Glimpses

DEATH CAN BE TRICKY

What if you woke up one morning – dead? I had an uncle who did that. He went to bed one night, and woke up dead the next morning. He didn’t have an inkling the night before when he went to bed. I would like to make my grand exit in that manner, but the occasion and means of my death have been prearranged since the foundations of the earth. I have known several people who, before all the glass fell to the ground, were dead as the result of automobile accidents. I was at my dad’s bedside when he drew his last shallow breath. Two boys, one a previous classmate, and the other, the younger brother of a friend of mine, quit school and literally went wild. “Hooligans,” would be a complementary description. The youngest had grown up in church. Much to their surprise, one afternoon, they had a deadly collision. The younger of the two ended up with the turn signal lever run through his throat, and the other boy was equally as dead. When I think of them, I visualize them as uncontrollable teenagers, and as such in my mind, they remain - frozen in time.

A customer of the savings and loan where I once worked came in one day and showed us a souvenir plate that had been processed to contain a photographic image. The photo had been made in a restaurant in Hong Kong one evening when she, her husband, and some fellow travelers had all enjoyed a meal together. They were seated at the dinner table. There sat Tom, her husband with a happy smile on his face. Within an hour, he lay dead, quite unexpectedly, far from home, in China. Obituaries for infants are not as plentiful as those for older individuals, but they are certainly not uncommon. About a week ago, I read the obituary of a man whom I had not seen since he was a teenager. He was 87 when he died, in Moscow, Russia. He and his wife were vacationing there.

How can things like this happen, even though we know that we are all destined for this event? Had any preparation for eternity been made by any of these deceased individuals?

If you woke up dead one morning, and sometime later stood before Almighty God, and He turned to your own personal page in his ledger, what beneficial information would He find? If, after checking for your record, He looked you squarely in the face and asked, “Who are you?” would you experience a sinking feeling? Only those individuals, whose names are written in The Book of Life, will have access to an eternity in Heaven. If it was necessary to ask who you are, you can positively count on being cast permanently, into outer darkness. There you would experience a total absence of God. All our lives, regardless of our religious commitment, or lack thereof, we have enjoyed the unseen power of God, arranging the future of the world about us, and maintaining order in the universe. Eternity there is also a long, long time. If kicking and screaming, you are removed from His presence, and you use the popular alibi, “But I believe in You! I always have!” Refresh your memory on what the Bible says about such a belief. (James 2:19) “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” Well, what IS the answer? I know He is not impressed with our “good deeds. (Works are evidence of our being a child of God, not the basis of our salvation.) Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Belief, repentance, and acceptance, in the person of God through His Son Jesus Christ, is the way – the ONLY WAY. If death surprises you, will you have previously made preparation? There’s not time while glass is flying. There will be no opportunity if you wake up dead!

Ah, but YOU have made the necessary preparation. What beneficial information will be recorded on your page? Somewhere along life’s trail, did you lose the joy of your salvation, and accept the status quo of the world? Have others, whose lives intersected yours, seen Christ in you? If God says, “I gave you a spiritual gift when you gave your life and soul to me, but I’m not finding a record here of anything that my gift produced. Were you dissatisfied with the special qualities that I gave you? What’s that? Oh, your church didn’t see any benefit in teaching members how to be effective individual influences on others, so you just became another ‘Christian spectator?’ That explains it, but didn’t you have enough faith in Me to know that I would be able to provide you with daily opportunities to comfortably witness through your gift? All you had to do was ask.”

Years ago I heard of an orchestra that had performed for a king. He was mesmerized! Never had he witnessed or heard anything that would compare with their performance. To show his appreciation, he had each orchestra member form a line, and had them march to the door of his great treasury room. One by one, as the musicians came to the door, keepers of the treasury filled their individual instruments with gold, silver and precious gems. One orchestra member, commenting on this unexpected measure of good fortune said, “And there I stood with my piccolo!”

When God rewards us for the good things we have done (not a ticket for salvation!) and bestows upon the worthy crowns as rewards, will we suffer embarrassment? There will arise an occasion of adoration and worship, as we recognize the full ramifications of what Christ actually did for us, and in deepest gratitude we will cast our crowns at His feet. Oh, how I hope that I do not have only an empty piccolo to present in appreciation. The sound of a piccolo hitting the glistening floor will not create a sound similar to that of a well earned crown. I don’t want to stand there, with only a piccolo. I am trying to prepare! Christ tells us in Mat. 6: 19, 20, 21. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Miraculously you awake in the light of morning and it’s all been a DREAM! It’s another day, with many things to do. Or is it really the first day of another chance to change your future forever? The rich man counted his growing wealth and proclaimed that he would pull down his barns and build even greater, and then take his ease, eat, drink and be merry. He had big plans, but his emphasis was on the wrong things. And the voice of God spoke to him and said, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then whose shall those things be, which thou has provided?” (Luke12:20) When the sun rose, he did not awake to another chance.

What if you went to bed tonight, and woke up dead in the morning?

Harley