Five Reasons God Will Send You to Hell — E.A. Johnston

I used to buy brochures that taught me how to witness to a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness or an Atheist. These booklets were chock full of arguments that you could use with someone of a different mindset and hopefully win them over to Christ through a set of convincing arguments.

And I've used evangelistic systems through the years that did the same thing, that tried to persuade people to become Christians. But the more I think about it, the last thing I want to do is win someone over to Christ with an argument, because if I do that, I've put them on the path to hell, because someone else can come along behind me, someone who's more persuasive than I am, more convincing than I am, and persuade that person to join their religion.

The Danger of Merely Persuasive Conversion

I think it's better to be honest with folks and just tell them why they are going to hell. After all, they can't make themselves a Christian anyway. Only God can take away the heart of stone and make it a heart of flesh.

I would rather warn men of their great danger of dying in their sins and being sent to hell and show them their duty of repentance. Today friends, I'm going to list for us several reasons why God sends a person to hell.

In fact, I've made a list of five reasons, and the title of my message today is Five Reasons Why God Will Send You to Hell. I like to hand out tracts, and I've designed my own tracts before and handed them out, and if I were to do a new one, I'd make it that title today, and I would make the substance of it of what I will share with you right now.

God's Justice Requires Punishment for Sin

Reason number one, God will send you to hell, friend, because God is a God who must punish sin. Now, some of you don't believe that today. You just don't believe in a God who will punish sin and send somebody to hell.

Your God wouldn't act that way. I'll never forget listening to a big preacher, and she addressed a huge audience, and he made the following comment. He said, God won't send you to hell, friend. If you go to hell, it's because you have sent yourself there.

That old boy's in heaven now, and he knows how wrong he was. Listen friend, if you go to hell, it's not because you sent yourself there. In fact, if you ever had the chance to stand on that rim of hell and smell the smoke and listen to the cries of the damned, you would not jump into that bottomless pit on your own.

Rather, you'd turn and run for your life. That's a ridiculous statement to say. If you go to hell, it's because you sent yourself there. You just don't believe in a God who will punish sin. And if you do go to hell, friend, it is because God sent you there, because God is a God who must punish sin.

Hell is a place of punishment for sin. The fact that God punishes sin is found throughout our Bibles. My Bible states that God is angry with the wicked every day. Look at the biblical record. In Genesis, we find the following evidence that God punishes sin.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth. In the biblical record found again in Genesis, we see that God is a God who must punish sin. God told Abraham that he would destroy the wicked inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Bible record states, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, listen friends, the word of God states very clearly that a holy God will and must punish sin.

The text in Genesis reads, then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah, a brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the inhabitants of the cities and that which grew upon the ground.

But we today don't believe in a God who must punish sin. And some church members don't let their profession of faith interfere with their daily living because they don't believe God will punish sin. But the message of the gospel is that God will punish sin.

The gospel speaks of a bloody cross and a Savior who hung there because of sin. Listen to me, friends. Every time they nailed those nails into the flesh of the Son of God, every stroke of the hammer said, God will punish sin, God will punish sin.

That's the first reason why God will send you to hell, because he is a God who will and must punish sin. The second reason God will send you to hell is this, God's law is strict and severe and he demands perfection to get into his heaven.

God's Perfect Law Condemns the Guilty

The strictness and severity of God's holy law is the benchmark on whether you go to heaven or hell, friend. When you die, you will be held up against the utter strictness and severity of God's holy law and you are not perfect.

You will fail that test. Every sin you ever sinned will be stacked up against you on that day. You are a guilty rebel who's broken the strict law of God and the sentencing of the law must be carried out because God is a just judge who must punish sin.

That's the clearest evidence why God will send you to hell, because you have broken his holy law. Listen, friend, you don't become a sinner because you sinned. Rather, you sin because you are a big sinner.

My Bible declares that man drinks iniquity like it's water and all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. God requires perfection to get into his heaven and you, friend, are not perfect. That's the second reason why God will send you to hell.

Repentance Is Necessary for Salvation

The third reason why God will send you to hell is this, you have not repented of your sins. Jesus declared, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Listen, friends, I'm going to tell you something and I hope you believe me when I say it.

It is this, good people don't go to heaven. That's right. Good people don't go to heaven. I heard Billy Graham on Larry King a few years back and Larry King asked Billy Graham if good people will go to heaven.

Billy Graham said yes. Respect Billy Graham, but he's dead wrong on that one. Good people don't go to heaven. Only forgiven people go there. You must repent. You have a duty to repent. You have a command from God to repent or you will surely go to hell.

Your good works won't save you. Your sweet disposition won't save you. In God's sight, you are his enemy because of sin. And if you do not repent, he will send you to a place of misery and torment called hell.

Listen, friends, we live in a day of a perverted gospel that declares only believe and you will go to heaven. That perverted gospel has been spread throughout this nation over the last 60 years and it's been spread by some scholars with some big names, but they are dead wrong, friends.

If you don't repent, you are dead in sin. And if you die in your sins, God will surely send you to hell. You must repent. If you don't, that's the third reason why you will be sent to hell. The fourth reason why God will send you to hell is this.

The New Birth Is Essential

You are not born again. Your heart has never been changed. You are an unchanged person, even though you are the chairman of the deacons. Jesus declared, you must be born again. If you've never been the object of mercy and have had a supernatural work of grace performed on your heart by the spirit of God in the act of regeneration, you will most certainly be sent to hell.

Your good church membership won't save you, friend. I fear there are a great many folks today who have believed the text, made a textual decision to become a Christian. They got baptized and joined the church, but they've never been awakened to their lost condition.

I've never been convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit and never have been truly born again. Some of these individuals stand behind pulpits. Some of these individuals sing in the choir, teach Sunday school, serve on deacon and elder boards.

Listen to me, friend. If you've never been regenerated by grace through the new birth, you're not going to make it to heaven. Rather, God will surely send you to hell. Only those individuals who've been born from above have their sins washed in the blood.

I have known a good many church members who claim to be followers of Christ Jesus, but their lives never showed any evidence of a regenerated heart. There used to be a time in this country years ago where you would not join a church unless you demonstrated clear evidence of regeneration.

Now they'll take just about anybody who's breathing and who agrees with a few simple statements. But God won't take your friend into his heaven if you are not born again because he will have no rebels in his kingdom.

And any man who's not born again is a rebel against a holy God, even if he stands behind a large pulpit, has popularity and a big TV ministry to back him up. Now get some letters on that one. I have a fight on my hands with that one, but it's true.

So the fourth reason why God will send you to hell is because you are not born again. Our churches today are filled with unconverted individuals, unconverted church members who are resting upon a false foundation of carnal security.

You are a member of a church, but you are unconverted. You rest upon a false bottom of self-righteousness and good works. You have a good opinion of yourself and you have a long track record of service to back up your church membership.

But your foundation is not solid, rather it's sinking sand. And this leads us to our last point. The fifth reason why God will send you to hell is this. You are not joined to Christ in a living faith.

Living Faith Must Unite the Sinner to Christ

You do not possess Christ. Listen, friend, this is an area where you can be greatly deceived and drop into hell. You must be united to a living Lord in a life of faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please him.

Without faith, you are dead in sin. You must exercise repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ to get into God's heaven. And saving faith is something you cannot produce on your own. You see, friends, we live in a day where we've taken salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of man.

But you cannot save yourself. God is the author of salvation and only he can give you saving faith. God is the chief agent of conversion, not you. The same gospel that stresses faith is man's duty also stresses that faith is not man's power.

We see this in Ephesians. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Listen, friend, you are dead in sins, completely dead in sin. A man dead in sin cannot come to God on his own.

God must draw him. The Bible is clear on this. No man can come to me, which the Father hasn't drawn him. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man can come unto the Father, but by me. And John 3, 27 declares, John answered and said, a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven.

Now, that will unsettle some of you. It may even destroy some of your self-confidence. Listen, friend, you don't accept Jesus. Rather, you receive a revealed Christ and you are joined to him savingly through faith.

Saving faith is a complete and utter abandonment of everything you are. It's throwing down your shotgun of rebellion at the feet of an offended sovereign. It's resting on Christ, turning from sin in a full and utter surrender to a king and Lord.

Listen to me, friend. Jesus Christ must rule and reign over you and be your complete master or you are not saved. So this last aspect, the fifth reason why God will send you to hell is because you will not join to Christ in a living faith.

Your sins have never been pardoned. You've never gotten under the blood of the lamb. You were on stony ground in a false foundation and your heart is still a heart of stone. I don't care how long you've been a member of a church that doesn't cut the mustard in heaven.

Jesus will not look at the church roll to see if your name is on it. Rather, he will look on the lamb scroll, which is the book of life. And if your name's not written in there, friend, then God will surely send you to hell.

An Urgent Call to Seek God's Mercy

Now, those are five reasons why God will send you to hell. And those five reasons are enough to prove that if you are outside of Christ, that you deserve to go there. I will leave you with the following instructions from the word of God.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.

And Jesus declared, friend, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.