Your Name is in the 'Death Note' (Gospel Light Minute X #285)

This weekend, Netflix released its highly anticipated film adaptation of the famous Japanese manga series, "Death Note." The series follows a young man who is given a notebook by a "death spirit." He learns that simply writing a person's name in the notebook will cause them to die, and he goes on a mission to cleanse the world of evil by writing down the names of the bad people he knows, thus sentencing them to death.

The idea, at first, sounds far-fetched. But what if I told you that you and I have already been sentenced to die just as easily as it would be to write our name in a notebook. The Bible says, "It is appointed unto men once to die." And, just as with the Death Note, it is our sins, the bad things that we do, that condemn us to this death. The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death."

Whatever you believe about death and life, you must accept the fact that you are going to die. It is the default, the one common denominator, of humanity. However, God offers you a chance at life -- abundant life here on earth and eternal life after you die. He offers to have your name written in "the book of life." Revelation, the last book of the Bible, tells us that 'the dead, small and great, will stand before God; and the books [the records of our deeds, good and bad] will be opened: and another book will be opened, which is the book of life: and the dead will be judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And whosoever is not found written in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire.' The lake of fire is eternal death and eternal separation from God for all those whose names are not written in the Book of Life. But, those whose names are written in the book of life will enter the "new heaven and the new earth" where there will be "no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor pain."

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