I heard about two deaths in the last week. The first was of a dear old saint who passed into glory at the venerable age of 105 after a brief bout of pneumonia. The second was a young woman in her 30s who had lived in defiance of God and His standards and who passed from this life after a protracted battle with cancer.
Before they died, both women expressed the desire to go. How different, though, were those desires!
The first wanted to go TO … to go to the Lord and Savior whom she had loved and served for over 80 years. She looked forward to seeing Him face to face, and to enjoying His presence for all eternity. And she knew that, each in his or her own time, all those she knew and loved here on earth would be joining her.
The second woman just wanted to go FROM … to go from the pain and suffering that she had endured for years, and that was overwhelming her life. At the same time, she believed that she would also be going from all those she loved. She did not expect that she would ever see them again after she closed her eyes for the final time. She did not look forward to going to anything. All that she expected after her passing was blackness, emptiness, non-existence.
The sad reality, though, is that this second woman was not passing into an empty non existence. She would go on existing, and even though the physical pain of her body was being left behind, having rejected Christ in her life she would now pass to the far greater pain of a Christless eternity.
Of course, there is always the possibility that Jesus revealed Himself to her in those last moments of life, and that she came to repentance and faith, in which case she would now be rejoicing with the elderly saint in the presence of her new-found King.
The important question is, what about you? When your time comes, will you be going TO or going FROM? We don’t like to think about death, but sooner or later it will come to each one of us. This life is very short and temporary, but beyond the gate of death lies eternity, and where we spend it will depend upon the choices we have made in this life.
If you are not certain what eternity will hold for you, you can be. The first thing to understand is that we all fall short of the standard God sets. God calls that sin, and sin will keep us out of heaven. However, God wanted us to spend eternity with Him, so the second Person of the Godhead became man in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, lived a sinless life (i.e., a life that totally lived up to God’s standards) and then allowed Himself to be hung on a cross to pay the penalty for the sin of all mankind. After three days He rose again in victory, and because of His sacrifice God’s grace is extended to anyone who will accept it.
There is nothing you can do to earn God’s grace. You cannot work for it; you cannot buy it with money; you cannot be ‘good enough’ to deserve it. It is offered to you freely. To receive it you need to repent (acknowledge your failings and be willing for God to change you) and accept it by faith, accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord.
When your time comes, don’t be like the second woman, escaping from life to an eternity that will be far worse than anything you could experience here on earth. Be like the first woman, moving on to an eternity of joy in the glorious presence of your Lord.