Churches of Christ -- Sermons; Sermons, American -- 20th century
An illustration which I frequently use on this point is this: One Sunday
afternoon I was talking to two young ladies who were backsliders. I
asked them if they loved the Lord. They said, “Why, Brother Dark, of
course we love the Lord.” Then I said, “Do you want to go to heaven when
you die?” As you might expect they answered, “Why, sure, everybody wants
to go to heaven!” My next question was, “Will you be at worship this
evening?” They grinned a little bit and looked at each other. I said,
“You have some dates, don’t you?” They grinned a little more, and said,
“Yes.” I said, “Your boy friends don’t want to go to church with you, do
they?” They grinned a little bit more and said, “No.” Well, they didn’t
come to worship that night. I asked which they loved more, those boy
friends or the Lord. They didn’t make any answer.
Now, which do you think they loved the more? They said they loved the
Lord more than they loved anything else in the world, but they went out
with some boy friends that night instead of coming to worship. They
thought they wanted to go to heaven, and they did want to a little bit;
but they wanted to go out with those boys more than they wanted to go to
heaven. And that’s the case with a great many people. You ask them if
they want to go to heaven and they will say “Yes”; but there is
something they want to do more. They want to have a good time, make
money, or do something else, more than they want to go to heaven. That’s
the trouble with most people. That’s the reason most people are going
somewhere else. God allows people to go anywhere they want to and if
they prefer to go somewhere else rather than to go to heaven, then they
go somewhere else and He permits them to do it.
Just remember this: you cannot possibly go to heaven without traveling
the road which leads there. A lot of people would like to go to heaven
but they don’t want to travel the road which leads there. They want to
travel some other road and then get to heaven. Well, you can’t travel
the road that leads to Memphis and get to Chattanooga, can you? You
can’t travel the road that leads to hell and wind up in heaven. It just
can’t be done. So if you want to go to heaven more than you want to do
anything else in this world and are willing to put forth the effort
required to do it, you can certainly go there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account