Isaiah 38:5 “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years.

Hezekiah received a wake up call that many do from God. He was struck with sickness and was near death. God granted him fifteen more years after Hezekiah prayed. The important thing to take from this, is that there was set time to Hezekiah’s death known only to God.

Like Hezekiah, all of our death certificates have already been signed off by God. Jesus reaffirms this in Matthew 6:5 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?. So we cannot even an hour to what has already been determined. God is not reading the obituary pages saying to Himself “oh wow, so and so died yesterday”. He knew the time to the exact second of death before the person died. He also is NOT saying “oh wow, so and so beat death yesterday, good for him, he out-foxed My omniscience once again, I had better get a new date for him now”.

God knows how you will die as well, again to His purpose alone. It might be slow, it might be quick. Again, God is not learning anything, He contains every bit of knowledge. Think of this is way as well, in Acts 4, we read that God determined the death of Jesus Christ, and knew all the players which would carry this out.

What I noticed with unbelievers, is that their unbelief becomes exposed for all to see upon a wake-up call. They will try to claim that somehow they beat death, but did they? You can’t believe in God by believing you beat death, or that a doctor saved your life, or it was because you did or that or someone else did something which prevented your death. Or as I have seen with SO MANY “it was luck!” or “I was just lucky, I guess” Because it was ALL God which staved off your perceived death which really was your wake-up call, a warning to you that death is imminent. God doesn’t roll the dice, He doesn’t tread in gambling and luck!

Put it this way, you can be in the best physical shape of everyone your age, and receive the best medical care on the planet, and it won’t add just an hour to your life. You may also think you are just more intelligent, or a just a good person. I got NEWS for you who think this way, there are plenty of talented, intelligent, and “good” people by worldly standards did not live to an old age. This is not to sound pessimistic or fatalistic, but it is the truth! If the Son of God, Jesus Christ, could not add an hour to His own life while He walked on this earth, what makes you think you can?

So there are really only two outcomes from these wake-up calls from God. One is to just go back to your silly life of depravity, believing it was just a brush with death that you by sheer will power beat on your own. Or you can take this wake-up call to REALLY think on your eternal future. Have you placed your faith alone in Jesus Christ and repented of your sins? Be thankful, because by this wake-up call God has graced you with more days to do so. Those who take the warning and then seek the Gospel are going to be much better off than those who forget about it as if it never happened. Again I have seen the latter from my experience than the former.

If you don’t believe me? Please study the Book of Revelation. God gives some MASSIVE wake-up calls to mankind and it really did nothing to change the heart of most of mankind. God has a purpose in them, one I believe is it is going to be answer on Judgment Day to many of those who complain that they were a good person, but now are sentenced to hell. They failed to believe in Jesus, they failed to give any glory for the wake-up call to God, but will still complain as if God is being unfair somehow to them.

If you received a wake-up call, whether that be a heart attack, a stroke, deadly disease, a car accident, a serious health issue, a near death experience, I pray that you LEARN from this experience. NOT in the respect as to what the world did for you to save your life, but what God did and see His Almighty hand in that wake up call, and to learn that God gave you a warning about the death which will come sooner or later. Don’t blame God on Judgment Day if you went back to your hedonistic lustful way of living while rejecting Him and His Gospel as if you were the god which prevented the taking of your life.