“I wish you would hide me in the grave and forget me there until your anger has passed. But mark your calendar to think of me again!
Can the dead live again? If so, this would give me hope through all my years of struggle, and I would eagerly await the release of death." (Job 14:13-14)
Will it be well when God examines your life, or will it be a disappointing discovery? I can't speak for you because I have no idea. But I do know "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad" (2 Corinthians 5:10). Is that going to be a disappointing discovery, or will it be well with you? Probing thought, which is why I've urged you to give these questions such serious consideration.
Look at Job 14:14: "If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my struggle I will wait until my change comes."
Here's what I'd like you to think about: When you die, where will you live again? Will it be with the Lord or away from His presence forever? The choices are heaven or hell. Will it be eternal bliss filled with joy and relief and the rewards awaiting God's people? Or eternal judgment, away from God and all those things you hold dear? Only you can determine which.
C. S. Lewis wrote this:
There's no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than the doctrine of hell, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and especially of our Lord's own words; it has always been held by Christendom and it has the support of reason.1
C. S. Lewis was no intellectual pushover. His words deserve serious consideration. Problems have a way of multiplying. The good news is—that's true only in this life—"How frail . . . how few our years . . . how full of trouble." But once we're in our Lord's presence, all that changes.
However, should you choose to ignore this opportunity to secure such hope, the alternative results will be dreadful beyond imagination. Come to think of it, that kind of future would make Job's trials seem like a piece of cake. Who wants a destiny like that? Don't go there!
- C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 17-18. C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1961. Extract reprinted by permission.
Taken from Great Days with the Great Lives by Charles Swindoll. Copyright © 2005 by Charles R. Swindoll. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
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