Tale Of Two Deaths

All over the world today people died. Very simply put they died in two categories. Those who were saved, redeemed, born again, blood bought and children of God. Or those who were lost, hostile to God, alienated from God, blinded and children of wrath.

In most cases people were left behind to grieve their passing. Parents, children, friends, other relatives and acquaintances. For the true believers they grieve but they grieve differently than non believers. Followers of Jesus still grieve but they do so with hope. The hope of heaven and reunion with loved ones already departed into eternity has comforted millions throughout history. For the non believers there is no hope.

I have preached funerals for both sets of people. The non believers have a harder time letting go. This is all they had. The here and now. There is no other hope. The love and grace of God spurned will be traded for the wrath and vengeance of a holy God. Hell awaits to swallow and belch the souls of those who strayed on the broad path that leads to destruction. The believer sorrows but does so with the hope that their loved one is with the Lord. They are consoled by the comfort of eternity in Heaven.

The following verses are a good reminder. There is hope after death for Christians. There is judgment for non believers.

Hebrews 9:27-28 (NASB)
27  And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,
28  so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NASB)
13  But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.
14  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
15  For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16  For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17  Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
18  Therefore comfort one another with these words.