Are You Ready?   

One of the most famous sermons of all time was entitled, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and it was written and delivered in 1741 by a preacher named Jonathan Edwards. His intent was to emphasize the horrors of hell and to warn of the punishment that was to come for those who were not yet saved through Christ. Part of his message was to warn of the uncertainty of life and the possibility of facing eternity at any time. He said:
"It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no visible danger in any respect in his circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages, shows this is no evidence, that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the next step will not be into another world. The unseen, unthought-of ways and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable.
"Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the sharpest sight cannot discern them. God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear, that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go out of the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at any moment. All the means that there are of sinners going out of the world, are so in God's hands, and so universally and absolutely subject to his power and determination, that it does not depend at all the less on the mere will of God, whether sinners shall at any moment go to hell, than if means were never made use of, or at all concerned in the case."
I don’t think I myself would preach what he preached, or do so the way that he did. But the basic message in this section is worth our considering. First, as Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment.” And second. as many have said, no one of us is guaranteed tomorrow. We’ve all suffered the loss of loved ones in a suddenness never expected. James 4:14 tells us, “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”
Be ready for your last day on earth, which means be ready every day, for you have no idea when that day will be. But as somber as this article may seem, imagine how glorious that day will be if indeed you are living every day now ready for that day you enter into eternity!

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