Got A Ticket?

     As I spent hours yesterday sitting in an airport watching people, I thought about how each person I saw was on their way to a gate. Gates spread out over what sometimes seemed miles. Some people were frantically running to their gates, some were searching for their gate, and some were waiting impatiently to go through their gate. Some pass the time by reading, working on the computer, talking on the phones or to traveling friends, eating, walking around, sleeping, or just watching people. The one thing that all these people had in common was they were all going to walk through a gate and be taken to a destination. Some destinations were paradises and some were far from it; but they were all going somewhere. All they had to do was to have a ticket and an ID. They would hand those to the attendant, walk down a plank, take a seat, lean back for the flight, and find themselves somewhere else. I entered a gate at 10:30 a.m. yesterday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and walked through my destination gate at 12:39 a.m. in Lima, Peru.

      It made me ponder about spiritual destinations. If our life here on this earth is an airport; we have only two gates and they are miles apart. As we watch the people in this airport, the one thing that all these people had in common is that at different flight times they will all walk through one of those two gates and will be taken to new destination with no return flight. One destination is paradise and one is hell! Everyone has been given a ticket to hell the day they were born but some have exchanged their ticket for a ticket to paradise which was purchased for them by Jesus Christ. Yet, some (probably most) have never accepted their new ticket that Jesus offers to them! When the boarding call begins there are no more opportunities to exchange. You will walk to the gate for Heaven and if you have a ticket and your name is on the passenger list (the Book of Life), you walk through the gate. If it is not, you go to the other gate. Now in this airport, there is one major difference. There will be people screaming and fighting and pleading to be allowed through the Heaven gate, but they will be dragged through the gate of Hell. It will be is a heart wrenching sight.
     One day our final boarding call will be announced. What ticket do you hold in your hand?

And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Revelation 20:15