Real Success and Failure

confined to this world. Heaven and hell have become for them things of this world, not the next. But this is no more than an illusion. Real success and failure lie in the next life. Many who consider themselves successful in this world will be shocked to find that the reality is far from what they thought. They will discover there who are the losers and who are the winners; they will see who understood the reality of life and who was taken in by mere appearances; they will realize who forged ahead in the race of life and who was left behind; it will be evident who put his talents to the best possible use and who wasted them on the fleeting enjoyments of this world; it will become clear who has attained to true honour and who has been disgraced. Failure in its true sense is failure in eternity, and likewise true success is success in eternity. Opportunism and expediency earn one honour and status in this world, but they will be of no use in the Hereafter. People who gained worldly honour in this way will find themselves quite unfit for honour in the everlasting world of God. They will be like an old-fashioned, manual worker, who is considered skillful in an agrarian society, but whose skills are of no use in a modern technological age. The Greatest Earthquake Earthquakes are a sign of God. When an earthquake strikes, it demolishes all the props which man relies on. It causes mighty stone fortresses to come tumbling down, just as it reduces flimsy wooden huts to matchsticks. It does not distinguish between the strong and the weak. It strikes the mighty in the same way as it strikes the helpless. Earthquakes give us prior warning of what is eventually going to happen to all of us in this world. They remind us in this world of the doomsday which all mankind must face in the next world. When the trembling of the earth makes people lose their senses; when houses start falling as if they were made of playing cards; when the earth is turned upside down; then people will realize how utterly helpless they are before the might of God. All man can do at such a time is helplessly gaze on his own destruction. The earthquake of the Last Day will be infinitely more severe than any worldly earthquake. All man’s supports will collapse. He will forget the skills which he displayed in the world. The grandeur which he enjoyed on earth will disappear. The only people who will have anything to rely on will be those