In the last few weeks, we’ve been barraged with news about how lawless our world is. One can’t look at the media without being bombarded with reports about another victim of injustice, mass shootings, or geopolitical turmoil. Economic woes and uncertainty about pandemics only serve to solidify a sense of foreboding that many people have. Because the world is coming unraveled, we could easily slip into despondency If it wasn’t for the promises in God’s word. If you are a Christian, I want to remind you about your bright hope for tomorrow.

The Lord tells us that He’s coming soon, and to underscore the point, He says it three times in just one chapter: Revelation 22:7, 22:12, and 22:20. We don’t know the day or hour, but we can look at the world and know our redemption draws near (Luke 21:28). Friends, it’s possible that Jesus could return in our lifetime. Regardless of when He returns, any one of us could be with Him before the day is over through our death (2 Corinthians 5:8).

People we know and love die and go into eternity. Does the Christian have hope of seeing other believers again? According to the Bible, yes, we do. Paul takes great care to inform us about this blessed reunion with other Christians (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). One day, everyone who loves Jesus and has been separated by death will be reunited. It doesn’t negate the fact that many hearts grieve for loved ones, but it does give us the certainty that we’ll be together again.

We live in a world marred by sickness and disease. You can enjoy a television show and suddenly be confronted with a child fighting a terminal illness like cancer. Although Children’s Cancer hospitals do amazing work, it doesn’t negate the reality that our world is broken, and people, including children, deal with pain, suffering, and chronic illness. Pain will be a thing of the past when Jesus comes back. He will eradicate pain instantly, never to reappear again (Revelation 21:4).

Are you lonely or suffering silently? I want to encourage you because, one day, you will dwell with the Lord. No more distance because the Bible tells us He will dwell with us! Friends, consider your amazing future and God’s promise to be with us forever (Revelation 21:3). In the interim, He knows right where you are and will give you His peace (John 14:27). Reach out to other Christians; let’s bear one another’s burdens, and don’t be afraid to ask for help and prayer (Romans 12:10 and 15).

Sometimes we can become jaded because we get so accustomed to hearing about heaven and eternity. Before we know it, we might even view the next life with an apathetic yawn as we ponder sitting on clouds all day and playing harps in the Sweet By and By. Many people don’t look forward to heaven because of the plethora of erroneous teachings and confusion regarding the afterlife. A beloved Christian writer explains one reason for apathy regarding heaven this way:

“Most of us find it very difficult to want “Heaven” at all except in so far as “Heaven” means once again meeting our friends who have died. One reason for this difficulty is that we have not been trained: our whole education tends to fix our minds in this world. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country.… I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and help others to do the same.” C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity

As believers, we await the blessed hope we see in Titus 2:12-13. While we watch and wait, how do we occupy in the meantime? We live out the great commission in our daily walk. People are drowning in sin and hopelessness. We have Christ in us, the hope of glory. If we can even scratch the surface and understand the immeasurable length of eternity, we will be compelled to share the gospel with everyone. In his excellent book, one dear brother and well-known author details the quandary in every heart that longs to be with the Lord.

“In all honesty, however, the longing to be raptured home to heaven imminently does not come easily. There should be a great conflict in the heart of every true Christian. On the one hand, there ought to be a genuine longing for Christ to return so that we can see Him at last, fall at His feet, and enjoy the bliss of His presence forevermore. On the other hand, however, there ought to be a passion to win the lost to Christ before it is too late, and that would cause us to want more time in which to fulfill the Great Commission” (2 Peter 3:9). Dave Hunt –Whatever Happened to Heaven?

I don’t expect this life will become easier as we approach the return of Jesus. He tells us to expect trouble (John 16:33). Jesus will help us stand as we wait for The Day. My pastor explains our enduring until the end like this:

“Our endurance and ability to make it to the end is strengthened by this future day of reckoning. Judgment day helps me to live right now. How? Because I can live with the assurance that God knows what is true about me.” Mark Vroegop – College Park Church Indianapolis

Dear Christian friends, one day, Jesus will wipe away every tear from our eyes. There will be no more crying, mourning, or pain, and death will be no more because the former things will have passed away (Revelation 21:4). While we watch, wait and endure until that day, be encouraged about our bright hope for tomorrow.

All for Him,

Howard

Summary: If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, then the past two thousand years have been the greatest tragedy and travesty of human civilization.

There is enough credible eyewitness testimony and extra-biblical evidence to verify the historical significance and fact that the event of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as written in the Scriptures and secular history is true. The resurrection evidence can be presented in any objective court of law. One would think that when presented with this obvious conclusion that there would be no reason for questioning or dismissing the case, but Paul has the skeptics in mind when he gives the logical sequence of events that would unfold should Jesus still be dead.

Not everyone bought into the truth of Jesus dying and then being raised from the dead by the power of God the Father. Paul lists the unthinkable alternative if the body of Jesus were still in a tomb somewhere near Jerusalem.

Some of the members of the church in Corinth were questioning the idea of a bodily resurrection because of the Greek philosophical belief that the body was seen as limited, corrupted, and evil while maintaining that the soul, being eternal, was good and welcomed its release from the corrupt flesh of this mortal life. This belief was also a part of a heresy known as Gnosticism that would invade the church later in the first century and be addressed by the apostle John in his letters.

Paul asked the Corinthians why they would want to deny the resurrection of the body when to do so meant denying that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself rose from the dead. If His resurrection did not occur, then there was no sense in either believing or preaching that Jesus did rise from the dead. The entire idea would be a waste of time, thought, and effort. The Gospel message is founded on the fact of the resurrection. Preaching about Jesus would not have even been in the mind of the disciples if He was dead. The very thought of Him would have been repulsive as they would have cursed and denounced Him as a deceiver, liar, fraud, and, as C. S. Lewis stated in “Mere Christianity,” seen as “the devil of hell.”

For Jesus to have declared Himself as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” as well as the Promised Redeemer, only then to die like anyone else, would be the vilest act of unspeakable cruelty that could ever come upon human history. The twelve and the others who followed Jesus would have felt like utter fools, and would have never believed anyone else who claimed to be the Messiah of Israel, and would have been sure to sway anyone else they knew away from that person, no matter how sincere or “holy” he might have appeared.

Another point to consider is that if the Lord Jesus had not risen, then the very message and belief in salvation would be nothing but worthless drivel. The promises of Scripture, if not the entirety of the Bible, would be nothing but a historical novelty, if in existence at all. Anyone who had trusted in Jesus for salvation and then died would have done so believing a lie and would be in hell forever, rightfully cursing God for not providing the very means by which to escape so horrible a fate (Acts 4:12).

If Jesus had been just a man, His claims of Deity and Oneness with God would have indeed been blasphemous. Without the death, resurrection, ascension, and promised return of the Lord Jesus Christ to make all things new, we are doomed and rightfully consigned to eternal misery and torment for our sins. We cannot come before God in any self-conceived idea of “righteousness” (Isaiah 64:6). There is only ONE way to Him, and that is through the finished work of Jesus Christ upon the cross for our behalf (John 14:6, 19:30, 20:28-31; Romans 5:6-11).

Dead men do not command living followers to die for them, and if Jesus is still dead, then the work I have personally devoted my life to is a big, fat nothing burger in terms of study, discipline, motivation, sorrow, happiness, and purpose.

If Jesus is a rotting corpse somewhere in the deserts of Judea, then generations of followers have wasted their time, talents, and lives chasing the words of just another deluded sage of ancient Middle Eastern history who may not have even existed, as some skeptics claim.

The twelve all lived and died for Him, though, because His promises ARE true. He DID rise from the dead, and because Jesus Christ was born, lived, died, and rose again, the world as a whole should rejoice. For He provides us access to God, the promise of eternal life (John 3:16), freedom from the bondage of sin (Romans 8:1-2), mercy, grace, a purpose for life, and a future free from the curses of the world and the evil schemes of the devil. But if all we are doing in this world is keeping up appearances while Jesus molders in the grave, then we are of all people most miserable, as Paul wrote, and all we CAN do is eat, drink, and be merry while we wait to die in misery and hopelessness (1 Corinthians 15:19,32). He has not left that option open, however, to anyone who wants His peace, joy, and mercy (15:20).

There’s still room at the cross for you, and He waits for you with open arms.

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