Whitthe Bibleseys eboul HEAVEN
The following were among them: “ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath ever lasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). When I asked the question, “Are you sure that when you pass out of this world you will go to be with Christ?” the dying woman replied with a beautiful confidence, “ ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ ” Just then the husband came into the room and the wife beckoned him to come near. She put her arms around him and told him that she was going to Heaven. She tried to express to him what Christ meant to her, how He had enabled her to live vic toriously and was empowering her to die triumph antly. She told her husband also that if he would put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and accept Him as his Saviour, they would meet again. A few moments later, the father and mother who had said such hard words against the love and mercy of God, also entered the room. Their daugh ter spoke to them persuasively of the grace and love of God, and reminded them that she had earn estly endeavored to lead them all to Christ. “ It may be,” she said, “ that this is God’s way of bringing you to give heed to those things which you have heard.” Two hours later, she passed into the presence of the Redeemer whom she loved. That afternoon, I had the privilege of leading the husband, the father and the mother to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their lives during the years which followed revealed that a real heart change had taken place with each of them. “ Just think,” they often would exclaim raptur ously, “ now all of us are going to be ‘ever with the Lord!’ ’’ Yes, the destiny of every child of God is to be “ ever with the Lord.” His everlasting home is to be the New Earth with its New Jerusalem. The con summation of his hope is to be the fashioning of his own body like unto that o f Him who redeemed him. His highest vocation is to share the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian passes through this world as a pilgrim and a stranger, by faith looking ahead to the “ city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” When he enters that eternal abode, his pilgrimage is over and he is at home. The perfection of God’s provision of a home for His redeemed children is beyond all human under standing. Eloquent descriptions of Heaven have come from the gifted pens and lips of renowned writers and preachers, utterances based upon the revelation in God’s Word. But when once we reach
by Louis T . Talbot
Y ears ago on a cold winter day when I wg,s a pastor in the Middle West, I was asked to call at the home of a woman who was said to be dying. All the occupants of the home were strangers to me. On entering the house, I was met by the hus band o f the dying woman, and also by her mother and father who were there. The attitude of all of them was one of bitterness and resentment. When I introduced myself as a minister of the gospel, they cried out with vehement rudeness, “ If you have a God, He must be a monster to permit what is going on upstairs!” They declared in one breath that they did not believe in God and in the next that they did, but that they had no confidence in His love, His mercy, or His justice. “ If you want us to believe in your God,” the husband blurted out, “ let Him now restore my wife to health.” “ Yes,” the parents chimed in, “ let Him raise our daughter from this deathbed.” I tried to speak calmly. “My friends,” I replied, “ I know there is a God, and that He is merciful as well as just. His Word says so. But you can never get anything from Him by approaching Him in the belligerent attitude you are showing.” “ And now,” I added, “may we go to the patient’s room?” Not very willingly someone led the way. When I entered that bedroom, it seemed to me I was pass ing from Satan’s territory into Heaven itself, for the sick woman there had that sweet, confident rest fulness which belongs only to the children o f God. I sat by her bedside and spoke to her of the Saviour and of Heaven. I am not sure how many Scrip tures I read to her, precious passages on which she and every other sinner must rest his or her faith.
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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