Who’s Going to Hell?

Here’s an interesting news story regarding beliefs about who’s going to hell and why, broken down by a variety of people groups (see some of the results of the survey here).

The telling statistic to me is not that people of different backgrounds believe in hell as a real place and that they believe that many they know are going to hell, but that 58% believe that we go to hell because of immoral action (this must be the “if I’m good enough, I’ll get in to heaven” crowd). They’re only partially correct. The Bible is crystal clear that we’re all unworthy, all filled with sin… and thus, all bound for hell (Romans 3:23… “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”). So… although sin is the reason we deserve hell… it’s not the deciding factor in whether we go there. The deciding factor is whether we accept or reject the free gift of salvation offered through faith in Christ (Romans 10:9… “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”).

Anyway, there’s a whole world out there that’s missing the point when it comes to heaven / hell… a world that doesn’t understand that we can never be “good enough” for heaven. It’s up to us to tell them that we’ve got to trust in the one who enabled salvation… the one who paid the penalty for sin… the one who conquered death and gives us life… that we’ve got to cling to Jesus and go before the throne of God with Him as our hope of salvation.