Waking Up In A Very Different Place

Good News – January 2009 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Waking Up In A Very Different Place

“As I live,” says the Lord G OD , “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways!” – Ezekiel 33 :11 NKJV

For over 70 years I’ve gone to bed every night fully expecting to wake up in the morning in familiar surroundings. But for me that will change soon, and I will wake in a very different place.

As a child you don’t expect anything to change. You wake up each morning, and life goes on as usual. Then at some point you get a fleeting thought that it’s not always going to be this way. But you say, “It’s not going to happen to me. It will go on as always for me.” Then, as you get older you start noticing more and more the life around you, and you realize it is not always going to stay the same.

In the Bible it says, “It is appointed for men to die once” (Heb. 9:27), and you now know it’s true. Everyone dies at some point. But then the serious question comes: “Where will you wake up after you die?”

Like I said, one day we’ll wake up in a very different place. By God’s grace, when I wake up it’ll be in heaven, and I’ll see Jesus. I’ll be just like the thief on the cross who heard Jesus say, “Today you will be with Me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43).

The apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians that “to depart and be with Christ ... is far better” (Phil. 1:23). And he also wrote to the Thessalonians that “The dead in Christ shall rise first ... And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Th. 4:16-17).

I know I’ll see Jesus because at His birth an angel said that He came to “save His people from their sins” (Mt. 1:21), and He “bore our sins in His own body on the tree” at Calvary (1 Pet. 2:24). I will see Jesus because I trusted Him as my Savior.

The Bible tells us that in heaven we’ll no longer have any pain, sorrow or sin (Rev. 21:4,27). But it also tells us a little of what we will have: “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). Plus we will see Jesus, and we will be like Him (1 Jn. 3:2). What a sight to wake up to!

But that’s only if you wake up in heaven. If not, you’re in for an eternity in the wrong place – hell – which is described as a “place of torment.” And you won’t be able to change your mind then (Lk. 16:19-31). You have to decide now, before you wake up in a very different place – a horrible place!

So, will it be heaven, paradise with Jesus Christ? Or hell, where there is torment in flames forever, because you rejected God’s offer of the only way to heaven? Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn. 14:6). There is only one way, and it is through Jesus.

Read the verse below. If you believe it, ask God to save you from your sins. He will, and some day you’ll wake up in a very different place – heaven! We can tell you more.

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” – Ephesians 2:4-9

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John Van Kampen, from London, Ontario, Canada, wrote this message shortly before he went to heaven at the age of 70 from an inoperable brain tumor.