Dr Paul Allen

"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." ( Acts 4:12 ) There are many famous names in the history of religious thought--names such as Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius , Joseph Smith , among a host of others. Each has a multitude of followers who pay homage to his name. But there is only one name that saves eternally, the Lord Jesus Christ . The words of our text were spoken by the apostle Peter . In his epistle, John also stresses this fact: "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" ( 1 John 5:12 ). The apostle Paul wrote that all those "that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" ( 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 ). This exclusivity necessarily results from the fact that there is only one God and Creator of all men, and that all men have rebelled a

US troops in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Our missionaries have remained with us; we will stand by them, and live or die together." Meng Ch'ang-ch'un and the other Chinese pastors at Pao- ting Fu were united in their determination. The Boxer Rebellion , an angry reaction against western interference in China , raged across China. The government encouraged lawless bands to kill all foreigners and those who had adopted their ways, especially Christians . Thousands of people died. Meng was a direct descendant of the famous Chinese philosopher Confucius . He was attending a conference in T'ung Chow when the news came that the Boxers had destroyed the railroad to Pao-ting Fu and cut communications. Meng could have fled to nearby Peking where foreign embassies offered some protection; many other Christians did. But he remembered the missionaries who remained behind. It seemed to him that his honor as a Chinese called him to Pa