Sermon Central
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Heaven Or Hell, Your Choice
Contributed by Johnny Small on Nov 2, 2003 (message contributor)
Summary: We make many choices everyday, but there is one choice that everyone must make during their life that will affect them for eternity.
Heaven or Hell, Your Choice
We make many choices during our lives. We choose whether we obey our parents as we grow up. We choose whether we study in school. We choose the college that we attend. We choose our hopefully lifelong spouse. We choose our occupation. This is just a few of the choices that we make. We actually make many choices daily. We choose what we will eat, what we will do that day, what we will watch on TV and when we will go to bed. Our lives seem to be nothing but choices. For most of these choices we put little thought into them, but there is one choice that everyone must make. It is a choice that will affect our lives forever, even after death. That choice is whether we will accept Jesus Christ, God’s one and only Son, as our Savior and Lord.
14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
(NIV)
We have all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Jesus allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross and while hanging there, He took upon Himself all of our sins. This is a free gift that God gave us, but it is a gift that we must choose to accept. It comes down to whether we choose Heaven or we choose hell.
Do you choose eternality with God in a perfect place called Heaven or do you choose eternality with Satan in a place of constant suffering called hell? This is the most important choice that you will ever make.
I want us to look at what happens when we die. Will everyone go through judgment? Actually the Bible tells us that there are two different judgments. One is for all believers and the other for all unbelievers. If Christians are no longer under condemnation, why is there a judgment for us? Let’s look at that judgment first.
Immediately after the Rapture, every Christian will stand before Christ to be judged. This judgment has nothing to do with salvation since all Christians are saved. Paul calls this judgment “The Judgment Seat of Christ.” Let’s read about it.
The Judgment Seat of Christ:
2 Cor 5:8-11
8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.
(NIV)
Rom 14:10-12
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.
11 It is written: "’As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ’every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’"
12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.
(NIV)
Paul tells us that all Christians will stand before our Lord and we will have to give an account of what we did to serve Him. We may fool each other about our walk with our Lord, but there is no fooling Christ. He knows our hearts and our thoughts. He knows our motives. In this Judgment Seat of Christ we will not be punished, but we will be rewarded for our service to Christ.
The Judgment Seat will be a time of testing.
1 Cor 3:11-15
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw,
13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work.
