Westside Story Newspaper – Online The News of The Empire – Sharing the Quest for Excellence
By Lou Yeboah
That moment when you realize that you should have listen. Uh, Oh- That moment when you realize that you should have heeded God’s warnings. Uh, Oh – That moment when you realize that you are in Hell. Uh, Oh, [Luke 16:28].
Feasting on sin, giving yourself over to the present gratification, careless of the warnings of God’s Word, indifferent to the rebuke of conscience, saying to yourself: ‘There is no danger; I know the strength of my will, and before I near the rapids I shall fly away to safer habits and purer ways.’ But when the time comes, and the roar of impending judgment rings in your ear, you will find out that your will is paralyzed, that your affections and desires are so entangled in sin that you cannot escape. Uh, Oh – that moment when you realize that you should have heeded God’s warnings.
Change your ways today. Get off the broad way that leads to destruction and get on the narrow way that leads to life. Jesus is not playing games with us. You see, no one loves us more than Jesus does, and no one have warned us more of judgment and Hell than He did. He gave warning after warning and told parable after parable, practically shouting about judgment and the reality of Hell.
Don’t be bewitched by the fairy tale ending that everyone “lived happily ever after.” Just ask the rich man in hell… Meanwhile God is pleading, Come to me. Come to me before it is finally time to rise and close the door. You can’t go on living resistant and opposed to the Kingdom of God and its values, yet magically at death suddenly want to enter His Kingdom, which you have resisted your whole life.
Don’t choose the fleeting pleasures of sin and miss the Kingdom of God. Jesus says in [Mark 9:43-48], “And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
Why go to hell when you don’t have to?
Jesus scolded, begged, and pleaded with the Jews, to open their blind eyes and soften their hard hearts, to turn away from the broad way that leads to destruction, but to no avail. Jesus cried out in sorrowful desperation; “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” [Matthew 23:37].
One of the saddest passages in Scripture is Jeremiah 6:16, “… they said, We will not walk in it.” Uh Oh!
