Book 2 of Musings Are You Sure You Want To Go to Heaven

Are you certain you want to go to Heaven? What if none of the things you enjoy can be found there?

To tell you the truth, I am not certain we know what we are doing. We say to the sinner, "Accept Christ and you will go to Heaven when you die."

We say this to someone who loves to do drugs, drink booze, gamble, consort with loose women, who uses filthy language and enjoys others who do. He has no use for church, or prayer, or the saints.

We tell him, "Accept Christ and you will not go to Hell but to Heaven when you die."

What we actually are saying is, "If you will accept Christ you will not go where people do what you enjoy but where people love all the things you hate and hate all the things you love.

Does this make sense to you?

Are we sure we know what we are doing?

Do you know something? I don't think the four Gospels, or the Book of Acts, or the Epistles present Christ as the way to escape Hell and go to Heaven. At least I haven't read where it says that. If what we are preaching is not supported by the Scriptures, and is not sensible, why do we keep on preaching it?

The message of the four Gospels, the Book of Acts, and the Epistles, is, "Straighten up your life. Turn away from sin. You are going to be judged when the Lord returns to earth. You will be saved from the wrath of God if you put your trust in Christ and turn from your wicked ways."

Read the New Testament for yourself and see if I am correct.

Now, the message of "straighten up your life" makes all kinds of sense. If the person who loves every kind of sin hears the true message, he or she has to make a choice. The choice is not to accept Christ and go where everything you love is hated and everything you hate is loved. This doesn't make sense.

The choice is to change what you love and what you hate. This is what it means to "get saved."

Personally I believe we will go to the place where what we love is loved and what we hate is hated, whether or not we accept Christ. Christ is not a ticket the sinner can use to go to be with saints. Christ is the power that can change the loves and the hates of an individual, if that is what he or she really desires.

When our heart is right, we do not want to bring our filthy personality into the presence of Christ, His saints, and the holy angels. We know this is not the right thing to do.

So what are we saying? We are saying the Gospel is not the way to Heaven but to the Father. In other words, the point is to be reconciled to the Father and His righteous and holy personality.

I wonder how many people who got "saved" and go to Christian churches have any intention of being reconciled to the Father? I think some of them want to be saved from Hell, but are not anxious to be saved from their sins. If this is the case, they will never hear "Well done, good and faithful servant."

What we are preaching is not biblical. We are stressing residence in Paradise when we ought to be emphasizing our change from the image of Satan to the image of God.

I think trouble is coming to the United States. In the future it may cost something to be known as a Christian. If this happens, the whole crowd of "Christians" who love and practice sin, the "mixed multitude" in the churches, will be forced either to straighten up or else to go back to where the people love what they love and hate what they hate.

Honestly, we have made the Gospel a means of getting unchanged sinners into Heaven. Heaven is not a place for sinners. Sinners cannot have fellowship with God. Sinners have no place among God, Christ, the saints, and the holy angels. Anyone who thinks sinners belong with that holy company is deluded.

"But don't drunks and prostitutes enter the Kingdom ahead of religious people?" Yes, they do; but only because they are willing to repent and change their ways.

"How about the thief on the cross?" Yes, what about him? "Wasn't he with Jesus in Paradise?" Yes, he was. But I'll tell you if he was around the Son of God for any period of time he straightened up pretty fast!

The thief's heart was right. If a man's heart is right, God will help him get rid of his sin.

When the Gospel is preached today, if someone's heart is right he or she will know that to be received of God there must be a change of behavior. Isn't that correct?

This is why our Gospel is not one of go to Heaven when you die. That is not scriptural. The Gospel is that of repentance, of change your way of living so you will be spared in the Day of Wrath. This is what the Bible teaches.

So we are way off base today. The spirit of Humanism has entered into Christianity to such an extent that we are pleading with people to "get saved and go to Heaven" when they have no intention of changing their behavior. We are so anxious to get them into church that we compromise the demands of Christ. We don't tell them that they have to follow the Holy Spirit in the paths of righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God.

We are lying to them. We are telling them that "grace" is covering their sinful behavior. In the meanwhile they do not become new righteous creations in Christ. After forty years of church attendance they are no different from when they started. In fact, the program of salvation was aborted from the beginning of their membership in the assembly What they are is carnal church members. Nothing more.

"But haven't they confessed that Christ is Lord?"

Yes, they have. They have called Him Lord! Lord! but have not done what He commanded. They have built their house on the sand and will be swept away in the time of trouble.

We in America are due for a revival. It will be a revival within the churches before it spreads to the unsaved. It is the church members who are lost to the purposes of God. They have been given an unscriptural message. They are waiting for a "rapture" to carry them to Heaven. They are not prepared for Heaven. They are walking in the sins of the flesh.

The revival is one of confessing our sins and turning away from them. We now are on the threshold of the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth. There absolutely is no place in the Kingdom of God for people who are obeying their sinful nature. This is why the message is: "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand." This was the original Gospel message, the Gospel of the Kingdom. This is the message today.

It is not "Accept Christ and you will go to Heaven." It is, "Repent! Repent! Turn from your wicked ways! Be baptized in water as a sign you have turned away from the world and have put your old personality on the cross with Jesus Christ. Arise to walk in newness of life. Set your interests and attention on things above where Christ sits at the right hand of God.'

I'll tell you how you can tell a true Christian. He or she is growing every day in the ability to distinguish between good and evil; and always is increasing in the strength and willingness to embrace what is good and renounce and totally reject what is evil.

Any so-called Christian who continues to walk in known sin is not a Christian at all but a modern product of the false gospel that is being preached in America.

The Bible is the "good book." This means it tells us how to be good. We become good by following the Lord Jesus Christ every day of our life.

We are at a turning point in American Christianity. As I said, we are on the threshold of the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth. At that time those who have believed in Christ, have been baptized in the waters of repentance, have taken up their cross, and are following Christ in the way of righteousness, shall be saved from destruction in the Day of Wrath.

But those who have continued in wickedness, those "believers" who, as Jude says, have turned the grace of God into an excuse for immorality, will be the first to experience the undiluted wrath of an angry God. Calling on Christ in that day will not help them, for they have spurned Christ until it is too late.

"Let the filthy be filthy still. Let the holy be holy still. Prepare the way of the Lord!"

This is the cry of the Spirit today.

Salvation is not the ticket that brings sinners to a place where nothing they enjoy is present. Salvation is the process of changing sinners into heavenly people so they can be brought where heavenly relationships, things, and circumstances are eternally available.

If you stop to think about it, we wouldn't want it any other way.

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:14-15)

First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. (Acts 26:20)

Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. (Rev 3:3)