Life after Death, but Where?

We apologize for our prolonged absence; the weather and snow has affected our normal pattern of Sunday school and services.

Our main passage for today was a story about a woman who had a horrible childhood, eventually became a single mother with five kids, one of whom drowned to death, and in the end turned towards Christ before dying of a stroke. After the passage was read, we were asked where we believed this woman, Sally, would go after death.

There are many passages in the Bible that relate to how we are all judged by the law, but there are also many more which relate to God's mercy in salvation. The broad range of passages make it difficult for Christians to fully answer the question of where a person will go after death.

The discussion of the question turned to how we, as Christians, are supposed to go out and preach the word to people like Sally so that there is no question; sometimes a person need only hear the word once to repent and be saved. The ultimate question in this regard is the definition of repentance and how far one must go to fully repent and turn to Christ. Once again, this question is difficult to answer, but God's mercy does make it very much possible to repent, regardless of how long or how much you must repent to be saved.

Next, our discussion turned to how we are saved; are we saved by faith or works or all of the above? It was unanimous that we are saved by faith and that good works are simply the fruits of our faith. If we were saved in any way by good works, then some people might do good deeds for the wrong reason; one cannot be thinking of their own salvation when preaching or showing the word to others without becoming a hypocrite.

Moving on, a member of our group told us a dual-meaning parable about how a child always told their parent about an event at the last minute and the parent always complained and told the child to tell them ahead of time, but the child never grasped what their parent was saying for a very, very long time; when the child did listen, however, it made all the difference in the world.

The first meaning of the parable is that we don't always listen or want to listen to God's word, but when we do, it makes all the difference in the world. If we listen to God's word and grasp it, even if it's only once, it could change our lives forever for the better.

The second meaning of the parable is actually more of a question; can we be saved at the last minute? Can we hear the word and repent within a short period of time, as if the child was moving away shortly after finally hearing the word? This is a long debated topic, and it all comes down to repentance. Time is really of no interest to God, and as long as a person truly believes, repents, and is filled with faith, then they can be saved through Jesus and God's mercy. Nevertheless, it is still difficult to come to a final conclusion on this question.

The final answer that comes from the question of where a person, like Sally, is going to go after death is that we have no authority. Jesus himself specifically tells us that we are not supposed to judge others, and it is a very good assumption that this can be applied to judging ourselves as well. In the end, only God can make the final call, and only he should make the final call or any other accusations and judgments.

Even with our final answer determined, we decided to continue the debate. We next debated the fate of atheists, although we really just debated how and why there were atheists and what they believed. One of our group actually admitted that there was a time in his life when he did not believe in God, but he has since made a dramatic turn to God. He brought up a good point about how atheists typically can remember when they turned away from God, thus implying that there was and is a part of them that wants to or does believe in God and Christ. As Christians, we have to bring that part of everyone in the world out; it is our mission and our duty to spread the word.

Nobody can say who can be saved unless they are spreading the word to everyone, and even then it is not their judgement which decides. Non-believers and those with little to no faith are and can only be saved by those with great faith and those who show their faith to the world. Love your neighbor and go spread the word; wake up and do something for the glory of God.