THE THESIS OF this book has been that in Christ there is life and outside Christ there is death. This is not a doctrine imposed on life; it is a fact of observation and experiment. Step into Christ and you step into life; step out of Christ and you step into death. News was brought to me of a man happy, adjusted, and useful when in Christ. He stepped out of Christ, however, became a different person, took to drink, divorce followed, and then he drove his car over a cliff to his outer death.
Every road that leads away from Christ has a precipice at the bottom of it. In Christ there is nothing but life and outside Christ there is nothing but death. We see that fact at work now. The question arises, What will happen after death? Does this process of death continue after death until those who live in spiritual death finally become death and perish? What is the future of those who live in Christ, and those who live outside Christ?
Various answers are given. I will give mine in the light of what I conceive to be the Christian gospel. We must first look at some other answers.
First, the answer of the materialistic secularist. Life is over when this life is over. Man is a chemical combination, and life is no more than a flame which comes from chemical combination and combustion, and when the flame dies we die. This view has the answer in itself—then ultimately we are no more important than a combination of chemicals. Life is cheapened while it lives and it is extinguished when it dies. Anything that cheapens life in this way is a cheap view of life.
Blessed Father, we cannot believe that this life within us is just a chemical combination. We feel that when we hunger for Thee it is a hunger kindled by Thee. We are made by Thee, for Thee, and are restless until we rest in Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest was not spoken of the soul.”
