Lance Armstrong is going to hell. And I don’t mean that in the figurative sense. The disgraced cyclist is destined for the “fiery furnace” from which there is no escape, where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
And he will be joined by other celebrities of this fallen world. Like preternatural golfer Tiger Woods, John Travolta and Bill Gates.
Armstrong is bound for eternal punishment not because he used performance enhancing drugs to capture seven consecutive Tour de France championships. Not because he unabashedly lied about his doping. Not because he unconscionably slandered those who exposed his cheating. Not because his mea culpa on Oprah reeked of insincerity.
No, Armstrong is going to hell – literally – because he refuses to bow to God and the Son of God.
In his 2000 autobiography, Armstrong wrote: “If there was indeed a God at the end of my days I hoped he didn’t say, ‘But you were never a Christian, so you’re going the other way from heaven.’ If so, I was going to reply, ‘You know what? You’re right. Fine.”
Well, Armstrong is indeed “going the other way from heaven.” And he will be joined by other “celebrities” of this fallen world.
Like Tiger Woods, the once-revered golfer, who turned out to be a serial adulterer. Like John Travolta, the Hollywood A-lister, who’s faced repeated allegations that he propositioned male hotel workers. Like Bill Gates, the software gazillionaire, whose family foundation has contributed millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortionists.
They are all going to spend eternity separated from God. Not because of the sins they have committed. But because they are going to go to their graves with their sins unforgiven.
Indeed, Armstrong is an atheist. Woods is Buddhist. Travolta is a Scientologist. And Gates is best described as agnostic.
Armstrong seems to think Oprah can forgive sins. But she most assuredly cannot. Nor can Buddha. Nor L. Ron Hubbard. Nor Mammon.
The only way for Armstrong, Woods, Travolta and Gates to be forgiven their sins, the only for any of us to be spared God’s judgment, is to come to Jesus.
For the Bible encourages, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.”
Also, that “There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Including those guilty of financing abortion, or homosexual liaisons, or adulterous affairs, or, like Lance Armstrong, pathological deceit.