Dear Editor,
Did you hear?
It has been on TV and in several of the largest newspapers and magazines. Stephen Hawking, the famed, wheelchair-bound, British theoretical physicist, who suffers the physically debilitating motor neurone disease, has pronounced his verdict on an afterlife: it is a “fairy story for people afraid of death.”
When death comes, that’s it; nothing more.
Well now, that should settle the matter once and for all.
For many it does.
After all, this was the fellow who wrote the books “A Brief History of Time” and “The Universe in a Nutshell.”
Surely one who can grasp the universe and who has described the history of time can also tell us about things like an afterlife and a heaven.
There are, however, other authoritative voices on the matter.
I will give you just one. To His true followers, Jesus of Nazareth spoke these encouraging words: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1-3).
Now, whose view are you going to accept? Professor Hawking’s or Jesus’? To believe Dr. Hawking is to hold that Jesus is a liar.
Let’s face it, there is only one real authority as to whether there is a life beyond this one, and a place
where true, spiritually reborn believers will reside with their Lord.
That would be Jesus.
My friends, don’t be bamboozled by the likes of highly credentialed folks telling you otherwise. There is a heaven (and, by the way, there is a hell).
Don’t believe it because I have told you, or because your pastor has told you, or because some other person you hold in high regard has told you.
No, believe it because God has told us so.
We have His word on it: “if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?”
Kevin Baxter,
Great Bend