Forwarded E-Mail

I received a forwarded e-mail today that was called “The Last Day. Sobering.”  It was a series of amazing pictures and 10 questions God won’t ask you on the Last Day.  It made me want to cry.  It said things like “God won’t ask  you what kind of car you drive, He’ll ask  you how many people you drove who didn’t have transportation”  “God won’t ask you how many square feet were in your house, He’ll ask you how many people you welcomed into your home” and on and on.  They were all good things to do but no where in there did it mention Jesus.  The entire e-mail made it sound like you could find salvation just by doing good things and focusing on the “right” things.  That’s what hurt my heart.  I was not encouraged.  I wanted to “reply all” and tell everyone who received the e-mail:

In fact, God will ask you nothing on the Last Day as you stand before His throne.  He will open the Lamb’s Book of Life and look for  your name.  If it is there, you will enter in to Heaven.  If it is not there, you will go to Hell.  Even if your numbers on all 10 of the questions that God would ask were astronomical - better than anyone in all of history - if you do not know Jesus, you will not enter Heaven.

In Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus said “21“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.  22“Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  23“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’ “

All their good works, even their good works done in the name of Jesus, amount to nothing in the last day without a personal relationship with Him; without accepting His sacrifice; without making Him Lord in deed and not merely in word. 

With e-mails like the one I just got going around, many people are going to be surprised on that day.  They are going to go through their lives with a misplaced confidence that doing good works is enough; that somehow they will stand before God on their own and escape the judgement that is to come to every individual who refused to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.  Not one of us can stand on our own before God and live; only clothed in Christ - the Righteousness of God Himself - can we come with boldness before the throne of God and find grace and mercy.

The Bible is clear that the wages of sin is death and while it is true that the wages of sin was paid by the death of Christ on the cross - only those who accept His payment for them are free from the debt of sin.  The good news, the best news is that He will never turn anyone away - not ever.  Acts 2:21 says “and it shall be that EVERYONE who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” and 2nd Peter 3:9 reassures us that “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

Those of us who know Jesus and find our lives in Him are anxiously awaiting His return.  What a joy to see the One who died for me and lives for me face to face, to thank Him, to bow before Him, to love Him and worship Him in person.  But it is because of God’s great desire that none should perish that the coming of our Lord is delayed.  God is a loving God.  He sent Jesus because of the depth of His love for us and we are still awaiting Christ’s return for that same reason.  God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son and He so loves the world that He has held back His return until more people can hear the good news that Jesus died to pay our debt and He rose again, leaving sin in the grave, to live and walk with us through life as children of the Most High.

The reality of the last day is sobering, and the Bible says each man will be judged by his works but that is after the separation of the children of God adopted through the shed blood of Christ from the children of the devil who have rejected God and His Christ.  Without Him, all of our good works are meaningless and empty.

1st Corinthians 13:1-3  1If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.   2If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

1st John 4:8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

 3And if I ^(I)give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I ^(J)surrender my body ^[a]to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.