The Final Day (A Poem by Ben Askins)

 We know that in that final day…

You will either burn up or burn bright.
Repent and reflect
Or recoil and reject Your only hope. Your only hope.

If given enough rope
Would you hang or would you swing
Would you bow before the King
Of all the earth and kiss the Son
Whose wrath is quickly kindled
Or would you run?

There’s no place to run.

You see, someday
You’ll have to give an answer
For every careless syllable you say.
Every word that got away
Every word you’ve said, you meant.
Everything you’ve done is permanent.
Every moment inscribed in stone
And one day it’ll all be known.

What hope can there be On that day for you and me?

If our guilt is permanent
And our punishment is just
Then we should expect to spend all our days
With our faces in the dust
For from the dust we came
And to the dust we shall return
But in the end we find
That even dust can burn.

What hope can there be On that day for you and me?

But the Son of God steps in
To this world immersed in sin.
He plunges in over his head
Baptized for the dead.

Then he wraps the whole world up
Like a baby to his chest
“Come to me all who are weary
And I will give you rest.”

He wrapped his arms around the devil.
He wrapped his arms around sin.
He wrapped his arms around you and fell back Into death.

Then he walked through the grave like a screen door
“It’s finished.”
And when it slammed shut behind him
The devil’s skull had been crushed
Death’s neck had been cut
Sin’s spine had been shattered

And you

Well he made all things new for you.

So that the life we now live in the flesh
We live by faith in the Son of God
Who loved us and gave himself for us.

On that fateful day so many years ago
He absorbed every last drop of punishment you deserve
So that on that final day so many years from now
Your accuser will be toothless
And only God’s grace will be ruthless
So every sin that is revealed
Will be shown to have been covered
By the blood of another,
Who will look at you after everything is known and
Will lift up your bowed head with his scarred hands and say,

“Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.
Come, you who are blessed by my Father,
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you clothed me,
I was sick and you visited me,
I was in prison and you came to me.”

But until that day you step in
To this world immersed in sin.
You plunge in over your head
Baptized among the dead.

Wrap your whole world up
Like a baby to your breast
Because the King’s heart beats within your own chest.

“Go to Christ all who are weary
And he will give you rest.
I was hungry and he fed me
Thirsty and he gave me drink,
Lonely and he embraced me
And healed me when I was sick.
I was naked and he clothed me
Imprisoned, yet he freed me.
With his life he bought me
And his resurrection taught me
That true love is only found
In laying my life down
So that others may live.

So that others may live
Freely you have received.
Now freely give.

Ben Askins is a U.S. Army Medical NCO and he has an M.Div. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife have four children.