Part 18
I’m emphasizing the fact that you can go to heaven if you want to. I’d like to read one more Scripture and then we close. This is found in II Peter, chapter one, verse 5-10, “And beside this, giving all diligence; add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure.” Do you notice that word “sure”? “Give diligence to make your calling and election _sure_”; it didn’t say to make it likely, or to make it probable, but to make it _certain_. It requires diligence, but if you will give the proper diligence, you can make your calling and election certain. “For if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
A man who does these things will not barely slip in by the skin of the teeth, but for him the gates will stand wide ajar. He will receive an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, inherit eternally a mansion which Jesus has gone to prepare for those who love him, for those who walk in the light, for those who do the best they can.
Do you want to go to heaven? I suspect if I were to take a vote on it and ask all who want to go to heaven to raise their hands, that every person in the house would raise his hand. You say you want to go, but do you? Are you on the road which leads there? A man driving toward Louisville, Kentucky, at sixty miles an hour, knowing that Atlanta is in the opposite direction, would have a hard time convincing me that he wanted to go to Atlanta. He may want to go some day but he doesn’t want to go now, because he is going in the other direction. The man who is going toward hell at sixty minutes an hour can’t convince me that he wants to go to heaven, unless he is just mistaken about his direction. Do you really want to go to heaven? If you do, let’s be on the way. The Bible reveals the road which leads there. Get up and follow the sign posts and some day you will get there. Why not start right now? Will you come to Jesus now?
FOOTNOTES
[1]Harry Emerson Fosdick “The Revolt Against Paganism” in _Ladies Home Journal_, February, 1946.
[2]For a similar discussion see J. W. Brents, _Gospel Sermons_, (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1891), pp. 282-298.
[3]See Chapter II.
[4]See Chapter II.
[5]Bracketed text is a conjectural reconstruction of line omitted in the printed copy.
Harris J. Dark was born in Maury County, Tennessee February 8, 1905. He graduated from David Lipscomb College and did additional work at Vanderbilt University and Randolph-Macon College where he received the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1934. He received his Master of Arts degree from the University of Richmond in 1940. He has studied one year in the Vanderbilt School of Religion and one year in the Union Theological Seminary at Richmond, Virginia. He is just now completing work for his Doctor of Philosophy degree at George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee.
Transcriber’s Notes
—Silently corrected a few typos.
—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.
—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.
—Where a line was omitted in typesetting, inserted a reconstructed line within {brackets}.