Your God Can'T Get You to Heaven — E.A. Johnston

A Pilgrimage to a Wooden Idol

A missionary shared the following story. He said, you could stand on a cliff in Mexico and gaze down at a certain village of Mexican workers. These people work down in the riverbed in their corn patch, and there they grow their corn.

And when the corn is ready to harvest, they shuck it, and after it dries out, they'll take it and grind it into cornmeal and make tortillas. And then take these tortillas down to the open market, and there sell the tortillas for a few pesos and put them away.

Then they'll come back out to their house, and there they'll live off of lizards. They'll go out among the rocks and catch these huge, long lizards, and they'll eat those lizards and save that money for a special day.

A special day, when they will start a pilgrimage to a certain mountain where there is a wooden statue of Jesus Christ. The terrain to that statue is so bad that most of the people will have to crawl on their hands and knees a couple of miles.

And by the time they get to that statue, they are bleeding all over. Standing beside the statue is a priest, and that priest is saying, Now, you love God, give to Him, because you show your love by giving.

And those people will reach into their little bags and purses and pull out those pesos, stained in their own blood, and drop that money in a slit in the top of the head of Jesus. Then the priest prays, and when he is finished, the priest will yell, You have not given enough.

Look, Jesus is sad. He is crying. And all the time, there'll be another priest hidden in that hollow statue. With a little hand pump, he will pump water to where it comes out of the human-made tear ducts and that statue is crying.

And there those people will give all they have, crawl down that mountain, and go back to eating lizards. They'll grow their corn to make more tortillas to get more pesos to go and give to a dead God in a wooden statue that cannot move or hear.

The Comfortable God of Religious People

Well, I give you that illustration, friends, and I submit to you that there are many religious people in our churches today, like those Mexican workers who've gotten out their pocket knives and have carved out for themselves a God they can live with, a God they're comfortable with, a God who won't get in the way of their daily living.

Their God would never punish sin, but the trouble is their God is not the God of the Bible. He's like that wooden statue of Jesus up on the mountain that can't see sin or hear profanity. It's a deaf and dumb God that's nothing more than an idol that just sits there while you can sin all you want to.

You've got a problem, friend. You have a religion, and you have yourself an impotent God who can't get you to heaven. Your God can't get you to heaven. You'd better find out about the God of the Bible, who has rights and claims on people's lives.

The Cost of Following Christ

He's the only one that can open heaven's door. Jesus said, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

The God Who Must Punish Sin

The God of the Bible is a God who will and must punish sin, Jesus declared, and fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body and hell.

Judgment, Hell, and Biblical Examples of Sin's Punishment

I once heard a big preacher make a stupid remark. He said, God doesn't send you to hell, friend. You send yourself there. My Bible doesn't show anybody willingly jumping into hell, but it does speak about how angels will bind your hand and foot and throw you into the lake of fire if your name is not found written in the book of life.

Listen to me, friend. This bubblegum religion that folks have today won't cut the mustard on Judgment Day. The God of the Bible kills people. He opened up the ground and swallowed up the sons of Korah, their houses, all their men, all their goods, gone in an instant.

He drowned the old world because of sin, saved no one, his family. He reigned hell out of heaven and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. The God of the Bible must punish sin. When the Son of God was led away to Calvary, as the Roman soldiers fastened him to that cross, every stroke of the hammer was an explanation point crying out, God must punish sin.

God must punish sin. God must punish sin. Listen to me, dear friend. If your little God can't get you to heaven, then you better come surrender to the one who can. There is a bloodstained Christ who is the only remedy and refuge for sin.

God's Offer of Mercy and Pardon

Come cast your burden down at his nail-pierced feet and trust in him. God offers mercy to sinners. Listen. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they should be as white as snow.

Though they be red like crimson, they should be as wool. Listen, friend, to these gospel pleas. God is offering mercy. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. But let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and ye will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

That's pardon for sin, friends. Listen, friend, look unto Jesus. You get saved when you receive a revealed Christ. Listen to the God of the Bible as he declares in his holy word from Isaiah, Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else.

Repentance and Faith in Jesus Christ

Listen to me, friend. There's no other God than the one of the Bible. If your God can't get you to heaven, you better get to the one who can. Look unto Jesus. He's your only hope. He is the pearl of great price worth selling off for so he may be gained.

Repent and believe on him.