If you are like most people in America, you have an abundance of insurance period we insure our cars, our homes, our health, and even our lives.
Recently, an insurance salesman called with an offer of more insurance. When I declined his offer, he insisted, saying, “But you need to ensure your life against death!”
Is that not just about the strangest thing anyone could ever say? Life insurance cannot provide life assurance. The best it can offer is a sum of money when you are dead.
Though I would never minimize the necessity of life insurance for the family’s sake, I would caution all men everywhere to first seek afterlife assurance, for without it nothing else matters.
The writer of Hebrews declared: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9: 27) To many people, the subject of death is gruesome. They want to avoid it, if at all possible. But the subject of death is one that we must all face, with decision, because one day we will die. Then what? Paul said, “… but after this the judgment.” In the revelation of Christ, John wrote of the Great White Judgment Throne of God. On that day, the sea and death and hell will give up their dead, and men great and small shall stand before God to be judged.
Yet, those standing at the Great White Judgment Throne will already have their fate sealed, because they refused to accept God’s offer of grace through faith in Christ.
The believer in Christ will not be found there, because he has already made his choice and is passed from death to life everlasting.
Upon acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, one has life assurance. John wrote: “And this is the record that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe in the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5: 11- 13)
There is no doubt that each of us will die physically, except we are caught up in the rapture of the church. But we do not have to die spiritually because it is not death for the Christian to die; it is just the beginning of life eternal. Jesus said: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this? Martha said to him: ‘Yes Lord: I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.’” (John 11: 25- 27)
Martha’s confession secured eternal life for her. She confessed that Jesus was the Christ, God’s own Son, Savior of men.
What further assurance do we need? In Romans 10:13 Paul wrote: “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
His promise is assurance enough for me. Some might call such assurance a simple mindedness. I call it simple, childlike faith.
Jerry L. Dunn is pastor of Oak Street Baptist Church, 605 East Oak Street, Kingman.
