If on the judgment day you could just interview people who are going to miss Heaven—the people that hear the Lord say, “depart from Me, he that works iniquity,” Matthew 7:23—and you were to ask: “Why did you do this?” “What happened?” “Why are you not making it [into Heaven]?” No doubt, many excuses would be offered, but they would all be excuses. There couldn’t be a reason, because where God guides, God always provides. With every assignment, He gives assistance. He doesn’t ask you to do something without helping you. “Without Him you can do nothing,” John 15:5;but “through Him” you “can do all things,” Philippians 4:13.

But if you were to just ask people [why they didn’t make it into heaven], couldn’t you just hear someone say, “Well, I never learned the Bible,” and, of course, that’s very vital, because in John 6:44 and 45, it’s through that Word that we are drawn to Him. We couldn’t be drawn to Him except through that Word, you see? That Word “saves” us, we’re told, James 1:21, “sanctifies” us, John 17:17, and “frees” us, John 8:31 and 32, and that Word is most important.

You would hear someone else say, “Well, I thought I was already saved.” What about 2 Peter 1:10? “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure.” That means you’re going to have to be responding, you’re going to have to submit to what the Lord said. You’re going to have to “observe all things” that He “commanded,” [Matthew 28:20]. There’s no way you can earn it, deserve it, or repay it. You’re not working for your salvation—you’re “working out your own salvation,” Philippians 2:12 and 13.

You could hear someone else say, “I didn’t think the Lord would accept me,” but didn’t Jesus say, “Come unto Me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” Matthew 11:28? But that calls for obedience! Not only “come unto Me,” but, Matthew 16:24, “come after Me.” “Come unto Me”—that calls for obedience; “come after Me”—that also calls for obedience! And then we should have the “mind” of Christ, Philippians 2 [verse 5]. To do that, we have to obey! We obey Christ, we mind Christ, John 10:27, and then we have “the mind” of Christ. But you can’t bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ without that obedience, you see?

But you could hear someone else say, “You know, I was too busy judging others. I was too busy thinking of the faults of others.” Many times people are going to be lost because they didn’t spend enough time thinking about their own faults, based on Matthew 7, verses 1 to 5. It’s easier to see the faults in others; it’s not nearly so easy to see and to admit our own faults!

But then again, you could just hear someone else say, “Well, I was too much in love with the world,” and that certainly is true! Demas was, and he paid a price for it. It would have been better had Demas obeyed, rather than being worldly, 2 Timothy 4:10. Or, 1 John 2:15 to 17, the “love” of “the world” cannot really be where the love of God is. You either take one, or you take the other. In everybody’s heart, there is a throne and there’s a cross. When you put Christ on that throne, you immediately put yourself on that cross, or if you dare put yourself on that throne, you automatically put Christ on that cross. Where do you put Christ? Where do you put self? Actually, when the Lord said, “deny yourself” [Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23], He didn’t mean deny yourself some thing—He just means deny “yourself.” That means, get self out of the way! Take self off the throne! Get self into the background! Humility is not thinking too little of self; humility is just not thinking of self. That was Paul in Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 12, verses 6 and 7.

But you can also hear someone say, “Well, I was rationalizing.” How many times have we rationalized? We’ve tried to explain away—we’ve made all kinds of alibis—about why we haven’t obeyed. We’ve thought, “Maybe there are hypocrites in the church.” And, in all probability, there are hypocrites in most all groups— somebody who pretends to be what he isn’t. But I’ve often thought, “How silly to stay out of Heaven because you don’t want to be associated with hypocrites, and then have to spend all eternity in hell associated with those hypocrites!” That just doesn’t make sense, does it?

You see, so many times all of these things are excuses—they’re alibis. Most of us have majored in “alibiology.” That’s not a course you take out at the University, but it’s a course we take in life. An alibi is the worst “by,” but you can’t get by with an alibi. The ox is in the ditch, but he gets in too often. You better kill that oxen and fill up the ditch! We often times don’t take this thing seriously. Jesus said, if you’re “not with Me,” you’re “against Me,” Matthew 12:30. There’s no in between. We’re either on His side, or we’re not. We’re either serving the Lord, or we’re serving the devil [Matthew 6:24]. We’re either in the Kingdom of Christ, or we’re in the kingdom of Satan, as mentioned in Colossians 1, verses 13 and following.

Where are you tonight? Obedience—very vital, very necessary, and very definitely connected with everything that God is. In fact, can you be spiritual, without being obedient? No! How can you be led by the Spirit, Romans 8:4? If you’re led by somebody, that means you are following. You can’t be led by without following the person who is leading. So that calls for obedience! He [God] said, now stay here in this particular area, and don’t get outside of the perimeter. That calls for obedience.

I tell you tonight—and we could just go on and on—but you can’t really in any way rule out this matter of obeying the Lord. Now, you’re not earning anything! You’re not deserving anything! You shouldn’t have sinned in the first place! You should have given God perfect obedience, total submission, never deviated from anything. That’s what you really owed God; but nobody gave it, so there’s no room for boasting. We cannot be saved because of something we earned, deserved, or repaid—but it’s [salvation/grace] by what God said!