Judgment Day - Are you Ready?

This posting is not about the movie "Terminator 2: Judgment Day", which is total fiction, but the contents of this message is fact...it is the absolute truth of what will happen to EVERY person that ever lived on Earth. The decisions and choices we make in our lives will settle forever our fate for all eternity. But what exactly is eternity?

Eternity is totally incomprehensible to our human minds. Similar to the word 'infinity', its meaning is mind-boggling. No human can understand eternity fully! The concept of something that NEVER ends is just too much for our minds to grasp! Everything we know that exists in our world is temporary. Nothing lasts forever, not even the universe. Everything disappears over time, people, places, civilizations, cars, you name it. We have never seen or experienced eternity, so how can we possibly understand it? Only God and His Kingdom are eternal, and so are you! Of course we will all die some day, unless the Lord takes us Home first, but that is not the end, it really is the beginning. You will go someplace and there are only two choices! You may be asking what choices, I am dead so that is it and it is out of my hands. In a way you are correct. When you die, your fate is sealed!

You will make many decisions in your life, but the most important decision far above all others is the only one that truly matters! The decision we all have to make is to either:

1. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, or

2. Reject Him

If you are wise, you will realize that we are all sinners! The Bible clearly states this truth…"ALL have fallen short of the glory of God." Everyone born is under the curse since Adam and Eve committed the original sin and were cast out of paradise. Since sin then entered God's perfect world at that time, we all are now living in a fallen world. God is perfect, Holy, and cannot live in the presence of sin; therefore we can't go to Heaven with our sin burden. Man cannot deal with the sin debt by himself. There is nothing we can do to change that. Being good, going to church, supporting charities, helping others, etc. won't work. Of course, God desires us to do these 'good works', but they cannot get you to Heaven. It sounds hopeless, doesn't it? But God in His Wisdom and mercy provided the ONLY way for us to be in Heaven someday to live with Him. This is what God really desires...he wants nobody to be left out of Heaven.

So, how do I get to heaven, you may be asking? With great sacrifice, God sent his Son, Jesus Christ to Earth strictly to die on the Cross to pay our sin debt in full. Only a perfect sacrifice would do and Jesus was the only one that could do it. He came to Earth as a human, but was still fully God. He endured everything we do in life, except that Jesus NEVER sinned. Satan tempted Jesus often...trying to cause Jesus to sin, but Satan failed! Jesus suffered all that we have, pain, sorrow, fear, betrayal, loneliness, etc., but again, He never sinned! Before Our Lord Jesus died, he was slapped, spit upon, mocked, scourged (whipped), had a crown of cruel thorns thrust down on his Head, and then nailed to a cross to die a horrible, painful, and merciless death. This type of cruel execution was usually only used on the dregs of society, the worst of criminals. The Romans had it in practice for a long time! It was an excruciating, drawn-out death. Jesus went willingly through this because of His love for us and to obey God, the Father! But the worst part for Jesus, I believe, was when His perfect relationship with the Father was gone. God's wrath was poured upon Jesus for OUR sins; past, present and future! God and Jesus were together in a perfect relationship from eternity past..meaning they were ALWAYS together. When God turned His back on Jesus, the requirement to take OUR sins away, the pain God felt at the separation was incomprehensible. Jesus' perfect relationship with God, the Father was ripped from Him also, so his pain was the same. Jesus even cried out on the cross to God, the Father asking why he had forsaken Him. But all of this Jesus knew would happen before He even came to Earth in human form. But His and the Father's love for us was so strong that He voluntarily endured all of it! All of us were declared, "Not Guilty" and our sins were taken away! The Judge (God) forgave us not by what we did, but by the blood Jesus shed on the Cross! Jesus took the punishment meant for us! God and the Son love us so much and want us to be with them in Heaven, When Jesus died on the Cross, and finally rose from the dead three days later, Satan was defeated and we were all forgiven! Victory was and is ours! Jesus conquered death and offers us the free gift of Salvation!

Since Jesus did all of this for us, all we have to do is to accept Him as our Lord and Savior, confess our sins, repent, and follow Him. You must be sincere and God will know by examining your heart! He knows you perfectly! The Bible clearly states that if we confess our sins, He promises to be just and forgive us of them completely! That means he totally forgets about them and will never bring them up. This is a gift from and by the Grace of God. All we have to do is accept the gift...it is free!!

Accepting Jesus while we are still living is the only way to guarantee being in Heaven. All of us will be before God someday. Even if you don't believe, you will when you see God. The Bible says, “Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” If you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you will face the Judgment Seat of Christ. Your sins have been totally wiped away and will not even be brought up. This judgment is only for believers who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Your works on earth, the good and bad (though bad means useless service for God) will be judged and your eternal rewards given. There will be the shedding of tears here…not for any sin, but for the missed opportunities and loss of rewards. These people will go to Heaven but will suffer loss.

Those that reject Jesus will face the Great White Throne Judgment. Only unbelievers will be here. Those that reject Jesus and have turned away from God when on Earth. Since unbelievers did not accept Jesus’s payment for their sins when on earth, they will pay for all the sins themselves. The Bible clearly states, "The wages of sin is death!" This will certainly grieve God’s heart, but the sentence of eternal death that will be the result WILL be carried out. God is perfect, holy and his ‘sentence’ is totally justified! Unbelievers will be found totally guilty and will be cast into the Lake of Fire (Hell) forever; enduring heartache, pain, and untold suffering. Eternity spent in everlasting torment, separated from God.

So, my friends, I urge you to read the Bible, learn all that the Lord has done for you and how much He loves you! Read the book of Revelation to learn what is going to happen, I believe, very soon! God's patience for the sin in this world is running out. He will do something about it, as told in Revelation! This world is on a countdown to destruction for the evil that is running rampant. God's tolerance will be over, and His wrath will be poured upon the wicked and all wrongs corrected over a period of 7 years (The Tribulation Period). This is Satan's last chance to win, but we already know the winner. He will do all that He can to drag others to their doom. Finally a great war, The Battle of Armegeddon, Satan and Jesus will face each other. Jesus, with Heaven's army behind Him will easily destroy Satan's forces and will then set up his Kingdom on Earth! The horrors of the Tribulation are clearly outlined in the Book of Revelation. No sane person will want to endure those terrible years, but many will since they have rejected Jesus.

I implore you to make a wise decision, the wisest decision you will ever make on this earth!! Before it is too late, accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior, believe in His death at Calvary, and that His death paid your sin debt in full. Confess/repent of your sin and secure your place in Heaven forever. Once saved, you can NEVER lose it. You will be with God in Heaven and be rescued from the doom of Hell! After you die, it will be too late. Your fate will already be sealed! The only time you can make your decision is while you still live and breathe upon this earth! Accept Jesus' free gift' of Salvation…he paid your sin debt on the Cross 2000 years ago. You won’t be sorry!

Remember, you will spend eternity in one of two places…Heaven or Hell. The choice is yours and yours alone! I pray you will choose God’s way! He makes it so easy! The wonders and delights of Heaven can't even be imagined by our human minds, but we do know that it will be absolutely wonderful and perfect! The apostle John, at the end of the book of Revelation was granted a brief glimpse of Heaven. He was totally overwhelmed and had great difficulty describing what he saw. How can we even begin to describe absolute perfection and beauty? Nothing on this earth can compare to the treasures, peace, joy, and bliss that we, God's Children, will have for eternity with our Creator! Be wise, and choose Jesus Christ...He is waiting for you with open arms!! As our Lord Jesus himself said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life!  Nobody comes to the Father but by Me!"  Accept Him today and be secure with the knowledge that you will spend FOREVER in Heaven with the Lord!   Praise God....what a Savior!!!!!

God Bless all of you!