"Attention please.  This is the final call for flight XYZ departing for ..."  We've all heard that announcement at airports, haven't we?  A plane is ready to leave and if you don't get to the check-in desk immediately, well, you're going to miss your flight and be left behind.  It's your last chance to make it on to the aeroplane that is departing for the destination of your choice.  If you miss or ignore the call, you won't get to your journey's end.

I've been thinking about another journey's end recently.  I've been thinking about Eternity.  It's a tricky subject and one which we all tend to shy away from because it just seems too big to cope with.  However, as I was reading my bible, the story Jesus told about the Beggar and the Rich Man suddenly illuminated the whole issue for me in a new way, and I began to see how where we get to spend eternity is not decided after we die, but right here and now, while we live on Earth!

Sadly, many people today are misled and deceived and do not even believe that Heaven and Hell exist!  The Word of God is truth however, and from the Scriptures we know that Heaven and Hell certainly do exist and are very real places.  They are as real as the one thing that comes to all mankind - death.  We will all die someday and whether we end up in Heaven or in Hell at that time will be the choice of our own making.  Yes, our own making!  Almighty God did not give mankind free-will for no good reason.

The Lord God says in Deuteronomy 30:19: "This day I call heaven and earth as witness against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Now choose life so that you and your children may live".  He advises us to choose life because we are all already condemned to eternal death when we are without God!  "Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the Name of God's one and only Son" [John 3:18].

In Luke 16:19-31 Jesus relates the story about the Beggar Lazarus and the Rich Man and what happened to each of them when they died.  In this short history Jesus makes it abundantly clear that after death there are only two final destinations possible for everybody - Heaven or Hell.

The Rich Man dies and finds himself in Hell.   Now let's be clear - it was not his wealth that caused him to end up there.  It is not a sin to be wealthy.  "God's friend" [2 Chronicles 20:7], Abraham, was rich.  Likewise so was Joseph, David, Solomon and many others who were saved when they died.  No! It was not the Rich Man's wealth that caused his downfall.  It was his attitude to God.  He leaned on his earthly treasures and not on God.  He relied solely on his own resources and strength.  He was self-satisfied and content not to have God in his life and that is why Hell was his final destination.

When we are happy to live without God in our lives then we remain lost and doomed to be without Him for all eternity.  Hell is a place of torture and torment because, once there, the sinner realises just what he/she has thrown away: "What does it prosper a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his soul" [Matthew 16:26].  The sheer hopelessness of Hell must be bitter indeed.

In contrast, the Beggar dies and is carried to Heaven by angels.  Why?  It was not simply because he had suffered poverty in his earthly life.  No - again it was because of his attitude to God.  He recognised his need of God during his lifetime.  He recognised his spiritual poverty without God and chose to do something about it!  He repented of his sins and sought God.  He leaned upon and trusted God, even in the midst of all his distress.  He didn't berate God for his circumstances, rather he leaned upon God to get him through them.  God was the centre of his life.  And because Lazarus walked with God in life, so he was rewarded in death by getting to spend eternity with Him in Heaven.

Lazarus the Beggar had God in his life and was rich.  The Rich Man did not, and was poor.  The Rich Man could, like Lazarus, have been dis-satisfied without God and chosen to seek Him: "Seek and you shall find" [Matthew 7:8].  Instead, however, he chose to seek his fulfillment in material, earthly things.  He had no time for God in his life.  He was complacent and didn't think he even needed God.  This Rich Man may very well have been seen throughout his community as a good, decent, moral, upstanding and respectable man but, without God, he remained damned for, as Jesus tells us, "unless a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of Heaven" [John 3:3].

Jesus warns us about the danger of self-reliance and self-deception in Revelation 3:17-18 when He says: "You say 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing'.  But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.  I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, so that you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so that you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so that you can see".

A person who rejects God, who never "hungers and thirsts after righteousness" [Matthew 5:6] while they live, will most certainly thirst and cry out to God when they die.  Tragically, his or her prayers will then be much too late because they will have already reached their final destination and their ticket is not valid for a return trip.

We experience a small taste of heaven and hell right here on earth too by our attitudes towards God.  Living in obedience to Him is the key to our peace.  Jesus warns us that there are two roads from which to choose - "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." [Matthew 7:13-14].  The consequences of our choice of road often results in the happiness, or otherwise, of our lives.   In whom or in what are you trusting today?  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." [Proverbs 3:5-6].

Jesus' story shows us that we must decide NOW how we're going to live - with God or without Him - and, as a result of our decision, where our final destination will be.  Heaven is real.  Hell is real.  So ask yourself:  where do you want to spend eternity?  It's up to you.

Our God in His great mercy, love and grace has provided us with a way back to Him: "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" [John 3:16].  Faith in Jesus Christ and what He did for us on the Cross redeems us.  In Christ we are born again into a right relationship with God; the kind of relationship that Adam enjoyed with God, before mankind's fall into sin.  In Christ, our sins are forgiven.  In Christ we trust and, consequently, by Christ we are saved to dwell with Him in Heaven. "Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under Heaven given to men by which we must be saved" [Acts 4:12].

Our final destination depends upon the choice we make today.  Don't miss the Lord's "final call" to your journey's end.  Make your decision today.

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