Daily Devotional for Tuesday January 27, 2015
Death is the Great Equalizer
(Hebrews 9:27)
***ASK BILL: Pastor Bill, this is troubling to me. Please explain what is meant by, "the road to heaven is narrow and few will find the way."
ANSWER: Sadly, despite the Gospel being available to all, most will choose to reject it. The biggest reason I see daily is because people don't want to be held accountable. The "narrow road" doesn't only pertain to Jesus being the ONLY way to be saved, but the Bible being the ONLY truth. Sadly, most choose to reject that Truth.
Last Friday, Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud died at age 90. King Abdullah ascended to the throne in August of 2005 upon the death of his half-brother, King Faud. Like Faud, he was one of the many sons of Ibn Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. Despite the privilege this man was born into, despite the incredible wealth he controlled, despite his power as a leader of one of the top oil producing nations on the planet, the second his heart stopped beating, King Abdullah was no longer a king, his great wealth became meaningless, his earthly power no longer existed, he was simply a man standing before the God of the Bible, His Creator.
My friend, this is the moment every person will eventually face. At that moment when this life is over and we are standing before God, there is only ONE thing that matters, DO YOU KNOW JESUS BY FAITH? It was God's plan to send Jesus to die for your sins, since it is your sins that separate you from a Holy God. That is why ONLY faith in Jesus Christ will save you and allow you to spend eternity with the God who created you and loves you so much.
Sadly for King Abdullah, he had put his faith in Mohammed and not Jesus. You see, Mohammed was simply a man who lived and died like you and I. He was born with the same sin that you and I are born with. That is why faith in Mohammed cannot save you. It was JESUS who God sent to this earth in a supernatural way to escape the sin we inherited from Adam. It was Jesus who lived a sinless life so that He could go to a cross 2,000 years ago and give His life as a one-time perfect sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. On the third day, God raised Him from the dead and He is ALIVE TODAY!!!
My friend, death is the great equalizer. I have no doubt that the second King Abdullah passed from this life into eternity, there was a man in some part of this world, a follower of Jesus Christ who also died. However, this man was NOT born into royalty as King Abdullah was. This man had NO wealth in his lifetime. This man had now earthly power. This man was UNKNOWN to the world. Yet the moment this man died, what he didn't have in this life didn't matter any longer.
You see, he too was simply a man standing before God his Creator just like King Abdullah.That is why the poor man who died at the same time as King Abdullah, the man with nothing, but the man who knew Jesus Christ as his Savior, is forever with God while King Abdullah will spend all eternity in Hell for his rejection of Christ. King Abdullah chose to live for the few years he had on earth rejecting Christ and God's plan for everlasting life. Despite his great wealth and power during his few years on earth, he will now spend all eternity apart from God his creator.
I love you and care about you so much. While you may not have been born into a royal family, and may not have the great power and wealth King Abdullah enjoyed, the fact is that YOU TOO can get caught up in living for the temporal pleasures of this life and miss eternity. YOU TOO can get caught up with having "things" and not having Jesus. I pray today that you will take a moment and ask yourself if you were to die in the next minute, will you spend eternity with God, your Creator?
If you cannot emphatically and with 100% certainty say YES, if you have ANY DOUBTS AT ALL, then take a moment and pray, then go to this link, http://www.liveprayer.com/plan.cfm . YOU DO NOT EVER HAVE TO DOUBT AGAIN WHERE YOUR ETERNITY WILL BE SPENT IF YOU TAKE A MOMENT TO PRAY FOR GOD TO OPEN YOUR HEART, READ THESE WORDS, AND ACCEPT CHRIST INTO YOUR HEART AND LIFE BY FAITH!!!!
Sadly, it is too late for King Abdullah. All of the incredible advantages and benefits that he had in this brief life DID not help him when it came to the most important question we will each have to answer . . . DO YOU HAVE A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS BY FAITH??? Today, YOU can settle that issue once and for all and never doubt again where YOUR eternity will be spent!!!
Personal Commentary: In all of these years of Liveprayer, I stay away from speculation and FAR AWAY from conspiracy theories. So this is as labeled, strictly a personal commentary. While like many I have doubts where the President was actually born, since there is no legitimate reason to spend the incredible amount of money that has been spent to keep seal such a basic piece of information. More troubling for me however has always been WHO really paid for President Obama to go to Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard? Why have ALL RECORDS of his application to attend, how his education was paid, his grades, not to mention his writings as the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review been sealed and kept private at incredible expense? My personal gut is that President Obama's education was paid for by the Saudi royal family and that he has been a puppet for the Saudi's, which means for Islam. I HAVE NO PROOF AND REITERATE THIS IS SIMPLY MY PERSONAL EDUCATED OPINION. I prayed and hesitated for hours before including this commentary. I was actually going to omit it since it doesn't add anything to the powerful Gospel message that makes up the Daily Devotional today. However, I just read that NBC News broke a story that King Abdullah really hated President Obama despite the obvious admiration Obama had for the Saudi King. What better "news" organization than the Obama controlled NBC to put out such a story, and it only reinforced my personal belief for whatever it ultimately may mean.
In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller