Chapter II: The Power to Stand

Please do not get the impression, however, that you have to fall from grace. You don’t have to do it! You can stand if you will. If you will stand, God will give you the power to stand. If you submit your life unto Him for safekeeping and maintain the right attitude toward Him, and the right sort of service for Him, then He will keep that which has been committed unto Him. You don’t have to fall from grace. Anybody can be saved who wants to. If you don’t go to heaven, it will be because you didn’t want to badly enough to put forth the proper effort.

I’d like to emphasize the fact that anybody can go to heaven who wants to. It is like Brother Freed used to tell us at school: “You can do anything you want to, if you want to badly enough.” A story which illustrates the point comes from England, where they are said to dig graves deeper than we do in America—in fact, ten feet deep. Instead of having the cemeteries hard by the church building as we often do, the story says that they have them adjacent to the school buildings, sometimes on the school campus.

In one instance they had a graveyard between the boys’ dormitory and the administration building. Of course the boys did not walk around it. They made a path right across it. One day the caretakers digged a grave ten feet deep across the path and failed to put up a red light, leaving the grave open during the night. After it got dark a boy started from one building to another and fell into the open grave. He tried to climb out, but the walls were straight up and down and ten feet high. Finally, he gave up and sat down in the corner to await developments. It wasn’t long till he heard another boy coming down the path—“pat, pat, pat.” He sat right still, and boy number two fell off in the grave with him. Then boy number one said, “Can’t you let a man rest in peace in his own grave?” The second boy jumped right out of the grave like a cat—without any trouble at all. He had a stronger desire to escape than the first boy did. He was scared worse!

This illustrates the point that you can do anything you want to if you want to badly enough. If you are scared enough of hell, you will go to heaven. If you want to go to heaven more than you want to do anything else in this world, then you will go there, and there is no power on earth, or in heaven, or beneath the earth that can keep you from going to heaven if _you_ want to (Rom. 8:35). You are the only person in all this universe who can keep you out of heaven.

Now I may surprise you a little bit when I tell you that there are not many people who want to go to heaven. I can prove it by the Bible. The Bible says that very few _are_ going to heaven, and since anybody can go who wants to, then only a few want to go. If many wanted to go, then many would go; but the Bible says that there is a strait and narrow way which leads to life everlasting and few there be that find it. But there is a broad way that leads to destruction and many there be that travel it (Matt. 7:13, 14). Anybody can go to heaven who wants to, but only a few are going; then only a few want to go. If you will examine yourself and observe the people around you, you will soon become convinced that not many people want to go to heaven.

An illustration which I frequently use on this point is this: One Sunday afternoon I was talking to two young ladies who were backsliders. I asked them if they loved the Lord. They said, “Why, Brother Dark, of course we love the Lord.” Then I said, “Do you want to go to heaven when you die?” As you might expect they answered, “Why, sure, everybody wants to go to heaven!” My next question was, “Will you be at worship this evening?” They grinned a little bit and looked at each other. I said, “You have some dates, don’t you?” They grinned a little more, and said, “Yes.” I said, “Your boy friends don’t want to go to church with you, do they?” They grinned a little bit more and said, “No.” Well, they didn’t come to worship that night. I asked which they loved more, those boy friends or the Lord. They didn’t make any answer.

Now, which do you think they loved the more? They said they loved the Lord more than they loved anything else in the world, but they went out with some boy friends that night instead of coming to worship. They thought they wanted to go to heaven, and they did want to a little bit; but they wanted to go out with those boys more than they wanted to go to heaven. And that’s the case with a great many people. You ask them if they want to go to heaven and they will say “Yes”; but there is something they want to do more. They want to have a good time, make money, or do something else, more than they want to go to heaven. That’s the trouble with most people. That’s the reason most people are going somewhere else. God allows people to go anywhere they want to and if they prefer to go somewhere else rather than to go to heaven, then they go somewhere else and He permits them to do it.

Just remember this: you cannot possibly go to heaven without traveling the road which leads there. A lot of people would like to go to heaven but they don’t want to travel the road which leads there. They want to travel some other road and then get to heaven. Well, you can’t travel the road that leads to Memphis and get to Chattanooga, can you? You can’t travel the road that leads to hell and wind up in heaven. It just can’t be done. So if you want to go to heaven more than you want to do anything else in this world and are willing to put forth the effort required to do it, you can certainly go there.

That to me is a very encouraging thought. My destiny, under God, is completely within my own hands. I don’t have to depend upon anybody else’s wishes, anybody else’s choice or word about it whatsoever. God wants me to go to heaven, and with that point settled then it is all up to me, and you can’t keep me from going there. Nobody else can, if I want to go. Nobody can keep _you_ from going! Sometimes people make excuses, and they blame others for their failure. They find fault with other people and say, “He did so and so, and therefore I did so and so.” That’s no good at all. There is nobody in this world who can keep you from going to heaven if you want to.