Lesson 38: God’s Sovereignty Makes the Way to Heaven

Romans 2:4-5 - "Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed."

God wants all of us to be saved, and He demonstrates this by showering us with His kindness and patience. However, we often do not respond to God's call to heaven by His display of kindness. When things are going great, we think we do not need God! The reality is that if we refuse to turn from our sin and get saved, we are not on the highway to heaven. We are on the broad road to hell.

Out of mercy God allows difficulties into our lives and we discover that we can rebel against God because of our difficulties, or we can repent and receive His grace. Which one would you rather have? Before someone accepts God’s offer, however, it often takes a few difficulties to see our spiritual need. It is precisely because God loves us that He will do whatever it takes to take us to heaven, but the decision is ours. Believe it or not, this loving gesture of God of allowing difficulties to get us saved is a much more common scenario than you might think. For instance, this is what it took for the mighty Apostle Paul. If you recall, Paul was stubbornly on the road to Damascus getting ready to imprison and maybe even kill some more Christians. What did God do? He knocked Paul off his feet and struck him with blindness. When all was said and done, Paul got saved. Now he was no longer on the highway to hell; he was on the highway to heaven.


Oh, but this not only worked for the mighty Apostle Paul to get saved, it worked for my Dad. Over the years my Dad stubbornly refused to see His need of Christ. So it took the death of my Dad's sister before his eyes were opened. And in his moment of grief and despair, the Pastor who was visiting prayed that God would touch my Dad with His love. My Dad said that right when the Pastor finished praying, it was like a lightning bolt went from the top of his head all the way through his body and he felt a wonderful sense of God's peace. He knew from that point on that God was real. Was God trying to torture my Dad by allowing the death of his sister? No! When all was said and done, my Dad got saved. Now he is on the highway to heaven. I have seen it happen for many other family members and friends.

Our great privilege, as children of God, is to point someone who is suffering through difficulties like this, to Jesus - just like that pastor did for my Dad. Tell them God is not being a tyrant, He is being very merciful to try to show them their current destination. It is precisely because God is Sovereign AND because He loves them that He allows many difficulties to come their way. He loves them too much to make the road to hell an easy road!

* Whom do you see in difficulty today, who needs to know God loves them?