This next "quote" is from remembrance only, and I do not even know who to attribute it to. Perhaps one of the readers is familier with it and can inform me. But with that disclaimer firmly stated, the truth of its point can clearly be a deep insight into the actual condition of our hearts.

Here is the background for this amzingly revealing quote.

There was a man, an unsaved man, who had lived an exceedingly wicked and selfish life, filled with earthly pleasures rather than seeking God and His will...His forgiveness.

He eventually became ill and was dying and called for the preacher to come and pray for him, that he might find repentance. The preacher came, but it was obvious he had other things to do, and his heart was not in it, and his prayers were dry, lifeless and formal.

The man stopped him in the middle of his prayers, and asked him if he truly believed in heaven and hell. The preacher said indeed he did. The man continued "and you believe that hell is a place of eternal tormant, filled with pain and suffering and seperation from God forever and ever?"

The preacher said he did indeed believe as the man had stated.

The man, shaking in his pain and confusion, and in his frustration at the preacher who so calmly seemed to be ushering him into the next life fully unprepared for what was waiting for him, then said:

"If hell is real, as you say you believe it to be, and the pain and misery beyond what we can even imagine, and the length of hell is forever, without end, without hope, with no reprieve, tho all of England was strewn with shards of broken glass, if I believed as you say you do, I would crawl across it on my hands and knees, just to be able to save even one sould from entering therein."

Dear brothers and sisters, this quote should indeed be a wakeup call for us as to how things are really going in our walk with God. Ultimately, the church has one purpose, the sharing of the good news of the gospel of Christ with the lost. If we have left our first love, we also are found to be lacking heart for his will, that we be the vessels that spread that good news.

This "test" is not shared to condemn, not in the least. It is a wake-up call for us to thoroughly examine our walks in light of the truth that we are indeed in the last days, and many of us have even members of our own families...spouses, children, parents, friends and relatives, who will be bound for an eternity without God unless someone intervene on theor behalf. The hour is late, the need is great. I pray we lay down foolish things that occupy our lives but leave our hearts empty, and run our race as if there is but one prize, and we are determined to be the one to win it.

May God bless you in your hunger for more of Him. He indeed has what we are searching for.

Gideon