The Car Crash

 

       I just got home from bringing my son's brother home to the next town and saw the after effects of a bad vehicular accident.  With the ten police cars, two fire trucks, two ambulances and a rescue vehicle, it was kind of difficult to see exactly what happened but I do know that one car looked like it had been on fire.  It seemed as if emergency workers were still working on one person on the ground.  A few minutes down the road, another ambulance and police car headed their way.  Whatever happened was bad- perhaps someone even died there.

 

Makes me wonder if they knew the Lord.

 

       We don't often think about our mortality; we can be alive one second and an airplane falls out of the sky on our heads, or a car runs through our window, a heart attack, a stray bullet, a collapsed balcony, or sudden deadly allergy we never knew about and we die.  There are thousands of ways we can die.  While that may seem depressing, it should actually be a wake up call for all of us.  Do we really, truly follow the Lord?  Are we ready to face Him if we die today?

 

       Our good works, no matter how many, won't get us into Heaven.  "But we are all as the unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as a menstruation cloth." (Is. 64:6; also Ep. 2:9)  In other words, dead, gross, and EW!  That's how 'our righteousness' is to God before salvation.  After genuine conversion, Jesus washes our sins away in His blood.  "...though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow..." (Is. 1:18)

 

       But our hearts must be genuinely converted, following, loving: God, Jesus, Holy Spirit.  That is not just asking Jesus in our hearts and then nothing.  It isn't just going to church, saying prayers, singing a few praises, heck, there are some preachers out there preaching the Word as it should be preached yet they are not genuinely saved.  The Bible is clear that not all will be saved of those who think they are:

 

Not everyone who says to Me, Lord! Lord! shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord! Lord! Did we not prophesy in Your name, and through Your name throw out demons, and through Your name do many wonderful works? Mt. 7:21.22
And one said to Him, Lord, are the ones being saved few? And He said to them, Strive to enter in at the narrow gate. For I say to you, many will seek to enter in and shall not be able. Lk. 13:23,24

 

This is what Hell is like according to Scripture:

       -Unquenchable Fire

            - Mark 9:43, Rv. 20:10; 2Th. 1:8; Mt. 18:8
       -A place of misery, torment and pain without rest

            - Luke 16:24-26; Rv. 14:10-11.
       -A place of gloom and obscurity

            -Jude 1:13; Mt. 25:3
       -A place of thirst

            - Luke 16:24-25
       -A place of memory and remorse

            - Luke 16:25; 27-28
       -A place of frustration and anger

            - Mt. 13:50; Mt. 24:51
       -A place of endless separation

            - Rv. 21:7,8; 2 Th. 1:8-9 

 

       The good news, of course, is the Good News!  That Jesus Christ came down from Heaven (Jh. 6:38) to become a mortal man (Gl. 4:4) who lived (while staying sinless 1Jh. 3:5) to show us the way to God (Mt. 5; Jh. 3:3; 14:6), died a torturous death (Mt. 27,27) as punishment for our sins (1Cr. 15:3; 1Pt. 2:24), then rose again (Jh. 20:9) to lead the way to Heaven (1Cr. 15:3,4; 1Th. 4:14).  Jesus is the way to salvation.  We must have faith, genuinely repent, and follow Him  by obeying and remaining in His will.

 

Jesus said to him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life;
no one comes to the Father but by Me.
Jh. 14:6