What if you, reader,
lay in bed tonight or take a nap in the middle of the day and kept sleeping
indefinitely until you woke up with the return of Jesus Christ or before His Great White Throne Judgment after His thousand-year reign?
In fact, in this
event above, you would have passed from this life to eternity, that is, you
would have "used" your life here on earth and "used" your
first death, if you would rather have two. There would be no turning back; c'est fini, tutto finito, for God's
Word categorically states thus: "Just
as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment." Hebrews
9:27.
The feeling you might sense waking up from that sleep would be you were literally cheated on your
life, on your future, on your plans, on your possessions and on your family.
How would you react? How would you, waking up at that exact moment, think about
eternity, its implications and its truth?
Honestly, we have no control
over our time here and we have no idea when we will leave this earth. The Word
of God is very clear and states that those who departed from this life now
sleep awaiting the resurrection (those who died in Jesus Christ) or His final
judgment (the wicked).
Are you sure you will
escape the second death if you pass the first one? The Word of God says thus in
Daniel
12:2: "Multitudes who sleep
in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and
everlasting contempt." He who wakes up from sleep at the
first resurrection will wake up and reign with Jesus Christ, for we read that: "Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection.
The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of
Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years." Revelation
20:6
Understand
that death, the passage of this life into eternity to come, is like the sleep
above. Paul explains this to us: "Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about
those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of
mankind, who have no hope." 1
Thessalonians 4:13 To those who are in Christ Jesus, dead with Him and
raised with Him, have no cause for sorrow, for Jesus Christ is our own hope of
eternal life.
We are aware of our
life but in this sleep that we will enter, if Jesus Christ does not return
during the time of our life on this earth, we will not be aware of it (sleep/death).
In Ecclesiastes
9: 5,6,10 it is written thus: "For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and
even their name is forgotten. Their love, their hate and
their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they
have a part in anything that happens under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the
realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor
planning nor knowledge nor wisdom."
This last verse seems to bring desolation but see what
Jesus Christ himself promises us through the words of the prophet Hosea: “I will deliver this people from the power
of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O
death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?"
Hosea
13:14
Those who were justified in Christ Jesus, who walked
with Him as His disciples on this earth (not
the churchy, religious, and false disciples who would not die for themselves,
for they preferred to cling vigorously to this soon to end world), will be resurrected
in Christ in His Second Coming. God's Word says so in 1
Thessalonians 4:16-17: "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a
loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of
God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be
caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And so we will be with the Lord forever." From now on we are children of
eternal resurrection, as it is written in Luke
20:36: "And they can no
longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they
are children of the resurrection."
Note that in the text written by the apostle Paul to
the Thessalonians, nothing is said about those who died without Jesus Christ.
But another verse addresses the theme: "They came to life and reigned with
Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the
thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection." Revelation
20: 4b,5 That is, who died being with Christ, whom we shall call the wicked
(because he was not washed by the blood of the Lamb), shall still sleep and he will
have to wait for a thousand years which is the Sovereign Kingdom of Jesus
Christ. Then he will wake up from his sleep, yes, that sleep mentioned above there
in the beginning, to everlasting death.
And you may ask: - But who are the wicked? I
am not a wicked person, I am a good person, I am not eveil, I only do good, I even believe
there is a God, I go to Mass, to church to worship within my available time,
etc. Understand what the following texts say about the wicked, in their respective
biblical sequence:
1) "Or
do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do
not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." 1
Corinthians 6:9,10 (The
unrighteous ones are all of those who were not justified by Jesus Christ, for
they did not accept the righteousness of God through the saving Grace of His only begotten son, Jesus
Christ);
2) "For
you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is
covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of
Christ and God." Ephesians
5:5;
3) "But
as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the
sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will
be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."
Revelation
21:8;
4) "Outside
are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and
idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood." Revelation
22:15
Final words
Why not thinking of your eternity now and prepare for
when Jesus Christ returns for you do not know when you will definitely sleep
until you awake to His Free-given Resurrection or to His Final Judgment? Why
playing Russian roulette with your eternity?
If you are asleep, dozing, but not yet dead, awake
from your sleep, your drowsiness, your slumber, for "Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for
you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed."
Romans
13:11
