WHEN YOU WAKE UP DEAD

“And [the] many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting contempt.” Daniel 12:2

In the final months of last year I conducted the funerals for three long-time friends. All of their deaths were quite sudden and unexpected. On each occasion while preparing to preach the funeral message, I could not help but be reminded of how fragile and uncertain that life is.

I thought about how that in the last few decades, our world has become incredibly volatile, angry and chaotic. Here in America, we have become so busy and absorbed with the routines and the expectations of modern life that we can barely stop to even think about many real life issues or the fact that we are dying. Especially this is so in regard to spiritual matters. It is certain that this “frantic business” greatly pleases Satan who is the great enemy of both God and humanity. And why is that?

The reason is this. Except for the "saved" who are alive when Jesus comes and who will be “raptured,” everyone or us will one day "wake up dead.” It may be that we will die in our sleep, or in an accident, or some crime, or in war, or by disease. Some will be old and worn out, but others will be in the blush of youth when they pass. But one minute after you slip from this life, YOU will either be enjoying a personal welcome from the Lord Jesus Christ in Heaven, or you will be catching your first glimpse of gloom and despair such as you have never known.

While relatives plan your funeral--pick a casket--decide on a burial plot--select pallbearers and choose a preacher, you will be as alive as you have ever been. You will either see God on His throne, surrounded by angels and the redeemed of the ages, or you will feel an awful sense of guilt and abandonment such as you have never experienced.

Either way, your future is now forever and irrevocable settled. There is no middle ground nor second chance. Neither is there any possibility of moving from one place to another. No matter how endless the ages, or sincere the cries---- no matter how awful the suffering--- you may never leave your present abode.

Those who awake in heaven find themselves surrounded with "born again" friends and family. Relationships once interrupted by death will continue where they left off. Every description of the glories of heaven that we have ever heard about or hoped for will prove to be far less that the glorious reality of it. All this forever!

All others, those who die without Christ, will enter the black and abysmal darkness. A place of deprivation, despair, and never ending regret. There, with their memories and feelings fully intact, they will awake to thoughts of life back on earth. Haunted by these memories, they will remember friends, and family and brood over wasted opportunities. Instinctively they will know that their future is both hopeless and unending.

While there is still opportunity to trust in Christ, now is the time to honestly consider where you will be, “when you wake up dead.” William “Ed” Nicholson

P.S.
I once read about an old tombstone in a little country cemetery outside Evansville, Indiana which reads:
Pause, stranger, when you pass me by
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so you will be,
So prepare for death and follow me.

Some unknown passerby scratched this reply:
To follow you, I’m not content.
Until I know which way you went.
WEN

Image from Google- kid clipart