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Are you Going to
Heaven?
Almost everyone expects to go to heaven. But most people only assume that
they will – very few people know for sure!
Doesn’t that seem odd? Say you live to be 80 years old – even 80 years is not a
very long time compared to eternity. Wouldn't it make sense to want to be
absolutely sure of where your soul will spend eternity?
The Bad News:
Ah! But you say, "I believe in a good and merciful God – surely He wouldn't send
me to Hell!" But what does God say in His word?
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...wide is the gate, and
broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go
in thereat: (Matthew 7:13) |
Did you catch that? God is telling us that the
way that leads to Hell is broad – and MANY go that way! If you're just hoping to
slip into Heaven, the odds are not in your favor.
"But!" you may say, "I am not as bad as most people!" But this only shows that
you don't understand God! God is perfect and holy. He cannot allow imperfect
people to live forever with Him in perfection.
Most people realize that they aren't perfect – but you may think that you
haven't broken any SERIOUS commandments. Rather than go through every
commandment God has given us, let's just look at what Jesus called the "Greatest
Commandment."
Master, which is the
great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. (Matthew 22:36-37) |
Have you obeyed the greatest commandment? Have
you made God first in your life, in your every action, and in your every
thought? God is perfect and holy – and He deserves to be first in your life – if
He hasn't always been first – then, you are guilty of spiritual idolatry. You
have broken the greatest commandment, and are a child of the devil… and God
cannot allow the children of the devil to live in Heaven!
"Now wait a minute!" I can almost hear you say it! "I may not be perfect, but
I'm no child of the devil!" But what does God say?
| He that committeth sin
is of the devil; ... (1 John 3:8)
Ye are of your father
the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from
the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in
him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and
the father of it. (John 8:44) |
Jesus addressed this to the religious crowd of
his day-not a bunch of thugs & murderers. These were people of outward piety and
religious upbringing.
The truth is, we were all born in sin through Adam and become more accomplished
practitioners of sin with every passing year.
| For all have sinned,
and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)
As it is written,
There is none righteous, no, not one: ... (Romans 3:10) |
This is terrible, terrible, news! It doesn’t
matter who you are or what you do – God says that NO ONE is good enough for
heaven. We are all sinners and the spiritual children of the devil.
Unfortunately – it gets worse before it gets better.
Not only does God see you as a sinner who is unfit for Heaven – but the penalty
for your sins is spending eternity in a very real place that God calls a lake of
fire.
| But the fearful, and
unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and
sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
(Revelation 21:8) |
And not only are you a sinner bound for eternal
torment – but there is nothing you can do by your own strength to save yourself!
Do you still think you have some righteousness? Again, God's Word tells us…
| But we are all as an
unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; ... (Isaiah
64:6) |
Do you believe that? It's what God says. And
the good news I have to tell you next won't mean anything if you don't first
believe that you are a desperate sinner, bound for hell, who cannot save
yourself.
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