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SINCERITY CANNOT SAVE You've heard it many times: "I believe that God will accept those who are sincere in their beliefs and aren't hypocrites." This belief is very common, yet also very false. This erroneous belief survives through the ages only because the people who subscribe to it refuse to think it through and put it to the test. Adolf Hitler, for instance, was more sincere and consistent in his beliefs than most anyone of our time, yet he was dead wrong and God did not accept him, if he died without receiving Christ. The devil himself is sincere in his belief, but he’s sincerely wrong, as are all who follow him. The notion that NOT being a hypocrite somehow merits salvation is foreign to the word of God. Jesus said in Matthew 23:14 that the Pharisee hypocrites would receive the GREATER damnation, which means that standard damnation is for unbelievers in general who are NOT hypocrites. Nowhere does the word of God say that sincerity saves anyone or that only hypocrites go to hell. God accepts those who are IN JESUS CHRIST, according to scripture: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” (Eph. 1:5-7) A man is accepted IN CHRIST, and not in anything or anyone else. There would be no point at all in Jesus saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6), if mere sincerity were all that God required. God didn’t give us thirty-nine Old Testament books and twenty-seven New Testament books only so we could ignore them and “be sincere” in our own flawed beliefs. God told us to “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding” (Pro. 3:5). God told us that “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Pro. 14:12) Sincerity is often useless, because one can be sincerely wrong. He can be sincere and cry “Don’t judge me” until the moon turns to blood, but he is WRONG and will never reach his desired destination. In fact, his sincerity does far more to damn him than to save him! JESUS saves; sincerity does not.