WILL BE SAVED.” (Romans 10:9)

You can be saved right now and on your way to Heaven if you will open your heart to Jesus and pray the following prayer out loud:

Dear Jesus Christ, I want to be saved so that I can have a home in Heaven when this life is over. I agree with You that I am a sinner. I believe You love me and want to save me. I believe that You bled and died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins. I believe that You rose from the dead. Please forgive my sins and come into my heart and be my Lord and Saviour. Thank You Lord Jesus Christ for forgiving me and saving me through Your merciful grace. Amen.

You are now a Christian if you said the prayer and allowed God to save you. Welcome to the family of God.

Salvation is not a reward but a gift. The Bible says it this way, “For it is by GRACE you have been SAVED, through FAITH and this not from yourselves, it is the GIFT of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)

Nothing in this world is more important than your eternal destiny.

The Bible says, “In Him(Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins…” (Ephesians 1:7)

If you have not yet made a decision to be saved, please do so now before it is too late. The reason why it is so important to be saved now is because you do not know exactly when you will die. You may die prematurely in a traffic accident, terrorist attack or some other way before you get another chance to be saved.

The Bible tells us that we will spend eternity in Heaven or a place of eternal torment called Hell. It would be terrible to die and go to Hell when all you have to do is accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour.

Some people that have already made Jesus Christ their Lord and Saviour worry about losing their salvation. The Bible teaches Christians that we can never lose our salvation no matter what happens.

The Bible says it this way, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” (1John 2:1)

Yes my friend, Jesus Christ is able to save you and keep you saved!

Please tell your friends and family the good news, Thanks!
Have a good day!
Internet Evangelist R.L. Grossi
CommentsAndQuestions@emailgroups.net

  1. http://www.tbn.org/index.php/8/1.html << Free movies! (click link)

  2. http://www.gift.boxke.net << Beautiful Graphics (click link)

  3. http://www.carm.org/cults/cultlist.htm << Groups To Avoid (click link)

  4. http://www.equip.org/free/DH198.htm << Is Hell Real? (click link)

  5. http://www.powertochange.com/questions/qna2.html << Is Jesus God? (click link)

2

Could you hum a few bars for me?

3

May your false God burn in his own Hell.

4

I’m sorry, BG–is it my false God or Gracie’s you were directing that comment to?

5

Dr Mr./Ms. R.L. Grossi,

Firstly, welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards. I hope your posting time here will be a happy one.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Zev Steinhardt and I am one of the longer-posting members of the board, having been here for almost five years.

I live in New York City and am an Orthodox Jew. As such, I keep God’s commandments as spelled out in the Torah, Talmud and later works of Jewish law.

Having said that, I will state that you have written a very pretty speech as the OP of this thread. However, there is nothing that you have said here that would appeal to me, an Orthodox Jew, to make me believe anything you’ve said.

You ask me to believe that Jesus was the messiah who came and atoned for all my sins and that through his grace, I can gain entry into Heaven.

Now, surely you must realize that as an Orthodox Jew, I put no credence into the New Testament. As such, quoting Romans, Ephesians or John at me is not going to do you any good.

As to your basic premise, I believe it is flawed as well. For starters, you state that Jesus was born of a virgin. That may or may not be true – I wasn’t there and can’t state what Mary’s personal state of virginity was at the time. However, whether she was a virgin or not is really beside the point. There is no requirement that the messiah come from a virgin. And before you quote Isaiah 7:14 at me, I will advise you to read the whole chapter in context. Reading the whole chapter will make it clear that the woman to whom Isaiah was referring lived in Ahaz’s time and that the child she was carrying would be born and live in his time as well.

Secondly, you may be mistaken as to the purpose of the Jewish messiah. There is really no basis for stating that belief in him is a requirement for entry into Heaven. The messiah has certain tasks to fulfill, but facilitiating people entry into Heaven isn’t one of them.

Likewise, arising from the dead is no proof of messiahship either. Ezekiel, Elijah and Elisha all rose people from the dead, but none of their resurrectees are considered messiahs.

There are plenty of other avenues by which we can continue this discussion, but let’s stick with what we have so far. So, what would you tell me, an Orthodox Jew, that would convince me to believe in Jesus?

Hoping to hear from you soon,

Zev Steinhardt

6

Tell me more of this Jesus person, for I have never heard of him, despite being of six and twenty years on this earth.

7

This sounded interesting to me, until I got to that part about how this “God” person condemns you to eternal pain and suffering if you choose not to believe in him. :eek:

Sounds too monstrous for me. Might as well worship Idi Ami while you’re at it. No thanks.

8

Oh my! This is amazing! I have never heard such a thing before! Not on tv, or books or anything. You have probably reached a lost person here just in the nick of time! Your work is done.
;j

9

So even if you rape a child after being saved you get into heaven? Denying this god is worse than murder? Stupid, plain stupid.

10

On what grounds should we suppose that anything in the Bible is true?

11

I guess I’m the only one who gave the OP a quick glance and assumed it was a joke.

12

That’s the first cult list I’ve ever seen that listed Unitarian Universalism. :eek:

13

Dear Mr. Gossi:

Like Zev, I think that your OP (original post) was a courteous and well-written witness. Unlike him, I am an active Christian. But like him, I think that, while well-intentioned, it was in error in one profound way.

What Jesus expects of us is made very clear in the four Gospels. And He was quite explicit on how He would judge in the end. Godly a man as Paul was, he was only a man, and unless you hold to the extraScriptural doctrine of verbal inerrancy, his words are no more proof than yours or mine or Zev’s words, or those of our atheist friends here.

And one primary step in trying to evangelize, sir, is to show Christ’s love to others. What you did, presuming you come back to read what your thread attracted, is what we pejoratively refer to around here as “drive-by witnessing.” If you wish to bring anyone here to Christ, you need to come back and become a part of the community here. You need to empathize with the member here, whom many of us know and love, who was thrown out of his home at 17 for being gay. You need to meet the people who were ostracized from their churches. You need to meet, head on, the issues people have with the attitudes of many religious leaders, and answer them, not with authoritative ukases, but with sweet reason and friendship. You need to understand why many here see Christianity, not as salvation, but as an effort to dominate them and force them into lockstep with someone else’s beliefs.

In short, you need to know and love these people, as Jesus would have done, if you hope to do any work in His name.

You’re more than welcome here, and I hope you will come back and do just that.

In His name,

Polycarp

14

I wrote a snarky reply, but I respect Polycarp too much to post it immediately after his well-reasoned one. As he pointed out, you can’t really expect to effect any good in Jesus’ name with message board spamming.

15

Moderator’s Note: Just a reminder to everyone that Great Debates is the proper forum for “religious debates and (if you feel you must) witnessing”.

16

To be fair, it did say “Cults and Non-Christian List”, and UU’s aren’t Christian, necessarily.

17

“For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.”

(Ephesians 2:8)

Its not even your faith.

God ain’t sending anyone to hell.

18

It’s also the proper forum to assert my belief that there is no God and these drive-by witnessers are more humorous than effective, and are thus actually counter-effective.

Mr. Grossi: If you want to spread good, be the good you want to see in the world and trust your example will win converts. Threats of imaginary punishment and promises of imaginary reward may make yourself feel better, but they do nothing to improve anybody else’s life. I think your Jesus had a name for that kind of thing.

19

Did you know that man has visited the deepest part of the world’s oceans, Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, just once, in 1960, for 20 minutes?

20

Are you saying God decides who gets saved? Then faith wouldn’t play a part, would it?