|
Vital
Issues: No Surprises in Heaven By: Joel Joyce
No one who makes it to Heaven will be
surprised to be there. People won’t be running around
the first ten minutes shouting "I can’t believe I
made it" with the shock of a person who just won
the lottery or landed a dream job. That’s not to say
there won’t be excitement, supreme joy, and
appreciation to God for preparing a place for them, or
surprise that they arrived when they did. But
people won’t be shocked that they made it.
Hell, on the other hand, will be full of surprised
people. There will be people there who never believed
such a place existed, and others who never thought they
were bad enough to land there. Still others who fully
expected to be in Heaven because they were baptized and
confirmed, or "prayed the sinners prayer," or
"made a commitment to Christ," will be
surprised to discover that these experiences did not fit
them for Heaven. To their horror, they will find
themselves in Hell instead.
People who will end up in Heaven know they are going
there while they are still living on earth. The Apostle
John wrote, "I write these things to you who
believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know
that you have eternal life" (I John 5:13). Eternal
life gives the only possible certainty we can have about
our future—except for the certainty that we will end
up in Hell if we do not have eternal life. We make many
plans for the future: where we will work, where we will
live, and whom we will marry. But all our plans are
tentative. We may feel healthy today but develop
terminal cancer next month. We may be in a fatal car
accident tomorrow. Morbid as that may sound, it’s
reality. With so many uncertainties in life, it is
essential to have one thing that we can be absolutely
sure of –eternal life. Do you know if you have Eternal
life?
Some people make the mistake of thinking that getting
to Heaven is like taking an exam. We do the best we can,
but we don’t know for sure whether we earned a passing
grade until the exam is checked and the grades are
given. If our lives exceed some minimum standard, known
only to God, we get a passing grade and enter Heaven. We
never know until we die if we earned a passing grade.
But God doesn’t wait to the end of our lives to
determine whether we earned a passing grade. We have
already failed God’s exam. The Bible says, "For
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"
(Romans 3:23), and "There is no one who does good,
no, not one" (Romans 3:12).
Despite our failure, God has provided a way for us to
go to Heaven. "At just the right time, when we were
still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly"
(Romans 5:6). If we are willing to admit our moral
failure, that we are ungodly, and we trust alone in the
death of Christ for salvation, the Bible promises that
"Whoever believes on the Son has eternal life"
(John 3:36).
Some people have a false assurance of Heaven. They
think they have eternal life because they merely
repeated a prayer or responded to an altar call.
However, the message of salvation that the Apostles
preached was repentance toward God and faith toward the
Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21). Repentance means to have
a complete change in our thinking. It is to agree with
God’s assessment of ourselves as helpless sinners,
deserving God’s punishment rather than his blessing.
Many people just try to add Christ to their lives
without facing their guilt before God. Or they believe
in Christ intellectually: They believe that He was God’s
Son who died for sinners, but they have never come to a
point in their lives where they acknowledge their
sinfulness and trust Him alone for salvation.
While salvation is not based on good works, if faith
is genuine it will change a person’s life so that he
produces good works. God’s Word teaches that
"faith without works is dead" (James 2:20).
The eternal life that God gives to those who trust
Christ is a new nature which works itself out in their
lives by producing good works. If you think of yourself
as a Christian but have never had a change in your life,
then your faith is dead. It didn’t die; it never was
alive to begin with. Your sins are not forgiven and you
don’t have eternal life.
If you want peace of mind about your future after
this life, God’s Word teaches that you can have it:
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord"
(Romans 6:23).
|
Recent Additions
If you have any questions, please