Pleasant Surprises

How many “pleasant surprises” will there be on Judgement Day?

A young man named Aaron answered my question about eternity by telling me he doesn’t believe in life after death but is open to being “pleasantly surprised”.

I wonder though, is he just as open to being un-pleasantly surprised?

It’s an important question, because Jesus said there will be far more about unpleasant surprises after we die than pleasant ones. Seems He well knew to be true what I have been finding out about human nature on the street – the vast majority of people fully expect that any “surprises” in the next life will automatically be pleasant ones.

But in Matthew 7, Jesus states, "Enter by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

The vast majority of people on that broad path to destruction will be unpleasantly surprised when they get there, because they have such a high opinion of themselves and a low opinion of the holiness of God that they can’t imagine that hell could ever be their fate.

Aaron expects that this life is all there is, so his surprise would come in having any eternal life at all. But without Jesus, there is no way that any such surprise could be a pleasant one.