Quick Thought:  “While You Can” FOLLOW-UP #4

I think that this fourth follow-up post in just the past few weeks alone will be sufficient to properly press the point and bring it home:  one never, ever knows for sure when one will cease to exist in this earthly realm and slip into eternity, into one’s eternal destination where he or she will stay forever and ever and evermore.

The latest example blaring in breaking-news headlines nationwide just last night were three people (as of this writing, with five others injured, two critically) who were out and about the campus of Michigan State University, as millions of students have done throughout the years but last night was different, due to an evildoer’s despicable decision to enter one of the buildings and open fire with a handgun, and then to do likewise at the student union building next door.

I G-U-A-R-A-N-T-E-E that if someone had asked those three fatalities yesterday morning if they thought their lives would end, that they’d enter eternity in Heaven or Hell that evening, that their reply would’ve been a funny facial expression followed by a firm “No, OF COURSE NOT… are you nuts?!”

Yet that’s exactly what happened.  As it usually does:  without notice.

That’s why in this recent series of posts I’ve put so much urgency on resolving where you’ll spend eternity when YOU slip into it – be that tomorrow, next week, or fifty years from now.  It’s the lack of notice which makes it IMPERATIVE for each person to address and confirm this most important of matters BEFORE it’s too late.

For those wondering HOW to do this, here’s what I wrote in a recent post, which itself was a follow-up to the original “While You Can” post:  as noted, to put this off until “some other time” is just human nature.  That’s why I’m blaring from the proverbial rooftops with a neon trumpet, as it were, that everyone  needs to confirm his or her eternal destination NOW, TODAY, BEFORE it’s too late.

  • “behold, NOW is ‘the acceptable time,’ behold, NOW is ‘the day of salvation'” (2 Corinthians 6:2b, emphasis added)

It’s often (and wittily) said that “I’ve never seen a U-HAUL being towed by a hearse.”  Because “you can’t take it with you,” you can’t take the material things of this life into the next one, into eternity.

But here’s a saying I invented and like even better (more poignant):  “I’ve never seen a hotel room confirmation  on the dashboard of a hearse.”

Because people who leave this life and slip into eternity won’t be needing material things or travel plans or a passport.

Yet let me ask you this:  Have you spent more time in the past year or decade making/confirming reservations for hotel rooms, or a “room” in Heaven, in eternity?

The reason this matter is so crucial, so imperative, so all-important is that nobody knows exactly WHEN they’ll leave this life and (instantly) enter the one to come, eternity, i.e., Heaven or Hell.  You needn’t take my word for it, take God’s:

  • “… you do not know what a day may bring forth.” (Proverbs 27:1b)

And as I said in the previous post with the aid of a classic TV commercial, everyone will eventually (some today, others tomorrow, others many years from now, and many sometime in between) enter their eternal destination… but NOBODY will EVER “check out” of it.

Ergo, even just based on the stakes alone, this matter, this decision, this particular piece of planning is THE MOST IMPORTANT of a person’s entire life, is absolutely and utterly and infinitely crucial.

Oh and by the way, in this case to NOT make a decision is actually MAKING one, to make NO reservation is to MAKE ONE FOR HELL, humanity’s default  destination:

  • “for ALL have sinned and FALL SHORT of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)
  • “For the wages [lit., stipend, pay, i.e., penalty, fine, default result] of SIN is DEATH…” (Romans 6:23a)

but I’ve got GREAT NEWS (er, better yet in this particular case, GOOD NEWS 🙂 ) for you:  that second verse doesn’t stop there, it keeps going!

  • “but the FREE GIFT of God is ETERNAL LIFE in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23b)

And let me add one other thing:  in my view, in my perspective, if I can be saved from my sins and go from being headed for Hell to headed for Heaven for all eternity, ANYONE CAN.  If Christ can save me from my sins, He can save YOU from yours, and frankly ANYONE from theirs.

IF – and ONLY IF – you ask Him.  If and only if you put your faith in Him and Him ALONE.  Because He and He alone is WORTHY of your trust in this matter.

Because He and He alone among humans was conceived by the Holy Spirit versus a man (see Romans 5:12 for why this is so crucial).

Because He and He alone among humans has lived a perfect, flawless, sinless life.

Therefore, since He lived the human experience but without  sinning, He, through His death on the cross and subsequent resurrection which the “whole wide world” celebrates every spring, is able to take OUR wages/fine/penalty for OUR sins ONTO HIMSELF, onto His literal body, as foreshadowed thousands of years prior in the Old Testament.

  • “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore draw near WITH CONFIDENCE to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16, emphasis added)
  • “For you have been called [i.e., spiritually saved from sin] for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously [i.e., God the Father, see 4:19]; and He HIMSELF bore OUR SINS in HIS BODY on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.  For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have retturned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.” (1 Peter 2:21-25, emphasis added; see also 1 John 5:18 on that final point)
  • “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your descendants shall be called.’  He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he also received him back as a type.” (Hebrews 11:17-19)

But you might be thinking, “But DJ Bible, what if I’ve only committed very few  sins, do I still need to be saved through Jesus Christ?”

Even if that is the case, if that’s actually true, the answer is very clear, a resounding and unmitigated “Yes!”

  • “For whoever keeps the WHOLE law and yet stumbles in ONE point, he has become GUILTY of ALL” of them.  “For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not commit murder.’  Now if you do NOT commit adultery, but DO commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.” (James 2:10-11, emphasis added)

I trust you’ll take THIS VERY MINUTE to contemplate and consider and confirm  YOUR eternal destination, i.e., to make a reservation for a “room” in Heaven!  (Not the no-checkout “roach motel” that is Hell, which, remember, is humanity’s default destination from conception.)  It’s as EASY as “A-B-C”:  Admit, Believe, Confess:

Please keep firmly in mind that I’ve also never known or even heard of anyone who has received an advance invitation  for a hearse, for death, from the “grim reaper”.  Because its exact timing is never truly known in advance – and it usually occurs without any  INKLING that such is imminent, that such is even a real possibility anytime soon.

Just ask my latest example in the news, the ten people who simply showed up at a ballroom dance hall on a Saturday night as usual.  It’s too late for them to do anything about their eternal destination (even just the thought that a number of them likely ended up in Hell – per Matthew 7:13-14‘s “many” and “few” – is heartbreaking) (and absolutely irreversible) … but it’s NOT too late for YOU!

All over the news today is the fact that night before last’s ballroom dance hall mass murderer was a 72-year-old Asian man.  What are the odds on that?!  Mass murderers have often been white or black or Hispanic, rarely Asian, just based on the stats, very unusual.  And for millennia Asians have been probably the most peaceful people, pacifists from birth by-and-large, compared to other ethnicities.  And when’s the last time a mass shooter has been SEVENTY-TWO years old?  Never?  Never ever?  Extremely rare.

Ergo, based on the “odds” those ten ballroom dancers would never, ever have even imagined that their life would come to a screeching halt at the hand of a 72-year-old Asian male long-time ballroom dance hall regular.

And yet it occurred, and yet that’s exactly what happened.

NEVER try to “time it” or “play the odds” when eternity is on the line.

Just ask this person who was driving near the Amazon HQ2 just this morning:

Thankfully, like the Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin a few weeks ago, this driver escaped death.

This time.

But what about tomorrow?  Or next month or next year?  The point is that you just never know when your time will come, when you’ll leave this life and instantly enter the one to come, eternity.

I sincerely hope and pray that you’ll “choose wisely” in this most important and most urgent  of matters and confirm YOUR reservation in Heaven today!  Or wiser still, RIGHT NOW!

  • “… behold, NOW is ‘the acceptable time,’ behold, NOW is ‘the day of salvation'” (2 Corinthians 6:2b, emphasis added)


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