The modern church has a strong grace message that says a Christian cannot go to hell. However, Jesus said that a person who does not invest his talents goes to hell. He also said that goats do not go to heaven, nor do the five foolish virgins, nor do people without fruit (John 15). Now Paul has here a list of people who, if they are still practicing this lifestyle when they die, will not enter heaven. It is sobering writing.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 in the New King James Version of the Bible says:
9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be disappointed. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor thieves will inherit the kingdom of God.
The modern church says that once a person is saved, they become righteous and remain righteous until they die no matter what they do. When I became a soldier in the Salvation Army, he pleased me that one of the principles we had to accept was to continually remain upright in our walk to inherit the kingdom of God.
Paul warned us not to be disappointed by what has happened. There are fornicators in the church, people who live together outside of marriage who are not corrected in love and are not told to marry or leave the church. There are many idolaters in the church and no one tells them to change.
Let me go through them one by one.
fornicators
These are people who are in a sexual relationship but are not married. If these people die in this state, say in a car accident, they will not go to heaven, but they will go to hell.
idolaters
The online dictionary says they are:
- The one who worships idols.
- One who blindly or excessively admires or adores another.
A person may love money and go to great lengths to get as much as he can. People enter the lottery for this reason because they think that if they had a million dollars, all their problems would go away. This can also be a man who idolizes her wife or a wife who idolizes her husband. Many couples love each other more than God and this can be a serious mistake.
adulterers
Jesus said this in Mark 10:11-12:
11 Then he said to them: Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12 And if the woman divorces her husband and marries another, he commits adultery.
Jesus says very clearly here that second marriages are adultery. But 98% of the people I share this with want to argue with me about it. But you can also be committing spiritual adultery against Jesus.
James 4:2-4 says,
2 You covet and you have not. You murder and greed and you can’t get. You fight and make war. However, you don’t have because you don’t ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask friends, to spend
it’s in your pleasures 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Anyone, then, who wants to be a friend of the world, makes himself an enemy of God.
James says here that the person who covets the best things in the world is an adulterer and an enemy of God.
How many enemies of God will make it to heaven I have to ask you?
Are you an enemy of God?
homosexuals
It seems that much of the church still thinks that an unrepentant homosexual who still practices will go to hell. It is the one lifestyle that most Christians will condemn to hell. Christians are very eloquent about this one, but not about the rest of the sins.
sodomites
(lowercase) a person who engages in sodomy. Sodomy (IPA: /ÈsRdYmi/) is a term efficiently used in law today (derived from traditional Christian usage) to describe the act of anal intercourse, oral intercourse, as well as bestiality. When used in a religious context, it has a negative connotation.
Now, I wasn’t aware of oral sex, but both a man having anal sex with a man and a man and woman having anal sex are in hellish danger if they don’t cut this out of their sex life.
Burglars
These are people who keep stealing what they should be paying for. This can include teenagers downloading music for free that they should be paying the artist for, and parents buying cheap DVDs that are recorded in an Asian country. He is also a person who receives copies of DVDs from friends who have rented them from a video store.
Greedy
The dictionary says that the meaning is: “excessive or unjust desire for wealth or possessions; greedy.” Many of the people who hear and love the prosperity doctrine, and its teachers, are greedy. If they die without repenting, they will go to hell.
revilers
The dictionary says, “speak insultingly.” This is what the psalm says: they are mockers and also gossips. There are many of these who need to repent.
extortionists
The dictionary says: “Law. The crime of obtaining money or something else of value by abuse of office or authority. Oppressive or illegal exaction, such as excessive price or interest: the extortions of usurers.” The police in foreign countries do this a lot.
I hope this has given you something to think about. If you are one of these people, you must learn to repent and remove these major sins from your life before you die without repentance.
Blessed be you, Matthew Robert Payne
PS Try to spread this message everywhere.