What it's like for a person to enter through the narrow gate is best described in a true story told by Peter Marshall. In his story, he speaks of a young boy who was ill with an incurable disease. Month after month his mother tenderly nursed him, read to him, and played with him, hoping to keep him from the dreadful finality of the doctors diagnosis, that was, he was going to die. As the weeks went on, he gradually began to understand that he would never be like the other boys he saw playing outside his window. Small as he was, he began to understand the meaning of the term death, and he too knew that he was going to die.

One day his mother had been reading to him the stirring tale of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, of Lancelot and Elaine the lily maid of Astelot, and about that last glorious battle where so many fair knights met their death.

As her little son sat silent for an instant, deeply stirred, she closed the book and then he asked the question weighing on his young heart, "Mama, what is it like to die? Mama, does it hurt? " Quick tears sprang to her eyes and she fled to the kitchen, supposedly, to tend to something on the stove. She knew it was a question with deep significance. She knew it must be answered satisfactorily. She leaned for an instant against the smooth surface and breathed a hurried prayer that the Lord would keep her from breaking down before the boy and that she would be able to tell him the answer. The Lord did tell her; immediately she knew how to explain it to him.

"Kenneth," she said to her son, "do you remember when you were a tiny boy how you used to play so hard all day that when night came you were too tired even to undress and you would tumble into your mother's bed and fall asleep? That was not your bed, it was not where you belonged; you would only stay there for a little while. Much to your surprise, you would wake up and find yourself in your own bed in your own room. You were there because someone had loved you and taken care of you. Your father had come with big strong arms and carried you away. ' Kenneth, darling, death is just like that. We just wake up some morning to find ourselves in the other room. Our room where we belong, because the Lord Jesus loved us and died for us.'"

The lad's shinning face looking up into hers told her that the point had gone home and there would be no more fear, only love and trust in his little heart as he went to meet his Heavenly Father. He never questioned again. Several weeks later he fell asleep (in death) and just as she had said, his Heavenly Father's big, strong, arms carried him to his own room (in heaven).

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Jesus comforted His disciples with these words after He had told them that He would be leaving them to return to heaven:

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house (in heaven) are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also." (John 14:1-3)

The Bible tells us that when one of God's children fall asleep in death, their soul and spirit immediately go to be with the Lord in heaven.

►If you would like to know more of what it is to enter the next life through the

narrow gate, click here.

►If you would like to know what lies ahead for those who choose to enter the next

life through the wide gate that leads to destruction, click here.

 

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