Righteousness is The Key!

“The free offer of the gospel is broad enough to include the worst sinner who believes; the gospel is narrow enough to exclude the most moral, religious unbeliever.” – John MacArthur. If you ask most thinking people if they believe there’s a God in heaven, they’ll tell you they do. If you ask the same people if they hope to go to heaven when they die, they’ll tell you they do. If you ask them what it is they have to do to get to heaven, you’ll get a variety of answers, but none of them will line up with brother MacArthur’s remarkable statement. In other words, tell them there are criminals in heaven and religious people in hell and they’ll tell you you’re mad!

“How can this be so?” they’ll ask. Answer: the former saw themselves for what they were – condemned sinners in desperate need of Jesus the Savior. They humbled themselves therefore and repented. The latter did not see themselves as condemned sinners but rather, good, moral and upright people (Christians or not) and no need therefore for humility and repentance. In other words, the former believed the gospel of Christ, the latter did not believe. He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he does not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God John 3:18. Notice the Scripture says nothing about criminals, only believers and non-believers. No wonder the gospel of Christ is unpopular! 

What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? It means you believe you are a guilty sinner under the judgment of God. It means you believe Jesus took all your sins past present and future and the punishment for them upon Himself and died on a cross in your place. It means you believe His death was the sufficient once-for-all sacrifice to pay for your sins. It means you believe any attempts to atone for your own sins are fruitless. It means you believe, For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast Ephesians 2:8-9. It means you believe Jesus Christ rose from death 1 Corinthians 15:4 and is now Lord of all Acts 10:36 – especially your Lord!

A thief, dying on a cross beside Jesus was a criminal, but he became a believer at the last moment. When he died he entered heaven a redeemed criminal Luke 23:33-43. Jesus’ worst enemies however, were not criminals, they were unbelieving religious people – pillars of society in the eyes of both the religious and non-religious alike, but sons of hell in the eyes of Jesus! When they died they entered hell as religious sinners. The following words of Jesus are ringing in their ears today and will continue to for all eternity; You will die in your sins John 8:21-24. Religious or otherwise, I have known people to suffer enormous guilt for things they’ve said and done, but I have not met one person who said they suffered guilt for not believing in Jesus Christ.

Yet the reality is, to not believe in Him is the greatest sin of all. “If only God would forgive me,” I’ve heard people say. Yet when told God would forgive if they believed in Christ and His saving work, only a few chose to believe. The others could not (or would not) accept the glorious message of salvation by grace, through faith in Christ alone. Can you imagine being in hell but your greatest regret is not that you were a murderer, a pathological liar or a sex pervert, but that you did not believe in Christ? Worse: to think that there are those kinds of people in heaven but God no longer sees them as that because they did believe and went to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing before it was too late to do so.

It takes great humility for someone who’s been religious all their life to believe in Christ. Few there are who will come to Him as did one of the scribes in Mark 12:28-34. Religious he was, but humble enough to come and ask Him, Which is the first commandment of all? When Jesus responded with the correct answer the scribe was impressed and quoted it back to Him in paraphrase. One could have thought, “Here’s a man on his way to heaven for sure.” Not so, the Lord Jesus; even though He told the scribe he answered wisely, He said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. How about that? Not far, but not in! Did he get in, in the end? We’re not told. To be in the kingdom of God means to be subjected to the rule of God.

One can be very religious yet never be subjected to the rule of God. That’s what makes religious practice of all kinds more attractive by far than biblical Christianity. In the former, you get to determine what pleases God; in the latter God gets to determine what pleases Him. That’s what makes the Bible so unpopular for religious people, for only within it’s pages can we know what does please Him. And by that I mean every page from Genesis to Revelation, not simply the practice of picking Scriptures ad hoc from the New Testament only, to support your doctrinal hobby horses and besetting sins! All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness…….. 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

Some say the apostle Paul was primarily speaking of the Old Testament Scriptures when he wrote the above Scripture and that he was not, at that point, referring to the Scriptures of the New Testament for they had not yet been completed. Whether that’s correct or not, religious people disregarding the Old Testament disregard God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, plus the New Testament when they do that, and need to be told such. It’s a cop-out for Christians to say, “We’re not under the law, we’re under grace.” To be ignorant of the Old Testament is to be equally ignorant of what both the law and grace truly are. This ignorance explains why much of the church today gives little witness to the holiness and righteousness of God.

By the way, Judas Iscariot was very religious. Look where he is today! He’s in hell. The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born Mark 14:21. You don’t think Judas agrees with that fearful announcement today! He is ruing every moment of his treacherous behavior. Think too, it was not in some sleazy bar room or whorehouse that Satan entered him John 13:27, but in a holy place in the very presence of Christ Himself. For anyone who thinks it’s not possible for Satan or some of his henchmen to be in or upon certain people in church gatherings on Sundays and Wednesday nights, it’s wise to give that some serious rethought.

There’s another religious tool of the devil in the New Testament worth mentioning. Diotrephes, who loves to have preeminence among them…. 3 John 1:9. I don’t know if he’s in hell or not today, but it’s only due to the mercy of God if he was given the chance to turn  back to the Lord. Full of pride and ambition was this religious but godless man at that time, plus a liar and malicious gossip to boot! Diotrephes was everything that the Lord Jesus Christ is not and how sad it is today that so many church leaders, elders and deacons are of the same character. Career men, not God’s men; dictatorial, autocratic, unscrupulous, covetous, arrogant, haughty, headstrong, money-hungry, loveless and full of themselves. And from such people turn away! 2 Timothy 3:5. 

Not only do people tell you you’re mad when you tell them there are (redeemed) criminals in heaven and religious people in hell, they get mad at you for telling them that! Human nature cannot bear the thought of God’s mercy extending to people considered to be the worst of humanity. Equally, it cannot bear the thought of good, moral, upright, religious people being in hell. Tell the average person that some of Adolf Hitler’s worst profligates and despots are in heaven today because they believed in Jesus Christ before they were hanged and they’d hang you given the chance. The same applies when you mention hell being the place for those considered by the world to be the most religious, but who did/do not believe in Christ.

“That’s not fair,” they say. And no, it’s not. But do you know what would be fair? Hell for all of us; that would be fair! When once enlightened by the Holy Spirit to just how sinful each of us is in God’s eyes and then to be given a glimpse of just how merciful and forgiving He is by coming to earth as a Man to die in our place for those sins, that most certainly is not fair! But that’s what God did. It had nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with righteousness. Righteousness is the key! Believers in Christ become righteous, unbelievers in Him remain self-righteous. The former promises heaven, the latter promises hell. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven Matthew 5:20.