I Know There Is A Heaven # 3

I Know There Is A Heaven # 3

IV. I Beseech You to Have Your Passport

Permit me one last word. As God gave me utterance, I have told you why I know there is a heaven; what kind of place it is; why I know I am going there. May I passionately, earnestly, urgently, beseech you to get your passport. You may if you will. It is altogether dependent upon your willingness. There is but one thing in your way: not your sins; Christ can and will wash those away; not your weakness, the Holy Spirit can conquer those in you. There is nothing in your way but your own, "I will." This hour, if you are ready to say to God, "Lord have mercy on me, a sinner," God stands ready to enroll you in the citizenship of heaven. Make sure your name is written in His Book.

Today the gates of glory swing wide open for your entrance. God is bending down from the throne. Jesus is reaching out His pierced hands to you. The Holy Spirit is softly whispering the gentle welcome to the invitation. Will you accept it? Some years ago, one of the engineers of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, a superb Christian man, built his home by the side of the right of way. He had a six year old daughter. Every day the engineer, in passing his home, pulled the cord of the engine's whistle to greet his loved ones. The little daughter got into the habit of climbing on the fence to wave at her daddy as he passed. One day she overbalanced herself and tumbled into the ravine at the foot of the tracks. Her father came home that night to find her with a bruised scratched body. "Darling," he said to her, "you must not climb that fence anymore. The next time you might hurt yourself pretty badly."

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said the father; "tomorrow before I leave I'll take a board out of the fence. Tomorrow evening and every other evening when I go past, you can stick your head and shoulders through that hole and see me and wave at me."

The man did just as he said. From then on, daily, when the train sped past, the whistle blowing, the child pressed herself into the fence and waved hand and handkerchief to the much loved father. The days sped past. The winter came. The little girl contracted a severe cold that rapidly developed into double pneumonia. The man took time out of his job and sat night and day by the bed of his child. The doctors did the best they could, but God wanted that flower in His own garden. The girl grew steadily worse until one day the family physician came out to call the father into the sickroom with the dreadful news that the child was dying. The father and mother stood at the foot of the bed watching. Pale of face, eyes closed, she lay there on her back in her little bed. Minutes went past. After a time, she opened her eyes. Noticing the tears of her parents, she whispered in a faint little voice, "Daddy, Mamma, why are you crying?"

The father and mother choked with their emotions, were unable to answer. They looked at the good doctor. The doctor turned to the child and, taking her small hand in his, gently told her that her father and mother were weeping because she was leaving them to be with Jesus. Again the child looked up into the face of her father. "Daddy," she said, "you mean I am going to die?" "Yes, darling," he whispered. "you are leaving Daddy and Mamma to go to be with Jesus." The girl whimpered a little softly crying. Then she bethought herself of something and began to comfort the mourning ones. "Daddy," she said, "Mamma, don't cry. When I get to heaven, the first thing I am going to do is tell Jesus about you. I am going to tell Him what a good Daddy and Mamma you were and how you always talked to me about Him. Then I am going to ask Jesus to take a board out of the wall around heaven. Every day I shall go to that opening and watch for you. When I see you coming, I shall wave at you to show you where I am that you may come to me."

This is just what Jesus is doing for us and to us right now. Bending over the battlements of glory, His pierced Hand is Stretched Out Still to us (Isaiah 9:12, 17, 21). He is beckoning us to come to Him. He is longingly, yearningly, pleadingly, anxiously waiting for you. Will you this very moment accept His invitation? Will you, in humble, penitent, childlike, yet bold, trusting faith,come to the blessed Saviour right now, that you, together with the great multitude of us, may start on the journey to the Promised Land, never finish until you stand complete in the Lord Jesus Christ before the throne of God in the glorious heavens? God give you the grace to come, and meet this Jesus and celebrate the first birthday of your immortal soul, or to reaffirm your position with the Holy Spirit, as a child of God.

~Hyman Appleman~

(The End)