IN THE LINE FOR HEAVEN
THEME: ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT WE WILL ALL HAVE TO STAND BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD. BUT WHO WILL BE THERE ALSO? WE MUST LIFE IN SUCH A WAY THAT WE WILL NOT BE ASHAMED TO SEE OTHER PEOPLE THERE WITH US.
Today we are going on a journey. We are traveling from this earth to the heavenly realm above when the Lord is sitting on his throne. But we are not before the Lord yet. We are waiting in line for our time of judgment. We all recognize this time because it is the source of numerous jokes about Peter at the gate. Now this sermon is not a joke but we are going to use our imagination to reflect on what it will be like for us to be standing in line on the judgment day. How will you feel? What will be going through your mind? What will it be like to know that our judgment is near and only moments away?
There we are, waiting, just waiting in line. The line is moving slowly and we begin to look around at the other faces. There are people from all over the world in this line. We see some familiar faces as well as some unfamiliar faces. It is a huge line. Everyone you can tell is nervous and excited to meet the Lord for the first time. It is judgment day.
As we look up in the line we see Frank. We all know Frank. He is the guy that we walked by everyday. He had no food, friends, or nice clothing. He was always in trouble with the law and he was in Wayne County Jail numerous times. We use to laugh at him and maybe feel a little sorry for him now and then, but we never helped nor talked to him. All of a sudden we start to feel bad. We remember the scriptures that told us to love our neighbor and to feed and clothes the poor. But we never really thought about it until now. Now we are in line and it is too late. Only if there was a Wal-Mart in heaven we could go shopping and buy him some items. But it is too late, just too late to do anything now.
Matthew 25: 35-46 "Then the King will say to those on His right, ’Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ’For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ "Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ’Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You drink? ’And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ’And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ "And the King will answer and say to them, ’Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ "Then He will also say to those on His left, ’Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ "Then they themselves also will answer, saying, ’Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ "Then He will answer them, saying, ’Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
Now we are feeling a little nervous. Is the Lord really going to hold us to this standard? We are feeling a little regret for not helping when it would have been so easy to lend a helping hand. This person makes us a little fearful about the coming judgment.
As we are standing in line we notice Jack. We all know Jack. He was a great guy. He was well known around Waynesboro and everyone loved him. We would talk with him and see him at all the sport functions and at the games on Friday night. He had some great kids and a wonderful wife. He worked as a lawyer in town and he seemed to have everything. He drove a nice car and lived in a huge house. But the problem was that we all knew that Jack was not a Christian. We start talking to each other in line. Did you ever ask Jack to church? No, no, no, no is all that we said. I didn’t, I thought you would have because you are so close with him. No I didn’t, I thought you would have asked him. Everyone in line said they never did. We all started to feel bad because we all knew he was going to hell and we passed him every day and said nothing. Nothing at all.
Then we all started to worry. Is God going to hold us accountable for never mentioning Christ to him? Will his life be on our hands? We all knew what the Bible said. We all read Matthew 28:19-20 “"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." We also read Mark 16:15-16 “And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.” We all knew the Bible, but too bad we never told him. We all started to hide from him now. None of us wanted to look at him in the eyes because of what we have done. We let him go to hell with a slap on the back and a firm handshake at the ballgame. We were ashamed of ourselves for never mentioning Christ to him. Now we are getting worried again about our own salvation. Is the Lord going to hold the fact that we were not evangelistic against us? Is he going to judge us on this factor?
You know one day I was traveling to Canada from Texas and I was on this flight from Boston to Halifax. The plane was small and noisy. I been on this trip before and each time I wondered if I would make it. This one trip was an interesting adventure. I was sitting in my sit and this girl next to me started to make small talk. You know the type of talk. Little questions of little importance, to see if you want to chat away the two hours and of course I wanted to talk. I love to talk. In the conversation, I learned that she grew up close to my home. She went to a neighboring school and she even knew some of my friends and classmates. In our conversation I mentioned that I was a preacher and I was going to school in Texas. She mentioned that her father was a preacher. This made for great small talk for the rest of the trip. But something disturbed me on our chat. She told me about a friend named Bryce. I knew Bryce for years. I knew him all though Jr. High and High school. She told me that he was a strong member of the youth group where she grew up. I was shock. I could not believe it. He was the farthest thing from a Christian that I could imagine. For over 6 years that I knew him, never once did he even mention the fact that he was suppose to be a Christian to me. He never let it out of his loyalty to Christ. This girl thought he was a strong Christian teenager but in fact he was a sinful heathen. He never ever told his friends that he was a Christian. He should be ashamed of himself.
Now we are sweating a little in this line for the throne room of heaven. We were all rejoicing but we are starting to realize that we were not as faithful as we should have been. Then a great noise from the front of the line makes its way back to us. There is a great sound of excitement at the front of the line. Everyone is rejoicing. So we send someone up to see what is causing the great out flowing of joy. We send John up to discover the source. He comes running back out of breath. After he catches his breath he tells everyone that God’s not counting Wednesdays against people.
This sparked a reflection on how faithful we were to the Lord. Did we truly serve him to the best of our ability? Did we not go to church because of lame excuses and plain lack of serious commitment? How about our Bible reading? And how about our prayer life? Did we ever serve in the church or did we only expect people to serve us? It was easy taking Christianity for granite on earth. There always seemed to be other tasks to accomplish and sometimes T.V. was just too good that night. We started to remember all the times that we let rain, the cold, and the excuse of being too tired keep us away from studying God’s word. It was sad because we know that in church 10% of the people do 90% of the work. Too many of us had sad hearts because we wanted to go to heaven but now that we are in line we did not even know the people around us that well. We never fellowshipped and we never made friends in the church because we were not involved in the Lord’s work.
We all started to remember the verses that the preacher would quote to us. Especially, that verse about “seeking the Kingdom first.” Knowing in our hearts now that we never did. Mark 8:34-38 became a ringing bell in our heads now. “And He summoned the multitude with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it. "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? "For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."”
Now we started to make reasons why it was just not possible to life up to this verse. We started brainstorming to come up with reasons why we still should go to heaven. We started to find ways to justify our lack of faithfulness. But all of the excuses seemed so little now that the judgment was near. That is the problem, on earth it is easy to put the Lord second and your life first.
One time at Freed-Hardeman, the Henderson church of Christ started a college ministry. One morning a group of students met and went through the College dorms knocking on doors. Now this is a Christian College and the majority of the students are Christians. But the majority of the students were still in bed. This door knocking campaign caused people to be highly upset. They did not feel that it was right for someone to wake them up in the morning to go to church. They were mad at the students for knocking on their doors. Just imagine how the Lord felt.
All those in the congregation started to realize that they only gave Christ a second hand love. Church was a place to go but they never embraced Christianity as something that they were. They never tried to grow to maturity. Judgment day was here and Matthew 7:21-23 rung in their ears like a trumpet in a room. “"Not everyone who says to Me, ’Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. "Many will say to Me on that day, ’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ "And then I will declare to them, ’I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’” Everyone wanted to go to heaven but not everyone paid the price to go.
Finally, as the line was getting closer some of the people in line started looking for water. They realized that they never were baptized for the remission of sins. They went to church. Believed in God. Lived a strong moral life but never obeyed the Lord when he told them to be baptized in Acts 2:38 “And Peter said to them, "Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” They knew they should, but never get around to it. They knew what the Bible said but just keep putting it off every week. They said, “I will do it next week.” “I am not ready yet.” They had a ton of excuses that they were wishing to take back at this time. Just imagine all the people in line wishing that they could just have one last chance to submit to the Lord. Just one chance is all they are asking for. But it is too late.
This man in Florida I know went to church every week, even Sunday Bible School, Sunday services, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. He gave to the church. He served the church. He was a wonderful man who was a great servant. He did this for over 20 years. To the estimation of everyone who just knew him a little, he was a strong Christian man. But he was never baptized into Christ. Imagine him in the line for heaven. He heard what he had to do to be saved but he neglected to do it. Imagine his heart and mind racing and hoping. What a sad day for this man.
We will all have to stand before the judgment sit of Christ at the end of time. The feelings that come to you in line are up to how you response to the Gospel. Will you be nervous or at peace. It is up to you.
Matthew Morine
