Jesus was clear in Luke 5:32 when He said he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. It is equally clear in Romans 3:22-23 that we are all sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. We are inclined to think we are just a little better than our neighbors and if we are a little better than our neighbors how could a fair and just God hold that against us when the neighbor is as bad as they are and have as many problems as they have?
Your biography, as D.L. Moody puts it, is already written for you in Romans chapters 1-3″.
When a righteous God calls unrighteous souls to repent, it would be prudent to listen and obey.
It is my experience in life that most every natural man (who is a sinner) who hears of God’s righteousness and of his judgment of hell flatters himself in thinking he will escape without repenting. You may not want to obey, you may not want to repent. This has no bearing on what is true though. Look unto God, repent, and live.
A bewitching work of idolatry has many hoping for salvation another way. A wicked mind is upon the one promoting that God can be found in other ways. As in those dark days before the great reformation, many today are promoting false, devilish ideas, about getting to Heaven without repenting of being an enemy of God, a wretched sinner.
It was nonsense in the dark ages to teach that a dead soul in Purgatory could be saved by money. It is the same kind of nonsense today that some are teaching that a dead soul can move through lower “levels of heaven” and may even be eligible to become equal to god and/or even become a god himself on behalf of the works of others. It is of the same kind of wickedness.
This is a friendly call to all my Roman Catholic friends to resist the hellish practice and worship of the pope, a fallen man. It is a compassionate plea to my Mormon friends to reject the teachings of your bishops of finding salvation in anyone or any means other than a living soul repenting before the Holy God of the Bible. It is a hope for my Muslim neighbors and friends to turn to the Triune God of the Bible and reject the teachings of Mohamed in the Koran. It is a longing desire for all my friends and family members to look unto God and be saved.