Here Because of You

My message today, friends, is on heaven and hell, and I want to begin by making a statement which I believe is true. Hell is a place of accusations, and hell will be full of accusing fingers saying, I'm here because of you. I remember Rolf Barnard, who grieved his entire life over his classmates.

He influenced for hell by being the president of a campus infidel club. Every Friday night, Rolf Barnard would stand on a platform on the campus of his Christian college and say that there was no God. He had 300 members in that atheist club.

Then he would go back to his dorm and get on his knees and pray that God wouldn't destroy him. He would always say about that time in his life where he influenced people for hell, I was a big shot in those days. I was the most prominent man on the campus when I organized my infidel club.

I led a lot of people to hell. Well, I thought long and hard about our subject today, friends, because I don't want to stand before you in any hypocrisy. So I took a walk in my memory and reviewed my life, and I wept over the souls that can in hell at this time point up at me with accusing fingers saying, I'm here because of you.

Oh, the numbers of individuals I influenced for bad in my life that I led in the sinner's prayer and told them they were now Christians, and I gave them a false assurance, and some died and woke up in hell. I'm thinking particularly of a ice cream man. It was a hot afternoon in July in the South, and I and another man were going door to door in a neighborhood, ringing doorbells and handing out tracks, and I heard the ringing bell of an ice cream truck, so I hightailed it over there, and with great enthusiasm, I asked the young man selling the ice cream if he'd like to go to heaven when he died.

He smiled and said, sure. So I led him in the sinner's prayer, and when he was done, I shook his hand and told him he was now a Christian. My ignorance and evangelism back in those days did more harm than good.

It's one thing to hand somebody a track, but quite another thing to tell somebody they're now saved, because only the Holy Spirit can do that. We read in Romans, the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. But I believe it's true, friends, that hell will be full of accusing fingers saying, I'm here because of you.

If you're not saved, and if that's not reason enough to become a Christian right now, to fall on your face and repentance to God and beg Him to give you the grace for saving faith, it's enough to make you afraid to go out in the dark for fear you might see those accusing fingers of those already in hell that can point to you now. In the first epistle in chapter one and verse nine, we read, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Do we believe that to be true, friends, that if we come to Christ because we are sick of sin and desire pardon from Him, is He faithful and is He just to forgive us our sins? I believe you can stand with both feet on that verse, friend, and believe it, that if you come in repentance to the Lord Jesus, confessing you are a sinner and own Him as your Savior and Lord, you can be certain He will take your stain of sin away and cleanse us from all unrighteousness by washing our sins in His blood.

Listen to me, friend, if you do that, you can rest assured that the past is under the blood and the future is with God. I'd hate to go to hell and be faced with those accusing fingers pointing at me saying, I'm here because of you. But do you know what, friend, I can't wait to get to heaven so I can see somebody point at me saying, I'm here because of you.