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IN TOUCH WITH GOD    by Edward Heppenstall

 
Triumph in Christ DECEMBER 16

HOPE REALIZED

But we long for every one of you to show the same eager concern, until your hope is finally realized. Heb. 6:11, N.E.B.

We are quite sure that the future holds more for us than anything we have in the present. We refuse to sacrifice future eternal realities for temporary advantages and pleasures. The value of transitory things in the light of eternity is soon dissipated.

Christ is the second Adam, the head of the race. There can be no error as to the certainty of His imminent return. Sinful man has proved his complete incapacity and inability to save civilization, to bring about the reign of truth and righteousness. The coming reign of Jesus Christ is not based on anything man can do.

We who are truly converted to Christ reject any possible reign of sinful man on the earth and any human solution to the sin problem. The promises of Christ to return to earth to resurrect His followers and translate us into the kingdom of glory inspire us with hope, wonder, and delight. There is an unbridgeable gulf between man's promises and God's. We shall live forever because we know Him, because He has already given to us eternal life. He will never abandon us. In the Word of God we find promise and prophecy of immortality to come.

Several years ago one of the universities of this country established a crypt of civilization in which the evidences of this generation were locked and sealed and protected against decay, hopefully until the year A.D. 8113, when it is to be opened. The only people who will see the year A.D. 8113 are those who belong to Christ now, who put their hope in Christ now.

The end of life on this planet is but the true beginning for us. We do not live and die as followers of Christ only to have some gravedigger shovel dust upon us and let that be it. "For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it" (Rom. 8:24, 25). There is bound to be a triumphant sequel to the history of our world. We can all make up our minds to hope and to work for it, and to hasten that day.

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