No Escape

Recently I was reviewing some of the world’s most popular names and best known Hollywood stars. In my travels, I have had the privilege of being to a number of cemeteries like Forest Lawn in California. I was interested in that which is called the final resting place of the famous of this earth.

Among them were two which really stood out to me from the rest, that of Howard Hughes and Harry Houdini. Both the memorials are magnificent, but they are only monuments to a life once lived and of an individual who is in eternity. As I thought of these two men, both admired by thousands, one reaching into the skies and the other by great escape abilities, several thoughts were brought to my mind.

• Howard Hughes did magnificent achievements. In 1935 he broke the previous record by flying at 352 miles per hour across land. Later he flew from Burbank California to Newark in just under seven and a half hours and sometime later set a world record for round-the-world flights in three days, 19 hours, and 17 minutes. He flew high and wide.
• Houdini in earlier years would work with the police who would strip and search him, and having placed him in shackles would lock him in jails. Of course, he escaped to the delight of the audience. In time he took on more daring feats such as being locked in water-filled tanks and eventually the escape from the Chinese Water Torture.
• However, there is one height to which Hughes could never rise. No matter the amount of money he had or the plans made, he could never move out of the earth’s atmosphere, and there is one escape Houdini could never escape from, and that is death.

As I live in this sad sin stricken world of broken humanity, I suppose I am the same as so many others, I would like to get away from this present environment. Like Houdini, I would love to escape the emptiness, the loneliness, the sorrows, and disappointments of life. Very sadly, on average 800,000 individuals give up all hope committing suicide, thinking that is the way of escape. How wrong they are. On average, every hour 91 people actually commit suicide, which is approximately 3 every two minutes.

The Good News

The good news is, and judging by the downward fast-flowing world we live in, it is only a matter of time before I will leave this world behind by one of two ways:

• • I shall possibly find there is no escape from death and I shall breathe my last breath, and like a ship slipping away from the shore, I shall embark on that journey to my celestial
  • At that moment my spirit will leave this body and I shall rise through worlds here unknown, no dark tunnel nor a dream, but in a living reality, I shall soar to that land of endless day and eternal delights. No spacecraft will be needed, just the almighty power of God and the infiniteness of His unclouded love will carry me into the eternal pleasures at God’s right hand (Psa. 16:11). There I shall see the Lord in all His awe-inspiring glory, and in delighted wonder bow at His nail-pierced feet. If I would be so blessed to see His hands and  feet, my song will be:

By and by when I look on His face, Beautiful face, thorn-shadowed face.

By and by when I look on His face, I’ll wish I had given Him more.

Chorus:

More, so much more;

More of my life than I e’re gave before. By and by when I look on His face,

I’ll wish I had given Him more.

By and by when He holds out His hands, Welcoming hands, nail-pierced hands;

By and by when He holds out His hands, I’ll wish I had given Him more.

By and by when I kneel at His feet, Beautiful feet, nail-riven feet;

By and by when I kneel at His feet, I’ll wish I had given Him more.

• It will possibly have been observed that I said, “I shall possibly find there is no escape from death” for there is the possibility I shall never see death. I shall escape its pale pallor for there is to come the greatest intervention by God in the last two thousand years. The scriptures inform its readers that there is a time set by God when the Lord Jesus will start His descent from Heaven to come to the air, to take to Heaven all those who have put their eternal destiny on the sacrifice of the Son of God. Every individual, at least for the past two thousand years (I am using round figures) will rise to meet Him in the He shall come with a shout, the trumpet will sound and every saint who has died will rise from their grave, even those not buried, whither burned or lost in explosions or lost at sea will rise, and then all those saints who are alive on the earth at that time will join them, and with the Lord leading the way they will rise into Heaven. En route they shall pass the ranks of angelic beings, the celestial archangels, and be brought with joy into the presence of God the Father. There the Lord will present us to Himself, and to the Father.
  • This aging body will be changed. Eyes that are dim will see in superlative clarity, bodies disfigured by disease will be perfect, the tongues silent through impediment will shout in perfection, and life will never end. Never again will saints know a tear to run down their faces, never again to be haunted by memories of the past, never again to know the emptiness of being in a silent home and an empty All will be eternal joy. True freedom will be entered into and those who cannot sing now will have voices that will thrill the spirits as the greatest choir ever, consisting of untold millions of voices will in harmony and unison sing, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain and hast redeemed us to God by His blood”. I shall have soared higher than Howard Hughes and escaped that which Houdini could never escape from.

The Other Side Of The Coin

 So far, what I have written applies only to those who have put their dependence on the sacrifice of Christ for salvation. None of them are depending on their works nor have they turned away from the reality of their deserving of divine condemnation in Hell for eternity. They are those who have faced the facts.  What about those who have never trusted  100% in the altogether finished work of the Lord? Then they, like Houdini, will never escape.

• Never escape death:
  • Man is born, grows up, lives and then dies. Where the individual goes after that is completely up to them. Every day, every minute of the day, people die. Across the world, just under two people die every second. On average 6316 people die every hour and by the 24th of April next year (for this is when this is being written) 151,600 people will die and the reader may be one of them. It could very well be that the very casket or coffin your body will lie in is already at the undertaker’s. There is no escape in that war for, as an individual, you will die and no one will be able to help. They will have to simply stand aside.
• Never escape their standing before the Lord as Judge:
  • If the death was the end of life, the matter of what is after would be of no consequence, but it is not the end of life. God has given His pledge that every unsaved person, whether religious or irreligious, no matter what their race, citizenship, earthly possession, prestige, or power, will be made to stand before the Lord. The atheist, the careless sinner might ignore the reality while in the body but, like a criminal in the dock, they will stand before the Judge of all the earth and the books will be opened. I suppose the darkest moments will be when the Book of Life is opened and their name not in.
• Never escape the consequences of their sin and rejection of God’s salvation:
  • To such they will forever be cast alive into the lake of fire, blackness of darkness, for there is no end and no hope of any further mercy from God. The individual has had their opportunity and made the fateful decision to reject God’s offer of salvation and their doom is sealed for all eternity. This was not God’s doing but their own. The individual rejected God’s way, saying in their heart, “I’ll do it my way”. The way that seemed so right will end in eternal grief and Never again will the individual know a glimmer of happiness, a comfort of earth or the blessing of a warm embrace. They had their opportunity and spurned God’s gracious offer.

Conclusion

What would be the wise thing to do? While there is time and still in the body, with haste rush to the cross of the Saviour and confessing one’s own undeserving state, graspingly accept the blessed Son of God and put your faith and trust in His finished work at Calvary for your personal rescuing from eternal damnation. As the hymn writer said, “We have this moment to hold in our hands and to touch as it slips through our fingers like sand, Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come”. The Bible says: “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). Tomorrow may be too late, the decision is yours, the individual.

Credit: www.scripturaltruths.org Rowan Jennings

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