1) God is real and personal, and is a trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all of whom are co-equal and co-eternal in existence.
2) The Bible is the inerrant, inspired Word of God and is the ultimate authority in all areas
3) God created the world in a perfect state over the course of 6 ordinary 24-hour earth days and rested on the seventh day as recorded in the Book of Genesis
4) Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. As a result of their sin, God pronounced a curse on of creation, which introduced death and suffering into the world.
5) Since the Fall, all humans have inherited a sin nature and are sinners, thus separated from God. The penalty of sin is death.
6) As recorded in Genesis, God sent a global flood (approximately 1656 years after creation) to wipe out mankind, and the only human survivors were Noah and his family aboard the Ark.
7) Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the second Person of the Trinity. He was born of a virgin, lived the only perfectly sinless life in history, performed miracles, preached, was crucified to atone for the sins of humanity, and rose from the grave on the third day. He ascended into heaven and will one day return to reign forever.
8) The only way to salvation is through the redemption Jesus gave us on the cross when He shed His blood and died for our sins. To be saved, a person must personally put their trust in Jesus, ask Him to forgive their sins, repent of their sins, and ask Him to come into their life. Salvation is by the grace of God alone and is not dependent on works or sacraments. Salvation is immediate, eternal, and complete.
How Can We Know It's All True?
What's the story?
Here's the deal. When God first made the world, it was perfect. No suffering, no death, no disease, and man was not separated from God. There was just one rule: there's one tree in the Garden of Eden that we weren't allowed to eat from, and that tree was called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And God told the first humans, Adam and Eve, that if they ate from the tree, they'd die.
Well, along came the serpent, who tempted Eve to disobey God and eat the fruit. Then Adam ate the fruit, too.
That very moment, Adam and Eve became sinners, separated spiritually from God, because God cannot tolerate sin. God pronounced the curse on all creation, and all the bad things in the world are the result of being in a cursed creation, which is the result of sin. Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and ever since then, everyone has inherited a sinful nature and everyone has sinned against God. And the wages of sin is death, both physical death here and spiritual death in hell for eternity.
God gave us a law to follow, the core of which are the Ten Commandments. But everyone breaks at least one of these commandments (usually all of them, at one point or another--remember, Jesus said that the prohibition against murder also prohibits hatred and that the law against adultery also prohibits lust). So we can never earn our way to heaven, because we are sinful and fail to live up to the standard, which is obedience to the Law.
But when God pronounced the curse, He also gave us hope, because He told us something that would happen. He said that someday, there would be a "seed of the woman" who would crush the head of the serpent.
God also said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. There must be death to pay for sin. So humans sacrificed animals to God in order to atone for their sins. But it was never quite good enough, because it only covered up sins, and the sacrifices had to be reoffered to pay for new sins. What we needed was a perfect sacrifice.
Fast forward about 4000 years from Adam and Eve getting kicked out of the Garden. The second Person of the Trinity came down and was born to a virgin named Mary in about 4-6 BC. He was both God and man. He lived a sinless life and taught us all how to get to heaven through faith in Him. Then, on Passover in 30 or 33 AD, He was crucified and killed--He willingly died to be the perfect sacrifice that we needed. But there's more. Before He had died, He had prophesied that He would rise from the dead three days after His death. And that's exactly what He did, conquering death in the Resurrection.
So Jesus Christ died on the cross, dying the most horrible death imaginable and bearing the full weight of God's judgement against sin on Himself, for our sins. How do we accept this gift? First, we have to realize that we are sinners incapable of earning our way to God ourselves. Next, we have to ask Him to forgive us of our sins, and we have to repent, which means a total U-turn from our sinful ways. Third, we have to tell Him that we believe He died on the cross for our sins, and that we want to accept the gift of His sacrifice. Fourth, we have to ask Him to come into our lives, because there's no way we can do this on our own. We need to yield our hearts to Him. Then we will be saved by God's grace alone.
It's not an easy path. Christians are often ridiculed and persecuted for their faith, and there are often times when we slip up and disobey God, but just remember that we can confess our sins to God, and that He has already forgiven us and saved us, and that death is no longer something to be feared. What's frightening about going to be with the One we love the most for all eternity?
So you're faced with a choice: would you rather spend eternity in heaven or in hell? Would you prefer to have an eternity of pleasure or an eternity of pain? Think of it this way: heaven is the best of this life magnified maybe a million times, hell's the worst of this life magnified a thousand.
Please, choose heaven. Repent of your sins, ask Jesus into your heart, confess Him as your Lord adn Savior, and be saved.
Hopefully, I can look forward to seeing you in heaven :-)