OUR ETERNAL DESTINY - By Jim Tharp

“I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:10-11)
In this Scripture in Ecclesiastes, King Solomon, believed to be the most brilliant man of his time, reminds us that God has “put eternity in our hearts.” I believe he is referring to the awesome responsibility our Creator has placed upon mankind as free moral agents to carefully choose their course in life. He is also reminding his readers that the Creator expects us to prepare not only for this life, but also for the one to come—which is eternal!

I hope all who read this are blessed with an awareness of an inner instinct—a moral and spiritual realization—that death will not be the end of us. The Word of God warns us in Hebrews 9:27 that we shall die, “but after this the judgment.”

Anthropologists have been reporting for centuries that in nearly all cultures there exists a haunting belief in life after death. Australian aborigines pictured heaven as a distant island beyond the horizon. Polynesians believed they would go to the moon when they died. Native Americans believed they would go to their happy hunting grounds. But the anthropologists did not report about any moral or spiritual preparations required for their safe arrival to the island, the moon, or the hunting grounds. But we should all be thankful to our Holy, Gracious, and Merciful God that we have the Living Word of God (our Lord Jesus Christ) and the Written Word of God.

I feel privileged to share with my readers that “. . . God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:16-19)

It is not a pleasant thing to know that in the world 3 people die every second; 180 die every minute; 10,800 die every hour; and every 24 hours 259,200 die. Regardless of how they live their lives, many people today believe that they will go to Heaven when they die. As a preacher of the Word of God, I must report how Jesus warned against this false optimism. We read what Jesus said in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 7, verses 13-14. In these verses Jesus mentions two ways—the broad way and the narrow way. The broad way leads to Hell; the narrow way leads to Heaven.

Heaven is for believers! Hell is for unbelievers! Please believe me when I tell you that we can wish, dream, pretend, and fantasize all our lives, but Heaven and Hell are not figments of our imagination. How glad I am that, as a teenager, the Holy Spirit put conviction of sin in my heart and led me to pray the sinner’s prayer. For 74 years now I have been enjoying the assurance of my salvation; and for 73 years I have been privileged to see many decide to enter that “narrow way” which leads to life everlasting.

It is my prayer that someone reading this will go to prayer soon and humbly ask God’s forgiveness for sin and invite Jesus to come into their heart. Then, believe He has heard your prayer and by faith claim His forgiveness, His presence, and His peace. Within a few minutes you will sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in your heart. He is the Spirit of both God the Father and God the Son. He will inspire you to pray and help you understand the Bible. As you grow in faith, you will learn how to trust Him and rely upon Him for the strength and wisdom to live the Christian life.

Note: All Scriptures quotations are from the New King James Version of the Holy Bible.