HEAVEN OR HELL

This seems to be a hard teaching to many. They say that God is a God of love, and as such they do not believe that God will condemn a man to hell if he is a good man and honest. There is one of two places where we may spend the future eternity: one is heaven and the other hell. Christ is preparing a place for us, wishing us to be with him in heaven. Hell was created for the devil and his angels. If a man accepts Christ he will spend eternity with Him in heaven. If he rejects Christ and thus associates himself with Satan, he will certainly share Satan's future abode in hell.

No, do not accuse God of condemning men to hell, after He has sent Christ into the world and has shown His great love for men by giving Christ to die on the cross for their sins. If you must accuse someone, accuse your pastor; perhaps he has not done all that he could to reach those that are lost. Accuse me, for I know that I have not done all I could. Should you not face the problem honestly and say that you, by your own will, accept Christ and heaven or condemn yourself to hell by rejecting Him? "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life" (Rom. 6:23).

But you say you are talking about the moral man. Certainly hell cannot be his wages; he has done nothing to deserve it. Let us try to think this thing through. In the sight of our own laws, the man deserving the greatest punishment is the one who has broken the greatest law. Should not the same be true with God? The man who breaks His greatest commandment is the worst sinner.

A man once came to Jesus and asked the question: "Master, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus answered: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" (Matt. 22:36-37). Does the moral man who rejects God, love God with all his heart, mind and soul? Certainly not. Then he has broken the greatest law of God and stands before God as the greatest sinner of all. God's reaction to this man is given in John 3:17-18: "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." The moral man is not condemned because of any immoral act, any crime or vice that he is guilty of, but because he has not believed on Christ and has broken the greatest commandment.

Let me tell you a story which has greatly helped me to see this thing clearly. On the night before I left to do graduate work in the University of California, my father and mother and I were sitting around a table reading. My father found an item which he read aloud. As near as I can remember, it was this: Four years earlier in a different part of the country there was another family whose son was ready to go to college; but there was no money available for a college education. The father and mother talked the matter over and said, "Our son has been a very good boy. He has always done well in school and he should have a good education, but how can we send him to college?" They decided that there was only one possible way and that was to sell half of the farm and raise the money. This they did and sent the son to college. The son was a brilliant student, and the college was extremely well pleased with his work. At the end of four years, he completed his course and was ready to graduate with the highest honors, and the highest academic record ever made in that college. The father and mother again held a conference, and felt that it did not seem right for the son to b e graduating so far from home without at least one of his parents with him. They sold part of the remaining stock and raised enough money so that a railway ticket was bought for the father to be with his son. But there was not enough money for a new suit of clothes. The father arrived on the campus and, seeing his son with a group of students, rushed up to him and greeted him. The son stared back coldly and said, "No, there is some mistake here. You are not my father, I do not know you."

When my father finished reading, he turned to me and said "Peter, is that what you are going to do when you finish college?" I can never forget that story. But what do you think of that young man? He certainly stooped the lowest that it is possible for a son to stoop in his relation to his father. It would have been better for him to have stolen the money for his education, or to have done anything except to take all that his parents could give, through great sacrifice, and then disown them. What must that father do, if he is a just father? Can he say to that son, "Well, son, that is all right. I will continue to send you your monthly check and the estate will be yours as it always has been"? No, that father must say to the son, "Son, as long as you disown me, I must disown you, but I will ever be looking forward to your coming back and again owning me as your father. Then I will be glad to own you as my son."

As the years have passed, this story has taken on a very different meaning for me. In the place of the son, I see the moral man, the man who has not broken a single law of the land. He has no bad habits, his morals are above reproach, he is looked up to by all of his associates. Then I look at the non-christian country and see its lack of morals, its impossible code of ethics, the treatment of the wives and children, and I realize that my moral man obtained his morality, his code of ethics, his uprightness, his courtesy to the members of his family and his honesty, from Christianity, or from Christ and God. Then I see the non-christian moral man looking up into the face of God and saying. "This is my code of ethics: this is my own standard of morality; this is my own standard of treatment of my family; it is my own standard of honesty in my business dealings. You have had nothing to do with my life. I will have nothing to do with Christ as my Savior or You as my God." I marvel that God does not answer with fire from heaven and devour that man. Certainly God cannot take him to heaven to dwell with Him eternally. Satan himself has not done worse.

If you are this nonchristian man or woman may I entreat you to accept Christ as your personal savior now? Confess to Him your sin of rejection, recognize Him as your Creator, your God. See Christ upon the cross as a sacrifice for your own sin. See in that sacrifice the great love of God, who gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. See the love of Christ when He refused to come down from the cross but said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

You must either accept Christ as your personal savior or reject Him. There is no middle ground. You are either saved, with your name written down in heaven where you will spend eternity, or you are lost and will spend eternity in hell with Satan and all that is evil.

When the children of Israel strayed from God and began to worship idols, Joshua went out before then and said:

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve ... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods; for the Lord our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed.

Will you not say with Joshua: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"?

consider the two following statements as contracts between yourself and God. One of these contracts is in effect as you finish reading this book. Which one do you now choose?

1. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and accept Him as my personal Savior. By this act my sins are all blotted out and I become a son of God, a joint-heir with Jesus Christ. I now have eternal life and shall spend eternity in heaven with Christ.

Signed.............................
Dated .............................

How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? - Hebrews 2:3

2. I will not accept Jesus Christ as my savior. I realize that this is the greatest sin against God that any man can commit and in so doing I affiliate myself with Satan. I shall live a life in sin against God, and for this decision I shall spend eternity in hell with Satan.

Signed.............................
Dated .............................

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord - Romans 6:23

If you have not signed number 1, do not deceive yourself. You must choose this very moment. Look again at number 2, for in the sight of God your name is signed there, even in the rejected blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. It is dated this very moment.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved - Acts 16:31.