It was very disturbing to
hear of the two young high school students who killed a number of other people
and then turned on themselves and committed suicide. I do not know what brought
them to this point and to these deeds but it should surprise none if we know
what the scriptures teach concerning the depravity of the human heart. The
potential and tendency to do the same or worse is bound up in the heart of every
son of Adam. The Spirit of God directed the prophet Jeremiah to declare, "The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"
Our "heart" which here represents all of what we are by nature, is not only
"desperately wicked" but also "deceitful above all things." Thus, we are not
only deceivers of others by nature but self-deceivers. These two young persons
must have thought that their own death would be the end of it all. Whatever
sadness, pressures, etc. they felt, they must have believed that by death would
be better than what they had. But in the instant they inflicted death upon
themselves, they "saw" differently to the eternal sorrow of their souls. In Luke
16 we read of a man without Christ dying, it says he "died, and was buried;
23And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments…" There is nothing about
him killing anyone or committing suicide. He simply died as all do and apart
from Christ the Savior, he "died in his sins." Neither he nor these two young
men found the end of their existence. They met eternity! As living souls, they
went out to meet the holy God as sinners whose sins He must punish. He lifted up
his eyes "in hell;" in a place and state of eternal condemnation, suffering,
separation from God and all good, endless punishment because an eternity of
punishment can never satisfy the law and justice of God in the matter of his sin
which is against God. Sin, self and Satan deceive many into thinking such but it
is a lie from hell. It was the door to "torment!" Death proved to be the
beginning of an eternity with a tormented conscience. Of unending ages of
self-chastisement as he was able to see what those in Christ enjoyed. He had one
message he desired to send back to his family, "don't come to this place!" He
was told that if they won't hear the message of God in the gospel of Christ the
Savior of sinners when preached to them by those sent of God, neither would they
hear one sent back from the dead. These young men listened to their own hearts,
to Godless individuals in this world and to Satan but not to God! He speaks in
His Word. Will you hear? The truth of God's Word declares, "it is appointed unto
men once to die; and AFTER THIS the judgment." DEATH IS NOT THE END, IT IS THE
BEGINNING OF "THE AGES TO COME!"