THE FATAL RACE
The word race suggests competition and in Hebrews 12:1, God’s people are likened to runners in a long-distance race. Today, the race has been corrupted and the prize has become carnal.
If we could spend just a few minutes in heaven, we would never again compete in a carnal race. If only we could experience a short walk within the gates of that city of God; drink in the peace, the beauty, the heavenly splendors; listen to the grand choirs of angels singing the glories of the Lord; mingle with the patriarchs, the martyrs, the apostles, those who came out of great tribulation; visit with departed loved ones; feel the glow of God's holy light; and best of all, catch a glimpse of the face of the resurrected Lamb of God and feel the glory and warmth and sense of security shining forth from His presence!
Would we ever come back to this earth and take up the fatal race again? Never! You and I would live only for the Lord, rejecting the world and all its pleasures and carnal things. We would run His race!
If we could spend even a few minutes in hell, we would never be the same. Imagine what it would be like to be drawn into that black furnace of fire and everlasting darkness; to suddenly be cast into a demonic world of godlessness, cursing, hatred, lust, and corruption; to hear the groans of the eternally damned and witness their terror, their gnashing teeth; to rub shoulders with the workers of iniquity, the crucifiers of the Lord Jesus; to listen to the endless sounds of hopeless, useless prayers of the damned, shaking their fists at the God of justice, cursing the day they were born; to feel what being lost means, cut off from God and truth and love and peace and all comfort.
How could you return to earth from your short visit to hell and ever be the same again? Would you go back to neglecting God's Word, His house, His love? Would you go about your selfish pursuits of accumulating, hoarding gold and silver, and praying for even more? I hardly think so. No, you and I would live every hour as if it were our last.
Do you want to quit running and beating the air in vain? Set your face and heart to seek the Lord as never before!
If we could spend just a few minutes in heaven, we would never again compete in a carnal race. If only we could experience a short walk within the gates of that city of God; drink in the peace, the beauty, the heavenly splendors; listen to the grand choirs of angels singing the glories of the Lord; mingle with the patriarchs, the martyrs, the apostles, those who came out of great tribulation; visit with departed loved ones; feel the glow of God's holy light; and best of all, catch a glimpse of the face of the resurrected Lamb of God and feel the glory and warmth and sense of security shining forth from His presence!
Would we ever come back to this earth and take up the fatal race again? Never! You and I would live only for the Lord, rejecting the world and all its pleasures and carnal things. We would run His race!
If we could spend even a few minutes in hell, we would never be the same. Imagine what it would be like to be drawn into that black furnace of fire and everlasting darkness; to suddenly be cast into a demonic world of godlessness, cursing, hatred, lust, and corruption; to hear the groans of the eternally damned and witness their terror, their gnashing teeth; to rub shoulders with the workers of iniquity, the crucifiers of the Lord Jesus; to listen to the endless sounds of hopeless, useless prayers of the damned, shaking their fists at the God of justice, cursing the day they were born; to feel what being lost means, cut off from God and truth and love and peace and all comfort.
How could you return to earth from your short visit to hell and ever be the same again? Would you go back to neglecting God's Word, His house, His love? Would you go about your selfish pursuits of accumulating, hoarding gold and silver, and praying for even more? I hardly think so. No, you and I would live every hour as if it were our last.
Do you want to quit running and beating the air in vain? Set your face and heart to seek the Lord as never before!