My dear readers,

The Only Day that Matters in Life!

Proverbs 11:4: “Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.”

There are many important days in every man’s life. Man’s life is a series of open and closed doors. When one door closes, another opens until the final door of his life closes at death. Some of the significant doors of life that close and open include the one that closes our educational life and the one that opens our work life. For most men in Singapore, there is a door that opens to national service life and another that closes two years later. Retirees understand what closed doors mean as they have experienced them in their lives.

All these closed doors should cause us to reflect on how we have lived, including the many regrets that sometimes haunt us, as well as the blessings that encourage us. We should learn from our mistakes and aim not to have the same regrets, striving to enter through the new door with renewed goals to improve and do better. With this mindset, let us examine Proverbs 11:4.

The most important door that will close is the last door. It is called the door of life. There the Creator awaits to judge all mankind. There is no escape from the moment a man begins to exist in his mother’s womb and he has received life from God. God will judge all human life, for God has made them in His image, giving them a will to make choices and hold them responsible for all their actions. The Bible makes this very clear, so man must prepare themselves for that day of judgment. Hebrews 9:27: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” God wants man to be ready to meet Him and to receive praise and not condemnation. How man lives today will determine God’s response when He evaluates every man’s life with His omniscient eyes.

• Riches are useless in the Day of Judgment – Materialism has been the devil’s most potent and effective weapon of temptation. Innumerable lives have been destroyed and ruined when they succumbed to this diabolical materialistic temptation. Yet man, no matter how strong his willpower is in not wanting to succumb, will fail constantly and miserably. The reason for his failure is his sinful nature. As long as sin is his master, he will remain an abject slave to sin’s demands and commands. He cannot help but succumb. He may not succumb to all temptations, and it may delude him into thinking that he is pretty well off since he has succumbed to only a few. He fails to realise that the few he succumbed to are enough to condemn him to fiery hell on the Day of Judgment. He remains a slave to sin and yield to every whim and fancy of sin’s commands willingly.

Such is the nature of the depravity in man. He knows and sees the destruction in others by their carnal follies, and yet he thinks he knows better, and is better than his foolish neighbour. He deludes himself into thinking that he will never fall the way his neighbour has fallen.

Is it wrong or sinful to want a more comfortable life, or, to live in a larger apartment or to experience fine dining? Millions throughout the ages began with little, and they worked hard to climb their way out of poverty, giving their families a better life. Some have even achieved great success by becoming multi-billionaires. Their philanthropic lifestyle brought fame and the praises of millions. Their donations helped alleviate poverty in many developing countries. They supported the construction of orphanages, schools, and hospitals, thereby improving the health of children and providing them with an education that enables them to contribute to their country’s economy. All these altruistic deeds make these billionaires feel good about enjoying their wealth and luxurious lifestyle.

But will these riches and their good works help them on God’s judgment day? If their sins remain in them, sin will continue to be their master. Their good works may be great in the eyes of their fellow man, but in the eyes of the thrice-holy and just God, they are like filthy rags. Isaiah 64:6: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Money is not the root of all evil, as many in the world have frequently distorted to their own hurt. It is the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil (cf. 1 Tim 6:10). The Bible records many wealthy individuals who were godly and righteous, including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job and King David, to name a few. They were godly and lived godly lives in God’s eyes. But when one stands before God on the day of judgment, and all he has are his riches, he will stand as a depraved sinner. His sins remain in him. God’s wrath will fall on him.

Prepare with riches today; the wrath of God awaits tomorrow.

• Righteousness is Everything in the Day of Judgment – If God sees righteousness within a man, he is delivered from death. The only way a depraved sinner can be made righteous is to have all the innumerable heinous sins he committed against God removed from his life, i.e. to be forgiven by God. God’s divine justice demands that all sinners must be punished by death. If there is one person who is perfect (i.e. who has not sinned against God and man) to die in his place, only then will all man’s sins against God be forgiven and washed away, as if he had never sinned against God in his life.

  The only Person who qualifies to take away all the sins the world has committed against God is God's only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Christ was exactly like man, but born without sin, and He lived a perfect life without sin according to God’s laws. He had to suffer and die on the cross for the sins of the world. God must raise Him from the dead as a resounding message to the world that His divine justice has been met. God raised Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day after He died for sinful man’s justification. All a sinner needs to do is to truly receive Christ as his substitute who suffered and died in his place for the sins he committed against God. The moment Jesus sees the sinner’s faith, Jesus will baptise him with the Holy Spirit and save him from all his sins, for God will forgive him for Christ’s sake. The sinner will become a saint immediately and will be imputed with the righteousness of the law. He will be righteous in God’s eyes forever.

  As a righteous child of God, he will henceforth do all things right according to the Holy Scriptures. He is not sinlessly perfect. He is holy as God is holy. The moment he sins against God, he knows it and sincerely repents, praying for strength from God not to sin again. His inner holiness compels him to be holy outwardly as well. The moment he repents of his sins, he is holy outwardly.

  When Christ saves him, he is delivered instantaneously from his spiritual death. He is now spiritually alive, as evidenced by his love for all things spiritual, including worship, prayer, reading and hearing God's Word, attending Bible studies, and fellowship with saints. These are his new likes. He looks at this world with spiritual eyes, like a blind man whose eyes have been healed and seeing the world for the first time. When he dies physically, he will stand before God to be judged with all sinners, but in his case, he will be judged not as a sinner but as a saint or a child of God. The righteousness that he received from God in Christ is eternal and will be the basis of God’s judgment. God’s judgment for reward, rather than for condemnation, will also be based on his good works for Christ.

  The righteousness he received today will be the righteousness that God continues to see in him tomorrow when the door of his life closes. He will be delivered from the second death, which is to be cast into the Lake of Fire and spend eternity in great torment and pain as wave upon wave of fire washes over him. He will enter a new door into the new heaven and new earth, and there he will remain forever.

  Prepare with the righteousness of God today; eternal life awaits tomorrow.

How are you preparing for that last day, the only day that matters?