At the end of your life

"The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Psalm 14:1.

Inspired from Spurgeon’s “At the End of Your Life”

There is a fact that should sober every soul that has ever doubted God, and it is this. Unbelievers exist only on earth. There are none in heaven, and there are none in hell. Atheism is a strange sickness, so strange that even the demons never caught it. "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder." James 2:19. Think about what that verse means. The fallen spirits, who are the enemies of God and the most corrupted beings in existence, have always known that He exists. They believe, and they tremble. Yet there are men and women walking this earth who have gone beyond the devil himself in this one sin, denying the very existence of the God in whose air they breathe and by whose patience they live. "The fool has said in his heart, There is no God" (Psalm 14:1). But the denial has a time limit. The moment the eyes close in death, atheism dies with the body. The rich man in the Lord's account lifted up his eyes in Hades and had no doubts left, only torment and a plea for a drop of water, Luke 16:23 and 24. When the wrath of God finally falls, the clever arguments, the confident mockery, and the polished reasoning that performed so well in this life will not be able to string together a single sentence. Oh that men would be wise now, before the light of that place teaches them what they refused to learn here.

But there is a second thought that presses even harder, and it presses not on the atheist but on many who sit in churches. What will procrastination look like from hell? There are people who have heard the gospel for years. They have felt conviction move through them during a sermon and felt their hearts tighten under the truth, and every single time they have answered with the same quiet word. Tomorrow. Aroused again, the answer came again: tomorrow, tomorrow. Scripture has already spoken to that word. "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." Proverbs 27:1. And again, "You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." James 4:14. How will the word "tomorrow" sound when it is remembered in a place where no tomorrow of mercy ever comes? What would a soul in hell give for one more hour of grace, one more sermon, one more Sunday of the very conviction it once shrugged off? The Lord Jesus told of a man who said to himself, "For many years, eat, drink, and be merry," and God said to him, "You fool! This very night your soul is required of you" (Luke 12:20). This very night. "Tomorrow" is the devil's favorite word, because he knows that a salvation postponed forever is a soul secured for his side.

There is an old account from history worth retelling here. A Roman ambassador once met a king who was marching toward war and asked him plainly, "War or peace?" The king said he had not yet decided; he would consider it. The ambassador took his staff, drew a circle in the dust around the king's feet, and said, "Decide before you step out of that circle." Answer where you stand. Scripture draws that same circle around every hearer of the gospel, and it draws it today. "Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve." Joshua 24:15. Elijah drew it on Carmel. "How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him." 1 Kings 18:21. The gospel does not offer a comfortable middle territory where a man can stand undecided for decades and call it caution. Undecided is decided. "He who does not believe has been judged already." John 3:18. The circle is drawn. The question stands. Christ or self, grace or hostility, heaven or hell. And the honest way to answer it is to do so in the light of eternity, for that light is dreadful, but it is revealing, and it burns away the scales that keep the eyes comfortable.

And how will the gospel itself appear in that light? Here is a thought that should trouble every preacher and every believer who has ever held the truth and stayed quiet. People we knew have already died this year. People who heard the Word, some who sat through sermons and listened politely, are now in eternity, fixed forever in the state they departed in. Did we warn them fairly, plainly", truly? God gave Ezekiel a job description that belongs to everyone who carries His Word. The watchman who sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet—"His blood I will require from the watchman's hand." Ezekiel 33:6. Paul could stand before the Ephesian elders and say, "I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God" (Acts 20:26 and 27). Can we say this about our families, neighbors, and friends? The fear of awkwardness has silenced more warnings than the fear of God ever should have allowed. If the redeemed could see for one moment what the lost see, we would never again be silent.

So let the truth be spoken now, plainly, to anyone reading who is still outside of Christ. You are mortal. You can feel it. There is something in every human being that knows the clock is running, and the older we grow, the louder it ticks as friends and relatives are taken one by one and the crowd around us thins. Life is short. "As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years... for soon they are gone and we fly away." Psalm 90:10. And after the flying away comes the fixed appointment that no diary can move. "It is appointed for men to die once, and after this event comes judgment." Hebrews 9:27. You believe this statement. Most people do, somewhere beneath the noise. How can a man be so careful with his business, accounts, property, and health, yet so careless with his soul? He insures his house against a fire that may never come and makes no provision against a judgment that certainly will. What exactly are we waiting for? A more convenient season? Felix waited for one (Acts 24:25), and Scripture never records that it came. The Word of God knows only one season. "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." 2 Corinthians 6:2. "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near." Isaiah 55:6: While He may be found, seek Him. Those words imply a time when He may not be.

And what is it that we are urged to do in this moment, before the end makes it impossible? Nothing complicated and nothing costly to us, for another has already borne the cost. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15). That is the whole gospel in one sentence. To save the deserving? There are none. Sinners. He lived the life we could not live; He died under the wrath we had earned, and He rose so that everyone who trusts in Him will never taste that wrath at all. "He who believes in Him is not judged" (John 3:18). To believe is simply to trust, to stop leaning on our goodness, our own delays, and our own tomorrows, and to lean the whole weight of our souls on the Lord Jesus Christ. He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on Him" John 3:36. Abides. It is resting there now, and only one shelter in the universe stands between any of us and it.

There are four lights at the end of every life. Death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Every person reading this passage will stand in the glow of all four, and nothing in earth or heaven can exempt us. The only question that matters is which of the last two will receive us, and that question is being answered now, today, in the circle the gospel has drawn around you. Do not step out of it with the old answer. Tomorrow has damned more souls than open rebellion ever has. "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." Hebrews 3:15. The Savior still receives sinners. "The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out." John 6:37. Come, then, while it is still called today. Trust your soul to the Lord Jesus now and forever, and the four lights at the end will hold no terror, for death will be gain, judgment will be vindication, hell will be shut, and heaven will be home.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. (Mark 11:15)

Article by Jeremiah Knight

Image by Unsplash/Wix