A HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HANDS (8 OF 18)
Scripture: II CORINTHIANS 5:1
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A House Not Made with Hands (8 of 18)
The Greatest Texts of the Bible
Clarence Edward Macartney
2 Corinthians 5:1
For we know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God,
an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
In the far-famed Santa Clara Valley in California, not
far from San Jose, there stands in the midst of a
great orchard what is said to be the largest house in
the world. It was built, or started, in the 1890s by a
Mrs. Winchester. At first only a pleasing country home
of ordinary dimensions, it has been altered and added
to, until today it covers, with its outbuildings, a
space of fourteen acres. Adding apartment after
apartment, room after room, and chamber after chamber,
the owner became obsessed with the idea of building
statelier mansions. Today the house is a curious and
amazing labyrinth of winding stairways, upside-down
pillars and posts, blind doors, intricate passages,
and hundreds of windows. If left in one of the
interior rooms, the visitor would have a hard time
finding his way out of the labyrinth. As the owner
added room to room and chamber to chamber, she labored
under the obsession that as long as she kept building
and adding, she herself would not die. But at length
Death came, Death which is no respecter of houses.
Death came and found its way up the strange stairways
and through the many passages to the blue room where
she lay.
That is the fate of all earthly houses, whether the
largest in the world or the meanest shanty. One day it
is dissolved, destroyed, taken down. It is not
otherwise with the tabernacle which we inhabit in this
stage of our life, the body. Death, the great
dissolver, takes it down.
Paul's Heavenly Vision
Only one man in the Bible ever got into heaven and
came back again to earth. That man was Paul, who was
caught up, he tells us, into the third heaven. Yet he
distinctly t ...
The Greatest Texts of the Bible
Clarence Edward Macartney
2 Corinthians 5:1
For we know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God,
an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
In the far-famed Santa Clara Valley in California, not
far from San Jose, there stands in the midst of a
great orchard what is said to be the largest house in
the world. It was built, or started, in the 1890s by a
Mrs. Winchester. At first only a pleasing country home
of ordinary dimensions, it has been altered and added
to, until today it covers, with its outbuildings, a
space of fourteen acres. Adding apartment after
apartment, room after room, and chamber after chamber,
the owner became obsessed with the idea of building
statelier mansions. Today the house is a curious and
amazing labyrinth of winding stairways, upside-down
pillars and posts, blind doors, intricate passages,
and hundreds of windows. If left in one of the
interior rooms, the visitor would have a hard time
finding his way out of the labyrinth. As the owner
added room to room and chamber to chamber, she labored
under the obsession that as long as she kept building
and adding, she herself would not die. But at length
Death came, Death which is no respecter of houses.
Death came and found its way up the strange stairways
and through the many passages to the blue room where
she lay.
That is the fate of all earthly houses, whether the
largest in the world or the meanest shanty. One day it
is dissolved, destroyed, taken down. It is not
otherwise with the tabernacle which we inhabit in this
stage of our life, the body. Death, the great
dissolver, takes it down.
Paul's Heavenly Vision
Only one man in the Bible ever got into heaven and
came back again to earth. That man was Paul, who was
caught up, he tells us, into the third heaven. Yet he
distinctly t ...
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