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Message
Dr. William L. Hogan
Our Scripture reading is from II Kings, chapter 6. Let us hear the Word of God, beginning in verse 8.
Now the king of Israel was at war with Aram [that's Syria]. After conferring with his officers, he said, "I will set up my camp in such and such a place." The man of God [that's Elisha] sent word to the king of Israel, "Beware of passing that place, because the king of Aram is going down there." So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God.
Time and again Elisha warned the king so that he was on his guard in such places. This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, "Will you not tell me which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?" [The Israelites so uncannily knew every move the Syrians were making, that the king assumed there must be a traitor in his own camp.] "None of us, my lord the king," said one of his officers, "but Elisha the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words that you speak in your bedroom." [Well, there was nothing to do but get rid of Elisha.]
"Go, find out where he is," the king ordered, "so I can send men and capture him." The report came back: "He is in Dothan." Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. . . .
Can't you picture this scene? Just as the distant sky beyond the hills is beginning to be lightened by the rising son, the servant stumbles out of his bed, probably goes out to the well and draws some water. The hills are shrouded in darkness, silhouetted against the sky. He can't see very well because he is still sleepy. He splashes his face with a little water. By that time the sun has risen just a little more and his eyes are a little wider open, and he is alarmed to realize they are surrounded by an enemy army, with chariots and horses, and he says,
"Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered, "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And I can imagine the servant saying to himself, "Yeah, right. Two of us and a whole army of them--what's he talking about?" And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. [The army of the Lord's hosts, an army of angels, in that unseen dimension.] "Do you see what I can see?" Elisha might have asked. "Because if you can see what I see, you know that material reality is not the whole story."
One year ago we came face to face with a terrifying enemy, and we attacked it on all fronts--radiation, chemotherapy, nutrition, and lots and lots and lots of prayer. And it looked as though we had the enemy retreating. The tumor shrunk from six to two centimeters. Amy felt good., They made their wonderful trip to Scotland. She looked good. Those pictures you saw in Fellowship Hall were taken just seven weeks ago. You would never know she was sick.
And then an MRI turns up the fact that though the original has continued to shrink, the cancer has spread to many other parts of the brain, and from there it was a rapid downhill fall. Now we are here tonight.
But you know, all along, Amy understood that there is more to reality than you can detect in an MRI.
I remember sitting on her bed down at U.M.C. when she was first diagnosed a year ago. I had tears in my eyes, and I said, "Sweetheart, I would give anything if I could trade places with you." She said, "Oh Dad, I wouldn't want that. In the first place, I can handle this better than you can." And I suppose that's right. But then she got serious, and she said, "And anyway, I believe God has entrusted this to me, and He is going to use it for some purpose."
She believed that all things are ruled by a sovereign God who doesn't let anything slip through His fingers, that He is working all things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose; that He is working all things according to the counsel of His own will, and He knows the end from the beginning. No opposing army, no enemy arrow, no errant brain cell, can ever come against the child of God without passing through the perfect will of a Sovereign God. She knew that.
She saw, by faith, what Isaiah saw that day in the temple when he saw the Lord, high and lifted up, with his train filling the temple, surrounded by angels chanting,. "Holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of His glory." And he knew, as Amy knew, that our lives are in the hands of a sovereign God, a God who is able to heal if He chooses, but is still able to use something like a glioblastoma, even if He doesn't choose to heal.
And I have seen so many little stories, I could keep you here for hours telling you of people whose lives have been touched by what has happened to Amy. Let me just tell you one.
I preached a sermon shortly after Amy's diagnosis, and I had printed copies of it. A woman in West Virginia got hold of a copy, and she phoned me one night, and she said, "I've been sitting here trying to compose a letter and I don't know what to say. I just have to tell you that your daughter, whom I have never met, has changed my life." I asked how that was possible, since she didn't know any of us,a nd she replied, "Well, I read that sermon you preached. In it you said that Amy believed that God had entrusted this tumor to her and He was going to use it somehow, and I came to the conclusion that if she can believe that God has a purpose for something like that, then He has a purpose for my life. And I have started going to church."
I could tell you lots of stories like that, and who knows how far those ripples may go? See, those who do not have that kind of perspective will be like Elisha's servant: "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" But when you can see by faith that God sits on the throne and rules all things according to His perfect will, then you can say as the Scripture says, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" I think Amy would say tonight, "Do you see what I see?"
Sometimes, when death draws near, the curtain that separates this world from the world beyond is drawn back a little bit and people are given a glimpse of the unseen world. I believe heaven is not out in outer space. It's in a dimension near at hand. We just don't often penetrate the wall between them. Amy was in River Oaks Hospital, Jane was spending the night with her, just a few weeks ago, and she had one of her more lucid periods in the middle of the night, in which she began to say, "Mom, look! Look, Mom! As far as you can see, there are angels, way out beyond the clouds. Mom, can you see that?" Jane would just keep saying, "Tell me more. What do you see. What does it look like?"
A cynic might say, that was just a drug-induced hallucination. I say, she was given, by God's grace, a vision of objective reality. She saw heaven. She had a glimpse of heaven. And she kept describing how beautiful it was. At one point she even lifted her leg as if trying to step in. She said, "I'm trying to step in." She knew that heaven is real.
But she also knew that it is not all, because part of that vision she had was not merely of beautiful angels, but of angels warring against what she called "the bad guys," the hosts of evil. There is a cosmic struggle going on for the souls of people. She began to say, "Mom, this is serious. You have to tell Dad and Ed to preach harder, because there are lots of people who don't take this seriously. You have to tell them to tell people, especially people in the church, they have to take these things seriously."
She understood, you see, that you can't take heaven for granted. Jesus was clear about that, wasn't He? He spoke of two groups of people who will be forever separated. He talked about two roads, one a broad way, one a narrow way, that lead to two destinations, one of them eternal destruction. And He also taught that in the last day, all will stand before Him as their judge, and there will be two final statements of judgment. To some He will say, "Depart from Me," and to others He will say, "Welcome!"
I wonder, carrying out Amy's mandate to preacher harder, what will you say when you stand before Him and He asks, "What right do you have to enter my heaven." And I wonder what He will say to you.
Don't think you can take it for granted. Don't think all will be well because you are a relatively decent person. Many people have the mistaken notion that they somehow deserve heaven, because they are not as bad as most other people. But the Scripture is very clear: "It is not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by His mercy that He saves us" - "For by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not or yourselves, it is the free gift of God, not as a result of our works, lest anyone should boast."
When you think about it, it's clear why salvation, eternal life, heaven, cannot be a reward for a life well lived. Because the God with whom we have to do is a holy God, a God who judges by perfect standards, and by those standards all of us fall short. he doesn't grade on a curve. The prophet Isaiah said that even our righteousnesses are like filthy rags in the sight of this God. So no one can be accepted on the basis of the good he or she has done. The fact is, if we are going to get there by the good we do, we can never do enough to satisfy a perfectly holy God.
"Do you see what I see?"
Heaven is real, but we must not be presumptuous. As Amy lay there that night, she began to quote Bible verses, verses she learned as a child and loved to share with people, just an outline of the simple Gospel message:
"All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
"The wages of sin is death . . ." - not just physical death, but spiritual death, separation of the soul from God, the source of all life. And that verse continues: "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
"God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us."
When we were in that condition of deserving spiritual alienation from God, Jesus stepped in and went to the cross, and on the cross he took our sin and our guilt upon His own shoulders, and the judgment of that holy God feel upon Him in our place so that it wouldn't have to fall upon us. While we were sinners deserving God's judgment, Christ died in our place.
Someone has said, you can summarize the Gospel in three simple sentences. the first is, "I deserve hell for my sins." The second is, "On the cross, Jesus took my hell." And the third is, "Now there is nothing left for me but His heaven, if I will accept it."
Have you accepted it?
"Do you see what I see?" Amy would say, "A Savior who hung on a cross to pay the penalty for your sin.
"Do you see what I see?" - a Savior who rose again form the dead and lives forevermore.
Oh, if you could only see what I see, you would not hesitate to flee to Him and surrender your heart to Him.
Amy's recitation of Bible verses continued:
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
And then a verse which, at least for many years, was one of Amy's favorites:
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and open the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me."
When Amy was young, around 10 or 11 years old, she came into my study and said, "You have always told me that when I was a little girl, about 3, Marion [that's Amy's sister] led me in a prayer to ask Jesus to come into my heart. But I was so little I don't remember much about that. I want to make absolutely certain that I have trusted Christ as my Savior. Can you help me?"
So I showed her that verse. "Behold I stand at the door . . ." I said, "That's the door of your heart. Do you want Christ to come into your life?" She said yes, that is what she wanted. "Then you must open the door and invite Him to come in." So I led her in a simple prayer, asking Jesus Christ to come into her heart, and she wrote in the front of her Bible the date and the fact that she had asked Christ into her life as her Savior.
That's why I am confident that she is in heaven, not because she was a good girl--though there are few better--but that's not the basis on which anyone gets there.
And now she says to us, "I'll be waiting. Can't wait to see you. And just wait 'til you can see what I can see!!"
Let's pray together:
O, Lord Jesus. We thank you for the Gospel message, the Good News of salvation given freely to those who will repent of their sin and trust the Savior. And O Lord, I pray that if there are any here tonight who have never put their personal trust in Jesus, never opened their heart's door to Him, that right now in this moment they will say to Him, "Lord Jesus, come into my life. Thank you for dying for my sin. I repent of my sin, and I trust you with a whole heart. Give me the gift of eternal life. And thank you for your mercy." AMEN
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