Alright. I want to talk to you
today about who's going to hell and who's not. Who's going to
hell and who's not. In the Psalm, in Psalm 14, we
find God on the hunt. And Psalm 14 says that the Lord
looked down from heaven upon the children of men Verse 2 of
Psalm 14, to see if there were any that did understand. If there
was anybody who wasn't stupid. And to see if there was anybody
that would see God. Now, here's what God found, and
immediately we discover that there's a real problem here.
Here's what God found out. They are all gone aside. They are all together become
filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Well, we've got
a problem. Because God is holy, holy, holy. And in order to go to heaven,
you have to be as holy as God. Now we've got a big, big problem.
Is there anybody here that can actually say you don't have a
problem? There's a problem here. God's looking for a good man
and can't find any. So, I would perceive then that
it would seem like everybody's going to hell. Unless, and we'll
talk about that later, There's none good, no not one. There's
none that seeketh after God. So immediately that does away
with free willism. The big message today in most
churches is God wants and God would like for you to make Him
Lord. I heard a preacher this morning
on TV begging people to make Jesus Lord. And let me tell you
this, God beat you to it. He's already Lord. You don't make him, Lord. He
sets up his kingship in your heart. And then your knee bows
and acknowledges him as Lord. When I was a kid, years and years
and years ago, I mean, when I was really a kid, this was when we
were still living in Kentucky. In the old church, I have heard
sayings like this. If there ever were a saint, old
Mrs. Smith surely was. That sounds
nice. That sounds good. But the insinuation of that statement
is that old Mrs. Smith was a saint because she
was good. Let me tell you, no one is a
saint because they're good. Because the Bible's already said
there's none good. I've heard people say this, if
heaven is a real place, Mama will be there. And people kind of ooh and aah
at that. Your mother, or mine, will not
be in heaven because they were good. There's another saying
that I used to hear. In fact, I've heard it sung in
many Baptist churches. Tell mother I'll be there in
answer to her prayer. I want to tell you, if you make
it to heaven, it won't be because of mama. Amen. I know some of you right now
are going, is he downing my mother? I'm just telling you what God
says, there is none good, no not one. I was thinking this
week about some of the characters in the Scripture, like Noah. You know, here's a guy from outward
observation, After reading his biography in the Scripture, I'd
say Noah ought to go to hell. I mean, I've read about Noah. You know, he did some good things.
He built an ark. I mean, he seemed religious.
He built an ark when he'd never seen a flood. I mean, he did
a lot of great religious, seemingly outward things. But you know,
after he got off that ark, you've heard of jailhouse religion,
haven't you? Judges have told me often, ah,
he's just got jailhouse religion, preacher. As soon as he gets
out, he's gone again. Well, it seemed like a little
bit that Noah had that. As soon as he got off the boat,
he started making wine and he got drunk. He ought to go to
hell. I mean, if we're going to judge
people by being good, And whether your good works outweigh your
bad works or not, I mean, eventually Noah got drunk. And there's something
about getting drunk that makes people want to take off their
clothes. And the Bible says he got drunk
and got naked. He ought to go to hell. But you
know what happened that was even worse? His youngest son came
in and saw him naked and sodomized him. It's in the Bible. What
a mess! I know there's no one in here
that has mess, but Noah did. What a mess! And then, what about
Father Abraham? The father of the faithful. The
friend of God. You know, I'm reading about Abraham
this week, and I've decided Abraham ought to go to hell too. He was a heathen to begin with.
His name was Abram down in Arab Chaldees. There was nothing good
about Abram down in Arab Chaldees. God called him out of there and
a lot of religious things Abraham did. He started out good and
then began to waver big time. I know there's no one here that's
started out good. wavered as a Christian down the
road. But, you know, Abraham laughed at God. I mean, not in
a ha-ha-ha way, but in a real ridicule way. God said, you're
going to be a daddy. And Sarah is going to be the
mother. And Abraham laughed. You laugh at God? When God tells
you something and you laugh at it, you ought to go to hell.
Then Sarah laughs at God too. And then the two of them who
are laughing at God say something like this, we need to help God. So Sarah says to Abe, take my
handmaid Hagar and sleep with her. And of course, Abe Goes,
okay. He ought to go to hell. And you know, we're still in
the mess that Abraham called. They laughed at God, didn't believe
God, and now we have the Ishmaelites, the Arabs, half-brothers to the
Jews, and those two nations hate each other. In fact, that's the
number one mess in the world today is what Abraham and Hagar
getting together and Sarah and have this brilliant idea about
having this child. What a mess. And then not only
did Abraham laugh at God, but Abraham was a liar. And his sons
and grandsons were liars too. There's something about these
guys. They always marry beautiful women. Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob. But anyway, Abraham goes into
a foreign country, and Sarah's looking pretty good. And the
guys in town, you know, fisheye her. So the king says, who is
she? And Abraham goes, she's my sister. She's my sister. Liar, liar,
pants on fire. That was Abraham. He ought to
go to hell. What about Lot? Oh, there's a
doozy. Lot takes his whole family out
of greed down into Sodom and Gomorrah, a city filled with
homosexuality. God says, I'm going to burn this
place up. And God has to send angels down
there to guard Lot. And God really delivered Lot. And you know, his wife turned
into pillar salt and looked back, and he and the two daughters,
the sons-in-laws were all killed, and the two daughters and Lot
escaped. Wouldn't you think maybe that
he ought to be praising God? Well, guess what he did? He got down there and made him
a vineyard. And he got drunk. And his two daughters got him
drunk. And guess what he did? He took off his clothes. And his two daughters slept with
him and had babies by him. Ah, he ought to go to hell. Lot. And then there's Isaac, Abraham's
son. He's as big a liar as his father. He has a slick chick too and
gets in the foreign country and the guys are wanting her. And
he says the same thing his daddy said. She's my sister. I know there's no one here like
this. You understand. People go to heaven because they're
good. You understand that these guys aren't going to make it.
And then there's Jacob. The swindler. What a crook Jacob
was. What a crook he was. You know,
I never read Romans 9, except I am totally amazed. And by the
way, Jacob and Esau, you know, were twins. Same father, same
mother. And Esau was a good boy. But
the Bible says, which is really confusing to me because in order
to get to heaven, you've got to be good, you know. Really
confusing because in Romans 9, God says, Jacob have I loved. And I scratch my head and say,
you ought to send Jacob straight to hell. He was a swindler. He was a crook. He was a liar. Are you all following me? Stay
with me. And you know, the Bible clearly
says that liars ought to go to hell. And then I was thinking
about the children of Israel, a whole bunch of folks. You know,
you would think if you'd slept with frogs and lice and all the
things that they went through in the land of Egypt and all
of the plagues and all of the miraculous things that God did.
And when they got to the Red Sea, they went through on dry
ground. and Pharaoh's army was drowned,
you would think they'd be saying hallelujah forever. But they
didn't. They said things like this. Would
to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt.
Now, I know there's nobody in here like that. That head said,
you know, I was better off when I wasn't a Christian. I was better
off when I wasn't a believer. All of the children of Israel
ought to go straight to hell. They catch Moses gone, they build
a calf. They start worshipping a bunch
of bull. You're still with me, right?
You're not getting upset, are you? And then David. David. Saint David. Now, this guy did some great
things. He was a friend of God. But the Bible says in 2 Samuel,
All his army and lieutenants and captains and all of them
went out to war. When all the kings went out to
war, David didn't go. And he wanders up on top of this
roof of the palace. And there's this beautiful woman
taking a bath. Now, I know there's no guys in
here like this. I know you would turn your head. David, the friend of God, said,
I want her and sent the army to get her and brought her back.
And, of course, David slept with her and she conceived. But there's
a problem. She's married. Now, I know no
one in here has ever slept with another woman, another man's
wife. I know that. So we'd have to
say David's going straight to hell. I mean, and the story gets
worse. He calls the husband in and acts
like he's being kind to him and tries to get him to go home
to cover up the fact that he slept with his wife. You ought
to go straight to hell. And then when that doesn't work
and the guy has more morals than David, He calls the generals
in and he says, now here's what I want you to do. I want you
to put this guy up in front while the war is really going on, and
then I want all you guys to pull back. Oh, the man after God's own heart. What about the woman taken in
adultery? That's a good one. I mean, these
religious church members Caught her in the act. You know what
that means, right? Caught in the act. You say, well,
pastor, what on earth are you doing? First you talk about a
smart ass and a stupid ass, and now you're crossing the line.
I know, with church people, I'm crossing the line. But I'm not a church person.
In fact, I'm sick of religion. It's phony. It's not real. It's
not true. But they take this poor woman
and they said, Moses says, stoner. What do you say? Can you imagine
a woman who has been abused, who is looking for significance
and love from men, who has gone from bed to bed to bed Looking
for that. Can you imagine the fear and
the humiliation she must have felt when they took her naked
and threw her down at the feet of Jesus? Well, she ought to
have known better. She was going straight to hell
because she was committing adultery. She was a whore. I know in a
crowd like this, we don't have anybody that's done anything
close to that. What about the thief on the cross?
The Bible says the thieves, the two thieves on either side, ridiculed,
mocked and laughed at him. They ought to go to hell. I mean,
if you're looking for a good person, you won't find it in
these two thieves. God didn't find a good person
on either side of Christ at Calvary. Here's a popular one too. The
prodigal son. He wasn't a good boy. He wasn't
a good boy at all. He was haughty. He said, give
me what you owe me, Dad. He was an entitlement kind of
guy. You owe me because you had me. That's what the girls used
to say to us. Well, you had us. The prodigal son. left home, lived a riotous life. What should
happen with him? He ought to go to hell. Now, according to popular religion,
let's just ask ourselves, who's going to heaven? Well, I think,
first of all, I would say, since we've just talked about the prodigal
son, I'd say, well, the elder brother. The prodigal son's elder
brother. I mean, he stayed home. He was
a good boy. He stayed home. He worked in the field. He worked
for his father. So, according to popular religion,
the prodigal son's brother, the elder brother, was a good kind
of guy. He stayed home and worked for
his dad. It's getting quiet in here. What about all those people
who's going to heaven? In the book of Matthew, chapter
7, there's some people who say things like this, Lord, Lord,
did we not do wonderful works in your name? Did we not cast
out devils in your name? Did we not build churches in
your name? Well, you'd think folks like
that are surely going to heaven. Surely they ought to go to heaven.
What about Saul of Tarsus? I mean, he was clean as a houndstooth.
He was clean. He had a pedigree. A Hebrew of
the Hebrews. Of the tribe of Benjamin. Great
guy. Saul of Tarsus. Zealous for God. He went around killing people
who professed faith in Christ. Out of a zealousness for God.
So he ought to go to heaven. What about that other guy? The
Bible says two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a
Republican and the other was a... You're not following me.
You're laughing. I said Republican, not publican.
And the other was a Pharisee. And the Pharisee said, I thank
thee God that I'm not as other men are. I'm a tither. I give. I don't do this. And
I do that. A very religious person. So,
you would think that he would go to heaven. So, according to
popular religion, it would be people who don't get drunk and
take off their clothes. People who don't lie. People
who don't commit sodomy. You still with me? People who
are not homosexuals. People who don't swindle, people
who don't murder, people who don't commit adultery, people
who don't steal. Now, I'm going to tell you, for
the most of my young life, that's who a Christian really was. People
who didn't do things. I mean, every once in a while
we'd throw a little gospel in there, but for the most part,
our salvation depended on our sanctification. Here's a major, a major blunder
in the church today. You're not going to heaven because
you're good. I mean, you can pick anybody
in the Bible who got saved and they had black marks all over
their life. Black marks. The wonderful truth
is that God came into this world not to save good people. That
He came to save sinners. And we have example after example
after example. And everyone who's sitting in
here today who's truly a child of God can identify with one
of these characters somewhere. You can say, that was me. That
was me. And if being good and if my sanctification
is my salvation, then I'm a goner. And so was the Apostle Paul.
Because the Apostle Paul said, what I want to do, I don't do.
And what I hate, that do I. Is that where you are? So, you
know, cut the crap. I was trying to think of a way
of saying it nice, but for all of you visitors, I know
you're thinking, what on earth have we got into? But it's okay. You're in the midst of some of
the most honest people in the world. Because we know we're
all no good. And were it not for the grace
of God, were it not for the grace of God, Not only in just saving me, but
keeping me. Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. Sanctification. You say, well,
you know, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. That's right.
That's absolutely right. And you can take any of these
guys in the Scripture. After they did what they did,
they repented. They hated what they did. You
take David. Yes, he committed adultery. Yes,
absolutely he did. He committed murder. Do you know? I heard this story. I was going
to say, do you know murderers are going to be in heaven? It's
really clear. Absolutely. Yeah. Former homosexuals will be in
heaven saved by the grace of God. Yeah, yeah. Spurgeon tells a story about
a very, very wealthy lady who had a maid. And this wealthy
lady attended the tabernacle, but Spurgeon doubted whether
she really knew the Lord. But she was on her deathbed,
and Spurgeon went to see her and was asking her questions.
Is everything well? Anything troubling you? And she
said, well, there's one thing. She said, I'm a little worried
about being in heaven with Mary, my maid." And Spurgeon said,
I don't think you have anything to worry about. Y'all are not with me. Y'all
aren't with me. In other words, Spurgeon was
saying, you're not going, so it ain't gonna make any difference
whether Mary's there or not. There is a form of religion that
rests all over this country that's not real and not true. Here's
the truth. That when you couldn't save yourself, when there was no hope, when
there was no way, when you were without strength, God came to earth. To be a substitute, a redeemer,
to be the atoner, to be the propitiation for our sins, the appeasing factor. You see, God is angry about getting
drunk. God is angry about sodomy. God is angry about adultery because
God is holy. So in order for those who have
committed these acts, which is all of us in word, thought or
deed, you know, there is not that much difference between
any of us in here. No, not that much difference. We've all sinned and missed the
mark. So God comes to earth. Not to
spy out our sins, but to deliver us from our sins. And so, God sees the little abused
lady. The little child who's growing
up sexually abused. And God watches. And as she grows,
these awful things that have happened to her become everyday
life. Maybe even enjoying some parts
of it because of sinful nature. And God watches. And the only
way that this little lady is now going to make it to heaven
is for God to come down here and rescue. And that's what He
came to do. He didn't come to try to save
anybody. Let me tell you this. God never tries. God never tries. God doesn't
have to try. Whatever God is pleased to do,
He does. I mean, here's the marvel of
it. Here's the marvel of it. Jacob
have I loved. I was disciplining myself all
week not to break loose when I was preaching about who's going
to hell. Trying to hold back, you know,
where I didn't break into this. I can break into it now, right?
Jacob have I loved. Jacob the swindler. Jacob the
crook. Jacob the liar. What an astonishing
thing it is. Jacob have I loved, and Esau
have I hated. Twin boys, you know who made
the difference between Jacob and Esau? God. Who maketh thee
to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou didst not receive it? You know,
little former harlot, you ought to be screaming, glory to God. Because once you was lost, and
now you're found. Once you was blind, but now you
see. You know, the church used to
shout. Not just on business meeting night when you had to have the
sheriff and five deputies to keep the peace, but people used
to shout. Hallelujah! Have you ever been so thrilled
that God saved you that you could not contain yourself? I mean,
little alley rat. rolling around in the muck in
the mire? Oh, from sinking sands He lifted me. With tender hands
He lifted me. From shades of night to planes
of light. Oh, praise His name. He lifted
me. I was in the mirey clay. No way out. And He lifted me. That's what I'm talking about.
You know how many thousands there are? I've been thinking about
church growth. I'm tired of preaching the message of Paul without the
results of Paul. I want to see about 5,000 saved
in one day. I want to get clutch cargo and
then we have to build a bigger building. Amen. Do you know how many addicts
there are out there? Lost? Wonder how many of them
are God's elect? A lot of them. You know, what
I'm doing today and what I do every day and every Sunday and
every Wednesday and every time I speak, I'm sheep hunting. Yeah,
sheepy, sheepy, sheepy, sheepy. You know, sheep are stupid. A sheep will get out of the pen
and wander and wander and never find its way back. You have to
have a shepherd go after the sheep. Oh, and what a shepherd
we have. Aren't you glad he found you?
I hear people say, I found the
Lord. And I always want to say, he wasn't lost. You were the one that was lost.
And he found you. Sought you down. Dead dog. Dead dog that you were. sought
you out and brought you to the king's table like he did Mephibosheth. Praise in the church. What's
gone out of the church is the wonder of it all. Oh, what a
wonder that Jesus found me. I mean, you were hid good. Isn't
that amazing? Adam and Eve. Get them some fig
leaf aprons and hide in the bushes. Who are you hiding from? Oh,
the holy, good, righteous, loving, heavenly Father. Why are you
hiding? I mean, that was kind of stupid, wasn't it? A God of
grace. And God sought them out. And
He sought you out. And He sought me out. Now, only
good people go to hell. Only good people go to hell. Everybody in hell will be a good
person. Because they didn't need a Savior.
They didn't need a Redeemer. They didn't need the grace of
God. And they perished. And this message is just so simple. It ought to be very clear. What
must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thou shalt have been saved. I wanted to go to the book of
Hebrews, and time has gone by, but in the book of Hebrews, Noah
was a man of faith. Abraham was a man of faith. Jacob
was a man of faith. You say, well, Pastor, what is
that, that faith chapter? It means that these sinner men
and women trusted someone outside of themselves. They trusted God. Oh, Brother Walker, my old pastor,
when I was going to school, used to say this over and over. I've
heard him say it ten thousand times. He'd shake his head like
this. Have faith in God. Have faith in God. I'm telling
you today. Have faith in God. Trust God. out of yourself. You know what
you are. You know what you've done. You
know where you've been. You know what you've said. You
need a Savior. Let's stand together. Praise
our God.