Sermon Tone Analysis

MBC - 9~/5~/2004 - Pastor Doug Thompson

*/“Why Good People Won’t Go to Heaven”/*

Romans 2:1-3

 

ROM 2:1 Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.

ROM 2:2 And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.

ROM 2:3 But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?

 

Have you ever taken a word-association test?

You are given a word, and you are supposed to say the very next word that comes into your mind.

You aren't supposed to reflect or philosophize, just react:

 

            I say "apple," you say /"sauce."

/

            I say "chair," you say /"sit."/

I say “house,” you say “mortgage payment.”

I say "prison," you say /"criminals."/

I say "Congress," you say /"criminals."

/

 

Now let me ask you a question, and without pondering over your vast storehouse of theological knowledge or wondering what the Pastor wants you to say, in your mind, answer this question:

 

"Is heaven full of good people, or bad people?"

Quick--what was your response?

Almost any person would respond "Good people."

Heaven is full of good people!

God is good.

The devil is bad.

Heaven is good.

Hell is bad.

Good people go to heaven.

Bad people go to hell.

Simple.

Basic.

But wrong.

As a matter of fact, it’s backwards.

I want to propose to you this morning that only bad people will get to heaven, and good people will not be allowed in.

And Jesus Himself is the One who said this.

In Matthew 21:23 we read this:

 

Ø      MAT 21:23 And when He had come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him as He was teaching..."

 

Jesus was talking to the religious leaders; the clergy, the pastors, those who kept the law of Moses.

Good people or bad people?

But look at what He said to them in v.31:

 

Ø      "Truly I say to you that the tax-gatherers and harlots will get into the kingdom of God before you."

Tax-gatherers--who made their living by extortion, and harlots who made their from fornication and adultery!

Good people or bad people?

But who were the more likely candidates for heaven?

Jesus told a parable to illustrate that good people don't go to heaven, only bad people:

 

Ø      LUK 18:9 And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt:

Ø      LUK 18:10 "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee [from /aphorizo/ = separated one = holy!] and the other a tax collector.

Ø      LUK 18:11 "The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

Ø      LUK 18:12 'I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.' [And he was probably telling the truth!]

Ø      LUK 18:13 "But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'

Ø      LUK 18:14 "I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other.

The word justified means to be right before God--who was it?

The man who admitted that he was "/the/ sinner!"

But I think the real topper is when Jesus was hanging on the cross, being crucified as a common criminal.

He is surrounded by people who were so religious, so fastidious about keeping the law that they wanted to get the bodies down from the crosses before the Sabbath began.

But who does Jesus say is going to heaven that day?

A convicted thief who is hanging on a cross beside Him--not a good man, a very bad man!

The Bible teaches that good people don't go to heaven, only bad people.

In Romans 4:5, Paul said that the person who goes to heaven is the one who /"believes in Him who justifies the ungodly."/

Beloved, to understand what it means that “God justifies the ungodly,” is to understand the central issue of the Reformation, what still divides Protestants from Catholics, the central issue over the current New Perspectives debate--and to understand what it means that God justifies the ungodly is to understand the heart of the Gospel:

 

Beloved, the requirement for heaven is not being good--it is being perfect!

And since, there is none perfectly righteous--no not one--no one qualifies for heaven.

Well, there was One.

A thoroughly perfect Man who was tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin, because He was God in human flesh.

And the way to heaven is spelled out in this letter to the Romans: it is not through the vain pursuit of trying to be good enough to get into heaven by your own effort and merit, it is through /renouncing/ your own goodness, and trusting /wholly/ and /solely/ in the Lord Jesus Christ, Who will give His goodness to anyone comes to Him in repentance and faith.

He will justify the ungodly!

Ø      So good people don’t go to heaven, only helpless, hopeless sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded by the fall--who have cast themselves upon Christ and His righteousness in place of theirs!

But before Paul tells his readers how people /can/ get to heaven, he has to tell them how they /can’t/, and they can’t get there via their own goodness or their best efforts.

Why?

Why won’t good people go to heaven?

Because--

 

*Lesson 1: There are no good people.*

He begins with the Gentiles, anyone who was a non-Jew, who didn’t have the Scriptures.

The Jews just wrote these people off as far as any consideration of gaining heaven.

The Rabbis taught that they were created to fuel the fires of hell.

Today, we might think of the "bad" people as drug-dealers, prostitutes, pedophiles, or idol-worshiping savages on some remote island.

They act like bad people.

And Paul's first point is, yes--

 

*            /A.

The bad people are bad.

(ch.1)/*

* *

And we spent several weeks hearing his argument: God has revealed Himself, clearly, unmistakably, objectively and subjectively, through His creation.

People know there is a God, and that He is to be honored and thanked--but they reject Him.

V. 28 says that they “disapprove” of God, they give Him thumbs down.

And because they don’t want to acknowledge Him, worship Him, or obey Him, God says, “You got it, I’ll just let you have your way.

And when God removes the restraints and man is given over to his own innate desires, the result is hideous: godless thoughts and theories--like the theory of evolution, secular humanism; they indulge in every immorality, spiraling down to homosexuality and worse until they act worse than animals.

And they give hearty approval to those who do the same!

Paul has made his point.

The bad people are bad.

No doubt about it.

And up to this point in the letter, most Jews reading this letter would have been right behind Paul: "Preach it, brother!

We long for the day when those wicked people get what they deserve!"

Ø      But none of it applied to /them/.

/They/ weren’t guilty of such sins.

They weren’t idolaters or homosexuals.

They weren’t haters of God.

They were God’s chosen people!

Listen to this quote from 2 Esdras: “Now therefore weigh in a balance our iniquities and those of the inhabitants of the world; and so it will be found which way the turn of the scale will incline.

When have the inhabitants of the earth not sinned in Thy sight?

Or what nation has kept Thy commandments so well?”

Ø      From the Wisdom of Solomon: “For when the Jews were tried, though they were being disciplined in mercy, they learned how the ungodly were tormented when judged in wrath.

For Thou didst test them as a father does in warning, but didst examine the ungodly as a stern king does in condemnation.”

You see, a Jewish person at this time saw himself as part of a group, the nation of Israel, the covenant people of God, and that was his ticket into heaven.

He wasn’t going to stand before God as an individual to account for his sins.