"You can’t buy your way into heaven" (August 16, 2013), The Kansas City Star, Kansas City

[S]ome people do hope God will reward them for their generosity (or for some other good deed they’ve done), either by blessing them right now or by granting them eternal life. Lurking in the back of their minds is the idea that at the last judgment, God will weigh their good deeds against their bad deeds, and if they have more good deeds than bad deeds then God will let them into heaven. This, however, is a serious misunderstanding of what the Bible actually teaches. The Bible says that God is absolutely holy and pure, and even one sin — just one — would be enough to keep us out of heaven.

— Billy Graham

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "[S]ome people do hope God will reward them for their generosity (or for some other good deed they’ve done), either by blessing them right now or by granting them eternal life. Lurking in the back of their minds is the idea that at the last judgment, God will weigh their good deeds against their bad deeds, and if they have more good deeds than bad deeds then God will let them into heaven. This, however, is a serious misunderstanding of what the Bible actually teaches. The Bible says that God is absolutely holy and pure, and even one sin — just one — would be enough to keep us out of heaven." in the context of ""You can’t buy your way into heaven" (August 16, 2013), The Kansas City Star, Kansas City" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Billy Graham" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Billy Graham

About Billy Graham

William Franklin Graham, Jr. (November 7, 1918 - February 21, 2018), better known as Billy Graham, was an Evangelical Christian and an evangelist.