Lutzer - How You Can Be Sure That You Will Spend Eternity With God/One Minute After You Die Set

How You Can Be
Sure That You Will
SPEND
ETERNITY
With
God

Erwin W. Lutzer

M OODY P UBLISHERS
CHICAGO

1996 by
E RWIN W. L UTZER

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

All Scripture quotations, unless indicated, are taken from the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, and 1977 by The Lockman Foundation, and are used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version 1982. New King James Version, New Testament and New Testament with Psalms 1980, 1979 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 0-8024-2719-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-8024-2719-9

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To my sister Esther,
who, during thirty years of outstanding missionary
work in Africa, has had the privilege
of explaining to many people how they
can be sure that they will spend
eternity with God

Five minutes after you die you will either have had your first glimpse of heaven with its euphoria and bliss or your first genuine experience of unrelenting horror and regret. Either way, your future will be irrevocably fixed and eternally unchangeable.

In those first moments, you will be more alive than you ever have been. Vivid memories of your friends and your life on planet earth will be mingled with a daunting anticipation of eternity. You will have had your first direct glimpse of Christ or your first encounter with evil as you have never known it. And it will be too late to change your address.

Two contrasting scenarios come to mind. One is the self-assured rich man who died and went to hades, where Christ said he lifted up his eyes, being in torment (Luke 16:23). All of his faculties were intact: he could see, feel, hear, and remember his life on earth. And even today as you read this book, he is still fully conscious, knowing there is no way out of his predicament.

The other picture is of the crucified thief to whom the dying Christ said, Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise (Luke 23:43). All of his faculties were intact too; and today he still enjoys the presence of Christ in Paradise.

Would you be surprised if I were to tell you that Christ taught that more people were en route to agony than destined for ecstasy? More will be in conscious anguish than in rapturous joy.

Is it possible for us to know in this life where we will spend eternity? Some think not, insisting that about all we can do is hope for the best and count on the mercy of God. After all, we are sinners, and God is holy. There are, the argument goes, too many unknowns, too many hidden premises, too many opinions. Besides, said one man, I can wait to be surprised!

On the other hand, it would seem strange indeed if God were to keep us wondering, suspended somewhere between a flickering hope and a persistent doubt. If He is our heavenly Father as Christ taught, we would expect that such crucial information would be revealed to us. Thanks be, it has been.

Many good people will join the rich man in hades, not because they are rich but because they are good and are depending on their own goodness to save them. For all their sincerity, they will find themselves on the wrong side of heavens door. Or perhaps they are counting on the mercy of God, not knowing that it is given only to those who meet an important requirement.

No doubt some surprises await all of us five minutes after we die; but it is much better to be surprised about the indescribable glories of heaven than the indescribable agonies of hell.

Be wrong about social security; be wrong about baseball; be wrong about your career choice; but dont be wrong about where you will spend eternity.

This book will lead you on a journey. We will discover why we can know, even now, where we will be after we have said our last words and breathed our last breath.

With your Bible in one hand, and your doubts and questions in the other, let us begin our journey.

Faith can destroy you!

As residents of Chicago, my wife and I clearly remember the Tylenol tampering episode that happened here in 1982. You might remember that someone bent on random murder put cyanide in a few capsules. The poison did its work very well. One woman who bought her Tylenol from a drugstore near our church died within minutes after taking a single capsule. In all, seven unsuspecting people died.

Two unforgettable lessons emerged from this tragedy. First, faith does not in itself have any special merit; it does not have the power to change the nature of a drug from harmful to helpful. Seven people firmly believed they were taking medicine, not poison. But their faith did not save them. In fact, their faith killed them.

Faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed. Or, to put it differently, what we believe is more important than the fervency of our belief. That old clich, It doesnt matter what you believe as long as you are sincere, just isnt true, as the victims of the Tylenol episode proved. Better to believe the truth with trembling hands than to believe error with steady confidence. What you believe really matters.

A second lesson we must learn from the Tylenol episode is scary indeed: Sometimes a false belief resembles a true one. To the casual observer, the cyanide looked just like the Tylenol powder. The label had all the earmarks of being authentic, so there seemed to be no need to distrust the contents. The promise was that these pills would relieve pain, yet taking a single one brought death.

Christ taught that many people who have a strong and abiding faith will someday discover that their faith cannot save them. To their everlasting chagrin, they will live to see the door of heaven slammed in their faces. They will spend eternity on the wrong side of the celestial entrance.

Maybe we can best capture the feeling if we use a story from this side of heavens gates. Imagine standing in a swamp while a rescue plane flies overhead. You wave your weary arms and moan, but you know that the pilot does not see you. You do not have the strength to walk to civilization, and because your sense of direction is confused, you would not know where to walk if you could. Since the other members of your party died when your plane went down in the swamp three days ago, you are completely alone.