Have you ever been told that you were going to hell? I don’t mean like some ex-girlfriend telling you to go to hell, I mean like for real.
A close friend of mine used to tell me this all of the time. He told me that he loves me so he felt compelled to let me know that my soul was in peril.
“I don’t want you to go to hell man.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You are not saved. The only way for you to get to heaven is to be saved in his name.”
“I believe in Jesus dude. You know this.”
“Believing will not save you. It is not enough to simply believe.”
Needless to say this news did not go over well with me. It sort of pissed me off to learn that even though I’ve been a pretty good guy in life, I was still on my way to eternal damnation. I refused to accept this. “So you’re saying that no matter how good a person is, they will go to hell if they don’t get saved?” He threw a bible passage at me and said that Jesus is the only gateway to heaven. Living what we perceive to be a good life is meaningless if we are not saved.
Then he said something that blew my mind.
He told me the man who has lived his life full of sin, will make it to heaven before the righteous man if he is saved. That just doesn’t seem right. I tested this theory by asking him a hypothetical question;
“So let’s say there is someone who is universally believed to be a good person. Mother Theresa for example. If she has not been saved she is going to hell?”
“Yes”
“And on the flipside, let’s say Hitler took on Jesus as his savior on his deathbed, would that be enough to get him into heaven?”
“If he was sincere and genuine, yes it would.”
I’m really sorry Jesus 😦
Now I ask you guys, does that seem right?
Against the Grain 