Life Is So Short, Make Sure You've Been Born Again

1st John 2:15-17, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”

I grew up in the 1970's and 1980's. I loved music as a teenager and I still do today. I watched television and Hollywood movies with my parents. As is true of every American, I was influenced by those celebrities of my generation. Now, 40 years later, many of those famous people that influenced my generation are old and dying. It is a sobering sight to behold.

Here's just a few names that come to mind. Singer Olivia Newton John died of cancer at age 73 in 2022. The drummer for the rock band Boston, Sib Hashian, keeled over dead of a heart attack in 2017 while playing the drums on a cruise ship at age 67. Peter Jennings, a famous television journalist, died in 2005 of cancer at age 67. I am 56, so I don't have much time left. My Dad died in 2010 at age 75. My Mom died in 2001 of poor health at age 65. She suffered a crippling stroke in 1989. She refused to give up her bad habit of smoking, which ultimately killed her. She loved "Kool" cigarettes, but there was nothing "cool" about them. The rhythm guitarist of AC/DC, Malcolm Young, died in 2017 of dementia at age 64. Our days are all numbered. Psalms 90:12, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

I thank God! I thank God! I thank God that I am a born-again child of God. So many people are lost in darkness, knowing not at what they stumble the Bible says. Billionaire Steve Jobs, inventor of Apple computer (the first one sold for $666.66), died in 2012 of pancreatic cancer at only age 56. George Harrison of The Beatles died in 2001 of lung cancer (he smoked like a chimney throughout his youth). George was only 58. So sad and tragic.

I read online that Olivia Newton John was a Christian, but that claim means little these days, since there are hundreds of religious cults that falsely claim to be Christian (e.g., Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, Seventh-Day Adventist, Church of Church, Lutherans, et cetera). I truly hope that Olivia was a born-again believer. Without the new birth, Jesus warned in John 3:1-7 that no one can enter into God's Kingdom. John 3:7b, 'Ye must be born again.' Sadly, it appears by all indications that Malcolm Younce, co-founder of the Satanic band AC/DC is now at the end of the 'HIGH WAY TO HELL,' where he will spend eternity suffering in torments and fire (Revelation 14:11, 20:11-15, 21:8).

Dear friend, please make sure you have been born-again. Being a member of any church won't get you into Heaven, not even close. Living a good and morally respectable life won't get you into Heaven. You are a dirty sinner, and so am I. Jesus is the Christ who died on a cross to pay your debt of sin and mine. Jesus was buried but physically resurrected from the dead three days later. Anyone who comes to God as a needy sinner, receiving Christ's sacrifice on the cross as payment for your sins, believing that Jesus was buried but then raised up bodily from the dead, is immediately, irrevocably and forever saved. That is God's simple plan of salvation, THE GOSPEL.