How Do We Prepare For Eternity?Yes, here you are alive today, walking about. Tomorrow, there you are, eyes closed, hands cold and stiff. You're gone. Gone to await your appointment with God. You are growing older fast. Will you ask yourself this question: "Am I ready to meet God and receive my sentence?" The Lord is speaking to you this very moment. Listen! Don't turn him away. He may never speak like this to you again. You will spend eternity somewhere. And where will it be? Reader, where will your dwelling place be in the world to come? You must decide that here. Today is the time. Being a "Christian" will not save you. Claiming to love God will not save you. Being born again, alone, will not save you. Jesus is going to determine your fate. Tomorrow will be too late. Even one second after death will be too late. If you are a child of God who has received the new birth experience, the baptism of the holy Ghost (with the evidence of speaking in other tongues), every one of your WORKS will be judged. What you have done, and what you are doing will determine your eternal destination. Friends and brethren - are you ready to face your Lord? Or are you merely trusting Christianity's false claim of "getting saved" to carry you to safety? Friend, the truth is, that there is no such thing as "getting saved" in this life. Salvation is what Jesus will bring with him for the righteous (1Pet.1:5,9). If you have received the Spirit, you must also OBEY the Spirit. Obeying the Spirit of God will cause you to walk "blameless", and "without sin", and "without holiness, no one shall see the Lord" (Heb.12:14). When you live HOLY, you will be prepared for eternity. You will be able to confess with Paul, and other righteous men of God, "I have finished my course". Nobody is forever secure from God's wrath just because they have been converted to Christ. Nobody will escape damnation if they are sinning. We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and I hope that thought terrifies you, if there is even one sin you have not conquered by the power and the Spirit of our God. It is the fear of God that is the beginning of wisdom, and many holy Ghost baptized saints have been persuaded to forsake that fear, and that wisdom, by claiming to "be saved" already. The Spirit inside of you knows that isn't true. You know you are not saved yet - but will you believe and act on it? Will you forsake the man and the religion that is teaching you such sin? Your soul depends on it. If you do not - you will stand before the judgment seat to answer for your disobedience. You remember the story of the rich man and Lazarus. When Lazarus died he was "carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom." What bliss and unspeakable victory was his! "The rich man also died," we are told, "and was buried. And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, `Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.' But Abraham said, `Son, remember that you in your lifetime receivest your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted, and you are tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from here to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from there.' Then he said, `I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.' Abraham said unto him, `They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, `No, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.' And he said unto him, `If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead'" (Lk. 16:19-31). What about it, reader, which way are you traveling? Listen to this truth. If you do not believe it, and live it, you are destined to abide in sin: A person is "born again" when they receive God's witness that they are truly converted (Acts 2:4; Rom.8:15-16; 1Cor.14:21-22). Remember, "It is the Spirit", John said, "that beareth witness" (1Jn. 5:6). If one does not have the testimony of the Spirit (speaking in stammering lips or another tongue), they have not been born again. And if you are attending ANY place that tells people they may be saved in the end without that experience, you are partaking of a very deep and dark sin. If you are supporting any person who tells men they have received the Spirit of God prior to the Spirit bearing witness, you are supporting sin. May I plead with you to obey the Word of God before it is too late? Please do not go on to meet God unprepared. You will be judged for your "works" - every one of them. Knowing the truth, and not walking in it will bear great consequence..."for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them" (2Pet.2:21). Paul tells us, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2Cor.5:10). And it was the exiled apostle John who, while "in the Spirit" on the isle of Patmos, was given the great privilege of foreseeing this oncoming Judgment. He wrote, "I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the BOOK OF LIFE, and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their WORKS." (Rev.20:11-12) Reader, we were there, both of us. John was there, too. Everybody was there. None was missing. Yes, it is just as Matthew tells us, "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, `Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. . . .' Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, `Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. . . .' And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal" (Matt.25:31-46). On which side of Jesus will you be? One moment within the silence of eternity, and your eternal abode will be forever determined. My friend, the coming of Jesus, the great Judge of the universe, is nearing. Won't you turn to him before it is too late? Won't you turn from your sins, and seek his forgiveness? In that place of eternity with Him, you will not regret it, no matter what loss you faced in this lifetime for walking in this truth. Amen.
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