Romans 1:16 – For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
This may shock you but not everyone who goes to church is going to Heaven. The old metaphor says the same – just because you’re sitting in a garage doesn’t make you a car.
Now this might shock you even more – there are a lot of pastors who won’t go to Heaven. They’re going to be kindling. I’ve met them.
I’ll just give you an example. I’ll never forget, I was a brand-new pastor and I got invited out to speak at a conference in Florida to a mainline denomination, a liberal, progressive, woke, apostate denomination. You could call it an abomination.
When I arrived there, they wanted me to speak on how to get young people to come to your church. Obviously, this was a long time ago when I was young.
And I got up and said, “Well, you have to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it’s the power of God to everyone who believes and there’s no power apart from repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ”. I just went for it. And a couple of the pastors raised their hands and said, “What if you don’t believe that?”
So, I said, “Well, then you’re a non-Christian and you’re going to Hell.”
I was in my 20’s, I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to tell the truth. And they looked at me and said, “Well, we don’t believe that.” And I said, “Well, then you’re going to Hell.” I said, “I hope no young people come to your church.” I just went for it. I tried to have an altar call and assumed a Billy Graham walking the aisles with tears in their eyes spiritual breakthrough was in the making. Nope, just a bunch of triggered apostates who had gone to seminary to get a degree but not to the Holy Spirit to get an anointing.
They came up after my talk and said, “That was very offensive” and I said “Well, God’s very offended. You guys went to school, and you got a degree, and you get up and you are false prophets and lie to people, you don’t teach them the gospel, you don’t tell them about Jesus or sin or warn them about Hell. You guys are an absolute abomination! I didn’t even know there were guys like you!”
I had three sessions left to preach. Let’s just say I was done early. So, I went to Disney World. I wouldn’t today because those people have taken over there too.
Nonetheless, there is always what the Bible calls a remnant. But there are times it feels discouraging when even the pastors, churches, and denominations are non-Christians. It can start to feel like “Is there anybody left?” There is. There’s always a remnant of faithful believers who God will use to encourage their fellow believers and ultimately grow the Church during the next revival for the next harvest.
This is the storyline of the days of Elijah, which I recently finished preaching. Jezebel (and the demonic Jezebel spirit working through her) killed the real prophets and replaced them with false prophets – pastors who were hired to tell lies and lead people astray. Elijah, the man of God, stood up against them, called down fire from Heaven to judge them, and slaughtered them. Any pastor who does not believe in and belong to Jesus is what Jesus twice called a son of Hell and all they get on the last day is cuts into the line to Hell.
Read Romans 11 to hear the Apostle Paul’s words on the idea of a remnant. Have you found a remnant of other believers in your life or local church?
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