Our world is obsessed with health, fitness, and being safe, but the fact is, the death rate is still holding at one hundred percent. In Medieval times monks would place a human skull on their desks to remind themselves that they were mortal, they were going to die, and they were going to face judgment. It would motivate them to live, not for this world, but for eternity and to redeem the time for the days are evil. Today people try not to think about death. We try to stay so busy that we dont contemplate the obvious reality that we are going to die and face judgment. Americans are so fearful of death that even when people die, we take their bodies, dress them up, put makeup on them, fix their hair, and put them in beautiful, silk lined caskets, with air tight seals, and bury them in concrete vaults at great expense. Why? So they can be comfortable after being buried in the ground? When a person dies, they are not home any more in their earthly shell. They dont feel anything any more in their mortal bodies. They have exited their body of death, as the Apostle Paul calls it, or in another place their earthen vessel. The form of the person we know that lies in the casket is not the person any more. The person has left. Think of buying a car when you first get your drivers license. You get inside your car and drive it. You maintain it, put gasoline in it, etc. But eventually, the car grows old, and dies. When your car dies, you get out of it because it is no longer working. That is how it is with our bodies. God gives us a body to get around in during our life in this world, but eventually our body grows old and dies, or gets in an accident and dies, and then we get out of our bodies. Once our bodies have served their purpose our spirit exists and our bodies return to the dust from which they were created. The medical experts tell us that we are made up of a few pounds of chemicals and a lot of water. God gives us life at conception, a life that never ends for it remains for eternity in heaven or hell. There are three facts that every sober-minded person should remember often and contemplate deeply -- 1) You are going to die. 2) You dont know when you are going to die. 3) You will face judgment after you die and end up in either heaven or hell. It has been my observation an experience that once a person places their faith in Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected from the dead for salvation and they are born again, that they start thinking of death quite a bit. They anticipate the glories of heaven. They no longer fear dying because they know their sins are forgiven, that they have passed from judgment to life, and there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Death becomes the door to glories unspeakable. Consider your life. Do you think of death? If not, why not? Every day you get closer to your death. No use trying to deny it or ignore it, death is approaching for you and eternity awaits on the other side. If you havent placed your faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, what are you waiting for? Jesus died to save sinners. Jesus died to grant sinners eternal life. Jesus died so that the guilty could go free. Dont delay, repent of your sins and place your faith in Jesus Christ, the crucified and resurrected Lord of Glory. He will not reject you! To help you consider your impending death, consider these words from J. C. Ryle: One man rolls easily along the road in the most elegant carriage that money can buy. Another struggles as he walks along the path on foot. Yet both are sure to meet in the end under the earth, in the grave. One man, like Absalom [king of Israel], has fifty servants to wait on him and do his bidding. Another has none to lift a finger to do him a service. But both are traveling to a place where they must lie down alone. One man has in his possession hundreds of thousands of dollars. Another has scarcely a penny that he can call his own property. Yet neither one nor the other can carry one cent with him into the unseen world. One man owns nearly half of the farmland in a county. Another doesnt even have a small garden. And yet six feet of the earth will be fully sufficient for either of them when they are dead. One man pampers his body with every possible delicacy, and clothes it in the richest and softest apparel. Another scarcely has enough food to eat, and seldom enough clothes to put on. Yet both are hurrying on to a day when “ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,” will be proclaimed over them, and fifty years later no one will be able to say, “These are the rich mans bones, and these are the bones of the poor, for they will both be nothing but dust. Ryle, J.C. (2010-08-06). Practical Religion (Kindle Locations 4919-4930). . Kindle Edition.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 15:20:21 +0000
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