You Can Go To Hell (4 of 10)
Series: Upon This Rock
Jeff Strite
Acts 4:1-22
There’s the true story of a southern church that had been stressing the importance of witnessing to people.
One particularly slow young man in the congregation took the idea to heart, but he wasn’t quite sure how to do it. Then, that Sunday, a skeptic visited the church one Sunday, and the boy approached him and asked if he wanted to become a Christian. The man looked coldly at him and said "NO! I have no intention of becoming a Christian." The young man was quiet for a moment, then responded: “Well, then you can go to hell”… and he turned and walked away. The starkness of the boy's sincerity and bluntness shook the man and ultimately he turned his life over to Jesus.
(PAUSE) You can go to hell!
Do you suppose that young man was trying to insult the visitor?
Me neither. I think that what that young man was telling the skeptic was the truth: If the man refused to turn to Jesus… he’d go to hell.
NOW, HOLD THAT THOUGHT.
I want to review the background of our story this morning. In Acts 3 we read about Peter and John going to the Temple to pray... but on the way they met a lame man and they healed him. This man was so excited about being healed that he began walking and leaping and praising God… and he also begins to draw a crowd… because everybody there KNEW him and they were shocked to see that he could now walk.
Never one to let a good crowd go to waste, Peter begins to preach. He tells the people that there was a reason this man could walk… and that reason was Jesus. This was Jesus, the Messiah that Israel had waited so long for… AND THEY KILLED HIM.
But God knew that they (and their leaders) had acted in ignorance. The Death and Resurrection of Jesus had been prophesied 1000s of years before Jesus came. But NOW (Peter tells them) they need to “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presen ...
Series: Upon This Rock
Jeff Strite
Acts 4:1-22
There’s the true story of a southern church that had been stressing the importance of witnessing to people.
One particularly slow young man in the congregation took the idea to heart, but he wasn’t quite sure how to do it. Then, that Sunday, a skeptic visited the church one Sunday, and the boy approached him and asked if he wanted to become a Christian. The man looked coldly at him and said "NO! I have no intention of becoming a Christian." The young man was quiet for a moment, then responded: “Well, then you can go to hell”… and he turned and walked away. The starkness of the boy's sincerity and bluntness shook the man and ultimately he turned his life over to Jesus.
(PAUSE) You can go to hell!
Do you suppose that young man was trying to insult the visitor?
Me neither. I think that what that young man was telling the skeptic was the truth: If the man refused to turn to Jesus… he’d go to hell.
NOW, HOLD THAT THOUGHT.
I want to review the background of our story this morning. In Acts 3 we read about Peter and John going to the Temple to pray... but on the way they met a lame man and they healed him. This man was so excited about being healed that he began walking and leaping and praising God… and he also begins to draw a crowd… because everybody there KNEW him and they were shocked to see that he could now walk.
Never one to let a good crowd go to waste, Peter begins to preach. He tells the people that there was a reason this man could walk… and that reason was Jesus. This was Jesus, the Messiah that Israel had waited so long for… AND THEY KILLED HIM.
But God knew that they (and their leaders) had acted in ignorance. The Death and Resurrection of Jesus had been prophesied 1000s of years before Jesus came. But NOW (Peter tells them) they need to “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presen ...
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