It was 5:15 on a lovely April evening. Cynthia was on her way to pick up her husband who was fishing at a farm pond. As she came to the crest of a hill on the country highway, a drunk, driving left of center, hit her car head-on. The drunk was killed, and Cynthia died as she was being loaded into the ambulance. Cynthia was 27 years old.
Statistics available from 1995 through 2013 show that each year, an average of 17,000 people are killed and over a half million injured by drunken drivers. For all causes, people in the world are dying at the rate of more than a hundred a minute. Often, as in the case of Cynthia, one has no warning of when death will come. “There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war” (Ecclesiastes 8:8).
Following death is the judgment: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Following the judgment is eternity. One’s spiritual state when he dies will determine forever his future abode.
When you die, where will you go? No other question that you can ask is as important as that question. You can prepare; you can know where you are going.
When you die, you will go to heaven, or you will go to hell. The Bible says: “The wicked shall be turned into hell” (Psalm 10:17): it says of the righteous: “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
To prepare for heaven, you must be born again: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). To be born again is to have that spiritual experience in which the heart is changed and one becomes a child of God.
Being born again involves repentance for sin: “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). It involves confession of sin: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (I John 1:9). It involves ceasing to commit sin: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin” (I John 3:9). It involves the keeping of the commandments of God: “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (I John 2:3). It involves faith in Jesus Christ: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12). It involves the inner witness of God’s Spirit: “And hereby we do know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” (I John 3:24).
DO YOU KNOW IF JESUS ABIDES IN YOUR HEART THIS VERY MOMENT AS YOUR SAVIOUR?
—Written by Rev. Delmar R. Kaufman