The Terrible Truth of Hearing About Hell Yet Thinking That You're Too Good to Go There

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There is the sad truth that not so many people ever take a Hellfire preaching from a Christian pulpit easily. The reason would be that people are inclined to believe that as long as they do good and that they are good people (according to worldly standards) then certainly they don't belong to Hell. The problem isn't only limited to people who think that Hell doesn't exist or poke fun at it. It's also with people who think that they are actually too good to go to Hell. But how does this foolish teaching measure up to the Word of God?

Most people tend to think that God is good and therefore if anyone's good works exceed one's bad works then they are perfectly fine. It's no surprise that Theresa of Calcutta who was named a saint promoted the idea. Pope Francis even promotes the idea that anybody can enter Heaven if they are good enough. Almost every religion today teaches the idea that just do your best to be good and certainly salvation is yours. Such an idea is so acceptable to man because of the one area of temptation - the pride of life. Works salvation appeals to pride as it says, "If I'm not good enough for Heaven then nobody is!"

True bad people will go to Hell when they die. But the problem is are you really good enough for Heaven? God's standard of making you a bad person? If you think you're not in the list in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 then think again. Romans 3:10-19 says that no one is righteous and that all have come short of God's standard. James 2:10-11 says that if you've broken even only one of the Law's rules then you have come short of God's glory. The illustration is best shown with a string with ten knots. It doesn't matter which knot you cut because the string is cut and what it supports falls down. In fact, Matthew 7:21-23 addresses the one truth that such people are still doers of lawlessness. People will try to justify themselves on Judgment Day only to find out that Jesus never knew them in a personal way. Such people were not saved to start with.

What about those who have been good persons by worldly standards? Unfortunately, Isaiah 64:6 says that our righteousness is but filthy rags. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that salvation is not by works so no one could boast. Hebrews 9:14 calls it all dead works. All these so-called goodness from the natural man such as feeding the poor and helping others will do is but attempt to bribe God into Heaven. The puritan Thomas Brooks even warns that the only reward that works salvation will ever get is a cooler Hell. I'm not saying that certain portions of Hell will have an airconditioner or electric fan for people with less sins. It's that they will not receive as much punishment as the others but we can't deny that it doesn't matter which degree of Hell you're in - the lowest degree of Heaven is always way better than the coolest portion of Hell. It's like the cheapest house in a secure subdivision is always better than the most beautiful house in a slum area.

The big example of thinking your'e too good for Hell is like the rich young ruler. He thought he kept the whole Law. Jesus revealed that the rich young ruler couldn't keep it. When Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell the latter's possessions and follow him - it showed how you can't even keep the whole Law. It's not a story of renouncing your wealth to get saved. Rather, it shows how one's own self-righteousness is cut short of God's glory. His wealth may have been the trophies of whatever good he did. Sorry to say but one's own worldly trophies amount to nothing (Philippians 3:8) because these are but dead works. If you still think you're good enough to Heaven then why not sell everything you have and give it to the poor? But even if you do but without Jesus you're just going to end up in Hell thinking you are too good to be there.

The worst part is you can't tell God that He made a mistake. He may send you to Hell because you died in your sins. You can't say, "God I don't belong here. There's a mistake! I'm a good person." Galatians 2:24 says that if salvation were achieved by keeping the whole Law then the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross in vain. Besides, the true Christian life does good works not to get saved or to stay saved but it's the result of getting saved. Christians will bloom in good works yet keeping in mind that all this is but God's grace.

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