Have a large glass jar filled with sand, preferably a gallon jar.

How long is eternity? How long is forever?

I need a volunteer tonight to help me (invite a child to come up).

How many grains of sand do you think are in this jar? I don’t really know myself because there are so many I can’t even count them.

Put one grain of sand into the child’s hand. Here’s the assignment I have for you. There’s a beach in California that hardly has any sand, and I want you to take sand to that beach, but only one grain at a time. And you can’t drive in a car to California and you can’t take an airplane, you must walk.

Are you a good walker? Have you ever walked a mile? California is about 3000 miles away. Let’s say that you can walk 20 miles a day. That’s a lot of miles for one day, but I think you can do it. It would take you 150 days (5 months) to walk all the way to California. Then you have to walk back to Connecticut to get another grain of sand (5 more months). Then you have to take that second grain of sand to California (5 more months) and walk back to get the third grain (5 more months). And you need to keep on doing this.

It would take 120 years to transport just 100 grains of sand, and there are a lot more than 120 grains of sand in this jar. So you’re going to have to live a long time to transport all these grains of sand. And when you are all done with every grain of sand in this jar, then I’m going to tell you that there are 100 more of these jars with millions more grains of sand that you need to transport.

And when you have transported all those grains of sand, then that is like only one second of eternity.

(Dismiss child)

It’s so important to think about the question, WHERE WILL I SPEND ETERNITY? We are all going to spend forever somewhere, either with the Lord or separated from the Lord. To some Jesus will say, "Come ye blessed of my Father. Enter into the joy of thy Lord." To others He will say, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

The time we have on this earth, even if we live 100 years, is like a split second and it’s soon over. But eternity is forever and ever and ever. And our decision in this life will determine our destiny in the next life. Choose life. Choose Christ. "Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life" (John 3:16)

Where will you spend eternity?

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