All you have to do to go to Heaven when you die is just be Perfect. But you can never be Perfect, because you're a sinner. Just one sin (a lie, a vile desire, a theft, a lustful thought, a selfish action, a proud attitude, or rejecting Christ and His Righteousness) makes you imperfect in God's sight. If you put helium in a balloon, it goes up, but if you put water in a balloon it goes down. It's what you've got in you, that will take you up or down at death (Romans 8:9, 11; I Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). It's not what you've done, or didn't do. You need Jesus Christ's Spirit within you (John 1:12), or you will die in your sins.
Christ must make you Perfect in God's sight through the imputation (free transfer) of His Righteousness to your sinful soul. Remember, JEHOVAH God is holy and He is a consuming fire. If you are not perfectly holy within through Christ's Righteousness when you die, you will have to endure God's wrath, the Lake of Fire forever. You have a soul and your soul will never burn up. If you *die in your sins* you'll have to burn as long as God lives - forever and ever. Your soul is within your body now, and when you die your soul will leave your body. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Christ is the authority on Eternity, not Darwin or your professor. Jesus Christ mentioned Hell 18 times in the four Gospels - Hell is a fact. The best you can do will land you in Hell. Self-righteousness hates that truth.
The self-loving atheist has his mind made up, he's going to think what he's been taught in the classroom till the day he dies, no matter if he costs him his own soul, and nobody's going to tell him anything to change his mind. But Frailty, Mortality, Reality, and Eternity are just around the corner. It's just a matter of time. The *actual truth* goes off the back of an atheist just like water off a duck's back. They try to brush off, duck, deflect, redirect, ignore, marginalize, and mock the Biblical facts of life, death, and Eternity. But soberness and truth are just over the hilltop. Simply put - atheists believe what Darwin says and go to Hell, and born-again Christians believe Christ Jesus' words and go to New Jerusalem.
Hell really exists, it is a real place of torment (Luke 16:28) - you hear it mentioned by unsaved people every day at work and maybe even in your home (they say, "Ah go to hell, it's hot as hell, that's funny as hell, as sure as hell"). Just listen closely each day to the unregenerate man's words - he'll preach to you about hell more than most preachers, and he doesn't even know he's doing it. Hell's not just for bad folks, and Heaven is definitely not for good folks. Hell is not the grave or just separation from God, it is literal fire and flames (Matt 13:42; 18:8; 25:41; Luke 16:24; Jude 1:7). Everlasting fire or Everlasting life -- it's your choice.
There is a dreadful hell, and everlasting pains, where lost sinners must with devils dwell, in darkness, fire, and chains. The flames of hell will pierce your unredeemed soul, yet death will flee away, and though in flames you'll ever burn, you'll never burn away. There in hell fire you'll weep and wail and gnash your teeth, with bitter groans and sighs; No rest you'll have, night or day, and you'll never shut your eyes. The Lake of Fire will be the cursed end of every sinful wretch if he does not trust his soul with Jesus Christ alone. The world cannot tolerate the fact, that when a man dies, if he is not Perfect and Holy he burns forever in his sins. No earthly religion will tolerate that truth, a Hindu, or Buddhist, or Muslim, or Jew will never believe that. No religion teaches that the best you can do will land you on your back in hell fire, except one, and that is Biblical Christianity. One day if you die unconverted and unprepared to meet God, you will go and help fill Satan's dark dwelling in the fiery prison beneath your feet, where you'll be weeping, yelling, and gnashing your teeth.
The reason you'll wind up in Hell, is because you want your way, instead of God's way. You are resisting the Holy Spirit. You've made up your mind to go to Hell. When you go into Hell one day, you're going to make it there without Jesus Christ. This is why - you think you're smarter than your Maker, you think you know more about life, death, and eternity than God your Creator; you think you're Somebody. You think you know something that God doesn't know, so you'll have to endure torment forever and you won't be able to blame God, or your mother, or your friends, or your wife for it. You'll go to Hell because of your own stinking pride and self-righteousness. You've been truly warned about Hell. But you're stuck on yourself, and you think you're going to outsmart your Creator, but you're not. Mark it down - your fancy smart-aleck arguments won't save from death and the judgment to come.
Real Christians are not good enough to make it to heaven, Christians can't do one thing to get to Heaven. Jesus Christ did everything for me to get to Heaven - that is all. My eternal hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' precious Blood and perfect Righteousness. There's nothing I can do to get past the judgment of God (Titus 3:5). You must stop trusting what you are doing, and simply trust what Christ Jesus has already done for you, or your eternal destiny will be outer darkness with the devil and his angels.
The torments and flames of hell and the lake of fire will never end. Why is that? Well, if you sin against a man, you can pay for it here in TIME, but you sin against the immortal Being that lives forever - you've sinned against the One that made you. And you will have to pay for your sins against God in Eternity until He dies. If God doesn't die, you've had it. You will want mercy and water in the lake of fire, but there won't be any there. And you'll hate yourself forever for going to hell. Are you saved and pardoned from eternal punishment - the lake of fire (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:15)?
