"If there is anything in Christianity, if there is a hereafter—a heaven and a hell as you say, then no doubt you'll have the best of it."
These were the last words of a long conversation I had with one who prides himself in being an agnostic—a man who knows nothing and desires to know nothing of a future life.
"Yes," I said, "but that is not all. I have the best of it NOW, for I have Christ to save, and Christ to satisfy. I have peace with God, not a fear of future condemnation, but a sure and certain hope of eternal glory."
The unbeliever had no answer to that, and quietly moved away. The believer in Christ, who is a sinner saved by grace and a child of God, has the best of it already. What comparison is there between him and the man who is a stranger to grace and to God, whose heart is an aching void which all that earth can give will never fill? He has no peace, no real satisfaction here; and in the future there looms the hopeless despair of the lost.
Can it be said that such a one has "the best of it," even though his wealth may be counted in the millions? No, indeed; he who lacks Christ is a poor man with an empty heart.
To which of the two classes do you belong? You may easily find out. Are you satisfied? Are you at peace with God? Do you look forward with joy to the hour when you will pass from earth to be forever "with the Lord?" If these are your present possessions, you have indeed "the best of it."
But, if you are still a sinner unsaved, un-forgiven, and ready at any moment to be launched into a lost eternity, STOP AND THINK! Heaven and hell, salvation and damnation, are realities, and he is a fool who shuts his eyes and closes his ears to what God says about them.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24).