Now or Never

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. Psalm 139:16

 

There’s a funeral home on the route I sometimes walk. As I went by it today there was man standing outside with tears streaming down his face. He avoided eye contact so I didn’t speak to him but I did think I could pray for him.

As he was dabbing the tears with a tissue I was asking the Lord to comfort him and give him the hope of a meeting in heaven with the person whose death he was grieving. What if that person isn’t in heaven?

At that thought I started to pray for the one in the coffin inside that funeral home. Immediately I realized that it is too late for that person. If he or she did not know the Lord while alive, their opportunity is gone. Prayer at this point is meaningless.

Heaven is part of God’s Kingdom. If He is not part of a person’s life on earth, His heaven will not be a part of their life after death.

By this time I was half a block from the tearful man wondering about what it is the Lord wants me to make of this situation. Should I have offered the comfort of Christ to this grieving man I do not know? Should I at least have spoken some words of assurance to Him that the Lord would comfort him if he asked?

Or, was it just a reminder from the Lord about people I know who have made it clear they have no faith? They too, will pass from this world sometime. No one gets out alive. What do they know of their own sin and Christ’s sacrifice to pay die for it?

Because of our politically correct culture where we are not supposed to tell someone that their belief system is going to take them to Hell, we are afraid to tell someone the truth about sin. But Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32)  The Book of Acts speaks of Paul testifying to Jews and Gentiles “repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.” (Acts 20:21).

I don’t think that I was being called to talk to this man. His body language was clear that he did not wish to engage in conversation. This little encounter has caused me to think more about people I already know. Some profess a kind of religion but not true faith in Jesus Christ. They are confident about eternity because they have not heard the truth about sin and grace.

It is a sobering thought that we all only have our relatively short time on earth to understand our need for faith in Jesus’s sacrifice for our sin if we want a future in heaven. Who do you and I know who needs to hear these truths?

It is now or, possibly, never.