Eternal Joy

I heard Robert G. Lee preach in 1976 at my first year in Bible school. He pastured the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and he served as president of the Southern Baptist convention for three terms. He was in his eighties when I heard him in chapel. He told this true story and made the following application.

R.G. Lee:

“When I was about ten years old I was playing on the floor as my mother knitted in her rocking chair. I looked up at her and asked, “Momma, what is the most amount of joy you’ve ever felt in your life?” My mother put down her knitting and replied, “Son, you’ve asked a hard question but I think I know the answer.""

“I grew up in South Carolina during the war between the states, and the time came when all the men folk went off to war. As an eight year old little girl I watched my Daddy go to war many months before. Times were very hard and food and water were very scarce. Every now and then a straggling soldier would walk up the dirt road that lead to our house and ask for some food and water. My Momma would give him what we had.”

“One day two nicely dressed soldiers came riding on horses up our dirt road and spoke with my Momma. They told her that Daddy had been killed in a battle outside of Richmond. My Momma cried, but tried to be strong for me. Many months passed and one day we were sitting on our front porch and in the distance we saw another straggling soldier slowly making his way up to the house. While he was still a long way off my Momma said, “Elizabeth, that man sure walks like your father.””

"I said, “Momma, please don’t say that. We know Daddy’s been killed and he’s not coming back.” After a while my Momma said, “Elizabeth, you may think me strange but that man sure looks like your father.” Again I implored my mother not to say things like that. But in a few minutes my mother rose to her feet and shouted, “Elizabeth, that is your father!”"

“Well we shouted and danced and cried, and I felt a sleeve where an arm used to be. Son, I believe that was the most amount of joy I have ever felt in my life”.

R.G. Lee continued, “Well I submit to all of you that the joy my mother felt as an eight year old little girl after her father, as it were, came back from the dead, was just a thimble full compared with the endless oceans of joy we will feel when we lay eyes upon Him who actually DID come back from the dead!!”

When I left that chapel service I was again changed.