One Fate, Two Destinations

It is the same for all. There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked.
–Ecclesiastes 9:2

A Minnesota couple decided they wanted to escape the harsh winter weather and take a one-week vacation to Florida. At the last minute, the wife had to stay back an extra day, so her husband went on ahead of her to get things ready. Once he checked into the hotel at Key West, he decided to sit down and send a brief email to his wife telling her that he had arrived safely. He did not notice that he had accidentally transposed two letters in his wife’s email address.

Meanwhile in Chicago, a minister’s wife returned home after burying her husband of 45 years. She felt lonely after the funeral service, so she decided to check her emails to see if there were any words of condolence. The first email that popped up she read immediately. Then she let out a scream and fainted. Her daughter rushed in to see what was going on, and after the daughter revived her mom, the daughter read the email that caused her mom to faint. Here is what it said:

Darling wife,
I’m sure you are surprised to hear from me. I have just arrived and checked in, and I wanted to send you a quick note saying I can’t wait for you to get here. The staff has everything ready for you. I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. And if everything goes as planned, you should get here as quickly as I did.
P.S. It sure is hot down here. I know you are going to love it.

Isn’t that a great story? While it is true that there are certain things about Heaven and Hell we cannot know for sure, one thing is crystal clear: we are all going to die one day, and because of that we are going to one of those two destinations–Heaven or Hell.

In his book “Heaven,” Randy Alcorn observed that “worldwide, 3 people die every second, 180 every minute, and nearly 11,000 every hour. If the Bible is right about what happens to us after death, it means that more than 250,000 people every day go either to Heaven or to Hell.” That blows our minds, doesn’t it? So many people are dying every day.

Why do none of us get out of this world alive? Why is death inevitable for every one of us? In Ecclesiastes 9:2, Solomon said, “It is the same for all. There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for the clean and for the unclean; for the man who offers a sacrifice and for the one who does not sacrifice.” It does not matter whether you are good, bad, righteous, unrighteous, a believer, or an unbeliever, there is one fate for everybody–that is death. We are all going to die. There is one fate, but there are two different destinations: Heaven and Hell.

Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Do Christians Immediately Go To Heaven When They Die?” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2016.

Randy Alcorn, “Heaven” (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2004), xix.

Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.lockman.org)