David Diga Hernandez - How to Go to Heaven

I want to minister tonight on salvation. I want to talk to you about eternity, and this is a message we need to hear. It needs to begin to be preached again in our churches. Let me be straightforward and honest with you: I still believe in a literal heaven, and I still believe in a literal hell. There are those who are trying to persuade church people, pastors, and leaders to stop talking about hell because they are offended by the idea of it. Let me make this very clear: the only reason anyone would ever be offended by the reality of hell is that they are not offended enough by the evil of sin. When you start to recognize just how vile, evil, destructive, and dark sin actually is and what it does to humanity, then—only then—will you come to a place where you accept it as an aspect of God’s holiness.

Now I’m going to talk about heaven; I’m going to talk about eternity. There are many who would oppose this message nowadays—atheists who are always so boisterous, loud, and obnoxious. They have no answers. We’re talking about people of other beliefs and faiths who become offended at the Christian message. Listen, I am NOT attempting to offend anyone, but the gospel message, in and of itself, is an offense to those who are perishing. Jesus said in John chapter 14, verse 6, «I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.» Let me tell you something: it wasn’t Muhammad that died and rose again for your sins; it wasn’t Buddha that died and rose again for your sins. Only one died and rose again, and His name is Jesus.

So if you are in this place tonight and you are listening to what I’m saying, or you’re watching online, I want to talk to you about eternity. I want to talk to you about your soul; I want to talk to you about the part of you that lives on forever. It’s really very simple how all this happened. God, out of love, formed a world where there was free will. God, in His mercy, allowed beings to breathe the breath of life. God breathed life into man. God created humanity; God created the world; God created the universe with a single command—God spoke and flung galaxies into existence, the genius mind of God, the mastermind behind every detail of the human body, the creator of the universe. He is the one who is self-sustaining, self-existent, and who is not in eternity but eternity Himself, who holds all of reality at His will—God the Creator.

Now, He created this world for one purpose: to glorify and bring glory to Himself. You exist for the glory of God. Your purpose is to glorify your Creator. Now, something happened. Even though God created this perfect world, even though God created a world with love, peace, and joy, Romans chapter 3, verse 23 tells us the problem: for everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Every single person has done something to offend the holiness of God. Sin is that which violates the nature of a holy, righteous, just, and good God, and we all are aware that something is wrong in our world. There is something not quite right when you witness mass shootings, hear of terrorist attacks, see rampant disease and war, and recognize the evil permeating this earth. One can only conclude that something is deeply wrong with humanity; something deep down inside is broken in this sin-sick world.

We watch as everything around us decays; darkness is everywhere; evil is everywhere. This we all recognize. But what’s amazing to me is this: when it comes to the sins of others, we demand justice, but when it comes to the sins we commit, we demand mercy. I’m going to use your sense of goodness against you in just a moment, and I’m telling you I’m going to do it so that there’s no deception here. Then I want to show you why you believe that God exists, why you believe that sin is evil, and why you believe that you should be punished. You actually believe this, whether you know it or not. If I were to say to you, «Before you stands a man who committed horrific acts, who stole, who murdered,» and even more so, if that man stood before a judge and he asked for mercy, you would say, «No, lock him up!» If that murderer had done anything to anyone in your family, if that murderer had harmed someone you loved, your deepest sense of justice would cry out for his punishment. You would say within yourself, «That man deserves what’s coming to him,» and we would be angry with the judge who said, «It’s okay, let him go; there’s no need to punish him.»

That sense of goodness in you was not placed there through evolution. I was debating an atheist one time, and she kept explaining to me what she believed was the origin of the conscience. The conscience is to the mind what pain is to the body: you recognize something is wrong because it violates your conscience. So I’m talking to this atheist, and she tells me, «Well, we developed our beliefs of right and wrong through evolution, and it became beneficial for…»