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Friday, November 22nd, 2013 will be exactly fifty years since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. “Black Friday” is usually the Friday after Thanksgiving, but in 1963 the blackest of Fridays anyone could imagine took place before that holiday.

On that fatal day, our 35th President was gunned down suddenly at age 46 and the entire world mourned. Think of it, as the day began he was the most powerful man on the globe. He had youth, he had money, he had relatively good health, he had good looks, and last but not least he had a lovely wife and children. But before the day ended he left them all behind and entered eternity. Within a day, a new man took over the President’s office, and John F. Kennedy was buried and mourned by that following Monday. If ever there was an example of the truth of God’s infallible Word which says “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27:1), friend, this is it!

All of us, unless we are alive when the Lord Jesus Christ returns one day, will die just like Kennedy did.

Now, obviously, when I say “just like” I don’t mean EXACTLY like he died. You may die peacefully in your sleep, at a ripe old age. Or, you may die at a younger age. Hardly anyone may miss you or mourn you, but you will die. Fifty years after your death, hardly anyone alive may know you ever walked the earth, but you will die. Unlike President Kennedy, you may see death coming and even have time to prepare, but you will die. You may never be powerful, or rich, or famous, but even so, you can’t avoid DEATH. You will die! If President Kennedy had no power to stop death from taking him, you have no power to stop death from taking you at God’s appointed time. YOU WILL DIE.

As death is inevitable to all of us, from the greatest to the least, a huge question then becomes “Are you ready?”

Hebrews 9:27 declares that “it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” and Revelation 20:12 tells of a future day when “the dead, small and great, stand before God.” When Kennedy’s spirit and soul left his dead body, the most powerful man in the world entered eternity, where he waits to be judged by the holy God of all the universe. You and I will be judged, also!

JFK obviously wasn’t ready to die from a “worldly” standpoint: he was beginning to run for re-election and thought he had many years ahead of him. And sadly, it would seem he was probably not ready to die from a spiritual standpoint, either. When I ask “Are you ready,” I mean are you ready to appear before God’s Judgment Throne and be found worthy to go to Heaven? All of us have many sins that will keep us out of Heaven and land us in Hell if they are not paid for. None of us are worthy to go to Heaven on our own merits. David, a man who loved God, still had to confess that “in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5), meaning that he inherited Adam and Eve’s sin nature through his parents, as we all have. We were all born sinners, from the Kennedys on down to everyone else. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). And God is so pure, so Holy, that unless those sins are somehow pardoned He will not—cannot—allow us into Heaven where He dwells.

The Good News is that God became man in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and The Perfect One lived and died on the cross so that all who believe in Him and repent of their sins can be saved! “Christ died for the ungodly” declares Romans 5:6. “We shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:9) if we trust that He, indeed, is “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) by the shedding of His Blood, and if we turn to God in repentance before it’s too late.

Fifty years is a long time to us, but to God it’s not even a second in the scales of eternity. Wherever Kennedy’s soul is, it will be forever in either Heaven or Hell and fifty years’ time hasn’t altered that. Learn from what happened to America’s 35th President. Death can come suddenly. Make sure YOU are ready by being right with God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ!

Copyright © 2013 by Chet Jelinski.

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