Different religions have their own teaching on life and death, and heaven and hell, and it can all be very confusing. Forget about religion for a little bit. Organized religions are a way of identifying a group of like minded individuals and what they believe as a body. The teachings of many of these religions often differ from, or even come in direct conflict with, what the Bible teaches. I’m not going to go into what each of the belief systems adheres to. I’m concerned with what the Bible has to say about the subject.

When we’re talking about salvation in the Biblical sense it is a rescue from certain death. It isn’t a guarantee that your body will never die, but that your soul, the essence that is you, will go on to be with God for eternity. This is life eternal. Death, in this case, is the second death, after the death of the body. The soul is cast into the lake of fire that burns forever.

Revelation 21:8 “8 But the fearful, and unbelieving,
and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers,
and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone:
which is the second death.”

It is separation from God for all eternity. Punishment and torment, without ceasing, forever. This is a theme spelled out many times. Once you are there, there is no guarantee of escape, no hope that you will be spared. There is no reason to expect that God will hear your pleas for mercy and pluck you out of the flames.

But God does provide a way to keep you from going there in the first place. Hell was not made for man, but as a final punishment for Satan and his angels. It was not created for us, but it is the place that we can choose to go to.

Matthew 25:41 “41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand,
Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels:”

“Who would ever choose to go to such a place?”

John 3:16-19 “16 For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into
the world to condemn the world; but that the world
through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him
is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already,
because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil.”

Just about everyone knows what John 3:16 says, even unbelievers. It’s probably the most often quoted passage in the Bible.  And I think that’s great. That gives them something to remember and hold on to when the end of their life is near.

But people usually stop reading there.

Keep reading down to verse 18 and 19.

You may say that you haven’t yet made a choice. You’re still sitting on the fence. You haven’t made up your mind whether this is all real. You’re not rejecting Christ, but you’re not sure that you believe all this stuff about Him.

Then you have made your decision, maybe without even realizing it. Not accepting Him is a decision. It is rejection.

But it’s not too late. As long as you draw breath, even on your death bed, you have the opportunity to accept Christ as your Savior. Anyone who comes to Him is welcome. It is His desire that the whole world would be saved. But we have to go to Him on His own terms.

Just what are those terms?

You only need to go to Him as you are. You cannot approach Him under any pretense. He knows your heart and what you’ve done. You can’t hid anything from Him.

John 4:17-18 “17 The woman answered and said, I have no husband.
Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:
18 For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou
now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.”

And you must accept His grave and salvation as a gift.

Romand 6:23 “23 For the wages of sin [is] death;
but the gift of God [is] eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord.”

God made this so unbelievably easy that many don’t believe it. In fact, Christians are called fools for believing that simply believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, the One who took the form of man and died on a cross, taking all of our sins, past, present, and future, on Himself, then rising from the dead three days later is enough to gain entrance into His eternal kingdom. But it’s really as simple as that.

It cannot be bought or traded for. Nobody can deny you this gift because it come directly from God.

Paul states several times in 1 Corinthians 1 that the ways and wisdom of God is foolishness to man. Man doesn’t want to put someone else in control of his own destiny. Even if it is God. So he listens to what other people tell him about what he has to do in order to earn salvation. Man’s salvation is in his own hands.

Man wants to take control of your salvation because if he can do that, he can control you. If he can convince you that there are things that you need to do to earn salvation for your eternal soul, he can require anything of you. He can make you pay any price.

1Timothy 2:5 “5 For [there is] one God, and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;”

The good news is that your salvation is between you and God. The only person who stands between you and God, who can stand between you, is Jesus. He will never stop you from coming to God. He will never require more of you. If you place a human intermediary, that man can tell you that you cannot have a relationship with God unless you do what certain things, that you cannot get into heaven until he gives you the thumbs-up. God never intended for our salvation to rest in the hands of men.

Before Jesus died, only the High Priest could pass beyond the curtain of the temple and enter the Holy of Holies to approach God, which he did once a year. When Jesus died on the cross, the veil in the temple which separated the Holy of Holies where God was from the rest of the structure, was torn in half. This told us that we can go directly to God. We don’t need a priest to do it on our behalf.

There is no priest, no offering, no action, nothing you can do to make yourself good enough. What makes you declared righteous in the eyes of God is the blood of Jesus. You have the freedom to go to God at any time and for anything. That’s it. It’s that simple.

1 John 1:9 “9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Confess to God that you are a sinner in need of His forgiveness. Acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who died on the cross and rose again three days later so that you could be forgiven and released from your sin.

2 Corinthians 6:2 “2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted,
and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold,
now [is] the accepted time; behold, now [is] the day of salvation.)

Tomorrow is not promised to you. This is a decision that you have to make today. The three most heartbreaking words that you can hear are, “It’s too late.”