Most Folks Go to Hell

Life is short. Eternity is forever. And the present is a moment lived to the glory of God or to the flesh.

Where you spend eternity, friend, is determined when you die. When they lay your mortal remains in a grave and place you in the ground and your soul goes back to the God who gave it. Go take a walk through your local cemetery and you will find a lot of religious people buried there.

But religion won't get you into heaven, friend, because only forgiven people get to go there. If you die in your sins, you'll be cast into the outer darkness of a burning hell. If you die with your sins washed in Christ's blood, then the bliss of heaven is your reward.

Jesus Christ spoke of the many and the few. In Matthew's Gospel in chapter 7 we read, Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction. And many there be which go in thereat.

Let me pause here, friends, to say that mere religion isn't the answer, as there are many people traveling the wide road of world religion with a hope of some form of nirvana or a place of bliss called heaven. But being a religious person won't keep you out of hell. The scribes and pharisees were the religious leaders of their day, and Christ denounced them with woes.

Here in our text in Matthew we see that there are few who are saved, and those who are saved are saved with great difficulty. Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. There must be a striving to press through that straight gate, and heaven must be taken with violence.

So here we see that Jesus said, Few are saved from the everlasting torments of hell's fire. The fact is, friend, most people go to hell, and as I tell of my message today, most folks go to hell. I read an interesting book entitled, To Hell and Back, written by a cardiologist who was an atheist.

His name is Dr. Maurice Rawlings, and the book is about his heart patients who died on the operating table and came back to life. Some of these patients spoke vividly about being in hell, and what they saw there, flames and twisted faces of demons, and their eyes would dilate as they described the most horrific scenes in hell, and their experience so startled this atheist heart surgeon that he began to read his bible to find out if there was such a place as hell, and in his findings he evidently found salvation in Christ, for he was saved, and he wrote this book, To Hell and Back, in order to warn others not to go there. There is the wide road of world religion, and there was the wide road of an empty religious profession.

Multitudes have made some kind of decision for Jesus, which is nothing more than a mental flip, for a Jesus they have never known. They may be baptized, but they are strangers, to work grace upon their heart in regeneration. Many in church today have been led astray by the only-believed gospel, which omits man's duty of repentance, and therefore they have a head knowledge of Christ, but their sins have never been washed in his blood.

Listen, friends, when Jesus was here, in his earthly ministry, as he passed through towns and villages, those who encountered him experienced change. Gain in heaven is not based on church membership or good works, but how you lived your life for God. Jesus said, Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Here Christ's words ring through the centuries, with the confirmation that few are saved, and the sad reality is that most folks go to hell. Estimates suggest that 100,000 souls will feel hell this week alone. The tortured, damned will hear shrieks and screams and wailing all about them in that prison of punishment for sin.

But the four words that will haunt them more than all the rest are Christ's statement to them, I never knew you. I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

We have seen today that most folks go to hell. Dear friend, be absolutely certain that you won't join them in that smoking, bottomless pit of deep darkness and distress. Repent before it's too late.