(Interested on where you're going to spend eternity? We are all born and we all die. BUT -- Is our 'death' the ticket that gets us all into heaven? Or is there more to life - inheriting eternal life - than our death?)
Picture yourself as having a one way ticket, hopefully stamped: "Paradise" on it. Perhaps the ticket was stamped and approved; religiously speaking, because of your faithful church attendance, or the doing of good works, or even becoming a man of the cloth, or any number of ways and means that cause people to believe they have earned their wings and are about to fly the 'friendly' skies and become United with Christ when they die.
So picture; if you will, that you are about to go on a far journey to see and visit some exotic, unseen place, a strange and mysterious land. A land that you had always heard so much about in your life-time, namely that unseen: "Gone on to be in a Better Place Land", which we call: "HEAVEN" and "PARADISE"!
This will be (according to all the propaganda you heard throughout the years) a place where you and many, many others like you are going to experience first-hand all of the benefits of happiness, peace, joy and tranquility that have always been awaiting you there, in order that you may personally know first hand that everything you heard about this "Better Place" or "Heaven" all of your life is what it's cracked up to be.
At birth we are all given a ticket to ride. At death we all use it and 'fly' away! Ever since we were born of flesh and blood human parents, we've all been carrying this 'Ticket' with us all of your lives, ready to 'cash it in' upon a moments notice.
We hear it in just about "every funeral" by some Priest or Pastor who barely knows the person saying, "He or she is now in Heaven with the Lord! May you rest in peace"!
These men of the cloth "MUST SURELY KNOW" what they're talking about? They calmly repeat the same assuring words (sometimes out of a book) over the dead and to the audience; people they barely or don't even know, repeating these words at the same types of funerals, over and over again?
Why do we all get the impression that every dead body they bless and speak over gets a "Carte Blanche" indulgence into that "Better Place"? Who are "we" to even dare question such people, even if we know otherwise? According to them the believer, the aetheist, the good, the bad, and the ugly are ALL (with very, very few exceptions) in that Better Place now and resting in peace and security forever with the Lord.
Even though they themselves have never been to this "Better Place" first hand in order to come back and give the rest of us an eye witness account of it, I am sure that we can all comfortingly take their word for it!? No? It is their very words of comfort and assurance spoken over what may be to them a complete stranger, that surely tells the rest of us that they must surely know something about all of this "death stuff" that we don't even know ourselves. Again, they speak as if their words carry enough weight to actually make it all so, giving them authority!
All their assurances down through the years and our hearing that just about "everyone" goes to Heaven to be with the Lord when they die, makes them all ready to go, whenever Death comes and punches their ticket to ride, and they go and see for ourselves what it's like. After all, they have been "prepped and hyped" by such words all of our lives.
Hey, even cruel wife-beater Tom and child-molester Dick and homosexual Harry down the block from us (and who by the way died as he lived) have all had the "May you Rest in Peace" blessings spoken over them by these men. After all, they speak on behalf of God don't they? So who are we to question them? Hey, I guess we're ALL going to fly up yonder anyway, whether we like it or not! So eat, drink and be merry. "All Aboard!"
Perhaps you'll be soaring over all of the endless fields of flowers and spices, or be playing perfect golf forever, or be a wild party animal, or enjoy a harem full of Arabian black-eyed beauties, or have all of your hearts desire fulfilled to the max for the rest of your life (i.e."Death") - whatever they may be - whatever it is you always dreamed of - you'll now be able to have and do it all!!! Won't you???
So try; if you will, to picture yourself arriving at your destination and stepping off the platform and about to enter your "Heavenly Resort" made just for you. BUT, the instant you get dropped off at this "Better Place" you immediately realize that it's NOT at all what it's cracked up to be. It's not at all what you had been led to believe and expected. In fact it's just the opposite, as you hurriedly try and step back aboard whatever it was that brought you here to this "Place" in the first place.
BUT, to your sudden amazement, you find that you can't move! You find that you have absolutely no power or strength to do so. You can't move because you are powerless, lifeless! Now you begin to panic as the full realization sets in: "I'm Dead"!
Now you realize what "Death" is like! Now you realize that you have been deceived and have deceived yourself all of your life into not laying up spiritual treasure against such a day as this one!
Of course it will be "Here" where many a once dead conscience will too late become loud, clear and alive, getting those mortals attached to their conscience to admit all along that they always wanted to be deceived (by keeping their ears and eyes shut to the Truth all their lives) so that they could continue on unchanged in all of their many worldly pursuits getting their hearts desire on what they intentionally had set it on all their lives: Fulfilling "their" dreams - "their" ambitions - "their" lusts.
Now their consciences remind them; like fingernails on a chalkboard, that they cannot serve both God and mammon - that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom! Why wouldn't they listen when they had the chance?
"Shriek! Driver you took a wrong turn back there somewhere", you yell. "This is not the place I wanted to go. It's not the place of peace and rest that I heard so much about. It's 'The Other' Place! I don't deserve this place. I deserve better. This is what nightmares are made of. I demand my rights. I want to see the man in charge. He is being unjust. Bring me back to life again and get me out of here fast, and I'll fly right next time, I promise!"
"You will?", says the driver. "Hmmm, funny but a rich man I once brought here a long time ago said the same thing when he found himself in a similar predicament (Luke 16:27, 28). I take it that you didn't bother to take the time to hear and believe Jesus' story about the rich man and Lazarus and hear that mans pitiful cry or heed Jesus' stern warning?"
Then as the driver turns to face you, you notice that he is none other than the "Grim Reaper" - Death himself! He has only one destination: To bring you to this place of 'Death' at life's end where you experience the all alone, vast and hopeless 'nothing' that it is and what lies beyond it. It's the End-Of-The-Road for all who die without Christ!
As he drops you off and drives away he replies, "Why complain? You earned it! Your 'Ticket to Paradise' ('TP' for short) has brought you to the very place where nearly all the dead end up, a place that everyone's been telling you about and simply raving over for years. But when they get here they're so shocked by the reality of their utterly lifeless condition (now their condition) of this utterly dead and hopeless place that they all want to leave pronto just like you do."
"Wait, wait", you yell out to him, "I never realized such an awful place like this could exist. Please I'll do anything, only get me out of here."
"The life you lived you lived for yourself (You did it "Your Way"!) in order to keep your self focused and on the throne just like the many of rest of this world do.
The older one gets and the longer they live the more people they have known who have went on ahead of them to be in this "Better Place". Soon we will all be joining them there, won't we?
(Surely their words carry the kind of authority to make it so, don't they?)
Hey, if anyone "deserves" to go on to a "Better Place" it's you! No? So you ask: "Whatever am I you doing... "Here"!?
In retrospect, looking back on it all, you can now readily admit that you wanted to have your ears tickled, and you let those men who told you, "Peace, Peace" in the past, when there was no peace, tickle them for you. So you're as much to blame for the predicament you're in as they are! More so for not bothering to check it out for yourself against what Jesus had to say.
"Sorry, but I only make one way deliveries. Besides, your name is written in my book, the Book-Of-Death, and I never make mistakes. Your life has been terminated - you only had one life to live - you lived it as "YOU" saw fit - and I have brought you here to your 'final resting place' where you will 'enjoy' it compared to your being in the 'second' resurrection of all those the Lord casts into the Lake-Of-Fire!"
The bottom line is: You died unregenerated. You were never born twice - never born again - never born of above, of God. Now you know FIRST HAND why "flesh and blood" cannot inherit the kingdom of God, you being mortal and only subject to death with no hope of rising to life! Now you know why we must ALL become NEW Creatures IN Christ - become regenerated... BEFORE we die!"
That's when they realize too late that the fun and games are over and they are left holding an empty bag! They are made to realize that it's not by their works, nor is it by their church attendance, nor is it by profuse Bible Study, nor is it by the lips of some man in the cloth speaking over their dead corpses at funerals, that causes one to arrive in that "Better Place" or that makes it so.
It is in our "coming" to God/Christ alone and our having "faith" in God/Christ alone that makes it so! He knows the heart. He knows who's His and who isn't.
It is all in whether or not they have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and have acted upon that belief accordingly thus becoming "Born Again" through it/Him!
It is by the Spirit of Grace working through a faith that is founded in Christ alone who then brings that person to Much Needed and New Life in Christ; "By Bringing That Better Place With Him To Them", instead of the other way around! ("Understand!")
Whereupon they now KNOW Christ and follow Him and KNOW they have indeed been Born Again... and all of this they come to know "With Absolute Certainty" (Heb.11:1) BEFORE they die physically!
So whereas once before they only "Dreamed" of going to that "Better Place", now they; through a living faith in Christ, have had that "Better Place" come to them - come into their heart - come and bring them to new life IN Christ - instead!
Now they Know FIRST HAND something of what's in store for them BEFORE they die. They've come to "See, Know and Experience something of that Better Place" first hand for themselves, much as two lovers become engaged awaiting their marriage, wedding night and consumation.
Therefore, it is these and these alone who have been... "Crucified with Christ" and brought to new life IN Him, being "Born Again"... "Christ in you, the hope of Glory!"
1 Pet 1:
7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
The Peace of the Lord is with them! (John 14:26-27) Once we have been raised to New Life In Him we are resting in Him, now, today, in the present and evermore, and not in some far off distant future AFTER we die like the rest of the world believes.
He MUST be savingly known and received NOW as our Lord - our Savior - our Peace. TODAY - while we live - while we still have breath - is the day of salvation! Otherwise later on (after we die) will be too late!
Those who know Him, also love and obey Him, and are resting in Peace even as we speak!
May every blessing in Christ be yours,
Biff
