The Vital Question
The Vital Question
Do you have assurance that if you die today, you will go to heaven? This is life's most vital and most important question. Where will you spend eternity? In Heaven or Hell? You have no guarantee of tomorrow. You might die tonight! Statistics state that 151,600 people die every day. You might be next! Every day, millions of people make plans for the future yet they neglect their souls. They make plans for their college education; buying and selling and for retirement yet they neglect the most important thing, that is their soul.
Life is very short. The Psalmist says:
"The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath. So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:10-12).
The Bible exhorts us:
"Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away" (James 4:13-14).
"Seek the Lord while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near" (Isaiah 55:6).
Don't be like the rich fool who only made provision for this life but neglected his soul:
"Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’" (Luke 12:16-20).
What God Wants Us to Know:
We are all sinners by nature and by practice. We have all inherited the sin nature from our first parents Adam and Eve. Sinners love their sin and love "darkness rather than light" (John 3:19). We have all sinned in thought, word and deed.
"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12).
"Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5).
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23).
"As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one" (Rom. 3:10).
"The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?" (Jer. 17:9).
We all have broken God's Ten Commandments whether in action or in our hearts.
"For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all" (James 2:10).
"You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire" (Matt. 5:21-22).
"You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt. 5:27-28).
God is holy and hates sin. There is a penalty for our sins. God is a just judge and demands that all sin be punished. God will cast the wicked into hell.
"For the wages of sin is death..." (Rom. 6:23).
"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9-10).
"Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Gal. 5:19-21).
"But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8).
After death comes the Judgment
"And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Heb. 9:27).
"Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:11-15).
"But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment" (Matt. 12:36).
Our good works cannot save us. Going to church; doing good works; getting baptized will not save you but only a saving faith in Christ!
"But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away" (Isa. 64:6).
"Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20).
Salvation is by grace through faith. Grace is the unmerited and undeserved favor of God toward man! You cannot earn your way to heaven!
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9).
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit" (Tit. 3:5).
Jesus is the only way to God and to Heaven. He is our only hope and the only way we can have peace with God. He is the only way we can be justified before God. Jesus is God and our creator.
"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1).
"Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).
"Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
"He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 John 5:12).
"For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5).
"Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them" (Heb. 7:25).
"Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other" (Isaiah 45:22).
Jesus paid the penalty for us as our substitute. He died on the cross 2,000 years ago to save us from our sins.
"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21).
We must be born from above!
"Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”" (John 3:3).
We must repent and turn from our sins
"I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:5).
"He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy" (Prov. 28:13).
"Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the Lord, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon" (Isa. 55:7).
We must believe and put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believing is more than just head knowledge and knowing facts about the Bible. It means surrendering your life and will to Christ as your Lord and Savior.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
"And he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? So they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household" (Acts 16:30-31).
"For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Rom. 10:13).
Don't delay! You have no guarantee that you will have tomorrow!
"For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2).
"Seek the Lord while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near" (Isa. 55:6).
God promises that if you seek Him, you will find Him!
"And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart" (Jer 29:13).
God gives eternal life to those who trust in His Son
"And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life" (1 John 2:25).
"And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son" (1 John 5:11).
"These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God" (1 John 5:13).
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life" (John 5:24).
