ETERNITY A MUST: ARE YOU SET FOR IT?

Rev. Br. Kenneth Alamezie, BSS
kcgalamezie@gmail.com

Stirred up in my spirit to receive from the Spirit concerning our voyage under the Sun, especially as regards death and its attendant horror to the human psyche , I was given to realize, via the action of the grace of Him who guides the course of human race by his great wisdom, that Death is the most powerless among the ranks of spiritual enemies of man, having lost its scary power forever.
Death, to those who are in Christ Jesus, is and should no longer be viewed as such an horrifying evil which mere mention of the name throws us off each time. You know, the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ really revolutionized everything, not excluding the reign of Death.
Death, having received a devastating deadly blow through the one action of Christ’s death on that old rugged cross, was perpetually wounded and conquered, thus destroying his (death’s) horrible power over creation as well as the weird and nerve-racking grip he’d possessed on man, turning now the experience into something far much better--an easy ride back ‘home’.
One fellow, who understood this very quickly, as it were, was the apostle Paul. He never was afraid of him-death. Not lacking in metaphors, he offers us two, or rather three relating to Christian death.
For us, now I do not mean everybody, but anybody who is saved in Christ and who has got the Divine seal in their soul, death is like a day when we will switch our residence. And I can tell you it’s a move to a nicer neighborhood, where you won’t have to be sleeping with one eye closed in fear of terrorists like ISIS, the Boko boys, and all those weird gun-carrying guys parading the east and our society. And you wouldn’t have to worry about rise in prizes of goods, either. I bet you it’s going to be freebies all the way.
Death is also like shifting from a state of unclothedness to putting on clothes. Now I can tell you that this clothing is not like anything you’ve ever seen or can imagine. You can understand this by reviewing that statement from the same brother, Paul. He got a picture of this and unable to find words to describe what he saw, he puts it this way, “eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered the heart of man what God ( I’d like to add ‘the kind of clothing, home etc) has prepared for those who love him. You sure don’t want to miss this, or do you?
Looking at our Scripture verse above, Paul gives us the third metaphor, ‘death is like going home. I can tell you I like that word ‘home’. You know, a saying goes that “East and West, Home is the best. I don’t know who said that, but it’s just the truth. No amount of treat given you elsewhere would make you feel as safe and relaxed as you’d when in your own home. Here isn’t home, not at all; and I think that’s why we are constantly living on our toes. Our home is over there at the other side of life. Now, if I may ask, are you preparing to get back home, seeing how fast the clock is ticking? This is surely a one million dollar question, and perhaps one that you don’t always like being thrown at you, isn’t it? But you just have to bear with me on this one. The truth is that you must leave someday, and your soul must spend eternity at the other end of life, only that you do not know when, but where is what you must decide now, and very fast, as time, they say, waits for nobody. You can’t stay here for long, you know. Scripture says 70, and 80 for strong folks. Yet you might as well get 40 added to you making it 120 and it would be time to leave. I have seen oldies who made it to that length. Unlike the western world, which recently published a false news report that claimed the oldest man in the world died at 117 or there about, we get old folks making it to 120 and above often here in Nigeria. And that’s despite our mangled government and rollercoaster economy. My maternal grand dad even left at 120yrs. He got forty added to him. That’s not new to us, or is it? Still they left, as you and I will. This is a hard pill to swallow, isn’t it? The type that those bolshie Jews of Bible era would call “a hard saying.” But it’s better told than not!
The point I am trying to drive home here is this: that you haven’t got any time left to waste, and the sooner you begin to straighten up things in your life, the better for you.
Even, folks now make a joke out of the warning of Christ’s second coming. Someone, an oldie, actually asked me, very recently, if I’d go put a ladder for Him—Christ-- to climb down from heaven. And this isn’t a lay faithful who made such a ghastly remark on our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, many yo-yo Christians have started buying into this kind of stomach-turning idea, though made in Hell. They seem to forget that even if the world does not end in one’s lifetime in a cataclysmic judgment, the moment any of us dies will be the end of the world for him. The world that you live in will die with you, hence are you ready for death? Are you ready for the judgment that you must face once you step out into eternity? God bless you as you think this through.