Afraid To Die

  Just last week, I heard it said that a certain individual was afraid to die.  Perhaps their fears are fostered by the unknown.  “Is there truly life after death?  Will I really meet God?”  These are the type of questions that plead for answers in the private recesses of the mind.  But many have dismissed all such ponderings and have chosen to reject any supposed truth that would make them answerable to a God that they cannot see.  They hope that, if God really exists, He will turn out to be something akin to the fictitious Wizard of Oz, who will grant them safe passage to an ethereal afterlife of ease.

  There are others who fear the very events that they have learned to anticipate with dread.  They have embraced the fact that “…it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27)”  They are terrified in their unpreparedness, and draw back at the thought of standing before the Almighty with nothing to say for themselves.  They have enjoyed the pleasures of sin for a season, but realize that a day of reckoning lies eerily in the dark shadows just ahead.  A heightened nervousness marks the passage of each day as they approach their unavoidable end.

  And then there are those who laugh in the face of death.  Some because they are fools who say there is no God (Psalm 14:1), …others because they are ready to die, having made arrangements with God on His terms.  He spells it out for us in: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)”  “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (John 1:12)”  “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. (Romans 5:8-9)”

  Dear Friend, you don’t have to be afraid to die.  Those who know God will live with Him forever in the eternal abode that is promised to all who come to Him by faith in Jesus Christ.  It is time for you to get ready!