December 1
Last night I came across a video, a documentary-type video made by a man who was following people who were living their last days because of a terminal illness. I wasn't looking for videos like that, I just clicked on one in the youtube side panel, and it took me to these. I watched several people as they lived their last days after their diagnosis.
It left me stunned. In almost every case the attitude was the same - keep a positive attitude, make the most of your days, do as much as you can for as long as you can. This baffles me. Yes, I understand the mindset of making the most of each day, but one thing was glaringly, I mean glaringly, obvious - the thought of their fate after death was totally absent. Before going to bed, I asked the Lord HOW can it be that a person is told he or she has weeks or days to live, and they don't think about their fate after death?
I still don't have an answer to that question. But it truly leaves me baffled.
The only thing I can surmise is that these people think they're going to heaven because they're good people. True, they all seemed to be warm and caring people, concerned with lessening the impact their death will have on their loved ones. But any thought of their eternal fate was just not there.
One of the most powerful tools of Satan is to deceive people into hell by convincing them that they're "good," and therefore they don't need to think about their fate, they just assume they're going to heaven.
I grieve over this. All morning I have been grieving over the fact that good people will be shocked to find out that they were wrong about their "goodness," and that there was no remedy for their sin. And if they die without the Savior, their sin will be un-atoned for, and that will keep them out of heaven. Never did I see this more clearly than when I watched those end-of-life videos last night. How I grieve over these lost people. I grieve over the shock they are about to encounter.
Some of you won't be able to understand this message. Some of you are convinced that good people just go to heaven. But that's a deception. No one can be good ENOUGH. We are ALL sinners, every one of us, and because we were doomed to judgment God sent his Son to bear our guilt when he took the judgment on our sins on that Cross. If people could go to heaven because they're "good," then what Jesus suffered on that Cross was unnecessary. God would never have put his Son through that if there were any other way.
Some hard truths:
"...ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Romans 3:23
"There is none righteous, NO, NOT ONE;"
Romans 3:10
"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked; who can know it?"
Jeremiah 17:9
"ALL we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned, every one, to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
Isaiah 53:6
"Nor is there salvation in any other,
for there is NO OTHER NAME under heaven
given among men by which we MUST be saved.”
Acts 4:12
"He who believes in Him is not condemned;
but he who does not believe IS CONDEMNED ALREADY,
because he has not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God."
John 3:18
"That which is born of the flesh
is flesh,
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do
not marvel that I said to you, ‘You MUST be born
again.’"
John 3:6-7
There is nothing I can do about
these “good” people going into a Christ-less eternity, but
one thing I CAN do is appeal to all of you – we MUST bring the
message of salvation to all we can. We MUST do all we can to show
people their need for the Savior, and to lead them to him – that
they might be saved – for all eternity.
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