Just Passing Through

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away (James, 4:14).

Not our home!
(David Harsha, "Immanuel's Land")
"For this world is not our home; we are looking forward to our city in Heaven, which is yet to come!" Hebrews 13:14
We are strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
This present world is not our home. We are coming up from the wilderness with our faces Zionward; we are traveling to the Celestial City!
Our path is rough, but the Savior sustains us.
Our pilgrimage lies through a wilderness, but faith cheers us with a view of the glorious rest of the redeemed in our Father's house, in mansions of blessedness!
Let this consideration animate us amid the conflicts of life. In a little while we shall obtain a joyous entrance into the glorious rest above. The storms of life's ocean will soon carry us into the haven of peace, where there is no trouble.
The language of inspiration is, "Get up, go away! For this is not your resting place, because it is defiled, it is ruined beyond all remedy!"
Your Savior, pilgrim Christian, has prepared for you a nobler rest than this polluted world!
In His Father's house are many spacious mansions, where your happy spirit, after tasting the bitter cup of life's sorrow, shall rest in eternal blessedness!
"For this world is not our home; we are looking forward to our city in Heaven, which is yet to come!" Hebrews 13:14

Many years ago, this writer attended a large conference for Christian leaders in Atlanta, GA. Like it was yesterday, I still remember the Christian president of one of the world's large candy manufacturing companies, addressing the conference and saying "Some months ago, I sent my nice watch back to the, manufacturer, had the name taken off and in its place, the words, "The Night Cometh"(John, 9:4)." "Now, anytime I look at my watch, I realize, just how little time I have to do God's work while I am here on this earth."

In 1932, two years after this writer's birth, Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. He was not a prophet, but prophesied very accurately what is happening 82 years later. The world has totally changed in my lifetime. Just think, in my business, (Online Selling), via the Internet, one of my assistants can put an item into the computer, anything, book-car-collectibles, stroke one key, and the item is immediately viewed by 4 billion people all over the world. When I was a child, a radio was a strange-talking box. There were very few radios within the community, just a box of static. There was only one telephone in our community for many miles. My cousin had a telephone in his country store. The entire community used that one telephone to call a doctor-funeral home-emergency service AND, neighbors learned to care for one another. Sickness and death were realities. Neighbors new about home remedies, ingredients for poultices, how to dig a grave for a family member or a neighbor. Death has become so sanitized, just calling the funeral home. One of my funeral director friends tells me that some family members never even look at their departed member... just call and make burial arrangements by telephone. I so remember my own wonderful mother, saving up her money so she would have two dollars to take one of us to the dentist. My mother and grandmother delivered all of the babies in the community, "laid out the dead." Now, 50% of the population depends on the government for everything. WHO NEEDS GOD, WHEN YOU HAVE THE GOVERNMENT? AND, this is just what most politicians want, dependency on government for everything.

In our travels, everyday, we pass a graveyard or funeral home... but, most of my friends and family members actually think they will never die. The mortality rate is still 100%.

There was a time when funerals were held at the church house. I truly believe that more souls face the truth of eternity at a funeral in the church, casket at the front, knowing that one day, they might be laying in the box. And, so many think they will get some warning signals. It just does not happen that way, the big three, heart attack, cancer, stroke, happen rapidly and quietly. We are strangers and pilgrims here, "just passing through." Our citizenship, if Christian, if washed in the precious blood of Christ, is in heaven (Philippians, 3:20). Last breath here, first breath there and there is no middle ground (In spite of what the Catholics preach), you are in heaven or hell... no second chance.

This old blind veteran, who has seen the world turn totally toward Satan's advances in my lifetime is ready for heaven.... ready to see again, ready for sight. I am so glad I have been able to walk by faith, not sight (2 Cor. 5,7).