The modern church has a strong message of grace that says that 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, neither the five foolish virgins nor the fruitless people (John 15). Now, Paul has here a list of people who, if they still practice 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 Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be fooled. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor abusive, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
The modern church says that once a person is saved, he becomes righteous and remains in that state until he dies no matter what he does. When I became a soldier in the Salvation Army, I was pleased that one of the principles we had to accept was to continually stay upright in our walk to inherit the kingdom of God.
Paul warned us not to fool ourselves and he warned us what happened. There are fornicators in the church, people living together outside of marriage who are not lovingly corrected and told to marry or leave the church. There are many idolaters in the church and no one tells them to change.
Let me go over them one by one.
Fornicators
They are people who have 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 to hell.
Idolaters
The online dictionary says they are:
- One who worships idols.
- One who blindly or excessively admires or adores another.
A person can worship money and try his best 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 be gone. This can also be a man who idolizes his wife or a wife who does the same with 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, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12 And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Jesus clearly says here that second marriages are adultery. But 98% of the people I share this with want to have a discussion with me about it. But you may also be committing spiritual adultery against Jesus.
James 4: 2-4 says:
2 You want and you don’t have. You murder and greed and you can’t get. Struggles and wars. However, you don’t have because you don’t ask. 3 You ask and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend that in your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wants to be a friend of the world becomes 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 is still practicing will go to hell. It is the only lifestyle that most Christians will condemn to hell. Christians talk a lot about this, but not about the rest of the sins.
Sodomites
(lowercase) a person who engages in sodomy. Sodomy (IPA: / ÈsRdYmi /) is a term used today predominantly in law (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 was not aware of oral sex, but both a man who has anal sex with a man and a man and woman who have anal sex are in danger of the fires of hell if they do not eliminate this from their sex life.
Burglars
They are people who keep stealing what they should pay. This can include teenagers downloading free music that they should pay 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 rent them from a video store.
Greedy
The dictionary says that the meaning is: “disorderly or mistakenly desirous of wealth or possessions; greedy.” Many of the people who hear and love the prosperity doctrine and its teachers are greedy. If they die without regret, they will go to hell.
Villains
The dictionary says “abusive talk.” This is what the psalms say: they are scoffers and I am also gossipers. There are many of these that need to be repented of.
Extortionists
The dictionary says: “Law. The crime of obtaining money or anything else of value through the abuse of office or authority. An oppressive or illegal demand, such as excessive price or interest: the extortion of usurers.” Police in foreign countries do this a lot.
I hope this has made you think. If you are one of these people, you must learn to repent and remove these major sins from your life before you die unrepentant.
Be Blessed, Matthew Robert Payne
PS: Try to spread this message everywhere.