Can You Hear the Whistle?

It’s 1:00 am.

I had been asleep for about two hours, but God woke me. I could hear the approach of one of the forty-nine freight trains that pass our house every day. It sounded angry and out-of-control, as if it were heading for the house. The whistle blew and it passed on by, but I was left with the thought of what would happen if a train derailed nearby. We live within 100 yards of the tracks. Rail cars could easily buckle into our home and our lives would end instantly. I shook off the image and returned to sleep.

I dreamt that I had been stung by a bee and my throat was swelling closed. It was so vivid that I awakened coughing, alarmed that my tongue was thickening. It was not so, but it was enough to understand that God was getting my attention.

The message? Our perch on this planet is precarious. It could be over in a second.

I could not go back to sleep. When God wakes me, I have learned that I need to get up and go to the computer and write. This time has an urgency I cannot ignore.

Am I sitting here in the middle of the night because there is someone searching in the middle of the night?

Do you know Him?

So much of my life I thought I did, but it was a superficial relationship. He had to bring me through heartache to show me that I needed Him, to alert me that, yes, I had accepted Him but had not allowed Him into the control room. I was still trying to run my own life. It was like driving with my eyes closed.

Do you know Jesus? Are you prepared to meet Him?

Life could be over in the next ten minutes for any of us. It is only by the grace of God that we have breath in our lungs. We cannot take the risk of not knowing Him. Death comes at its appointed time and waits for no one. Not you. Not me.

It begins with the knowledge that we cannot reach Heaven on our own. Good deeds won’t get us there. Every one of us has missed the mark, has messed up. We might not think it fair, but God demands perfection from us in order for us to come into His presence. We are without hope… condemned. The price for our sin is death. The price must be paid. And that’s where Jesus comes in.

When Jesus died, He paid the price for our sin. And He didn't stop there. He conquered death and left that grave. What hope that is for us!

Now we can come into God’s presence. All we have to do is accept that gift that He paid for with His own life. We come to believe in Him, His death and His resurrection. We acknowledge our need for a Savior because we understand that we cannot save ourselves. We ask Him to do that for us. We confess that we’ve made a mess of things trying to run our lives without His direction and we ask Him to take over. We stop going down the path we were traveling, stop doing the things we already know in our hearts are not pleasing to Him, turn around and allow Him to lead. We step out in faith.

And that’s the first step, but it’s a big one.

That’s the step that keeps you from having an eternal address in Hell, where there is no God, where there is no Savior, where there is no hope, where continual torment has no relief. You think things are bad right now? At least there is hope while you still live. There is no light within the black jaws of Hell. No torch to keep evil at bay. No Indiana Jones. No one, no thing to save you, forever.

Are you ready? Or are you on the path towards destruction?

Accept Jesus. That’s all I can say to you. Do it now. I may not be here tomorrow to tell you again. You may not be here tomorrow to hear it again. And when you’ve finally given up and given in and given it to God, tell someone. Did a person just now come to your mind? That’s the Holy Spirit telling you who to tell. That’s the person who’s been praying for YOU, specifically, by name. And tell me, too. That’s why I’m writing to you. That’s why I’m now sitting here at 2:00am.

I’m awake, and I hear another train.