Facing The Future with GodSample

Planning for Eternity

What will the future be like? What will your income be in five years? What will your health be like in three years? Will civilization be safe for your children and your grandchildren? We ask questions like these, even if only to ourselves. Businesses and ministries also plan for the future, including five- and ten-year plans.

Do you have a two hundred-year plan? Obviously, you expect that you will have died by the end of that period.

What will your death have brought you? Job asked it this way: "If a man die, shall he live again?" (Job 14:14).

The Gallup Poll on Religion in America indicates that the majority of professing Christians believe in life after death. Most of those, however, reject any real idea of hell. The arguments for a heaven without a hell are based primarily not on sound biblical exegesis but on human sentiment. People simply prefer not to believe in hell. It is a subject very few can discuss dispassionately. Yet to deny the reality of hell, one must stand firmly opposed to the unambiguous teaching of Jesus.

Consider the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19–26. This passage clearly indicates a great chasm between heaven and hell. It is unbridgeable. Where we are in eternity is where we will be in two hundred years. It is where we will be in two thousand years and in two million years.

The very point of this parable is that people are reluctant to heed the biblical warnings of a judgment that truly is final, with all further appeals exhausted (Luke 16:27–31).

Coram deo: Living before the face of God

Spend a few minutes today reflecting on your future. What are your plans for your immediate future? What are your long-range plans? Have you made your eternal plans?

Copyright © Ligonier Ministries. Get a free book from R.C. Sproul at Ligonier.org/freeresource.