Why should I care about any of this?
You are going to die and meet God - and the God you will meet made you, loves you, and has told you how not to perish.
Because you are going to die, and then you are going to meet God. What you did with Jesus Christ will decide what happens next, forever. Nothing else you will ever think about carries that weight.
God knows this about you. That is why He has told you plainly, in advance. What follows is a warning, and a real one - but it is given so that you can escape what it warns of.
The God you will meet is the God who made you.
When Paul spoke to people who did not know God, he began there: God made the world, gives every person life and breath, and made them so that they would look for Him.
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us
He is not far from you now. This is why the rest of the page concerns you.
You will die.
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
You do not know when. Jesus told of a man who had planned comfortably for years ahead:
But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
God does not tell you this to spoil your life. He tells you because it is true, and because He would rather you hear it now than discover it then.
You will meet God.
Death is not the end. It is an appointment:
So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
In that same speech in Athens, Paul told his hearers that God has fixed a day and named the Judge:
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
The resurrection of Jesus is God’s public notice that the Judge has been appointed. The date is not revealed; the fact is. And God has not kept it secret - He commands everyone, everywhere, to turn to Him now, so that no one meets Him unprepared.
Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Nothing about you is hidden from Him, and this is true whether or not you believe it. He sees you exactly as you are - and still He calls you.
God loves you, and this is what He has done.
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. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Read that carefully. The Son was not sent to condemn the world; the world was already under condemnation, and He came into it to save. The person who does not believe is not waiting for a verdict - he is “condemned already.” The person who believes is “not condemned.” Jesus put the same thing this way:
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.
Faith in Christ does not earn a pardon at the judgment. It receives the pardon now, before it.
What is at stake
Jesus said:
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
And John, shown the judgment in a vision, wrote:
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
After death, it is fixed. Jesus told of a rich man who died and found himself in torment, begging for relief and for a warning to be sent to his brothers. The answer was:
And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
The rich man’s last request was that someone warn his brothers. You are being warned now, while there is still time - and the One warning you is the very One who rose from the dead.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Nothing you gain in this world can make up for losing this.
God does not want you to perish.
This warning does not come from a God who enjoys condemning. It comes from a God who is pleading with you:
Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
“Why will ye die?” He is the Judge, and He would rather you lived. When Jesus looked at a city that would not come to Him, He wept:
And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
What He is offering you
Not merely escape from judgment. Jesus described eternal life like this:
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
To know God - the One who made you and is not far from you - is what you were made for. And this is how He speaks to you:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
You should care about this because it is the one thing you cannot afford to get wrong, and the one thing you cannot fix afterward. But care about it for a better reason than fear: God cared first. He made you, He told you the truth, and He gave His Son so that you could live. He is still calling.
Do not let this day pass without finding out who He is.