Don't Wait Until It's Too Late!

"Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."

-- Revelation 20:14-15 --

I absolutely hate death and have seen too much of it in my nearly seventy-three years of living. Worse yet, I hate the death of those who probably died in their sins without Christ. Those in Christ who physically die will only taste death once. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” Conversely, and tragically, those without Christ who physically die will taste death twice. They will be resurrected, judged, found guilty, then receive their final death sentence at the great white throne of God. They will die a second time for all eternity in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11–15). “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).

As devastating as my first wife’s death was in March 2014, she was in Christ and is enjoying eternal life in the presence of the God she loved with all of her heart. There are others I know who also are with the Lord. You miss all of them, but you also rejoice knowing they are enjoying eternal life. Unfortunately, there are those who died whose destiny is uncertain. You hope they came to saving faith in Christ, but you have your doubts because of their lack of salvific testimony. There is nothing any of us could do about this except share the good news about Christ with those who are still among the living.

Death can happen without any warning, in a single moment of time when you don’t expect it. My first wife was getting ready to head out of the house and go to work when she suddenly collapsed and died from sudden cardiac arrest. Her brother died in his sleep from a heart attack. He and his wife thought he had a bad case of heartburn before going to sleep. He never woke up. A good friend of my wife recently died in her sleep. As far as anyone knows, she was healthy when she went to bed. In the early morning hours of January 17, 1977, forty-nine sailors and marines from the USS Guam (LPH–9) and the USS Trenton (LPD-14) perished in the cold waters of Barcelona harbor when the Mike 6 boat they were on collided with a freighter as it pulled away from the pier. These men ranged in age from eighteen to at least twenty seven. Everyone of them looked forward to the day when they arrive home to spend time with their families and friends. Instead, they arrived home in flag draped coffins. One of them, Charlie Simon, slept in the rack across from mine. We became friends during this deployment. His body was located in a makeshift morgue near the pier where the accident happened.

Jesus gave this parable, “The land of a rich man was very productive. “And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ‘And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ (Luke 12:16–20).

The rich man in this parable had plans to build larger barns to store all of his grain in. The Lord was to take this man’s soul that very night. Think about this. What plans have you made for tomorrow? Are you one-hundred percent certain that you will live to see tomorrow? If not, what are the chances that you will get to carry out the plans you made for tomorrow? Ask the sailors and marines who perished early in the morning of January 17, 1977, what plans they had for that afternoon. Oh, you cannot – they have been dead and buried for forty-eight years.

Death is inevitable. It will happen whether or not you are ready for it. The most important question of your life is this: where will you spend eternity when you die?

Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Sin is lawlessness, the failure to conform to God’s moral law. It started when the first man and woman intentionally disobeyed a very simple command from God. In doing so, they were cast out of the garden at Eden. Their sin nature propagated from generation to generation – “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). This death is not just physical, it is also eternal separation from God.

Romans 5:8 states, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The sinless, perfect, majestic, and holy God stepped out of eternity and became a man in the person of Jesus so that He could pay the just penalty for your sins by dying on the cross in your place. “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).

Romans 6:23 proclaims, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Salvation is a free gift. You cannot earn it. Jesus paid for your salvation with His blood – “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).

1 Corinthians 15:1–4 pronounces, “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”

Romans 10:9–10 proclaims, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

John 3:16 decrees, ““For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

“And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:11–13).

Now is the time for salvation. Don’t put it off – tomorrow may be too late!

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations cited in this post are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.