The Reality of Hell

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. And here's the truth of it. If we don't accept the reality of hell, we'll never appreciate the glory of the Gospel. If hell is not a reality, then we never really appreciate or understand or hold that which is true about the saving grace of God.

It really doesn't mean a whole lot to us if there is not a reality of hell. And I remember growing up, and this is probably why the subject of hell is not talked about a lot in the contemporary church today, or they try to avoid the subject of hell because it's not an easy subject. Because years ago, when I was growing up, it was hell, fire, and brimstone, and it wasn't called hell, it was called hail. Where I'm from in the South, it was hail. And your face got really red.

And they were like, well, you're going to hell if you don't get right with Jesus. And here's what you can expect from hell, and this is where you're going. Everybody in this church is going there, so come up to the altar. And everybody starts running up, and they begin to, you know, oh, no, Jesus, we need Jesus. And they're scared to death, and they get the hell scared out of them.

And they're trying to get heaven into them. And then our approach about hell is like, wow, we don't want to be this, and my hope today is that I don't make you fearful of hell. In fact, it got so comical that I don't know if any of you ever listened to John Boy and Billy on the radio. How many of you are John Boy and Billy fans? Okay, nobody in here.

That means I'm from North Carolina. Okay, it's a nationally syndicated show. I think you can get it on XM radio and on the classic rock station when I was growing up. John Boy and Billy was on there, and there was this guy, and you can look it up on YouTube to get an idea of what I'm talking about. They laughed about the idea of these preachers and hell, and there was this guy named Reverend Billy Ray Collins.

And he talked like this, and he was from a little country church out in the middle of North Carolina, and he would always make this statement. Here's the Reverend Billy Ray Collins reminding you that it's time to turn so you won't burn. And they would laugh about it, and they'd get tickled about it. He'd have these monologues about hell and people doing wrong and condemnation, and they made a joke about it. And in some ways, well-meaning pastors back then, and maybe even their message was accurate and biblical, came across that way, and it misrepresented what the teaching on hell was all about.

On the other hand, we don't want to diminish the reality of the horrors of hell, because there are some serious things in eternity for those who don't believe in God or don't follow God. So here's our statement. We made it last week. We'll make it again this week. What we believe about eternity determines how you live today.

What you believe about eternity determines how you live today. What we think about heaven, what we think about hell, what we think about the afterlife determines where we go today. So if you believe that you're an accident, that you're a product of random chance, and that you're just brain waves and chemicals that work together to produce something, and there's no eternal purpose for you, what do you do? You live for yourself. You live selfishly rather than selflessly, and you live for today, because we eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Paul said it himself. If Christ did not raise from the dead, if Christ is not God, if God is not who he says he is, we just eat, drink, be merry, tomorrow we die, we live for today, and that's it. But if you live with the idea that you were created in the image of God, that you have a purpose, that you have a design, that your identity is connected to God, then you live with eternity in mind, as if eternity matters, and everything you do today is focused and directed towards eternity. Let me give you some statistics here about what people believe about heaven and hell. 74%, that's about three out of four Americans, and those are followers of Christ or not, believe in heaven.

But lesser, only 40% actually believe in hell. That's like less than half percent of people in America. And on top of that, a half of 1% of people, 0.5% of people, don't believe they are personally going to hell. So in other words, most people have a hard time believing in hell, and if they believe in hell, they believe they're not going there, and it's only for the really, really, really bad people, you know, like the rapists and the genocidists and different people like that.

You know, the Hitlers and the really, really bad people. So I'm ultimately good, and they're bad, and most of us are really good people, so heaven is waiting for us. Most people believe that in Western culture in America. But Jesus said this, and let me just say this. Jesus didn't only talk about hell.

He talked about hell more than he did heaven. There's more scriptures about hell than there is in heaven. So if Jesus took that seriously, I think we should probably take it seriously as well. He taught on it. I think we should teach on it as well.

He understood it very well, and he wanted his disciples, he wanted his followers to know about it, and he even shared it with the Pharisees quite a few times. In fact, in most cases, he was talking to the church people, the Pharisees, when he talked about hell. He talked about it a lot. So we are challenged to talk about it today. And here's what he said in the Gospel of Matthew 7, verse 13 and 14.

He says, Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction, meaning it's a very easy, broad, wide road. A lot of people will go there. And many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life. And only a few people find it.

Wow. That's challenging. That's heavy. Now, if I were the devil, how would I convince people to not follow God? I'm afraid I'm afraid they'll have a lot of other people, First of all, I would convince people that there was no hell.

Or I would convince people that if there is a hell, it doesn't really matter. It's not that serious. And I would convince the world that there's no need to connect what we're doing now with eternity, that there's really no spiritual urgency. I would do everything I could to hide the fact that there is something waiting for those in the afterlife that don't believe or follow Christ. And what that does is people live however they want.

So that's a win for me as Satan. I would be able to justify sin. We would be able to justify sin. We'd be able to reject Christ. We'd be able to live ridiculously self-centered lives.

We'd idolize comfort. We would reject sacrifice. We would avoid persecution. We would love the world. And we would rarely share our faith.

And we would have no sense at all of spiritual urgency. That's what I would do if I were Satan. And that's how so many people live today. And that's Satan's strategy. That's the devil's strategy.

It's to convince us that there's no repercussions in this life. There's no sense of anything we do in this life having any kind of justice. So why does hell exist? Let's talk about that for a minute. I want to give you two reasons why hell exists.

There's many reasons we could probably go into on top of this. But there's two main reasons I want to make simple today. The first is that hell exists for Satan and his demons. Hell exists for Satan and his demons. Using an iPad is always difficult because you hit the screen and it like jumps to like three different screens here.

So hang in there with me and track with me for a second. So Jesus was teaching the disciples in parables about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And in the Gospel of Matthew, he begins to share this idea or this parable or this story or this theological concept, if you want to call it that, about sheep and goats. And what happens in the judgment in the end times when Christ will return, we believe as a church, we believe as believers in Christ that Christ will return and restore everything back to what it was originally intended to be.

It's called redemption. Redemption of the world, redemption of our souls, redemption of everything. Eden restored. Eden lost was Eden restored. But when Christ comes back, there will be a judgment.

And he talks about sheep and goats, that the goats are those who do not follow Christ and the sheep are those who are believers in Christ. And how God will separate, through his judgment, the goats and the sheep. And the goats on the left and the sheep on the right is how he will divide them up. And then he says this, Then I will say to those on the left, those are the goats, depart from me, you who are cursed, and into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his demons. That's the key word right there, prepared for the devil and his demons.

Hell was originally prepared for the devil and his demons, Satan and his demons. And it was to deal righteously with what happened in the past when we look into Ezekiel and Isaiah. We see, and I'm not going to go into that too deeply today. We talked about that in our worship series, that Satan was a crown jewel in heaven and he fell. He tried to rebel against God.

And what we learn from that moment, when he was cast out of heaven, when he was cast out from the presence of God, Revelation gives us a little more insight. Revelation chapter 12 gives us more insight into that, in which they talk about a third of the stars were wiped from the sky. The stars were symbolic language, allegories of Satan and the evil forces and the demons. So with Satan, a third of the demons were cast out of heaven into earth or out of the presence of God. And we often think, when we think of Satan, we think of a guy with a pitchfork in his hand, you know, and a red jumpsuit.

And we dress up, Halloween's around the corner. Part of the reason we talk about this is because the spiritual reality is, you know, we're a little more spiritual in tune during this time of year because we're thinking about goblins and goons and things like that. But we think about Satan, and we put a pitchfork in his hand, we put horns, and we put him in a red jumpsuit. And we almost make him like a clown. We make it kind of comical.

We kind of put him in this place that, ah, look, look, look, it's the devil. It's the devil. He's on my shoulder, you know. He's like whispering, and you can knock him off, you know. But here's the deal about Satan.

Here's the deal about the devil. He is the very, and you need to know this, he is the very embodiment of evil. He is evil. And I could lay out all the scriptures that call him what he is because there's many of them, but I'm just going to give you a brief assessment of what Satan is like. He's behind every addiction, every abuse, every fear, every pain, every shame.

Scripture calls him the destroyer. That's where we get the name the devil. It's the destroyer. He's the dragon. He's the dark angel.

He's the serpent. He's the adversary. He's the enemy. He's the tempter. He's the wicked one.

He's the thief. He's the father of lies. He's the prince of darkness. He's the angel of the abyss. He steals our joy.

He steals our faith. He destroys our health. He ruins our finances. He destroys our marriages. He takes our children.

And he wants to completely take everything. He wants to completely destroy everything that we are. John the Revelator says it like this. He says in chapter 20, verse 10, And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophets had been thrown, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever and ever and ever. So hell was originally made for Satan and his demons.

Number two, and this is where it gets a little trickier, hell exists for God to deal righteously with unbelievers. to deal righteously with unbelievers. And for many, they would say, well, you know, there's... Good people. There's good people all around me that don't know the Lord, that don't know Jesus, don't follow Jesus.

Man, they bring me brownies, you know. Sister Sue, she's got really good brownies and she brings them to my house. She's such a wonderful person, but she doesn't know Jesus. Why would God do that? And a few years ago, I sat across the table with a guy that was coming to our church and he was really challenged by this.

He just could not. And he asked me the question, you know, why? Look, I've got a lot of friends around me in this community here in the Vibe District and they're good people and they're benevolent and they do all these wonderful things. They feed the poor. They're self-sacrificial and they do all this stuff.

So I just can't accept that a good God would send these people to hell for not believing in him. They have no faith in him. But I just don't believe that. And I asked him, I said, well, then, do you believe that there's no accountability for the wrong and the injustice that's done in this world at all? And his response was, absolutely not.

Of course, there's bad people in the world, right? And I said, and my response was, you cannot, you cannot, and it is impossible for God to be holy and not be just. Because before a holy, righteous God, no one can add up. And we can't even begin, and the second point I made, how can we even begin to understand the love of God? That his, in fathomable ways, the way he is, and in a human understanding of what we understand love to be, we've reduced God to being the way we think.

We put him in a box. And what's to say if God, in his love, because he is love, right, would not be doing a service to someone who does not believe in him by giving them the opportunity to choose God or reject God and be actualized in what choice they made in this life. Let me say it like this. God does not want somebody to be forcefully contained in heaven before his holiness and righteousness against their will. Because what would love be if it was forced on them?

So we have to be careful how we do this. And those who, and back to the holiness of God, the perfect righteousness, the justice of God, when we look at God, those who say that God will not, and is gracious enough, will not send anyone that is good to hell or allow them to go to hell, in the same breath, would say, well, there is justice. There needs to be justice for those things. There needs to be justice for the people in this world that are doing wrong and hurting people. And it's a contradiction of terms.

Because when we understand the character of God, we understand him to be holy and just. And if he is not holy, then he is not just. But if he is holy, he is just. And we cannot separate the two. It's the very character of God.

Here's what it says in 2 Thessalonians 1, 8, and 9. It says, he will punish those who do not know God. It says that in Scripture. We can't deny that. And do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus.

What is the gospel? The good news, they don't respond to it. They don't want it. They reject it. And they will be punished.

And this is really hard. It's no fun to preach. But they will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out of the presence of the Lord. If we don't accept the reality of hell, we will never appreciate the glory of the gospel. If we don't understand the reality of hell, then what are we doing this for?

If there is no hell, what are we doing this for? If everyone has a way somehow, what are we doing this for? Why are we even here today? Why are we even living in the understanding of the gospel and salvation and living under the covering that He sheds for our sins? So let's get a little glimpse of hell today.

And there's a few places in the Bible we can get a look at hell. In fact, there are two different words in Scripture that are used for the place that those who do not believe go after one minute after you die. You would have that. And there's the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Many of you may have heard that story before.

Jesus used it in a parable. Do I think that's a real story that actually happened? I do personally because He calls Lazarus out in a proper name. And I think maybe that ties to something that really happened. Some parables were probably made up, but I kind of think that Jesus had some kind of spiritual insight in what was going on in this particular scene.

So you have the rich man and Lazarus. And I think it's also interesting that He doesn't use the name of the rich man. I think that's very interesting because I think the rich man in life was probably a prominent person that people knew because of his wealth. And the poor man was what Lazarus was called. So now we're in the afterlife, and we're coming into this, and we see the different contradictions here of the rich man's proper name not being used and the poor man who was Lazarus.

And here's what it says. If you'll look at Luke 16, verse 19, it says, There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and in fine linen and lived in luxury every day. Now, this was very significant to the people in that day because when they thought of somebody who wore purple, they said, This person is filthy rich. This is like Louis Vuitton. You know, this is like Gucci.

This is like Oscar De La Rente. You know, this is like the real, real high-end stuff. This is stuff nobody else can afford because in that day, I mean, you can go out and buy a purple shirt today, but in that day, the dyes were rare for purple. That's why you only saw it with royalty. And then there was the fine linen that the man had.

When he said fine linen, immediately the people were like, Man, if I sold fine linen, I could live a year off of what that would cost. So this guy was Kardashian rich. This guy was filthy rich, had so much money, he didn't know what to do with it. This wasn't just a guy who had money. This was a guy who was probably the richest of the rich.

And it said this, And at his gate was laid a beggar. Named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. And it says this, and even the dogs came and licked this man's sores. And what's interesting is, after a rich person would eat, especially if they were wealthy, something about bread would be a cleansing mechanism. There's something in bread or something about bread that would be a cleansing mechanism.

And rich people would often, after they ate, wipe their hands and clean their arms and whatever the food that was a part of the meal had gotten on them. They would wash themselves off, and then they would throw the crumbs out. And then the servant would come and pick up the crumbs and offer it to the dogs as an act of courtesy towards animals, I assume. And that was kind of the tradition in that time. So the rich man is here, and he's begging for just the crumbs that fall from the table of the rich man.

Now, it wasn't that the rich man was doing anything wrong necessarily at that moment when the beggar was asking. He just didn't do anything. He didn't care. And his heart and his spiritual life was not soft. It was very hard.

And it says this, And the time came when the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. Some versions say Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died and was buried in Hades. Underline that word, Hades, in Hades. Now, Hades, let's just stop right there for a second.

Hades is a temporary place. This is not the same as hell, okay? There's two different words used, hell and Hades, in Scripture. Hades is a temporary place before the judgment where nonbelievers go, and it's described in Hades where he was in torment. So, it's not a good place to be.

But it's not hell. Hell comes later. Did I just say hail? It's not hell. Hell comes later, and we'll talk about that in a minute.

But there's this place that the rich man went. In fact, we see this in the Old Testament called Sheol. When David is speaking through his prophetic psalms, and he's talking about Sheol. Anytime we hear Sheol in the Old Testament, we relate it to Hades. That's the place where the nonbeliever goes for a temporary amount of time before the judgment.

And in verse 23, it says, He looked up and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus by his side. So, what we can gather, and if you read on in verse 26, you kind of see this. Apparently, there's a great chasm that's fixed between where the rich man is and where Lazarus is. And he looks up and he sees Lazarus in paradise, in heaven. We'll talk about that next week, by the bosom of Abraham.

So, he's getting an idea of what's going on. It's very interesting. But apparently, the rich man doesn't see him, but he sees the rich man, but he talks to Abraham. And it says this in Luke 16, So, he called out to him, or he called to him, Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire. Just a tip of my tongue, just a little drop of water.

We can see the reality here that this is not a pleasant place. The agony of fire. It's like fire. And last week, we learned that to be, as a believer, when we are leaving this life, we are absent from the body and present with the Lord. Correct?

But as unbelievers, when we are absent from the body, it's the beginning of suffering. And that's the stark reality of it. Then there's the Greek word translated hell, which is a different word from Hades. It's not Hades. There's hell, and I want to kind of hit on that real quick.

Hell is translated Gehenna. Gehenna. It's not Hades. It's Gehenna. And when the people heard the word Gehenna, they knew very well what that was.

South of Jerusalem, there was what would be called an abyss or a garbage pit of fire where people would throw their waste, throw dead animals, throw criminal bodies, and the burning fire was very hot, and it would continue and continue and continue and continue. And just imagine, when you have waste, when you have disposal, human disposal was there, just the disgust and the sickening smell that probably came out of that place, the maggots, the worms, the burning flesh, it's beyond sickening. And some historians even suggest that before Jerusalem, before Israel had come into the picture, that that place was used by pagans for child sacrifice, for human sacrifice. So it wasn't a very pleasant place. And when people heard the word Gehenna, which technically was the Valley of Hinnom, it was a place that nobody wanted to be at, much less wanted to be in.

So it was a pretty heavy, heavy, heavy picture. So we start to get a glimpse of a place that is prepared for Satan and his demons and those who don't believe. We're seeing the reality of the unspeakable torment that is prepared for those who reject Christ. And the angel describes what happens to those who are separated from Christ. It says, they too will drink the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his raft.

Wow. And they will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the lamb, and the smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever. There's no hallelujahs in here right now. Because the reality is, it's not fun to talk about. But for many people, they don't know or they don't see this as something that they will have to face one day.

They don't know, they don't see, they don't understand this. In fact, years ago, I worked with a guy. In construction, and you probably hear this all the time, well, I'm dying, forget that, you know, I'm not going to church, I don't know anything about this Jesus thing, when I die, I'm going to hell, I'm going to be with all my buddies, and we're going to party it up and have the biggest party in hell, you know, and he used hell because he's from North Carolina, and he said that's what we're going to do there, so it's just going to be this big fun party with all my frat brothers, or all my college buddies, or all my friends in my neighborhood, and we're just wild, and we're just like that, and you know, and that's what hell's going to be, but here's what hell is described as a scripture, a fiery furnace, burning sulfur, Jesus specifically says weeping and gnashing of teeth, it's isolation, it calls, they call it outer darkness, there's no light, apparently there's no people, and there's no hope, hell is lacking to a non-stop eternal fire, torturous suffering, and unending pain, and someone once said this about it being the land of no more, no more beauty, no more laughter, no more peace, no more friendship, no more joy, no more hope, and no more second chances, that's a pretty big deal, it's heavy, here's how the rich man, going back to the rich man, and what Abraham said to him as he responds, he says, and he answered, he answered, then I beg you father, he's talking to Abraham, sorry, go back to Abraham here, and he answered, then I beg you father, then send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers, and let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment, he was so concerned about his brothers, and Abraham's response was, well, even if I sent you back, they wouldn't believe anyway, they have Moses and the prophets, and then he responded, if you send me back though, it's me, they know me, they will see me, and it says, what makes you think, this is what Abraham said, he said, what makes you think, they will believe you when you come back, even if they have Moses and the prophets, what makes you think that they will believe, even if somebody returns from the dead, if somebody returns from the dead, what that connects to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is foreshadowing what Jesus is getting ready to do, even if I come back from the dead, people will still not believe, that's tough, that's heavy, there's four lessons we can learn from the other side from the rich man, so that we can understand what it's like there, we can get a glimpse of what it's like there, the first one is, the rich man was fully conscious and aware, he was experiencing pain, he was experiencing regret, he wanted to go back to his family, there was consciousness and awareness of what was going on around him, the second thing is, the rich man's eternal destiny was irrevocably fixed, he didn't even ask, I mean, he wanted to go back, but there was no way to go back, there was a chasm set between him and the bosom of Abraham, which is paradise, he was there, and the third thing is, the rich man knew that his suffering was just, he knew it was fair, he wasn't arguing that he didn't, he wasn't supposed to be there, well, you know, Abraham, I did no wrong, there was nothing like that, so he knew what had happened to him was just, he never complained about his pain or his injustice, and he knew what happened to his brothers if they didn't trust Christ, he knew what was going to happen to them, so he was connecting that, and fourthly, the rich man begged and pleaded for someone to help his brothers know Jesus, so in hell, the unbeliever goes to hell, they still have an awareness of those that they affected in this life, and that's heavy, what you believe about eternity determines how you live today, if you believe that there is an eternal God, that there is eternal heaven, and there is an eternal hell, then you live for the purpose of the glory of the gospel, to share it with absolutely everybody we possibly can, because we have a spiritual urgency to reach as many people as possible, family, friends, neighbors, whatever we are capable of doing, whatever resources we have, when we understand the reality of eternity, eternity, we live for it, Satan's plan is to convince you there is no hell, that it's not to take it seriously, to convince people that they will live forever, that they're not, there's no justification for their sin, they will reject Christ, they will not fear God, they will live ridiculously self-centered lives, they will idolize comfort, they will reject sacrifice, they will avoid persecution, they will love the world, they will readily share the gospel, they will live for today, and they will forget what they're really here for, what are we really here for, and this is the fundamental breakdown as we come to closing, as we land this thing, here's the fundamental breakdown of the nature of man and the nature of God, although we, you know, we think, why would God do that to good people? The gospel message is such that it cannot be what it is unless we know that we are not good. We are not good.

We have all sinned. That's the point. And if we stand before a holy God one day, a righteous God one day, we will know, we will know, a God God is holy and is just, and because He is just, He must punish sin. That's what justice is. But not only that, God is love.

His very character is love. And I know many of you know these scriptures. You've heard them as children. You've read them. You've heard other preachers preach them.

Other pastors share them with you. But it's important for us to Come back to this very thing of God's love. What does His Word say about His love? For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life. God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might live.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift, it's a free gift. God says, I've got this gift for you, take hold of it. It's a free gift. The gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans says, but God showed His love by sending us Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from condemnation. He will certainly, certainly, certainly do that by putting our faith in Him. Jesus' death on the cross paid the price for our sins. It satisfied God's justice. The wrath of God was satisfied in Jesus Christ.

The glory of the gospel is that Jesus, in His love, sacrificed Himself. The Father gave His Son so that we could be saved. And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from condemnation. Amen. Amen.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. You cannot know that you need a Savior until you know that you are wretched. And it's very, very, very hard to preach this without sounding condemning. But this is why we have the Word of God. This is why we have a holy God, to reveal the sin in our life.

And until we realize that we are sinners, we cannot be saved. Jesus said He left the 100. The good shepherd left the 99 of the 100 flock to save the one. That's the love of God. He gave everything.

The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy. But what did Jesus come to do? He says, I have come that you may have life, and life abundantly. That's why we want people to know Him. That's why we care so much.

Because God is a God of love. And He wants to have a relationship with you today. And if you don't know Him, first of all, you must realize that you need Him. I've stolen. I've cheated.

I've lied. Just look at a child, for crying out loud. I mean, the way they act from birth. I mean, they're already fighting with their brothers and sisters. They're taking things.

Mine, mine, mine, mine. They're thinking about themselves, and they don't even have any idea of what the world really is. Because in our nature, in human nature, we just are like that. That's what we're made to be. And that's what has kept us from being able to see God from the very beginning in the garden.

But the beauty of it is God's love is so great that when we realize that we are sinners and we confess our sin to Him, say, Lord, I know I am not good, but I know that You are good, and I know that You are holy. I know You sent Your Son to this world to die for my sin, Your very own Son to die for my sin. And today, I surrender my life to You. I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. I know that His blood covers my sin.

I know that I can be free today. I know that I can be without worry of where I'm going one day because I know who You are, and I know why You did, and I receive You into my life. Come into my life, transform my life, change my heart. Do you want to believe that today? Do you believe that today if you are believers today?

If you are not believers today, do you want to believe that? Let's all close our eyes and bow our heads, and we're going to pray this prayer together. And I'm not even going to ask you to lift your hands. I'm not going to ask you to come to the front. I'm just believing the power of the Holy Spirit to transform lives.

And all you have to do is believe in your heart, confess with your mouth, and you will be saved according to Romans. So just believe it and confess it. Believe this with me. Repeat this with me. Father, I believe that I'm a sinner, and I've fallen short of Your glory.

Today, I ask You to cover my sins. I believe that You are the Son of God. I believe that You died on the cross for my sin. And today, I ask You to come into my heart, transform my life. From this day forward, I will live for You.

In Jesus' name, amen.