Hebrews 9:27 Commentary and Bible Study

Are you saved? Have you found Christ? Have you repented of your sin? Have you trusted in his atoning death on Calvary? Have you yielded your life up to God? What is laid out is that the moment the light of this world goes out and the light of the next comes on you, your spirit will be taken from your body. If you are a believer, your spirit will be clothed with such joy, happiness, peace, and excitement. You are going before the Lord with gladness and you will see Christ, and you will see the angels, and you will be welcomed into the great reception hall of the paradise of Christ. Maybe all the people who loved you, who were also saved and preceded you, will be there to welcome you.

But if you never found Christ what is set for you is an entry into such anguish and fear and terror and realisation of what you have done and how you have thrown away your soul, and must now face God and judgement. It is set; ‘it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgement.’ But, Oh, to be in Christ, and when the great judgement day comes, and that great video is played through your mind of everything you have ever done, and all the sins you have forgotten, and all that you have been, and all the people you have hurt and wronged; when all this floods through your mind, it will be in such a way that you will just be so happy that Christ has taken it all away. You will momentarily see it: not in a way that horrifies and terrorises you, but in a way that lifts you up in gratitude and in indebtedness to Christ. In the judgement day he will take his own people aside under his protective wing, under his blood. But if you do not have him you must stand before God and hear the sentence proclaimed against you.

You can have several goes at an examination. You can come back again and again; you can do your second year or your third year all over again. But when you die, you only die once: no reversal, no going back, no second opportunity. How essential – the word does not do justice to the situation – to know that we are right with God. Referring to this verse Bunyan writes in Pilgrims Progress: ‘Now I saw upon a time, when he [Christian] was walking in the fields, that he was, as he was wont, reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his mind; and as he read, he burst out, as he had done before, crying, ‘What shall I do to be saved?’ I saw also that he looked this way and that way, as if he would run; yet he stood still, because, as I perceived, he could not tell which way to go. I looked then, and saw a man named Evangelist coming to him, who asked, ‘Where fore dost thou cry?’ He answered, ‘Sir, I perceive, by the book in my hand, that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to judgment, and I find that I am not willing to do the first, nor able to do the second.’ Then said Evangelist, ‘Why not willing to die, since this life is attended with so many evils?’ The man answered, ‘Because I fear that this burden that is upon my back will sink me lower than the grave; and I shall fall into Tophet. And, Sir, if I be not fit to go to prison, I am not fit, I am sure, to go to judgment, and from thence to execution; and the thoughts of these things make me cry.’ Then said Evangelist, ‘If this be thy condition, why standest thou still?’ He answered, ‘Because I know not whither to go.’ Then he gave him a parchment roll, and there was written within, ‘Fly from the wrath to come’. The man therefore, read it, and looking upon Evangelist very carefully, said, ‘Whither must I fly?’ Then said Evangelist, pointing with his finger over a very wide field, ‘Do you see yonder wicket gate?’ The man said, ‘No.’ Then said the other, ‘Do you see yonder shining light?’ He said, ‘I think I do.’ Then said Evangelist, ‘Keep that light in your eye, and go up directly thereto, so shalt thou see the gate; at which, when thou knockest, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do.’’