Several Wrong Roads

May I indicate some of the roads which men and women take, and which they think will lead them to heaven?
First, there is Legality Lane. Do you know that lane? It is a hard, stone road, and many imagine that it will get them through to heaven. As you pass along you see the frowning cliffs of Mt. Sinai, you hear the heavy thundering’s and see the lightning flashing, and you can almost hear the words: “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”
But you say, “I will do my best; I will try to keep God’s holy commands; I will surely get to heaven at last.” Beware, for Legality Lane will bring you eventually to the place of the curse, for God’s Word declares that if a man shall “keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). Again we read, “And cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 3:10). No man was ever justified by the works of the law, and no man ever will be. It is utterly impossible that man should wash out the stains of sin by obedience to that holy law. The law tells you how to behave, but it does not tell you what to do if you have already failed and become guilty before God. Legality Lane will never lead you to the New Jerusalem.
Then says some one, “I will try Reformation Alley. It is true I have failed, I have been guilty of many gross violations of God’s law; I have sinned, but I will turn over a new leaf, begin henceforth to please God, put away my bad habits, cultivate good ones, and surely all this will bring me at length to heaven.” But my friend, this road will lead you eventually to eternal disappointment too, for there is a solemn word found in this same Book that reads like this, “God requireth that which is past” (Eccl. 3:15). Even though you were to reform today, even though you were to turn over a new leaf and never have another black mark upon the books, the old leaves with all their sinful record are still there, and you will have to face them in the day of judgment, unless some means shall be found whereby those marks can be blotted out.
“God requireth that which is past.” Your grocer does that, you know, and it is perfectly right that he should. You run up a bill for a month or two, and then say, “Dear me, this will never do; this buying on credit is too easy a way to get head over heels in debt. I am going to begin to pay cash for everything I buy.” And so you go down to the grocer with your market basket, and say, “I am determined to turn over a new leaf.”
“In what regard?” the grocer asks.
“I have concluded that this buying on credit is all a mistake, and henceforth I am going to pay cash.”
“I am delighted to hear that,” he replies, “and when will you be able to settle your old bill?”
“Oh,” you say, “you don’t understand. I am going to pay cash from now on. Surely you won’t hold the old account against me.”
“I cannot afford to do business that way,” he replies; “you received the groceries from me, and I will expect you to pay for them.”
“But if I tell you that I am sorry, and pay you as I buy in the future, surely that ought to satisfy you.” But he answers, “I will be delighted to have you as a cash customer, but business makes it necessary that I should require that which is past.”
My friend, you may reform, you may turn over a now leaf, but when you get to the end of Reformation Alley, you will find that you have landed in a district called Eternal Disappointment, where you hear the sad voice of the Son of God saying: “Depart from me, I never knew you.”
There is another highway that runs very close alongside this one, it is called Morality Road. Many excellent people travel along this way. People whom you would be glad to have in your home, travel this road. You would find pleasure in their society. They are people who eschew all kinds of evil behavior, and pride themselves upon their morals and their ethics. They are what the world calls “good people,” but they have no place in their thinking for the Lord Jesus Christ; and yet the Word of God declares: “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,” but the name of Jesus. My friend, if morals could have saved, if ethics could have fitted you for heaven, Jesus Christ would never have died on Calvary’s cross. Down in Gethsemane’s garden He cried in the agony of His soul, “O my Father, if, it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” and if there had been any other way of saving sinners than through His sacrificial death, it would then have been made known.
Right by the side of Morality Road runs Self-righteousness Boulevard. It is a magnificent boulevard indeed, and here the scribes and Pharisees and many church dignitaries walk. Listen to one of them crooning his own perfections, as he cries, “I thank God I am not as other men. I am not a drunkard, I am not a blasphemer, I am not an adulterer; I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. Surely if anyone gets to heaven I will.” But hear the solemn declaration of the Word of God, “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” And that expression, filthy rags, does not mean shreds of clothing that have been contaminated by the dirt of the streets, but it refers to robes tainted and made unclean through the inward corruption that has exuded from the sores of lepers. Naaman, the leper, wearing his magnificent robes might throw off one of these garments, and say, “Look, I want to make you a gift, take this.” Would you thank him for the gift? No, you would say, “Keep it away from me, it is contaminated by the leprosy from within.” That is what our own righteousnesses are like. They all come from a corrupt, evil heart, and therefore, they can never justify a guilty sinner before God. The end of Self-righteousness Boulevard is the lake of fire.
And then akin to this is another road that we will call Ritualistic Avenue. Did you ever meet any one on that road? I said to a young lady one day, “I am glad to see you in the meeting; are you a Christian?”
“Yes,” she said, “I have been a member of such and such a church ever since I was a child.”
“Pardon me,” I said, “but you did not understand my question. Have you ever been born again?”
“I was baptized when I was only eight days old,” she replied.
“You don’t understand me yet,” I said, “were you ever converted?”
“Oh yes,” she said, “I was confirmed when I was twelve years of age, and took the sacrament for the first time, and I have been very careful to attend services and take the sacrament ever since. You can be sure I am all right.”
She was flitting down Ritualistic Avenue imagining it was the road to heaven when it was really leading her as fast as time could carry her to the pit of the abyss, and if not saved, she would plunge over the cliff of time into the darkness of eternity only to find out that baptism cannot save, sacraments cannot save, church-joining cannot save. It is Jesus only that washes away sin and fits us for glory.
Then there is another popular road that many take today. It is called Delusion Road. The people on this road are those who will not have the simple gospel of this Book, they will not take the plain statements of the Bible as to the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, as to His sacrificial atoning death on the cross, but are ready to listen to every kind of folly. As they go down that road you hear them muttering to themselves, “God is all and all is God.” “God is good and good is God.” “There is no such thing as evil and sin and death.” “Every day, in every way, I am growing better and better.”
Men are deluding themselves, shutting their eyes to the realities of life. Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, was wiser than they, for he said, “If any man rejects the testimony of the five senses, there is nothing else on which to build.” What can you do for a man who is suffering from the twinges of rheumatism, but who looks at you, and says, “There is no such thing as pain, no such thing as suffering.” Or, a man who can be a victim of all kinds of sinful habits, and yet looks you in the eye, and says, “There is no such thing as sin.” Or, a man who can stand by the body of a dead loved one, and say, “There is no such thing as death”?
Scripture affirms, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20). Delusion Road will end at last in an eternal hell, and men will wake up too late to find out that sin is a reality, that death is a reality, that heaven is a reality and they have missed it, that hell is a reality and it is to be their place of abode forever. What a fearful thing it is to turn from God and trust in fables, to turn away from the sign-post that God has given to point the way to the city of God and take the opposite direction, hoping to reach heaven at last. “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23)