The other night, standing around the kitchen, my wife told her Mom about a women she’d seen on a news program. The woman had died, she’d said, while kayaking, but came back from the dead with a great tale, er, story. This woman wrote a book about it, to encourage others. My wife relayed the essence of this woman’s message: there are people waiting beyond death, family and friends, and there is so much love.
It’s a common theme. There is life after death. There are families gathered together. There is light, warmth, love. Every thing turns out alright, after all.
My Mother-in-law didn’t follow what my wife was saying. She’s eighty-three years old. How does someone die, and experience that, and come back, is what probably confused her. I interrupted. I had to at this point. I said, “The woman thought she was going to die while trapped under the water. She had a dream. In the dream all the things that she longed for were right there, in front of her.” I went on to say that people want to know there is something after we pass from this life. They want to believe there is something more. And that it’s all available to them without them doing anything at all for it. “That’s basically what Y’shuaJesus said,” I continued on. “It’s a free gift for believing in Y’shuaJesus. But people don’t want to hear about Y’shuaJesus.” My wife said I was right.
Yes! I’m right! Well, more-or-less right. What I didn’t continue with, didn’t say, is that believing is the start, the beginning of salvation that culminates in a walk that is with our LORD.
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:51-58
Paul tells us that not all will sleep. If not all sleep, that means some will. That’s how death is referred to by these First Century Jewish Believers in Y’shuaJesus as Messiah. Sleep. Not death. Sleep from which we will be awakened. And when we are awakened, we will have new, glorified bodies. Disease-free bodies. Incorruptible bodies. Perfect bodies. And a perfect heart. Tears wiped away, forgotten. And there will be a Central Figure before us when we awake: Y’shuaJesus! Praise the LORD!
And that’s exactly what’s desperately wrong with a woman’s story in which she says she died and found love and friends and family. It’s a tale from a few minutes hanging on the edge of suffocation. The brain without oxygen dreaming.
Y’shuaJesus will be there for Believers and non-believers alike. For the former, to wipe away tears and show His love. To the latter. . . well, it won’t be pleasant. They will see the love. Bow before the King in submission. They will, too late, realize He is The Way, The Truth, The Life. They will confess, too late, that Y’shuaJesus is LORD. And even if G-d, Father G-d, Abba G-d, were to invite them in, they would refuse. They would choose to turn away. They would be angry, hurt, afraid.
Sad! They would choose to turn away because they’d not turned away from their own miserable, sinful ways while on Earth. Repent! is to turn away from one’s sin. But before one can turn away, one must acknowledge sin. And in our society, our culture of liberalism and chaos, we are taught there is nothing Absolute, nothing evil, nothing that is sin. All things are relative. One person’s truth is his or her own truth. Not The Truth. All ways, all roads, lead to Rome AND HEAVEN, or so we are led to believe by the great liar, that devil satan.
We are being led like sheep to a slaughter. There are too many movies in which some human is a great hero, saving the day. There are too many movies depicting aliens coming to Earth to assist it in it’s healing. There are too many academia that are steering young people to believe in their own deity. Humanism is at the core of the United Nations Agenda 21. Humanism is satan’s tool to trick, if possible, even Christians. satan desperately wants to take worship of G-d from Him. He doesn’t want us to feel the warmth of a relationship with our Heavenly Father while we are on Earth. satan doesn’t need our admiration, our love, our praise. he just wants our soul.
We must be ready. We must be prepared. We must keep our eyes upon Y’shuaJesus!
Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .
JonahzSong 