Well, it gets very confusing with all the different religions and claims that this or that belief or ideas from various movements that they have the path that leads to God, so is it. But when you hear a Christian religious leader or teacher claim that all religions lead on a path to God, that raises questions.
https://vision.org.au/read/articles/shock-over-pope-saying-all-religions-are-a-path-to-god/

Scripture is clear that is not the case. We find it in John 14...

John 14:6

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Jesus declares that the only way to God is through Him.

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=5fd0...cmVsaWdpb25zX2xlYWRfdG9fb25lX2dvZC5odG0&ntb=1

All salvation comes from God's gracious attitude towards us through what Jesus did for us. At the end of time God will treat everyone the same. God will show up in all his beauty, love, glory, and overwhelming event. Some will find this event to be heaven, others will find this event to be hell. Like when the divinity flashed through Jesus when cleaning the temple (at least at the second cleaning.) People ran in two directions. The money changers were running away, while the children, poor and lame were running to him (and remember Jesus had a whip. How often do you find children running with joy to someone holding a whip? Yet, this is what happened when Jesus showed his "wrath".) Only this time there is no place to flee as God's glory fills the whole world.

Everyone is born with a few things: Different levels of intelligence, cultures, environments, points in history. We all have in us two attitudes fighting. One is our deepest desire, to want to love the world on an honest basic, to be fair, to love the world as Jesus has loved it. Fighting this is a weaker, but often placed in power in our lives, a disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world. A disposition to esteem ourselves more highly than others, to serve self, to seek the highest place, to manipulate or try to manipulate others especially through things such as criticizing, complaining, blaming, nagging, threatening, punishing, rewarding to control. We also seem to have been born with our temperaments, two out of five possible love languages, two out of five possible apology languages, and our attachment styles.

The Holy Spirit works with every person, pointing them to the character ("name") of God as our personal friend (God the Son). All religions have varying amounts of truth and superstitions. People make choices of reaching out to or rejecting the character of God as our personal friend, through the two principles of somehow reaching out to what or whoever may be out there and from this to love their neighbors as themselves.

The three monotheistic religions have available WITHIN their framework a looking beyond the forces of nature to the creator. The two based on the Bible have even more truth available to them, with of course the Christians open to study the Bible with the insight that God the Son came and lived among us, and additional insights from records of his life and insights from those who directly witnessed seeing him, including seeing him after the resurrection, or records of people who had direct connection to these witnesses. Protestantism has a mindset of reading the Bible and making the Bible the final authority. And Seventh-day Adventists have the great controversy philosophy (which archaeology has pointed out was a big issue for the ancient world where the Bible was written, but which we have lost sight of in culture.)

Now, just because we have more information available to us does not mean that we are allowing them to affect our lives and thinking. People with less information may cherish what they understand while people with more information may ignore it. All may be drawn away by traditions and superstitions.

From this I cannot say that all religions lead to God; but God and Satan both have people in all religions. The big issue is HIS CHARACTER, Who HE is, What he did for us. The Holy Spirit working on our hearts to point us in the direction of the character of God as personal friend, and from this to God being the great power and ultimate authority.

Sadly, too many Christians turn the salvation through God's gracious character and who HE is, to salvation through being a Christian, salvation through the religion. The false thinking that a Jew, Muslim or other cannot be saved because they are not "Christians" That they have not said the right things about Jesus and give the history lesson about what Jesus did for us. Anwar Sadat was raised by his mother and grandmother with a simple faith of trusting in Allah. In college he got into a more complex nationalistic political form of Islam. Yet, he still had a love for God. He spent so many hours in prayer that a callus formed on his forehead. When he lost the 1973 war, he felt responsible for all the deaths. He turned his back on the more complicated political version of Islam and turned to the simple faith of his mother and grandmother. He realized that he needed to forge a peace with Israel.

At Camp David, there were three men of faith and prayer, a Muslim, a Jew and a Christian. They stopped their work at prayer times and were able to work out a solution.

In Psalm 23:5 it says that the Lord prepares a table in the presence of enemies. To the ancient world this means forgiveness and reconciliation. After Camp David was arranged, a table for the enemies of Egypt and Israel meet for the reconciliation meal. Now, people wondered about a personal event in this feast. Sadat and Golda Mier had totally hated each other on a personal level. They had never mentioned the other by name. Sadat would only call her "That Old Lady" and she would only call him "That Egyptian." Yes, there was the table of forgiveness for the politics of the two governments, but what about these two individuals?

In the receiving line, as these two bitter enemies came face to face, Mier said "Mr. President, what took you so long? At these words Sadat just started laughing, and Mier just started laughing. The hatred they had for each other melted. (I don't remember for sure but I believe that I read/heard that they made a joke about the names they gave each other.) The table of forgiveness became not only political between states, but was also personal between these two individuals who remained friends for the rest of their lives. These actions were accepting and reflecting the character of God the Son, and coming to the power of God the Father through God as personal friend. They are saved through how they accepted the character of God the Son. (and as you look at Sadat, the impact of God upon his life, and how he decided to stand for the right even though it lead to his martyrdom, indicates that he could have well have reached what Ellen White describes as last generation perfection.)

Dr. Chan was a Buddhist dentist living in Cambodia. When he heard that the Khmer Rouge came to power, he threw his glasses off his face and stomped on them on the floor, ran home got his family and moved to a part of Cambodia where no one knew who they were and they pretended to be ignorant illiterates. Eventually they were able to go to a refugee camp in Thailand. There were Baptists working in the camps to help the refugees and shared the story about Jesus. The Chan family converted from Buddhism to Christianity. Later they came to southern California where there were Seventh-day Adventists helping the refugees, and they decided to learn more about Seventh-day Adventism and decided to become Seventh-day Adventists. One Sabbath at church, one of the women who were helping the refugees noticed that Dr. Chan's body tightened and went pale. He started shaking and ran out of the church. She went after him to find out what was wrong. She found him on the lawn of the church just shaking and repeating the words "It's him! It's him..." As he was asked what was wrong, Dr. Chan replied "You may find this crazy, but as a child I knew that I had a special friend. Now, I could not see him nor hear him, yet he has always been just as real to me at my friends who I could see and hear. I believe that he helped me to remove and trample on my glasses. I believe that he lead me and my family as we looked for someplace we were unknown, and that he lead to Thailand and finally to the United States. Even though I became a Christian in Thailand, today, for the first time in my life I realize that this special, life long friend of mine is Jesus!"

Religions can be a help or a hindrance, but from all religious beliefs (even secularism and so called atheism -- I have not come over this document's words anyplace else for me to absolutely say that it was by Ellen White, but I came across it in the EGW vault at Andrews, and I believe that it was written by Sister White, but this document placed "atheists" into two different groups. One was labeled, infidels. But the author also gave a second group of atheists labeled "Honest Doubters" and that heaven has room for the "Honest Doubters." Whether the writer was Mrs. White or not, I agree with that document. There is the issue of faith that transcends religions. When you read about the Norwegian revivalist Hans Nielsen Hague, or the character of World War I German ace Oswald Boelcke, and how World War I ace Manfred von Richthofen responded to Boelcke's Christlikeness. The Roman Catholic actor Bob Newheart and Jewish comedian Don Rickels were both men of faith, and they felt a special friendship based on their shared love and devotion to their family and to God. They would join each other in worshiping in both Church and Synagogue and recognizing both Christian and Jewish holidays. Herman's Hermit's lead singer Peter Noone had been a devote Catholic. He met a lady who was a devote Jew. They fell in love, and felt that a large part of their relationship was their shared love for God. They have had one of show business longest and happiest marriages. When they decided to marry, instead of just running off, Peter petitioned and received permission from the Church to marry her without her converting to Catholicism (One article I read said that he asked the Pope for permission, but I have not seen that since, only his getting permission from the church.) and they worship in both the Church and Synagogue, and they have a daughter they raised in both the church and synagogue.

A Muslim followed the Lord. Please pray for Ahmad Al-Ahmad's recovery in an Australian hospital. A true hero!

The question is "Do all religions lead to God"?

Now I agree the Holy Spirit is working on people's hearts no matter where they are physically, spiritually or intellectually. His work is to lead people to God and to Jesus. There's no doubt that there will be many saved from all walks of life and belief systems. The Holy Spirit can take anything and help people see the truth.

But it won't be their religion that saves them.
Even professing Christians aren't naturally on the path to heaven.
It's the Holy Spirit helping them discern truth from error and leads honest seekers into more truth.

There is only one belief system that maps out the true path to heaven.
That is the belief in our Savior, Who died in our place that we may be forgiven, and Who cleanses us by His Holy Spirit working in our lives.
John 14:6 Jesus says to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

All other religions focus on human merit. These religions do not present the need for the Savior to take their sins and die in their place, they seek to justify themselves by their own good works. Even forgiveness becomes an emotional response that a person adds to their earned "merits", not the thought that sin is the transgression of the law, a legal assault against God's law that can't just be ignored and that the Creator Himself met the legal demands of the law, thereby making it possible for God to forgive the sinner and still show the immutability of the law. It's because we are forgiven much by the blood of the "Lamb" that we, in gratitude to Christ's amazing provision, forgive others


"Pope Francis declared that "all religions are a path to God,... stating that different religions are like different languages to reach God."

Yet we do not see that in scripture. While there is only One True God, and only one way that we can reach Him, Scripture makes it clear there are also many "gods" pretending to represent the true God, who are trying to divert people. There is only one True God and Jehovah is His name.
John 14:6 Jesus says unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Those other gods and religions cannot save anyone, they lead to destruction.

Your story of Dr. Chan shows the difference.
It wasn't his Buddhist religion that showed Dr. Chan the path to heaven and God.
It was the Holy Spirit working in his heart and leading him to make a break from Buddhism.
When he "met" Jesus, he recognized Him because the Holy Spirit had introduced him to Jesus many years earlier. It was NOT his original religion that introduced him to Jesus.