Each soul faces eternal joy or pain. Our soul lives forever with choices we make. Every choice is a bet. Bet smart!
Many make this bet: “The prophecies predicted Jesus in such detail that the odds are trillions to one that He was The Promised Messiah. He was born in the one village out of 120,000 named by Malachi. He was born when Daniel predicted. Of the sixty million in the Roman Empire, He was of the tiny House of David in the small Tribe of Judah. He was ‘lifted up before men’, ‘no bones of His will be broken’. Those who killed Him ‘looked on He Whom they pierced’. 300 such prophecies lead me to bet on Christianity!”
That’s a smart bet.
History helps us make the best bet on the church we choose. In Christianity’s first thousand years, Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, and a myriad of early Protestants left The Catholic Church. History shows their fate: they divided until they disappeared. They did not make smart bets!
Many Christians remained faithful to The Only Church Jesus Founded by saying to one man, one time: “Verily, verily I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven. Those whose sins you forgive on earth are forgiven in Heaven.”
The Greek Orthodox went off on their road, a thousand years ago. Their faith, lands and peoples in Syria, the Middle East, Turkey, and the Balkans, have largely disappeared. God did not protect them from His Moslems and Communist scourges. They did not make smart bets!
Luther went down another road, five hundred years ago. His road divided into 45,000 tiny, twisted paths. Like the Protestants of the past, their leaders tell donors: “My belief system will get you into Heaven!”
Some are blessed to learn the great lesson of history. His promise, “I have come to divide.” separates those who obey, “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.” from those too vain to do so.
Every choice is a bet. Bet smart!
