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God Prepares Us For Heaven
Contributed by Guy Glass on May 5, 2023 (message contributor)
Dr. Billy Graham tells of a friend of his who went through the Depression in the 1920s, losing a job, a fortune, a wife, and a home. But he was a believer in Jesus Christ, and he tenaciously held to his faith even though he was naturally depressed and cast down by circumstances. One day in the midst of his depression he stopped to watch some men doing stonework on a huge church in the city. One was busy chiseling a triangular piece of stone. “What are you going to do with that?” he asked. The workman stopped and pointed to a little opening near the top of the spire. “See that little opening up there near the spire?” he said. “Well, I’m shaping this down here so that it will fit in up there.” The friend said that tears filled his eyes as he walked away from the workman, for it seemed that God had spoken to him personally through the workman telling him that God was shaping him for heaven through his ordeal.
James Montgomery Boice, The Sermon on the Mount: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 58.
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