"I don't wish for any better world than this," a friend said to me the other day.
Yet he had to leave this world!
And you and I must leave it too.
As surely as the leaves will one day fall, so surely must we one day leave this world.
And when this happens, what then?
If you were told that within the year you would have to leave your home, and your country, and relocate in a foreign land to spend the rest of your life there, how anxious you would be to know where you were going and what that country would be like.
And yet, knowing that one day death will take you by the hand and lead you into eternity, have you ever faced the question, "Where am I going, and what will become of me?"
There are two places to spend eternity, only two, and their names are heaven and hell.
Heaven is where God is, the One before whom angels bow proclaiming Him, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty."
Hell is to be the place of the devil and of all who die in their sins.
Have you ever sinned? God knows man well, and He says, "All have sinned." Rom. 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23). Every sin you commit—that is, each wrong thought, wrong word, wrong act—is written down in the Book of God, and all sin demands judgment, for God is a just God.
But you do not need to die in your sins. There is a way in which God can be just and yet forgive you and take you to heaven.
God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world. He lived a perfect life; there was not the least taint of sin in Him, and then He went to the cross where He "suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." 1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18).
He "offered Himself without spot to God" that sin might be judged in His own holy person. On that cross He shed His precious blood, and now we can know that "the blood of Jesus Christ His [God's] Son cleanseth us from all sin." 1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7).
This is God's message to you, and this is the way to heaven.