Hi Miss, my name is Peter, I'm from People's Baptist Church, we're just getting out invitations
to church.
Do you go to church anywhere?
Um, yeah.
Kind of.
Okay.
Um, well I understand you have your own church.
More important than that, what we're asking people in your neighborhood, we're asking
your neighbors, is more importantly going to church, are you 100% sure that you're going
to do what happened when you die?
Have you ever thought about that before?
Yeah, I think so.
Okay, so like in your opinion, what do you think someone has to do to go to heaven?
Well, there's like the Ten Commandments, and like baptism, and just like...
Okay, yeah, those are definitely all good things, but the Bible actually teaches that
you can be 100% sure you're going to heaven, and it's really easy, it's even easier than
what you mentioned.
Can I show you what the Bible says about how to go to heaven?
Yeah.
Okay, great.
So the Bible says, like I said, you can be 100% certain that you're going to heaven,
and it's really simple, but before I tell you the good news, I have to tell you some
bad news.
The Bible says in Romans 3 right here, it says that all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God, so the Bible says we're all sinners.
Do you know what a sin is?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, like a sin is when we break God's law, so the Bible says don't lie when I lie anyway,
that's a sin.
The Bible says we've all sinned.
You agree with that?
We've all sinned?
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, nobody's perfect, and the Bible says that there's a punishment for our sin, so
we don't just get away with it.
The Bible says the wages of sin is death, so the Bible says the wages of sin is death.
The word wages means what we earn, so kind of like when I go to work and I earn my paycheck,
those are my wages.
What I earn for my sin is death, and when the Bible says the wages of sin is death,
it's not just talking about a physical death.
The Bible says we go somewhere when we die, so where do people go when they die?
Heaven or hell.
Yeah, exactly.
The Bible teaches two places.
In one of two places, you either go to heaven immediately after you die or you go to hell,
and when the Bible says the wages of sin is death, it's actually talking about a spiritual
death in hell.
Now, it's really important to understand that hell is real and real people go there, and
the Bible says right here in Revelation 20, the Bible says in Revelation 2014 that death
and hell were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second death, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was
cast into the lake of fire.
So the Bible says that God has a book, and if our names aren't written in his book, when
our time comes to die, we get cast into hell or the lake of fire.
The lake of fire is another name for hell.
So hell is real and real people go there, and the Bible gives us a list of people who
are going to hell in chapter 21 verse 8 right here.
The Bible says right here, it gives us a whole list of bad people, fearful, unbelieving,
abominable murderers, hormone resourcers, and idolaters, but look what it says in the
last thing on the list.
The Bible says, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone, which is the second death.
Now, what's your name?
Jamie.
Now, Jamie, the Bible says all liars are going to hell.
Now, that wouldn't be good news for me because I know I've told lies before.
I mean, have you ever lied?
Yeah, of course.
Of course, everyone has.
So, it's not just like really bad people go to hell.
The Bible even says all liars go to hell.
Like, let me ask you this.
If I were to murder somebody, what would be my title?
What would they call me?
A murderer.
So, how many people do you have to murder to be called a murderer?
One.
Just one.
So, if you only have to murder one person to be a murderer, how many lies do I have
to tell to be a liar?
One.
Exactly.
Yeah, the Bible teaches that, that even one lie will send you to hell.
So, even one lie will get you that title as a liar because the Bible says in the same
chapter that whosoever make it a lie, just one lie, can't make it into heaven.
Here's the point.
We're not good enough to go to heaven if, you know, the reason Jesus had to die for
everyone is because we all deserve to go to hell.
You know, if I didn't deserve to go to hell, Jesus wouldn't have had to die for me.
If you didn't deserve to go to hell, Jesus wouldn't have had to die for you.
But the reason he had to die for both of us is because we both deserve hell.
And we've done worse than lying, but even if all we did was lie, we'd still go to hell.
But here's, here's the thing.
Do you think God wants us to go to hell?
No.
No, of course not.
So he did something so we can go to heaven.
Here's the good news.
So we could go to heaven for free.
This is what the Bible teaches.
The Bible says that heaven is a gift.
The Bible says right here, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So the bad news is the wages of sin is death.
That means death and hell.
But the Bible says that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So heaven is a gift.
So let me ask you this.
If I were to say to you here, Jamie, I have a gift for you, you just have to give me a dollar.
Is that really a gift?
No, I'm buying it.
Exactly.
Yeah, so that's, that's might be a good deal.
That's a really good, that's not a gift.
Like heaven is not a good deal.
Heaven is a free gift.
What if I said to you here, I have a gift for you.
You just have to come do some work, you know, on my house for me.
Is that a gift?
No.
No, because you're working for it.
And here's what we have to understand that heaven, it's not a reward that you earn by being good.
It's not something you earn by working for it or something that you get by paying for it.
It's a free gift.
And actually, if you try to pay God for it at all, he won't give it to you.
You have to accept it as a free gift.
Now, do you have any idea what God did so you could go to heaven?
Like, how did he pay for that gift?
Do you have any idea?
No.
Okay, the Bible says here's what God did so we could go to heaven.
So when you go to heaven for free, God became a man, he became Jesus.
The Bible says Jesus is God.
So the Bible says about Jesus, it says all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.
It says he was in the world and the world was made by him.
So the person, God, who made the world came into the world.
That's Jesus.
He was born of the Virgin Mary, he lived a perfect life, he never sinned, he never did anything wrong.
He preached the word of God, he preached against corrupt religion, corrupt government.
He did miracles, he raised the dead, he healed the blind and the deaf and the dumb.
He allowed himself to be arrested and nailed to the cross.
And while he was on the cross, he paid for our sins with his own blood.
So every sin that you and I have ever done or will do in the future, Jesus paid for on the cross.
He took our punishment so we wouldn't have to be punished.
So even though we deserve to go to hell, Jesus died on the cross so we wouldn't have to go to hell.
He shed his blood for us, he died, he went to hell for three days and three nights.
The Bible says his soul was not left in hell.
But what happened three days later after he died, do you know?
He resurrected?
Yeah, exactly.
He rose from the dead.
So his soul actually came back into his body and he walked out of the grave.
And this is how he paid for the gift.
The Bible says right here in 1 Corinthians 15, it says that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,
that he was buried and that he rose again the third day.
So what did he do for us? He died, he was buried and rose again.
And this isn't some fairy tale, this is actually an historical fact.
The same chapter goes on to tell us that there were over 500 people who witnessed him rise from the dead.
So they actually saw him with their own eyes.
Now, do you think Jesus died for everyone?
Yeah.
Yeah, he did. He died for everyone, you're right.
But here's the thing, is everyone going to heaven?
No.
No, they're not.
And the only reason not everyone goes to heaven is because not everyone has accepted the gift.
So Jesus died for everyone, but now it's up to us to accept the gift.
So I just want to show you how to know you've accepted the gift, okay?
Now, the Bible says right here in Acts 16, here's how you accept the gift.
In verse 30, the Bible says,
And brought them out and said,
Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
So someone said to the apostle Paul, what do I have to do to go to heaven to be saved?
And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
So what does that say right there you have to do to go to heaven?
Believe?
Yeah, does that say, like, come to my church and live a good life?
And does it say get baptized?
No.
No, it says one thing, believe.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The whole Bible teaches it's not what we do that saves us, it's what we believe.
The word believe in the Bible, when it says believe on,
that means you have to have your faith on what Jesus did.
The word believe means to trust.
So to believe on Jesus Christ means your trust is only in what he did when he died and rose again.
Like, what if I said this to you?
What if I said, yeah, Jamie, I believe in Jesus, but I'm going to heaven because I'm a really good person.
Is that trusting Jesus or is that trusting myself?
Trusting yourself.
Exactly.
So that's not trusting what Jesus did, that would be trusting what I've done.
And if we want to go to heaven, we can't trust in ourselves at all.
And if even a little bit of our trust is in ourselves, we will not be saved.
The Bible says 100% of our faith has to be in Jesus and what he did.
Our faith has to be on him.
Say my hand is Jesus and this represents my faith.
You have to put all your faith on him.
That means none of it can be on you.
You have to just be completely resting on him.
The most famous verse, John 3.16, have you ever heard of John 3.16?
It's the most famous verse in the whole Bible.
And he says right here in John 3.16, this is Jesus talking.
He says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but of everlasting life.
So what do I have to do, Jesus, to go to heaven?
He said whosoever believeth in him should not perish but of everlasting life.
It doesn't say whosoever lives a good life and does their best.
It's not our efforts that save us. It's only believing in Christ.
The Bible actually teaches Jesus taught that there are bad people who made it to heaven.
He gives a parable and he talks about the fact that there are bad people who make it to heaven.
So if they lived a bad life and they were bad people, how did they make it to heaven?
Because they believed.
Yeah, exactly. Because the Bible doesn't say whosoever believes and lives a good life,
or whosoever believes and changes their life around.
It's just whosoever believeth it.
Jesus said in John 6.47, he said very simply, very easily, he said,
verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
So what do I have to do, Jesus? He said, look, if you believe on me, you have everlasting life.
And that word verily, verily, when he says that, that means this is true, you can believe me.
It means forget what you've heard, forget what your religion taught you, this is the truth.
So let me ask you, Jamie, according to the Bible, what do you think somebody has to do to go to heaven?
Believe.
Yeah, and what did Jesus do for you so you could go to heaven? What is it that you have to believe?
That he died on the cross.
And then what did he do three days later?
He resurrected.
Yeah, and you believe that?
Yes.
So the Bible says if you believe that, then the Bible says that God will give you a gift of everlasting life.
So I just want to kind of tie it all together now. You're right that it's only by believing.
And do you see how that's kind of different than what you said, you know, when I first got here?
When I first got here, you basically said that you thought, you know, you probably had to live a good life and go to heaven.
There's probably something more than just trusting in Jesus that it took to go to heaven.
But now do you see that it's only trusting in Jesus? You see that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So once you trust Jesus, the Bible says he gives you everlasting life.
The Bible says the gift of God is eternal life. Do you know what the word everlasting means?
Forever?
Yeah, it means forever. It'll never end.
So the Bible says when God gives you the gift, the moment you believe in him, he gives you a gift and it's yours forever.
And it's everlasting.
So if I were to say to you here, Jamie, I have a gift for you and it's yours forever.
You just have to, well, let me rephrase that.
If I said here I have this gift for you and it's yours forever, how many times do you have to take it from me for it to be yours?
Just once?
Yeah, exactly.
Now, if I came back in 10 years, because it's, yeah, it's eternal.
If it's forever, you only have to take it once.
If I came back in 10 years and I said, you know what, Jamie, I don't like how you've been living.
I see you've been living a bad life.
Give me my gift back.
Was I telling the truth when I said it was going to last forever?
No.
No. What would that make me?
If I told you it was going to last forever, but then I took it away, what would that make me?
A liar.
Yeah, exactly.
The Bible says God can't lie.
The Bible says in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.
So God says, look, Jamie, I promise that if you believe in me, it's eternal.
You're never going to die.
Here's what that means.
The same way you would accept an everlasting gift, you have to receive it once, right?
It's the same way with heaven.
You only have to receive it once.
The moment you're saved, you're saved forever and you can never go to hell after that.
There's nothing you can do to lose your salvation.
Since Jesus died for all of your sins, he will not send you to hell for sinning because he already paid for all your sins and you already believed in him.
God doesn't send Christians to hell because he said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
Here's what God will do.
God punishes Christians on this earth.
So say I were to commit a horrible sin like murder.
I mean, that's a really bad sin.
That's a really extreme example, right?
But here's the thing.
Did Jesus die for the sin of murder?
Yeah.
Yeah, he did.
He died for every sin, even the really bad ones like murder.
So if I believe in him and I commit murder, I'm going to heaven because God promised that whosoever believeth in him should not perish for everlasting life.
But here's what God will do.
You know, he'll punish me on this earth.
I'll go to jail.
He could make me blind.
He could give me a painful disease.
He could take my family, my money.
He can do whatever he wants because God punishes his children.
The same way our parents growing up, they would punish us and we did wrong.
But God doesn't send his children to hell.
He just punishes them on this earth.
So it's very simple.
Once you believe in Christ, you're saved forever.
You can never go to hell.
You believe in Christ and then you're saved forever.
You can't become unsaved.
He'll never send you to hell.
You can't lose your salvation for any reason.
People think, oh, what if you do this?
What if you stop doing this?
No, there's nothing that you can think of.
There's nothing imaginable that could send a saved person to hell.
Everyone that got saved only got saved one time in their life.
Everyone who's in heaven got saved once and that's it.
They're born again.
So let me answer this, Jamie.
So one more time.
What do you think if God were to say to you, why should I let you into heaven, what would you say?
Because I believed on Jesus.
Now that you've done that, do you think there's anything you can do to go to hell?
What if you killed someone and you killed yourself?
Do you think God would let you into heaven or would he send you to hell?
I would go to heaven.
Yeah, you're right.
Because it's everlasting life.
It's eternal.
And Jesus said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
So let me just ask you this really quickly.
The Bible says that Jesus is God.
The Son of God actually is God in the flesh.
Do you believe that?
Do you understand that?
Yeah, the Bible says that about Jesus, it says,
Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us.
So who was it that died on the cross for us?
It was actually God.
God laid down his life for us and obviously we know that it was Jesus who died on the cross.
So since you believe this, Jamie, here's what the Bible says.
The Bible says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
Lord means he's God.
The Bible says there's one Lord.
And shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
So the Bible teaches, Jamie, that if you believe in your heart that Jesus died and rose again
and then you ask him to save you, you're saved.
Now it's not the words that save you, it's what you believe.
But the words, that's just how you choose to put your faith on Jesus.
So that's how you tell God, okay, I'm choosing to put my faith on you.
This is the moment I'm choosing to get saved.
And once you do that, the Bible says believe on the name of the son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.
So if you believe, then you ask God to save you.
The Bible says you may know that you have eternal life.
You can know for sure you're going to heaven.
So since you believe all this and I'm going to take your word for it,
what I'm going to do is I'm just going to help lead you in a word of prayer and tell God you believe this
so that you can know for sure that you've been saved.
Okay, so you can just bow your head and repeat after me.
So just bow your head and say, Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner.
I know I deserve hell, but I believe you died for me and rose again.
Please save me now and take me to heaven when I die.
I'm only trusting you.