To Illustrate…
October 1, 1988
ASSURANCE
In 1958, a U.S. soldier wandered the streets of Berlin to see the sights. Despite the bustling new life in parts of the city, reminders remained of the destruction of World War II.
Walking through a residential area one evening, across the cobblestone street he saw an open space edged with flowers. In the center stood the stone front of what had been a church. The building was no longer there, but the rubble had been cleared away in an attempt to fill the empty space with a little park.
The former church's main door was shaped in a Gothic arch, and over it was carved into the stone in German: HEAVEN AND EARTH WILL PASS AWAY, BUT MY WORDS WILL NOT PASS AWAY. As he stepped through the arch where the doors had once been, of course he wasn't inside anything. What was once a place of worship had been reduced to a patch of stone pavement and open sky.
Not so with the Door-Jesus Christ! As we step into Christ, we enter into his unshakable, eternal presence. It cannot be reduced; it can only be experienced-forever.
- Coleman L. Coates
Cadmus, Michigan
HEAVEN
I once led a man to Christ who loved the sunny country of common sense, but he could not put up with the mysteries of godliness. He kept shoving common sense at me, while I kept trying to show him that the mysteries held the meaning of faith.
One day he said, "Pastor, you know this new eternal life I have-well, I've been thinking about it. What are we going to do all day long for eternity?"
"We'll praise the Lord," I said.
"Forever-for ten million years!-we're going to stand around and praise the Lord?"
"Well, yes," I said, although heaven was beginning to sound like cable television.
"For millions and millions of years?" he said. "Couldn't we just stop now and then and mess ...
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