Good Morning and Welcome to the Berean Break.  My name is George Sinkie and I am so glad that you are here with us this morning.  It is such an honor and a responsibility that you would give me these few minutes of your day.  Your time is precious, but I believe that the best thing we can do with our time is to draw closer to God by learning His will and applying that will into our lives.  I hope that you have your Bible handy, because I am not the authority for this program.  The only authority that I want you to follow is the Word of God.  As we begin this morning let’s go to God in prayer,

Great God in heaven, we thank You for this Lord’s Day.  We also thank You for Your Word that guides us into all the truth.  May we plant the seed of Your Word into our lives and allow it to grow in our lives.  Dear Lord when we do make mistakes, help us to be convicted in our hearts and turn back to You.  We also want to thank You for the moisture you sent to water this world.  Be with us now as we study Your Word that we will open our hearts.  In Jesus’ Name,  AMEN !!

     In today’s study we are going to look at some things that God will not do and at some things that God will do, or has already done, to keep us out of hell.  Some have asked how can a God who loves man send man to hell.  This is usually an over-emphasis of God’s love.  God is love, but His love is also just and justice demands punishment for those who choose to disobey the will of God.  Peter points out the patience that God has in 2 Peter 3:9, where he deals with the certain but delaying return of Jesus,

   9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Some because they do not want to deal with the punishment of the wicked deny the existence of hell or the eternal nature of this punishment, but listen to the Lord in Matthew 25:46, after pointing out the dividing of the righteous and wicked He says of the wicked,

   46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

God wants to save all people as we see in 1 Timothy 2:4, where Paul speaks of God and says,

   4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

But as much as God wants all men to be saved, there are some things that He will NOT do to keep us out of hell.  First of all, He will not take away our freedom of choice.  We can choose to follow Him or we can choose not to follow Him.  In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus pictures this choice as two different way that we can follow.  Read with me Matthew 7:13-14

   13 Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it.
   14 For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.

The principle of getting a choice is clearly shown in the Old Law, when Joshua asked Israel to choose in Joshua 24:14-15

   14 “Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth;  and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.
   15 “And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve:  whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living;  but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

     God will not take away your choice just so you can stay out of hell, so you need to remember that if you go to hell it will be your choice.

     The second thing God will NOT do, and I want you to listen carefully to this one, God will NOT save us in our sins.  Jesus spoke on this in John 8:21-24

   21 He said therefore again to them, “I go away, and you shall seek Me, and shall die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.”
   22 Therefore the Jews were saying, “Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”
   23 And He was saying to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.
   24 “I said therefore to you, that you shall die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins.”

Unless we are willing to come out of our sins, God will not, and indeed cannot, save us.

     A final thing that God will NOT do is He will not change His law because we don’t obey it.  When some tried to change God’s law in Galatia, Paul wrote to the Christians there and said in Galatians 1:6-9

   6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel;
   7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
   8 But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
   9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.

In verses six and seven there are two different words used.  The KJV translates them both as “another,” while the NASB uses “different” and “another.”  The first one refers to another of a different kind and the second refers to another of the same kind.  We need to understand that there is no other Gospel to be saved by, other than the one preached by the inspired apostles and prophets of the first century.

     Ok, these are some things that God will NOT do, but that doesn’t mean that God just left us to struggle and find our own way to Him.  Let’s look now at some things that God will do, or has already done, to help us escape from the punishment of hell.
     First of all He sent and let His Son die for us.  Jesus said in John 3:16

   16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

And Paul writes much the same thing in Romans 5:8

   8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

If God did nothing else, this one thing is far more than we deserved, and because of it God deserves our total and complete submission to His will.  But He has done more for us.

     Connected to the gift of His Son, God has given us the gospel.  Paul wrote of it being the power of God in Romans 1:16

   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.

We should not be ashamed of the gospel, and we need to obey the gospel as we are told in 2 Thessalonians 1:8 where Paul speaks of those who will be punished at the coming of Jesus,

   8 dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

It is hard to imagine but the majority of the people still reject Jesus even after all God has done for us.

     As we already looked at God is patient with us, as Peter says in 2 Peter 3:9

   9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

We should never allow the patience of the Lord to be an excuse for not obeying Him though.

     The final point that I would like to make is that because God loves us, He is willing to receive us when we repent and return to Him according to His will.  The Parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates this point.  Let’s pick up this story in the pig pen in a far country.  This is when the younger son realizes his need for the father care.  Let’s read Luke 15:17-24

   17 “But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger!
   18 ‘I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight;
   19 “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”’
   20 “And he got up and came to his father.  But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him, and kissed him.
   21 “And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight;  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
   22 “But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet;
   23 and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and be merry;
   24 for this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’  And they began to be merry.”

We must recognize that our coming to God is on His terms, not ours.  God has done all that is needed, and all that he is going to do, to save us from Hell.  Now the choice is yours and mine.  What will we choose, heaven or hell?  I choose heaven, which is why I follow and teach only the will of God.  What do you choose?