The Will to Live

Millions of people spend dozens of hours each week watching dead people on TV. From Elvis to Lucy to Jimmy Stewart, the faces of folks who no longer exist entertain us. Time not only snatched their looks, it snatched their lives. Today, good-looking Hollywood stars are making movies so that tomorrow’s generation can also pass the time by watching dead people on TV.

Time makes today tomorrow’s memory. Each weekend seems to pass us by like blurred telephone poles flashing past the window of the speeding train of life.

If I purchased a new car and saw in the owner’s manual that it had a certain type of engine, I shouldn’t be surprised to lift the hood and find the engine to be exactly as the manual stated. The maker’s handbook gives me insight into the unseen workings of the vehicle. This is also true with human beings. The Maker’s manual tells us how each of us thinks and why we react the way we do. It lifts the hood and reveals the inner workings of homo sapiens.

In doing so, the Bible discloses an often-overlooked tool that we can use to reach the lost. That tool is the “fear of death.” For the Christian who may find such an approach to be negative, it may be looked at in a positive light. The tool may also be called “the will to live.” Every human being in his right mind has a fear of death (Hebrews 2:15). He doesn’t want to die. He sits wide-eyed, staring out the window of the speeding train watching life pass him by.

Here is how to use that tool when speaking to an unsaved person: “Let’s assume that the average person dies at 70 years old. Then if you are 20 years old, you have just 2,500 weekends left to live. If you have turned 30, you have 2,000 weekends left until the day you die. If you are 40 years old, you have only 1,500 weekends left. If you are 50, then you have just 1,000 weekends, and if you are 60, you have a mere 500 weekends left until the day death comes to you.” Even as a Christian that thought concerns me. I somehow can relate to “weekends,” while “years” puts death into the distance. It shakes me enough to ask myself, What I am doing with my life? It sickens me that I am doing so little to reach the lost. It also deeply concerns me that I have dry eyes when I pray. My train will take me into the presence of God. For those trusting in Jesus Christ, death has been defeated. But the train of the unregenerate will take them to horrific disaster. Their end will be eternal hell. In light of such terrible thoughts, all my activities outside of warning the world of their destination seem trivial.

It has been wisely stated that every one of us is unique...just like everyone else. In truth, each unique individual is uniquely predictable. Every sinner has a fear of death. No one can deny that he naturally has a will to live. Therefore, it makes sense to confront him with reality by re-minding him that he has an “appointment” to keep. Bluntly tell him how many weekends he has left. Then appeal to his reason by saying, “If there was one chance in a million that Jesus Christ ‘has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,’ you owe it to your good sense just to look into it.”