Is there Hope?
John 14
1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so,
I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again,
and receive
you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
___________________________________________________________
James Weldon Johnson
__
Weep not, weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
Heart-broken husband -- weep no more;
Grief-stricken son -- weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter --weep no more;
She only just gone home.
__
Day before yesterday morning,
God was looking down from his great, high heaven,
Looking down on all his children,
And his eye fell of Sister Caroline,
Tossing on her bed of pain.
And God's big heart was touched with pity,
With the everlasting pity.
__
And God sat back on his throne,
And he commanded that tall, bright angel standing at his right hand:
Call me Death!
And that tall, bright angel cried in a voice
That broke like a clap of thunder:
Call Death! -- Call Death!
And the echo sounded down the streets of heaven
Till it reached away back to that shadowy place,
Where Death waits with his pale, white horses.
__
And Death heard the summons,
And he leaped on his fastest horse,
Pale as a sheet in the moonlight.
Up the golden street Death galloped,
And the hooves of his horses struck fire from the gold,
But they didn't make no sound.
Up Death rode to the Great White Throne,
And waited for God's command.
__
And God said: Go down, Death, go down,
Go down to Savannah, Georgia,
Down in Yamacraw,
And find Sister Caroline.
She's borne the burden and heat of the day,
She's labored long in my vineyard,
And she's tired --
She's weary --
Do down, Death, and bring her to me.
__
And Death didn't say a word,
But he loosed the reins on his pale, white horse,
And he clamped the spurs to his bloodless sides,
And out and down he rode,
Through heaven's pearly gates,
Past suns and moons and stars;
on Death rode,
Leaving the lightning's flash behind;
Straight down he came.
__
While we were watching round her bed,
She turned her eyes and looked away,
She saw what we couldn't see;
She saw Old Death. She saw Old Death
Coming like a falling star.
But Death didn't frighten Sister Caroline;
He looked to her like a welcome friend.
And she whispered to us: I'm going home,
And she smiled and closed her eyes.
__
And Death took her up like a baby,
And she lay in his icy arms,
But she didn't feel no chill.
And death began to ride again --
Up beyond the evening star,
Into the glittering light of glory,
On to the Great White Throne.
And there he laid Sister Caroline
On the loving breast of Jesus.
__
And Jesus took his own hand and wiped away her tears,
And he smoothed the furrows from her face,
And the angels sang a little song,
And Jesus rocked her in his arms,
And kept a-saying: Take your rest,
Take your rest.
__
Weep not -- weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
_________________________________________________________________
Psalm 116:15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
____________________________________________________________
FACING
DEATH WITHOUT CHRIST--
SUMMER IS OVER
ARE
YOU A GAMBLER WITH YOUR SOUL?
Jeremiah 8:20 The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
The
summer of the Age of Grace, in which you can be saved by faith in Jesus Christ,
is not quite past if two things are obvious:
1. You are still alive, and
2. The Lord's saints are still here
You
see, once you die, you have no choice in the matter. If you find that your cavalier
attitude
toward God does not work out so well after you die, God has no arrangement
for you salvation
at that point. God wants you be believe in Jesus Christ
by faith. So, if you are standing there nose
to nose with Jesus Christ in
heaven, and you cry out, "Now I believe, I just needed to see you Jesus"
God will ignore you, for you refused to live by faith, The Bible says:
Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
The
second way you know you still have time to repent of sin and believe in Jesus
Christ is that I
and thousands of true believers in Jesus are still here.
If you learn one day that all of the believers
in Jesus are gone, and the
media and the Feds cannot tell you where they went, then summer is
over,
and you are not saved. Get ready to go to hell.
2
Corinthians 6:2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the
day of salvation have I succoured thee:
behold, now is the accepted time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.)
Putting
off the day of salvation until summer is a bit more advanced, until you have had
a few more
flings and a few more affairs, is more deadly than playing Russian
roulette.
Bad odds, and eternal by consequences.
____________________________________________________________
FACING DEATH WITH A FORK
The sound of Martha's voice on the other end of the telephone always brought a
smile to Brother Jim's face.
She was not only one of the oldest members of
the congregation, but one of the most faithful.
Aunt Martie, as all of the
children called her, just seemed to ooze faith, hope, and love wherever she went.
This time, however, there seemed to be an unusual tone to her words.
"Preacher, could you stop by this afternoon? I need to talk with you."
"Of course, I'll be there around three. Is that OK?"
It didn't take long for Jim to discover the reason for what he had only sensed
in her voice before.
As they sat facing each other in the quiet of her small
living room,
Martha shared the news that her doctor had just discovered a
previously undetected tumour.
"He
says I probably have six months to live". Martha's words were naturally serious,
yet there was a definite calm about her. "I'm so sorry to .." but before
Jim could finish, Martha interrupted.
"Don't be. The Lord has been good.
I have lived a long life. I'm ready to go. You know that."
"I know," Jim whispered with a reassuring nod.
"But
I do want to talk with you about my funeral. I have been thinking about it,
and there are things that I know I want."
The two talked quietly for a long time. They talked about Martha's favourite hymns,
the passages of Scripture that had meant so much to her through the years,
and the many memories they shared from the five years Jim had been with Central
Church.
When it seemed that they had covered just about everything, Aunt
Martie paused,
looked up at Jim with a twinkle in her eye, and then added,
"One more thing, preacher.
When they bury me, I want my old Bible in one
hand and a fork in the other".
"A
fork?" Jim was sure he had heard everything, but this caught him by surprise.
"Why do you want to be buried with a fork?"
"I have been thinking about
all of the church dinners and banquets that I attended through the years," she
explained,
"I couldn't begin to count them all. But one thing sticks in my
mind,
"At those really nice get-togethers, when the meal was almost finished,
a server or maybe the hostess would come by to collect the dirty dishes.
I can hear the words now.
Sometimes, at the best ones, somebody would lean over my shoulder and whisper,
'You can keep your fork.'
And do you know what that meant? Dessert was coming!
"It didn't mean a cup of Jell-O or pudding or even a dish of ice cream. You
don't need a fork for that.
It meant the good stuff, like chocolate cake
or cherry pie! When they told me I could keep my fork,
I knew the best was
yet to come! "That's exactly what I want people to talk about at my funeral.
Oh, they can talk about all the good times we had together. That would be nice.
"But
when they walk by my casket and look at my pretty blue dress,
I want them
to turn to one another and say, 'Why the fork'? That's what I want you to say,
I want you to tell them, that I kept my fork because the best is yet to come!"
(Alisa Boggs,
Internet)
____________________________________________________________
"I WISH WE HAD....."
What small joy or precious thing have you tucked back into a corner in time and space.....
Something you plan to enjoy one day just for a "special occasion"?
After your funeral, your loved ones will say, " I wish she had used this."
or
"I wish we had taken that vacation or trip."
Stop hiding your dreams away for another day.
Get them out and enjoy.
___________