New world record established

The pastor’s message in the church I attended yesterday in part described the times of Hosea and how the Jewish people had turned from God and had begun worshipping idols. It reminded me of a trip I took to India a few years back. Most of my days in India were spent teaching programmers our software, but one night after work we did tour some of the sights of the area.

The magnificent Hindu temple was the premiere place to take tourists. The building itself was lavishly ornate and no expense was spared in its construction. It looked stunning all lit up at night and our host described the inside as magnificent and insisted that we take a peek.

We were instructed to take our shoes off before entering. As we walked into the building, the temple floor gleamed with white marble, and the towering white stone walls were decorated in gold trim. Elaborate paintings of various colorful creatures with multiple eyes and arms, and beautiful headdresses, lined both walls of the huge halls that visitors walk through to enter into the temple area; (they reminded me of some of the creatures I saw when I was hallucinating on LSD). Our host explained each painting was of a different God and he indicated that hundreds of Gods are worshipped by various sects within the Hindu religion.

As we entered the temple proper I began to hear eerie Middle Eastern style music being played over a loudspeaker and voices chanting in Hindi. We were standing in line and as we moved forward I could see four guys dressed up in white robes down at the front of the temple dancing around behind an enclosure with a waist high glass barrier separating them from the people streaming through the temple. My host indicated that they were the fulltime Hindu priests. They had their heads shaved, save a little ponytail topnotch affair that originated right in the top of their heads and they had yellow streaks of paint on their faces and of course the little red dot between their eyes.

As we moved further forward in line I could more clearly see these guys dancing around in their robes in a mist of incense with weird trance-like expressions on their faces and fixed smiles. One of them was playing a tambourine; another was meeting with each individual who came through the line and offering them some sort of blessing. Another was throwing flower petals about and the final guy was throwing some sort of holy water on a huge idol of a golden bull’s head and shoulders.

Okay call me a chicken if you will, but suddenly I was completely overcome with fear and dread. This place made me feel like I was in one of those Baal temples of old and I was afraid at any time that fire was going to rain down on my head and burn me up just for being inside this place. Without a word to anyone else in our party I took off running for the door in my stocking feet beating it towards that door like satan himself was nipping at my heels. My head was down, my arms were pumping up and down and I feel quite sure that I could have beaten any world record for the fifty yard dash as I streaked out of that place. People were scampering out of the way dodging me and looking at me like I had completely lost my mind.

I didn’t care; I WANTED OUT OF THERE!

When I got outside I quickly put on my shoes and then put another 100 or so yards between me and that temple. I found our car and nervously awaited my friends as I leaned up against it in the parking lot.

Some folks here in the United States think the Bible is outdated because one of the Ten Commandments insists that we do not worship idols. They look around and don’t see any idols being worshipped and mistakenly think the Bible is written for the olden times.

Please understand that the Bible doesn’t get outdated and that it is written not just to Americans, but to people all over the world including Hindus. God said it is the same today as yesterday as it will be 1000 years from now. It is the unerring word of God and it will last for all time and for all people.

Many pastors take the position that we make money, sex, power, fame, careers, golf, and other pleasures our idols and Gods, and that is the meaning of this commandment in this age. Okay I can buy into we should let nothing distract us from God, but let me tell you friends, there are still plenty of regular idols that were carved out of stone or made of gold out there being worshipped today in 2011.

The Hindu religion has approximately one billion followers and is the third largest religion in the world. Travel to Asia and see the beautiful idols of Buddha everywhere you go and observe another half billion Buddhists worshipping them. Okay while I am on the subject, it is estimated that there are 1.5 billion people who follow Islam, about 1 billion who follow various African sects, spiritism, and various pagan religions too numerous to mention. There are 1.1 billion secular, (agnostic, atheist, non-religious) folks in the world. Judaism has just 14 million. There are 2.1 billion Christians which represents 33% of the people of the world.

The Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that if we want to see heaven we must turn our lives over to Jesus Christ and worship the one true God and that we are to put no other Gods before Him. What happens to the rest of those people is between God and them; only He can know their hearts and He will judge us all in due time.

But make no mistake about it the Bible is crystal clear that there is only one gate that we can go through to enter heaven and that is Jesus Christ. By the way He mentions that the road to destruction is broad and many more will go down it than will enter the narrow gate of Jesus and find salvation

Matt.7:13
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.