Back in the early 1980’s when I was starting a new church, I went to hundreds of houses to invite people to our church. Part of my approach was to first ask people if I could ask a personal spiritual question. If they said “yes” then I would ask, “If you were to die today and stand before the Lord who said ‘Why should I allow you into my heaven?’ How would you respond?”

In college I had a professor for a class who really bugged me. I studied hard (I thought) for the midterm, and did poorly. So I decided to blow-off the final and just take a low grade for the class. The problem was I studied so little, I completely flunked the final and it brought my grade for the class to failing. And it was a required class.

When my mother died suddenly from a heart attack in January of 1995 at just 69 years of age, I was devastated. It was so terribly sudden and unexpected. I had anticipated many more years of family gatherings and togetherness. In a flash she was gone. Our family was never the same again.

After a conversation at lunch this week about the bestselling book The Shack, I was thinking of writing about “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” I wasn’t sure I would write something however until just a few hours later a pastor told me what has happened recently at one of the oldest churches in our area. The senior pastor has been dismissed for adopting a “universalist” position such as that suggested in The Shack. When I heard that, I knew immediately I had to write this article.