I wish I could describe the horrible feeling of being stuck behind closed doors. All I could do was wave to my family as the train pulled out of the station. It was a pitiful sight.
Over spring break we got to visit a missionary in Vienna, Austria. While there, I wanted to take my family to meet the church in Brno, Czech Republic that I visited last year. Since it was just a two hour train ride from Vienna to Brno, I thought it would be a simple trip.
As we approached our destination, we started gathering our belongings and I realized my hat was missing. After getting my family and the luggage off the train, I hopped back on board. Sure enough, my hat was in the dining car where we had eaten a snack. As I picked it up and waved to the attendant, I heard two little beeps that sent a chill down my spine. Surely not! When I reached the doors… they were closed! I tried to pull them apart, but they wouldn’t budge. I was ten seconds too late!
On the long ride to Ceska’ Trebova (a Czech town I’ll bet few of you have visited), I felt God taught me an important lesson. The time is coming when “too late” will be infinitely more horrible. Perhaps I got a fraction of the feeling the five foolish virgins had when the door was shut and they were too late. (see Matt 25) In such times there will be weeping, gnashing of teeth, and some bitter questions. “How could I have wasted all the opportunities I had to follow God? Why did I never give my life to Jesus? How could I have chased everything in my life except the one thing that mattered?”
How many families are going to be split for eternity on the Day of Judgment? We laugh about my misadventure in the Czech Republic, but there will be no laughter when the Master says, “I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.” “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”
Someone asked him, “Lord are only a few people going to be saved?” He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’ There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth…” Luke 13:23-28
“But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot’s wife!” Luke 17:29-32