- First of all, let me introduce myself.
My name is Benjamin Naim.
I'm originally from Lebanon in the Middle East,
but I currently live in Dallas, Texas.
That's where I'm coming to you from today.
From a Baptist church, Steadfast Baptist Church.
And the reason why we're in your school today
is because we wanna talk to you about
the most important subject that you could ever hear,
which is salvation and how to go to heaven when you die.
The reason why we're talking about this today
is because there's a lot of confusion
about what it takes to go to heaven.
Many people believe different things about it,
and so I wanna start off the class by asking you,
what do you believe it takes to go to heaven?
I want you to raise your hand, and I'm gonna call on you,
and I want you to give me your opinion
about what it takes to be saved and go to heaven.
You over there.
Good relationship with God.
So I'm gonna write that on the board, is that okay?
All right, so we have good relationship with God.
Hold on, can we have another one?
Try this one.
There you go.
Okay, good relationship with God.
What other answers do we have, yep?
Following his law?
Oh, following his word, okay.
Following the word.
Any other opinions about what it takes to be saved?
Nice, we got tons of markers now.
All right, you mind if I take these?
- Yes. - Okay.
What other opinions do we have?
Yes, you in the back.
- Prayer. - Prayer?
Okay, great, prayer.
Any other opinions about what it takes to be saved, yep?
- A righteous heart. - Say it one more time.
- A righteous heart. - A righteous heart.
Righteous heart.
What else?
Is there anyone in the room that would say,
well, you have to follow the 10 commandments
to go to heaven?
Does anybody believe that?
I'm gonna put that on the board.
Okay, 10 commandments, we'll write that down here.
All right, so here's the point I'm trying to make.
We look at all these different opinions.
We have a good relationship with God that entails praying,
that entails doing the right things,
following his commandments, things of that nature.
Here we have following his word.
Again, that entails following the commandments,
doing what's right, going to church.
Prayer, you know, this takes work
in the sense that you have to pray every day,
do what's right.
Righteous heart, getting the sin out of your life
and following the 10 commandments that's self-explanatory.
I think we would all agree on that one, right?
So if you wanna sum all this up,
this is what this is right here.
We're gonna sum all of this up.
Works, all right?
All of this right here would be classified as works.
Now, what I wanna show you,
and I'll do this as efficiently as I can,
is that in order to go to heaven,
if it were by works, we're all going to hell.
Every single one of us would be hopeless.
Why?
Because it doesn't matter how much of this you do.
It doesn't matter how many commandments
you think you're following.
It doesn't matter how righteous you think you are.
It doesn't matter how often you pray.
You're not perfect.
Now, let's get into some Bible this morning.
I'm gonna quote you from the King James Bible.
It's the preserved word of God.
The Bible says in Romans chapter number three in verse 23,
it says, "For all have sin
and come short of the glory of God."
What is sin?
Sin is anything that you think, say, or do
that breaks one of God's commandments.
There are hundreds of commandments in the Bible.
All of us have broken his commandments.
We have all disobeyed God at some point in our lives.
As a result of our sin, we've earned a punishment.
This is why the Bible tells us in Romans chapter six,
"For the wages of sin is death."
The death it's describing is not just a physical death.
It's also a spiritual death.
What I'm trying to explain to you
is that because of our sin, we've earned hell.
We deserve to go to hell to pay for our own sins.
That's the bad news.
The bad news is all of us have sinned.
The bad news is we deserve hell because of our sin.
The Bible makes this more clear
in Revelation chapter number 21.
It says in verse eight,
"But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable
and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters
and all liars shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone,
which is the second death."
Now, there's some serious sins on that list,
but I wanted you to pay attention to the fact
that it says all liars deserve the lake of fire.
I don't know about you guys,
but I've lied before in my life.
Has anybody in this room pulled a lie?
One time in your life.
That's all of us.
And those of you who didn't raise your hand
are lying to me right now, all right?
We've all lied.
Everybody has done it.
I'm not excusing it,
but it's happened at one point in our lives.
So what does this mean?
It means we deserve hell.
That's the bad news.
Now, you would all agree that's bad news, isn't it?
Hell is a place of fire, torment, brimstone.
Once you're there, there's no way out.
But the good news is God loves you.
The good news is God does not want you to go to hell.
That's the reason why I'm visiting your school this morning,
because I want you to know that God loves
each and every single one of you,
and he loved you so much
that he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die for your sins.
Now, who here has heard of Jesus?
Raise your hand if you've heard of the name of Jesus Christ.
Great.
The problem is, though,
while many people have heard of Jesus,
they don't necessarily know who he is.
Jesus Christ wasn't just a man.
Jesus Christ is God.
Jesus Christ is 100% God.
The Bible refers to him as the Son of God,
but that means that he is God,
because there is, of course,
one God made up of three distinct persons.
This is what we call the Trinity,
the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
These three are one.
What happened is that the Father,
he sent the Son to earth.
He's born of a virgin named Mary.
He lives a perfect, sinless life.
Jesus never sinned a single time.
He was God, manifest in the flesh.
But the Jews did not believe that Jesus is God,
so they had him arrested.
Consequently, Jesus is beaten.
He's bloodied.
He's battered.
They tortured him.
They spit on him.
They mocked him.
They nailed him to a cross.
Now, as Jesus is nailed to that cross,
every sin you have ever committed in your life,
every time you've lied,
every time you've stolen something,
every time you've done anything wrong in your life
that disobeys God's commandments,
it was as if Jesus did it.
Think about it this way.
You rob a bank.
The police arrest you.
They take you to the courtroom.
The judge decides to let you go
as if you did nothing wrong,
and someone else takes your punishment for you.
That's what Jesus did for us.
When Jesus died on the cross,
they put his body in a tomb.
His soul went somewhere for three days and three nights.
Most people think it went to heaven.
It's a good guess.
But the Bible says something different in Acts chapter two
and verse 31.
It says he, seeing this before,
spake of the resurrection of Christ,
that his soul was not left in hell,
neither his flesh did seek corruption.
So in fact, Jesus' soul, when he was buried,
actually descended into hell for three days and three nights
where he was tortured on our behalf.
Remember how I told you how we deserve to go to hell
because of our sins?
Jesus took that punishment for you
so that you don't have to go.
But he didn't stay in hell.
On the third day,
he did what every other false prophet couldn't do.
Muhammad is dead and buried today.
Joseph Smith, the father of Mormonism,
is dead and buried today.
But Jesus Christ, he rose again from the grave.
Jesus Christ, the Bible says his soul met his body again
and he physically came back to life.
It was body, soul, and spirit that came out of the grave.
Afterward, he showed himself to many people.
He went back up into heaven to be with the father.
But the Bible says Jesus died for every man.
However, that doesn't mean every man
automatically goes to heaven.
There is something we must do.
And when I asked you that question
to begin the presentation this morning,
I got a lot of different answers.
I got an answer of, well,
have a good relationship with God.
I got an answer of following his word.
I got an answer of prayer,
having a righteous heart,
following the 10 commandments.
Everyone seems to have an opinion
about what it takes to go to heaven,
but it does not matter what our opinion is.
What matters is what the Bible says,
what the pure word of God says.
And the Bible says in Acts chapter number 16,
starting at verse 30, the question is asked,
what must I do to be saved?
The most important question anyone could ever ask.
And what was the answer?
The answer is found in verse 31, which says,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
So in fact, in contrast to what we put on the board,
what actually saves you is simply this.
Faith.
The Bible says believe on Jesus and you will be saved.
Now, there's confusion about what faith means.
There's confusion about what it means to believe.
Believe does not mean, well, believe Jesus exists.
Many people believe Jesus exists.
The word believe means to trust.
If a bus came to pick you up,
aren't you gonna believe that the driver exists?
Of course.
What if he's drunk?
Are you gonna trust him?
Of course not, that'd be preposterous.
In the same way, the Bible says that we have to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ to go to heaven.
That means place all your faith and trust
on Jesus, not yourself.
That means you trust Jesus, not yourself.
If I came up to you, I said, I'm going to heaven
because of all of my good works,
because I'm a good person.
I go to church, I've been baptized.
I try and follow the commandments.
I try and have a righteous heart.
I try and do all these great things,
which we should be doing.
But who is it that I'm really trusting in
if I justify my salvation by my good works?
Who is it that I'm trusting in to go to heaven?
Jesus or myself?
I'd be trusting in myself.
And like I said already,
if you choose to trust your own goodness to be saved,
you will not be saved.
Because it doesn't matter how many commandments
you think you're following, you cannot follow them all.
It is not possible to be perfect.
This is why the Bible says we've all fallen short.
It's not possible to follow all of the commandments
perfectly and be saved by the law.
The Bible says if righteousness come by the law,
then Christ is dead in vain.
There would have been no reason for Jesus to die
on the cross to begin with if we could save ourselves.
So what is salvation?
It's placing your faith in Jesus.
The only thing necessary to go to heaven
is to believe in Jesus,
is to trust Jesus to take you to heaven.
This is why the Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter two,
verse eight, for by grace are you saved through faith
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Now pay attention to these three words.
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Salvation's a gift.
If I gave you a Bible today
and I said it's all yours as a gift,
but then I asked you to wash my car,
does that sound like a gift?
- Of course not. - Of course not.
Why?
'Cause I'm making you work for it.
In the same way Jesus Christ is offering you salvation today,
he's offering you eternal life today,
all you have to do is accept it.
He's not gonna make you work for it
or else it's no longer a gift.
The Bible says we receive this gift by faith.
It also says in John 3.16, a very famous verse,
it says, for God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
Now the Bible says that the second you believe in Jesus,
you have, at that moment, everlasting life
because salvation is not a lifestyle,
it's a moment in time.
And the second you believe, you receive everlasting life.
How long is everlasting?
Shout it out.
Forever.
So if you receive everlasting life,
the second you believe and it lasts forever,
that means you can never lose it.
You can never lose that which is eternal.
If God gives you eternal life today,
but then tomorrow he takes it away from you,
that would make God a liar.
If he promises you that which is eternal
and takes it away, he lied to you.
If I give you a cell phone
and I tell you the cell phone will never die,
the next day it dies, that would make me a liar.
That would mean I broke my promise to you.
Can God lie?
No.
The Bible says expressly in hope of eternal life
which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.
So the point I'm making is this,
once you're saved, you're always saved.
Once you're saved, you're always saved.
The Bible makes this clear in John chapter 10
when Jesus himself said,
and I give unto them eternal life
and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Once you're in God's hand, there is nothing,
no one who could ever pluck you out.
You have eternal life.
You actually get born into God's family.
Salvation is a spiritual birth.
This is why Jesus said, unless you're born again,
you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Those who believe in Jesus receive eternal life.
They receive the Holy Ghost
and they get born into God's family.
They become God's child.
Now let me ask you all this question.
Is there anything you could ever do
to no longer be the child of your parents
or are you always their child?
Always their child.
Even if you didn't have a relationship with them,
you can still, you would obviously still be their child.
Now here's where the commandments come into play.
'Cause some people will twist what I'm saying.
They'll say, well, you're saying
the commandments don't matter.
False, false.
Let me explain to you something.
As God's children, if we choose to disobey the commandments,
if we choose not to have righteousness,
if we choose to eschew prayer,
if we don't follow his word,
if we choose to live a wicked life after salvation,
God's not gonna take his salvation away from you.
You cannot lose eternal life.
It lasts forever.
God will not take that away from you
or else he broke his promise to you.
The Bible says this is the promise
which he had promised us, even eternal life.
He's not gonna take it away.
But you know what he is gonna do to you?
He's gonna punish you on this earth
for the bad things that you do.
Just like your parents would punish you
for the bad things you do if you disobey them.
So think about it this way.
If your parents have rules in the house,
they say no running in the house and you run anyway.
Your parents aren't gonna kick you out of the family forever.
They're not gonna throw you out,
but you know what they are gonna do to you?
They're gonna punish you.
They're gonna correct you for breaking their commandment.
In the same way, God, as our Father in heaven,
after believing in him, after you get saved,
if you choose to live a wicked life,
if you choose to break the commandments,
if you choose to go out and commit sin,
God will punish you for that on this earth, in this life,
but he's not going to kick you out of his family
just as sure as your parents
would never kick you out of their family.
And what you have to realize is this.
There's nothing you could do to lose your salvation.
Even if I, as a saved Christian, I have everlasting life.
If I were to go out and commit murder, a horrifying sin,
no one should ever do it.
But if I did, I have everlasting life.
When I die, I would go to heaven.
However, God's gonna be extremely angry with me.
He's gonna punish me on this earth.
He will curse my life.
He will make sure I get sent to prison.
He might give me a horrible disease.
He might even kill me and take me home early.
But if I have everlasting life, if I am his son,
I'm going to heaven.
You see, whether you're a good son of God
or a bad son of God, you are still his son.
You are still his child.
And there's nothing you could ever do to reverse that.
There's nothing you could ever do to lose that.
There's nothing you could ever do to mess that up.
What I wanna show you is this.
In Romans chapter 10, the Bible says,
it says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved.
What this is explaining is how to believe in Jesus.
You do so by asking him for salvation.
If you were to ask Jesus all today to be saved,
God will save you.
If you ask Jesus for eternal life, God will give you
eternal life.
However, in order to be saved, you have to change your mind
about what it is you were trusting to go to heaven.
Change your mind about trusting in your good relationship,
following his word, prayer, righteousness, 10 commandments.
Again, these are great things, but this will not save you.
You have to change your mind about what it is
you're relying on, depending on to go to heaven.
And instead of depending on works,
you depend on faith alone.
Instead of depending on yourself,
you depend on the Lord Jesus Christ who did
everything necessary for you to go to heaven.
He paid for all of your sins, past, present, future.
The only thing he's asking you to do to go to heaven
is to trust him alone, to believe on him,
to rely on him, to get you to heaven.
I hope what I said made sense.
Now I asked you to take out a piece of paper this morning.
What I want you to do is answer three questions for me
to see if you understood.
But before we do that, but before we do that,
I wanna pray a prayer with each and every one of you.
And together we are going to ask Jesus for eternal life,
the eternal life, the salvation that I've been talking about.
Now only pray this prayer if you mean it in your heart.
If somebody were to pray this prayer, but in their heart,
they're still trusting in their own good works
to get to heaven, not saved.
If somebody were to pray this prayer
and believe that they can lose their salvation
for not being a good enough person, they're not saved.
They're still trusting in themselves.
If you think you could lose your salvation for any reason,
you're trusting yourself to keep it.
If you rely on yourself to go to heaven, you won't make it.
But if you pray this prayer and in your heart,
you're relying only on Jesus Christ,
you're placing all your faith in him to go to heaven,
you're believing in the death, burial,
and resurrection for salvation, then you will be saved.
So if that's you this morning, if you've decided
to change your mind about salvation,
if you've decided that you want to go to heaven,
you want eternal life right now, close your eyes,
bow your head, and pray this prayer with me.
Let's do it together.
Say this out loud.
Say, "Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner,
and I know I deserve hell.
But I believe you died for me on the cross,
was buried, and rose again.
Please save me right now.
Give me everlasting life.
I'm trusting only you, Jesus, not myself."
Amen.
Now you all meant that, I hope.
And if you did, you are God's child.
If you did, you have eternal life.
If you meant that prayer, you have been saved,
and there is nothing you could ever do to mess that up.
Now, after salvation, you should do good work
so that God is pleased with you.
Make sure you obey your parents.
Make sure you do good at school.
Make sure you follow the commandments.
Make sure you do what's right so that God is pleased with you
and so he blesses you in this life.
But regardless of what happens from this point forward,
you will go to heaven.
I'm gonna end with three questions and we'll wrap it up.
Thank you for giving me time.
We're gonna end with three questions.
The first question I have for you is this.
The first question I have for you is this,
and it's simple.
After I gave you my presentation from the Bible,
how does someone go to heaven?
What is the one thing
that someone has to do to go to heaven?
I wanna see if you understood what I explained.
What is the one thing you have to do to be saved
according to the Bible?
Not my opinion.
My opinion doesn't matter.
God's opinion matters.
What does someone have to do to go to heaven?
That's my first question.
Yes?
Well, were you late?
I think he came in late.
Let me talk to you individually, okay?
What I want you to do is write the answer down
on your piece of paper, okay?
Yes, ma'am?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Write your answer down on your paper.
I'm sorry if I didn't explain this.
Answer this question on the paper that I gave you,
and I'm gonna collect the papers afterward.
So just answer this question
on the piece of paper in front of you.
It doesn't have to be public.
Just write it down.
The second question is this, okay?
Can you lose salvation?
Can you lose eternal life?
All right?
And the last question is,
have you changed your mind
about what you believed before,
and do you now just fully believe in Christ?
Have you changed your mind about what you believed before
about how to get to heaven?
Okay, very simple question.
Have you changed your mind?
Have you learned something new
and changed your mind about what it takes to be saved?
All right?
So just write those down on your piece of paper,
and then I guess when you're done,
raise your hand and I'll come collect it.
That's all I had for you today.
I just wanna leave you with this message.
Make sure that you all stay on the right path.
Now that if you did pray that prayer
and you believed in your heart what I showed you,
you are saved, you are God's child,
and God expects you as this child to do what's right.
I would pray that those of you
who listened to this message this morning
would serve the Lord with your lives.
And take it seriously.
So that's all I had.
Thank you so much for listening.
And like I said, when you're done,
please raise your hand and I'll pick up the paper
and pick up each one of your papers and see how you did.
All right?
Thank you.
(clapping)