ETERNITY

I was enjoying the excitement of the races. Fans were cheering their favorite horses. Suddenly I felt a tug at my coat sleeve. A young man stepped close to me, put a piece of paper in my hand and whispered, “Eternity.” What did he mean? It wasn’t a horse’s name. I put the paper in my pocket and forgot it.

As I tried to enjoy the afternoon of betting on the horses, that word, “eternity” kept coming to mind. A month before, my best friend had abruptly died. I thought of him in eternity. If he were still alive, he’d be at the races with me. But now he was in eternity.

Later at home, I found the paper the stranger had given me. In it, I learned that God loved me and wanted to forgive my sins and have me with Him in heaven for eternity. I looked for my unused Bible, read the Gospel of John, came to the Lord Jesus Christ as a sinner, and accepted Him as my Savior.

Stop and consider where you will spend eternity. The Bible tells us that by His own blood Christ obtained eternal redemption for us, so that we who believe might receive the promise of eternal inheritance (Hebrews 9:12,15). If you accept this promise, you will be “heaven bound.”

Now read these words of the Lord himself: “Depart from me you cursed, into the everlasting fire…And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:41,46).

This is the truth about eternity. Repent of your sins, accept Christ as your Savior, and eternal life is yours. Go on in your sins, reject Christ as your Savior, and punishment is yours for eternity. Friend, where will you be for eternity?

Scriptures from The New King James Version, ©1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. By Permission.