Where The Tree Falleth
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He who does not prepare for death is more than an ordinary fool. He is a madman.
Charles Spurgeon
In the day and time that we live…it seems we don’t hear much talk or preaching about Hell or death...
And for good reason..who wants to talk or think about hell and death...
We want to hear about the good news.
While this is understandable, leaving hell out of the picture can sometimes bring about a false sense of security....
Meaning: some people think that God is all love and that is it..that he could never send anyone to hell
Therefor we sometimes leave out the punishment of sin…the repercussions of our sin.
The bible says that all will eventually die and face the judgement.
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
Early on Tuesday morning in April of 1992, Robert Alton Harris became the first man in twenty-five years to be executed in California’s gas chamber.
Forty-nine witnesses were present. A packet of amethyst-hued cyanide crystals was lowered into a bucket filled with dilute sulfuric acid placed strategically below his chair.
Before the poisonous vapors brought death, Harris asked prison officials to record his last words,
He said, “You can be a king or a street-sweeper, but everybody dances with the Grim Reaper.”
Death is the most democratic of all institutions.
It allows absolutely no exceptions.
The mortality rate is the same the world over: one death per person.
Once to be born..then judgement
What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah.
We can do everything we can physically to avoid the grave
But in the end…Only one thing will matter or make the difference
How we lives our lives and whether we are a part of the family of God…
Born again of water and spirit…adopted into the family of God
For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.
Upon death, our lives are like water spilt on the ground....
There is no other opportunity to change it or put it back together
That is why it is so important for us to get it right in the life we have been given.
Just as there’s time for a tree to be born, Solomon says, there’s a time for a tree to die.
Daniel Webster, American statesman and orator, once said the greatest sermon he ever heard was preached in a small, rural church where the pastor said very earnestly, “My friends, we can die but once.”
Several years ago, Pamela Harriman—one of America’s premier diplomats—died while swimming at the Manhattan Ritz.
Ms. Harriman, you may have been married successively to three of the most powerful men in the world, but there’s no swimming away from death’s appointment.
Some people even thought they could prolong death indefinitely. For a mere $150,000 a person can have their body put “on ice,”
cryogenically preserved in hopes that future medical advancements can devise a cure for death.
Even though we live in a time of organ transplants, microsurgeries, wonder drugs, genetic research and brilliant medical research staffs and amazing medical breakthroughs…
We see that:
3 people die every second
180 every minute
11,000 every hour
60,000 every day.
95 million each year.
The democracy of death!
It comes to the:
young and old,
rich and poor,
educated and illiterate,
king and commoner,
male and female,
black and white, red and brown…
Death comes to:
the dynamic young businessman,
glamorous actress,
great athlete,
brilliant scientist,
powerful politician…
the well to do as well as the struggling to make it.
Death is no respecter of persons...
We as people have minimized hell so much that we have come up with euphemisms to bypass the fear of it.
He’s passed on.
He’s cashed in the chips.
She kicked the bucket.
He’s conked out.
As the poet said:
I, breathing for a moment, see
Death wing himself away from me
And think, as on this bed I lie,
Is it extinction when I die?
— John Betjeman,
For a certainty…the tree will fall
the only thing a man can do is to be ready for that day should it come before the rapture.
We see what Solomon had to say about death.
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
Death then is not a termination, a cessation. A person does not cease to exist at death.
Francis Schaeffer said it this way:
Watch a man when he dies. Five minutes later he still exists. There is no such thing as stopping the existence of man.
If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
The point of all this is to say:
However death comes, whatever the circumstances be, we will be at that time as we where.
tree—Once the storm uproots it, it lies either northward or southward, according as it fell. So man’s character is unchangeable, whether for hell or heaven, once that death overtakes him
What we do in this life will dictate what the afterlife will bring.
We must remember that whatever we must endure today for the glory of God, will bring eternal rewards later.
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
God created us to live forever. We choose if it is to the blessed place or the cursed place.
whether Heaven or Hell.
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
The prophet was trying to say that life is now....
Whether we choose the evil that is behind us or the glory that is before us...
a definitive choice must be made...
we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.
Jesus bids people to not be afraid of anyone who can kill us, but to fear the One who can cast us body and soul into Hell where the fire never goes out and the worm never dies.
A recent Gallup poll taken for US News & World Report revealed that 70 percent of Americans felt they had a good chance of making it into Heaven.
Only 4 percent thought they were going to Hell.
This gives proof to Jonathan Edwards’ observation:
“Every natural man that hears of Hell flatters himself that he shall escape it.”
America is on a holiday from the reality of hell and the repercussions of our choices.
Perhaps the words of that early American preacher needs to be heard again:
You cannot save yourselves…All your righteousness would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of Hell than a spider’s web would have to stop a fallen boulder…
—Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God”
About a quarter-century ago, a dense fog shrouded a highway outside of London. A large truck hauling rolls of paper had overturned. Within minutes, the highway was filled with flaming cars. Ten people were killed.
More fatalities would have happened had it not been for the heroic actions of a policeman. The policeman turned on his flashing lights and tossed out flares. All of his efforts, however, seemed to no avail until he happened upon an idea.
There had been some construction work on the road and orange traffic cones still dotted the sides of the highway. Positioning himself at a distance from the crash, the policeman began to toss these orange, rubberized cones into the windshields of approaching cars. As cars hit their brakes, they noticed the tear-stained face of the police officer begging them to stop.
If they stopped, they avoided the burning inferno before them.
If they didn’t stop, they plunged headlong into eternity.
Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
The church today stands between you and eternity…not to condemn, but to uplift.
We must determine what destiny is ours...
We must take a look at which way we’re pointing.
When a tree falls, it normally falls in the direction it is leaning.
The question must be asked of ourselves....Which way are you leaning?
Lean not unto your own understanding.
At the timberline where the storms strike with the most fury, the sturdiest trees are found.
James Hudson Taylor