Hi there, Brother Ian Tavernier here at Shaw Foundation, Baptist Church UK.
I'd like to show you today how the Bible says that you could be 100% sure that if you died today,
you are going straight to heaven.
See, the Bible says in 1 John 5.13 that you may know that you have eternal life.
You can know that you have eternal life.
There's only one thing you've got to do.
Now, unlike all the religions of the world and all the versions of Christianity of the world,
which will tell you that you've got to be some form of good person to go to heaven.
You've got to do the commandments.
You've got to please whatever God it is enough to go to heaven.
The Bible stands alone.
It says that no, no, no, it's got nothing to do with how good you are.
There's only one thing you've got to do.
I'd like to show you that over the next few minutes.
Now, in the book of Romans, Romans 3.10, it's important to point out that God says that there is none righteous.
No, not one.
That means there's no one perfect.
I'm not perfect.
You're not perfect.
No one in the world is perfect.
And it goes on to say, Romans 3.23, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
Okay, that means that we are all sinners.
Every single one of us is a sinner.
If you don't know what a sin is, a sin is basically when we transgress God's laws.
So when we do something God told us not to do or we don't do something God told us to do, we are sinning.
Now, obvious sins are things like murder and adultery, stealing.
But you know, the Bible says that lying is a sin.
We've all lied.
And the Bible says even the thought of foolishness is sin.
We all have many foolish thoughts.
So the Bible's clear.
We are all sinners, every single one of us.
Now, have you ever wondered what the punishment for sin is?
Well, the Bible says in Romans 6.23, "For the wages of sin is death."
Okay, now, that's obviously talking firstly about a physical death.
We see that in the world, we see many physical deaths.
But it's also talking about a spiritual death, often called the second death.
Now, in the book of Revelation, the second death is talked about a bit.
And in the book of Revelation, chapter 21 and verse 8, it makes it really clear who's going to that second death.
The Bible gives a list of people.
It says, "But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters."
And you're probably thinking that's a pretty rough list of sins.
Maybe you haven't done any of those sins or you feel like you haven't.
Well, this list would be every sin in the world.
But God just uses one sin to show that it's everyone in the world.
If I told you a lie now, that would make me a liar.
We've all lied.
The Bible says, "Let God be true and every man a liar."
And that list finishes with "and all liars."
That's now everyone in the world "shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone," which is the second death.
Now, that's commonly referred to as hell.
And the Bible says that we are all destined for that lake of fire and brimstone.
And it's not just a quick, quick death in there.
The Bible says that we shall be tormented there forever and ever.
Right.
You don't want to go there.
I don't want to go there.
I don't want you to go there.
And the Bible says that there's a way that we don't have to go there.
And in Romans 5a, it says, "But God commendeth his love toward us," because God loves us.
"In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Okay, Jesus Christ came and died for us.
Now, we've got to understand something about Jesus Christ.
In 1 Timothy 3.16, the Bible says, "And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh."
Now, this is referring to Jesus Christ.
In the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 1, it says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
The Word with a capital W is always Jesus Christ.
And it says in verse 14, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory."
The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Clearly talking about Jesus Christ there.
Now, something we also need to understand about Jesus Christ being God is something that's referred to as the Trinity.
See, there are three, three people that make one God.
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Now, they are all separate, but they all come together to make one God.
Okay, in the book of 1 John, chapter 5, verse 7, the Bible reads, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word."
Remember, that's Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.
Okay, so Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.
He comes to this earth.
We know that he was born in a manger.
He lives as a person on this earth.
He lives a sinless life.
And he's doing miracles.
He's doing amazing things. He's healing people.
He's giving sight to the blind.
He even brings the dead back to life.
Now, he's doing all that to show that he is God in the flesh, that he is the Christ.
But he gets arrested.
He gets beaten.
He gets whipped, tortured.
He gets the beard ripped out of his face, a crown of thorns, planted into his skull, and eventually gets nailed to a cross.
He then dies.
He dies on that cross.
He then spends three days in hell.
The Bible says that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.
Because on the third day, he rose again.
He showed the holes in his hands, and 40 days later, he went up into heaven.
Okay, so we've just discovered, if it was new for you, or we've just reassured you that Jesus is God in the flesh.
The Bible's clear about that.
So, why on earth did God in the flesh get arrested, get beaten, get nailed to a cross?
Why did he spend three days in hell?
Well, there's a verse in the Bible that sums it up in a nutshell.
In the book of 2 Corinthians, in chapter 5, verse 21, the Bible says,
"For he," and this first "he" is God the Father, "have made him," this is Jesus Christ, God the Son,
"to be sin for us, who knew no sin," he lived a sinless life, "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
And what that verse is basically saying is that Jesus Christ swapped with us.
He took the punishment that every single one of us should have got, and should get,
for every sin we've ever done, past, present, and future.
He took all of the punishment for that, so that we might be seen as righteous in God's eyes.
That is amazing, isn't it? That is amazing.
And what love that a God would do that for us, but, but does that mean we're all going to heaven?
Sadly not. Sadly, most people are going to hell.
Now, there is only one thing we've got to do to go to heaven.
And someone asked this question in the book of Acts, chapter 16, verse 30.
They said, "What must I do to be saved?"
That's a good question, isn't it? You don't want to go to hell, what must you do to be saved?
Do you know what the answer was?
The answer was, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."
Believe. It didn't say believe and be a good person.
Believe and go to church every week. Believe and get baptized.
Believe and stop certain sins. Believe and never sin again.
It was just believe.
And the most famous verse in the Bible says exactly that.
Verse 316 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."
See, the Bible's clear that we need to just believe in Jesus Christ to be saved.
Now, when it says believe in Jesus, there's something that word means that we would understand it more as.
So, for example, if I said to you, "Look, I want you to go and do something really important for me."
I believe in you.
Am I saying I believe you're a real person? No.
Am I saying I believe that you exist? No.
Or am I saying I trust you?
I'm saying I trust you, and in the same way Jesus Christ is saying you have to trust that his death on the cross,
his burial, his resurrection, that has paid for all of your past, present, and future sins.
See, many people say, "Yeah, I believe in Jesus."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe that he's the Son of God. I believe he's God in the flesh.
I believe he died on the cross to pay for my sins, but I've got to be a good person to go to heaven.
I've got to follow the commandments. I've got to get baptized.
I've got to turn from my sins. I've got to stop certain sins.
I've got to want to stop sinning or many, many things, me, me, me, I, I, I.
That's not trusting Jesus. That's trusting yourself.
And the Bible's really clear. It's one or the other.
Okay, so when we trust Jesus Christ, when we believe in Jesus Christ, the Bible calls it a gift.
In Romans 6.23, I read you the beginning of this verse, which says, "For the wages of sin is death."
Remember, that's death in hell.
But the Bible says, "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
So if it's a gift, surely that means we don't have to do anything for it, because you don't pay for a gift, do you?
If I said to you, "Hey, happy birthday. Here's a gift for you. Here's a present."
And I had it wrapped up and I gave you a present. I said to you, "But you've got to give me 20 pounds for that."
Was it a gift? No way. You've had to pay for it.
If I said, "Here's a gift for you. Happy birthday. Here's a present for you. Here's a gift."
But in return, you've got to come to our church and clean it and hoover it and wash the walls and everything else.
Would that be a gift? No way you've had to work for it.
And in the same way, if I said to you, "Here's a gift, but you've got to never do certain sins for the rest of your life."
Or you've got to never lie ever again or anything else like that.
You've still had to work for it and it is not a gift.
And in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, he makes it really clear, God, when he tells us, he says,
"For by grace are you saved through faith." Faith, trusting Jesus Christ.
And that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
See, the Bible's clear. We do not work for heaven at all.
And the problem is, if we believe that we work for it, then we're not trusting in Jesus Christ.
And therefore, we're not saved and we can't know that we have eternal life.
In fact, we don't have eternal life. It's a gift.
And with that gift, what a lot of the time puts people off and offends people and upsets them
because they think, in their mind, they're thinking,
"What, do you just mean that you can believe in Jesus Christ
and then you could just go and do some sort of wicked sin and you'd still go to heaven?"
Well, yes, you would still go to heaven, but let me explain how that works.
See, the Bible says in John chapter 1, verse 12, it says,
"But as many as received him," talking about through faith in Jesus Christ,
as many as received him, Jesus Christ, "to them gave he power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name."
Okay, so when you believe in the name of Jesus Christ, you become a son of God.
And for women, you become a child of God. We all become children of God,
the second we believe on the name of Jesus Christ.
Now, many people have children. I have children.
And when my children are naughty, I punish them.
Now, my children can do some bad things and some children can do some terrible things,
but they could never stop being a child.
There is nothing my children could do, any of them, where they would then stop being my child.
In fact, they could never, even if they chose to, stop being my child.
And in the same way, once we become a child of God, nothing can stop that.
We can never stop being a child. But when we do do bad things,
God does punish us in the same way that we punish our children.
We punish them because we love them.
In Hebrews 12.5, the Bible says, "My son," talking to children of God, "despise not.
Don't hate thou the chastening," that's the punishment of the Lord,
"nor faint when art rebuked of him," that's when you're told off,
"for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth."
That means he whips every son whom he receiveth.
See, if you did go out and committed a terrible crime,
God will make sure you get punished in this life.
But it's got nothing to do with eternity in heaven,
because that was a gift that was given the second you put your faith in Jesus Christ.
Okay, so we know that we have eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We know it's a gift. Okay, that's pretty obvious.
And we know that we cannot lose it.
And the Bible says actually in John 6.47, Jesus said, "Verily, verily," I say unto you,
"he that believeth on me hath everlasting life."
Present tense, you have everlasting life.
If you have everlasting life, you could never lose it, but it was never everlasting.
And there is verse after verse in the Bible that makes that clear.
Another great one, John 10.28, he talks about people that have believed in Jesus Christ.
And he says, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father which gave them me is greater than all,
and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand."
See, when Jesus Christ holds us and God the Father holds us,
there is no way that anyone, and that includes yourself, can take that away.
You are sealed with the Holy Spirit the second you believe you have everlasting life.
Okay, if you believe all of that, if you believe, like the Bible says,
number one, you are a sinner. You are a sinner.
Number two, the Bible makes it clear that the punishment for sin is death in hell forever.
Number three, that Jesus is God in the flesh.
Number four, that he died, was buried, arose again, the third day to pay for all your sins.
Number five, that the only thing, the only thing you have to do to be saved is believe.
Trust Jesus Christ.
And number six, once you believe, that's it.
It's a gift. You become a child of God.
It can never be taken away. You can never lose that salvation.
If you believe all of that, there's only one thing you've got to do to show God you believe.
The Bible says in Romans 10, 9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
It doesn't say you might be saved. It says you will, thou shalt be saved.
So that's calling on the name of the Lord Jesus, believing in your heart that Jesus Christ is God,
that he died, buried, and rose again to pay for all your sins.
It says you will be saved.
It goes on to say in verse 13 of chapter 10 of Romans,
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
If you believe everything that the Bible says, that I've showed you today,
all that's left to do is to ask Jesus Christ to save you.
I'd like to lead you in a short prayer now.
It's not about any magic words. It's what you believe in your heart.
But if you believe in your heart, why not ask Jesus to save you?
Just repeat after me.
Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I know I deserve to go to hell.
But I believe that you are God, that you came and died on a cross,
you were buried and rose again the third day, and that has paid for all my sins.
I'm trusting in you and only you. Please take me to heaven when I die. Amen.
Now, if you've repeated that prayer and you believe that in your heart,
the Bible says you're saved.
The Bible says that you are now, you are now a believer.
You are now a child of God.
And no one can take that away and nothing can change that from this day onwards.
Now, if you have done that prayer, I'd love you to send us an email,
get in contact, let us know. We'd love to help you out now
with the next steps to take as a Christian to help your life go as well as you can.
Please get in contact and have a great day.
And if we never see you again, we'll see you up in heaven. God bless you.