Climbing to Heaven on a Rope of Sand — E.A. Johnston

Goodness Cannot Secure Heaven

I believe just about everybody thinks everyone is going to heaven today. When someone dies, their friends and family will say, Well, old Joe is up in heaven now, smiling down on us. They base their reasoning on an ignorance of the Bible and the fact that old Joe was an overall good guy.

So he must be in heaven because good people go to heaven, right? Wrong, friends. Good people don't go to heaven. Only forgiven people get to go there. Most folks are religious to some degree or another and enjoy the camaraderie of being in some kind of religious institution on an occasional Sunday.

Religious Rituals and the False Scale of Merit

Going to mass makes them feel less guilty and safeguards them, so they think, from going to hell. Some folks believe that God keeps a scale up in heaven and when you die, he weighs your good works against your bad works, and if the good outweighs the bad, heaven is gained.

You can stop anyone on the street today and ask them if they think they will go to heaven when they die, and 90 of them will tell you yes. After all, God is a God of love, right? He wouldn't send anybody to hell.

The only persons that go to hell are really evil people like mass murderers or serial killers or sociopaths, but all these people who have hopes of heaven are climbing to heaven on a rope of sand. Jesus declared the difficulty of getting into God's holy heaven.

The Narrow Gate and the Difficulty of Salvation

In Luke 13, 24, he declared, For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in and shall not be able. Jesus also said that there are few who were saved, and the way to salvation is a straight gate along a narrow road, and you have to strive to enter in.

You have to take heaven by violence. For when Jesus says, Many will seek to enter in and shall not be able, he's referring to the multitudes we have already mentioned who carry a false hope of heaven.

It was the great British evangelist, George Whitefield, while preaching his last sermon beneath the sky in the fields of Exeter, New Hampshire, where he preached in an excited tone, which carried over the immense crowd of four thousand who were assembled to hear him that day in late September, 1770.

Whitefield cried, Oh, works, works! A man get to heaven by works? I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand. But what Whitefield said is true, friends. There are multitudes today climbing their way to heaven on a rope of sand that will soon dissolve, and down they will fall until they bust hell wide open.

Church Membership Without Saving Faith

But it is not just world religions that hold on to a unfounded hope of heaven, but there are a multitude of Baptists today, and Methodists today, and Presbyterians today, and Lutherans today that know about Jesus, but who don't know Jesus savingly.

They rest their hope of heaven on church membership, or a physical act they did in response to an emotional appeal, like walking an aisle, or repeating a prayer, or believing a verse of scripture, but all of these are mere ropes of sand that one day will dissolve in the wind.

I believe there are many in our churches today who believe that Jesus died for sin, but without believing on the Christ who died. Like I said, friends, knowing about Jesus, and knowing Jesus, is the great divide between heaven and hell.

False Professions and the Need for Regeneration

Many have fallen victim to modern evangelism, with its man-centered methodologies, and a only-believed gospel, and consequently they sit on a rotten foundation of an empty religious profession. They made some kind of decision, and were baptized, and were added to the church roll, and there they serve in some capacity, Sunday after Sunday.

But they've never been awakened to their lost condition, never come under Holy Spirit conviction, and have missed repentance, and have never ever been subjects of regeneration. They maintain a good opinion of themselves, as they cling to their rope of sand, as they climb up, and up, and up, on the way to heaven.

But they've never gotten their sins washed in the blood of Christ Jesus, and they mirror the people mentioned in Proverbs 30 .12. There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.

Listen, friend, modern evangelism has damned its millions. You must be washed in the blood, and born from above, or the rope you climb up on will dissolve in your hands, because your hope of heaven is like a rope of sand.

Repentance Before It Is Too Late

Repent before it's too late.