What’s the worst thing that could happen to you or someone you love?
If you’re a parent like me, I hear that and my mind immediately begins to generate far-fetched scenarios of danger and harm.
I imagine car wrecks and cancer and house fires. I see my child’s iPhone exploding, a kidnapping attempt, a plane crash.
My mind can envision any number of threats without much prompting. I love my boys and I guess I’ll never stop worrying about them.
I’m sure you feel that way about your children.
But I want to ask you something: what is truly the worst thing that could happen to anyone we love?
Jesus gives us the answer to that question in Matthew 10:28:
“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
The worst thing that could happen to us or to anyone we love is that we could find ourselves locked out of heaven, doomed to spend eternity without God.
I want those I love to do well in this life. I want them to be healthy. I want them to be happy. I want them to find someone who loves them and whom they will love in return. I want them to build a family of their own. I want them to be successful and financially secure.
But more than anything — I want them to be saved!
I want them to know what it feels like to have their sins washed away by the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:7).
I want them to be free of the guilt and self-condemnation which sin brings (Romans 8:1).
I want them to stand before God on Judgment Day and not be afraid (1 John 4:18).
I want us to spend eternity together with God (John 5:24).
I want them to stand beside me as we praise God and sing with His holy angels the “new song” (Revelation 14:3).
More than anything, I want them to be saved!
What’s funny to me is that we tend to prepare our kids for everything — except eternity.
We make sure they have clean clothes and good shoes.
We try to keep them healthy and inoculate them against childhood diseases.
We make them do their homework. When they are older, we encourage them to go to college so they can get a “good job”.
And we often embarrass them by saying, “You should ask her out.” Or “You should go out on a date with him! He’d make a great son-in-law.”
We try and prepare them to enter the adult world and be able to function in it. We try and prepare them for everything they might encounter in this life.
But there is more than just this life! There is an eternity that awaits us. Our main task this side of eternity is to prepare to spend eternity with God, and help those we love to do the same.
The worst thing that could happen to us or our kids or to anyone we love is that they find the gates of heaven closed to them. We must do everything we can to prevent that fate, but it will be their fate if they leave this life without being in a saved relationship with God and His Son.
There’s an old hymn we used to sing called, You Never Mentioned Him to Me. The first verse goes like this:
When in the better land, before the bar we stand.
How deeply grieved our souls will be,
If any lost one there, should cry in deep despair,
“You never mentioned Him to me.”
I don’t know who said it, but someone has noted: “If we don’t teach our kids to follow Christ, the world will teach them not to.”
What is the worst thing that could happen to us, our kids, or someone we love?
That’s easy! It would be for them to miss out on eternity.
Let’s never lose sight of that.