Proud of their False Religions
IllustrationI do not believe there is any false religion in the world that men are not proud of. The only religion of which I have ever heard, that men were ashamed of, is the religion of Jesus Christ. Some time ago I preached two weeks in Salt Lake City, and I did not find a Mormon that was not proud of his religion. When I came within forty miles of Salt Lake City, the engineer came into the car and wanted to know if I wouldn’t like to ride on the engine.
I went with him, and in that forty-mile ride he talked Mormonism to me the whole time, and tried to convert me so that I would not preach against the Mormons. I never met an unconverted Chinaman who wasn’t proud of being a disciple of Confucius, and I never met a Mohammedan who wasn’t proud of the fact that he was a follower of Mohammed; but how many, many times I have found men ashamed of the religion of Jesus Christ, the only religion that gives men the power over their affections and lusts and sins.
If there were some back-door by which men could slip into heaven, there would be a great many who would want to enter it; but they don’t like to make public confession.
The point
Traveling among Mormons, Confucians, and Muslims, a preacher finds every false religion's followers proud to own their faith openly - yet again and again meets people ashamed to publicly confess the one religion, Christianity, that actually has power to free them from sin.