I went into a busy building early one morning looking for help, but they took my clothes and began to hurt me. Different people came up to me and asked me the same questions I had just answered like an interrogation, as if trying to catch me in a lie. They seemed nice, but I was in pain, and they wouldn’t give me what they knew I needed to make it stop. I couldn’t tell if they were smiling or smirking behind the masks they wore. I finally lost consciousness, so I was completely at their mercy. When I woke up, I discovered my throat had been cut and someone had stabbed me in the chest! Was I in Heaven? If so, why am I still in pain? I’m a bit warm but I don’t think I’m in Hell because I’m not on fire.
As you may have guessed things were not as they seem. I was in the hospital, where they implanted a device in my chest to treat my sleep apnea. They ran a wire up through my neck that should help open my airway when I sleep. My pain was partly due to the surgery but mostly because I couldn’t have coffee until after the surgery was finished. Everything that was done was for my good and to improve my health and should help me to live a longer, healthier life.
This kind of thing happens more often than you might think. A smiling politician makes a touching speech about what his legislation will do for the people, but things are not as they seem. His real intentions are to make sure he gets reelected by paying off his political backers and campaign donors. His project will take care of those who got him elected and so they will take care of him again. What will the people get out of it? They get to pay for his scheme!
Another more tragic and often repeated scene is taking place many times a day around the world. People are paying their last respects to those who died. No matter what kind of person they were, everyone speaks comforting words about the deceased and reassures their family, friends and loved ones that he/she is in a better place, free from pain, finally at rest, or resting in peace. Sadly, for the most part things are not as they seem. How can you be so cruel as to judge the deceased, haven’t they suffered enough? I speak the truth in love for the living because it’s too late to help or hurt the dead.
JESUS said, “wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Mat 7:13-14 KJV). Why would GOD send all those people to Hell? He didn’t, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16-17 KJV) and JESUS “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil 2:8 KJV) to fulfill GOD’s plan of salvation.
If it’s such a great plan, why isn’t it working? Because in this world full of religion, things are not as they seem. GOD gave us the way, but people choose to follow the thief who “cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy” (John 10:10 KJV). The plan is perfect, and JESUS is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6 KJV) so follow Him and be saved!
Wayne Lance (2023) – That’s Good News to Share!