Out Of The Devil's Cauldron Order Printed Copy

Author: John Ramirez
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About the Book

"Out of the Devil's Cauldron" is a memoir by John Ramirez about his life as a high-ranking satanic priest before converting to Christianity. Ramirez recounts his experiences with the occult, demonic possession, and spiritual warfare, ultimately finding redemption and a new purpose through his faith in God. The book serves as a powerful testimony of God's transformative power and the reality of spiritual warfare.

Mary Slessor

Beyond all question or doubt, Mary Slessor deserves a preeminent place among the great missionaries to Africa. Thirty-nine years of her life she gave to the West Coast of Africa, and when she died, an old converted Negress said, "Kutua oh, kutua oh!" that is to say, "Do not cry, do not cry. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Ma was a great blessing to Africa." And that, assuredly, this unique woman was! J. H. Morrison thus writes of her: "To heathen Africa she gave a new conception of womanhood, and to the world at large an imperishable example of Christian devotion." To this verdict every student of African mission history must agree. Scotland also gave to Africa this devoted servant of her Lord, as she gave to the land of Ham so many great Christian workers. Mary Slessor was born December 2, 1848, in the city of Aberdeen, the second of a family of seven children. Her father was a drunkard, who made life miserable for his entire family, but her mother was a beautiful Christian woman who reared her children in the fear of God. And yet those more rugged traits which made her a great missionary in Africa, Mary inherited from her father, whose death was so great a blessing to the family. For many years her mother had to work in a factory to earn a scant living for her children; but after the death of her father, Mary worked for the family, and even when she was in Africa she supported her mother from her meager salary. But never would the sunshine of Christian faith and joy pass from the simple home, even in those terrible later years when the father, almost frantic from drunkenness, would cause nights of terror. After the unhappy Saturdays, when Slessor spent his week's wages in drinking, there would come a happy Sunday when the mother with her seven children would hurry to Sunday school where Mary became a teacher when she was yet almost a child. Even then she dreamed of Africa, and her favorite game was to teach an imaginary school of black children. She read avidly, and was a constant student of the Bible and of Milton's Paradise Lost. In spite of this she was a mischievous, impulsive, strong-willed child who was able to beat down any boy that picked a fight with her. Her work in the factory brought her constantly in contact with the roughest element of the city, and this tended to make her a rough and ready antagonist for every one who happened to attempt to oppose her. In 1874, the Christian world was profoundly moved by the news of Livingstone's death. Everybody spoke of the great missionary hero who by his own choice had died in the jungle of Africa. Now Mary could no longer restrain her passion for missionary work in Africa. She confided her wish to her mother who replied : "My child, I'll willingly let you go. You'll make a fine missionary, and I'm sure God will be with you." After some months of special training in missionary work, she was appointed for the West Coast of Africa, the "white man's grave." On August 5, 1876, when Mary was twenty-eight years old, she took the vow to consecrate her whole life for this part of Africa, and immediately sailed from Scotland, her beloved country. Her field was to be in the city of Calabar, where the United Presbyterian Church had done missionary work for many years. Calabar was the principal coast city of Nigeria, which Great Britain protected by her flag. Nigeria was a part of the slave coast from which each year thousands of slaves were shipped to the west. Some of these slaves, who had been sold to Jamaica, in 1824, conceived of the thought of bringing the Gospel to their home country. The mission was planted and the United Presbyterian Church took charge of it. In 1845, greater interest in the work was aroused by Hope Waddell, who spent some time in Scotland in the interest of African missions. While the mission was fairly successful, Old Calabar remained what it always had been, a wretched and wicked Sodom, where vice and heathenism flourished. Here all the superstitions and barbarous customs of paganism were practiced, and besides the natives learned from the depraved white people many additional criminal practices. Belief in demons was universal, witchcraft and the horrible poison ordeal were practiced everywhere. Human sacrifices were offered on the river bank for success in fishing. When twin children were born they were buried alive or exposed in the woods, while the unfortunate mother was driven into the bush or even killed; for it was believed that the second child to which she gave birth was the product of her mingling with an evil spirit. When chiefs or other great men died their wives were buried alive with them, while their slaves were slain and their heads thrown into the grave. To these hideous customs must be added the horrors of incessant warfare, of slavery and slave-raiding which made the whole country a veritable hell of degradation. Surely, Mary Slessor could not have chosen a field where missionary work was needed more than right at Calabar! The horrors of heathenism did not terrify her, since from earliest childhood she had been in contact with vice and sin. She dearly loved the African people for Christ's sake, and at once set out to learn the native language much to the astonishment of the blacks, who said of her that she was gifted "with an Efik mouth." For three years she zealously devoted herself to her new and hard tasks. Then the dreadful coast fever seized her, and she was obliged to return to Scotland for a rest. But in 1880, Mary Slessor returned to Calabar with new ardor, and now she was allowed to work in Old Town, among the natives, where she employed her own missionary methods. A large part of her meager salary was sent home and she lived largely on native food, which cost her little or nothing. But the chief reason why she preferred living in Old Town, was because she there could become like the natives themselves whom she meant to raise from degradation to purity of life. Her first missionary work was to save the babies that were to be killed or exposed to death. These she gathered and brought to her home, which in a short time became a veritable foundlings' home. But she succeeded in saving also many of the poor mothers who were to be killed, and these together with the children she instructed in the Christian religion. Had she been more inclined to organize her mission work, she might have started a large educational and industrial training school like Lovedale in South Africa, but she was no organizer and was very much averse to routine work. In fact, after a few years' toil in Calabar, she became tired of the humdrum life there, and she begged the Mission Council to permit her to begin work in the interior. For a woman this was a bold and daring venture, and the Mission Council long hesitated before granting her permission. But in 1886, they at last gave consent to her ceaseless requests, and she started off at once for the country of Okoyong, which lies in the angle between the Calabar and the Cross River. In the district of Okoyong, Mary Slessor encountered a fierce and powerful tribe of Bantu origin, lighter in color than most of the blacks in Nigeria and of finer physique, but thoroughly degraded. Their barbarism was appalling. Head-hunting was one of their favorite pursuits, and between fights they were given to drunkenness and bloody brawls. It was not easy for the white woman to gain permission to settle in the territory of this cruel and oppressive tribe. But in 1888, after many futile attempts, Mary Slessor boldly sailed up the Cross River as far as Ekenge, and begged permission of Chief Edem to establish a mission house in his village. The chief's sister, Ma Eme, at once took a liking to the bold Scottish lass, and induced her brother to permit her to live among the natives. To the end of her life Ma Eme remained a heathen, but she always supported Mary Slessor's work. Mary now returned to Calabar to prepare for a permanent settlement in Okoyong. On August 3, 1888, her preparations were completed, and in the early hours of a dull gray day Mary Slessor set out for Okoyong. A drizzling rain fell upon the hot country, as a few Christian friends accompanied her to the river and bade her farewell; they said: "We will pray for you, but you are courting death." When leaving Calabar, she had five orphan children in her home, the oldest of which was eleven, while the youngest was a babe in arms. No one wanted them and so she took them with her though they added to the hardships of the voyage. Late that night the missionary party were in the Okoyong country, four miles from the village of Ekenge, which was concealed far back in the tropical forest. With her tired and weeping children Mary at once set out for the village where she arrived in a state of complete exhaustion. The oarsmen whom she had commanded to follow, did not arrive, and so alone she went through the forest to the landing place where after a long and severe tongue lashing she finally succeeded in rousing the men from their sleep. By midnight the supplies had been secured in Ekenge. Mary at once supervised the erection of a mission compound. A mud-walled house was built with several out-stations for the supplies and the women and children whom she might harbor. Unfortunately, the rainy season had set in, so that the whole compound was soon swimming in a pool of muddy water. But Mary was not discouraged. With bare feet and bare head, her hair having been cut short like that of the natives, she worked each day, subsisting on native food, drinking unfiltered water, getting drenched with rain, and doing everything that might have killed an ordinary person. The natives took to her at once, for she perfectly mastered their language, and her fearlessness and good humor made her pleas irresistible. When they fought, she plunged into the midst of the combatants. When they threatened her, she threatened them in turn; when they laughed, she joined in with them. Sometimes she would scold; at other times she would weep; often she would turn her back upon them when they would not obey, but always she kept her commanding attitude which awed the natives into respect. Yet she was no vixen; it was her love for that work that made her so overpoweringly bold. Later, in Scotland, when she was on her furlough, she was so shy that she could not address a meeting as long as a single man was in the audience. But in Africa the chiefs from far and near bowed to her commands and fulfilled her wishes. Soon the mission compound was full of children who were to be killed, and their mothers driven into the bush. Each day she scoured the woods to find babes exposed and mothers beaten and expelled from the tribal town. These she would bring to the compound, and though by doing this blessed work, she violated every tribal custom, no one dared to interfere with her or molest those whom she sheltered in the compound. Above the house flew the British flag, and in Calabar there were British cannon. Yet, after all, it was her personality which subdued the natives to her will. Of her feats of heroism untold stories are narrated. Once she rescued a babe which had lain exposed in the bush for almost five days, and which she found almost eaten up by the flies and insects. With infinite patience she nursed the little girl back to health. Many years afterwards the young woman was married to an educated native in the service of the Government, and she lived in a fine home and drove around in a motor car. She never forgot the kindness of her good godmother and remained to her end a true Christian. Another time, a son of Chief Edem had been crushed under a heavy log, and upon the advice of a witch doctor, a neighboring tribe was captured to be slaughtered as a propitiatory sacrifice. With great boldness Mary took the burial rites into her own hands, and by her persistent pleas and her irresistible commands saved the victims from a cruel death. In the end, a cow was sacrificed at the grave. It was the first chief's grave in Okoyong which was not saturated with human blood. In 1891, the British Government appointed her Vice-consul for Okoyong, and though she did not like the routine work connected with it, she readily accepted it because it gave her increased prestige and authority. In 1894, after a service of three years as an official of the Government, she could write in her report: "No tribe was formerly so feared because of their utter disregard of human life, but human life is now safe in Okoyong. No chief ever died without the sacrifice of many human lives, but this custom has now ceased. Some chiefs, in commenting on the wonderful change, said: `Ma, you white people are God Almighty. No other power could have done this.'" With the officials of the Government she was always on the best of terms. One of them in later years has given this description of her, as she sat in court and administered justice: "There was a little frail old lady with a lace shawl over her head and shoulders, swaying herself in a rocking chair and crooning to a black baby in her arms. Her welcome was kind and cordial. I had had a long march on an appallingly hot day, and she insisted upon complete rest before we proceeded to the business of the court. It was held just below her house. Her compound was full of litigants, witnesses, and onlookers, and it was impressive to see with what deep respect she was treated by them all. The litigants emphatically got justice, sometimes, perhaps, like Shylock, 'more than they desired'; and it was essential justice, unhampered by legal technicalities." Those who sought the settlement of their disputes at the hands and court of Mary Slessor sometimes traveled hundreds of miles and her judgments were never disputed. However, in spite of her many administrative duties, Mary Slessor never forgot the one great task which had attracted her to Africa. Amid her many labors and difficulties she always testified of Christ. In the mission compound she held services; she daily taught the children at school, and visited the homes of the natives to instruct and comfort them. Sometimes she lost count of the days and on Sundays she would mend the roof of the church with her own hands, while on Mondays she conducted services. But her call to services was always answered by the natives, over whom she exerted perfect control. In 1896, overcome by ill health, she returned to Scotland on her second furlough, after a stay in Africa of sixteen years. Since she could not entrust her babies to the natives, she brought four of the smallest and most helpless ones with her. She was given one ovation after another, yet she was so shy that she avoided crowds wherever possible, and begged her friends to meet her singly, rather than in groups. While in Scotland, she pleaded with the Mission Council to permit her to open a new mission station farther in the interior of the country. After three years her desire was gratified and a male missionary was appointed in her place in Ekenge. Just then an epidemic of smallpox harassed the whole country. Mary Slessor turned her house in Ekenge into a mission hospital, and leaving it in charge of native helpers, hurried to the more populous town of Akpap, where she fought the disease single-handed. Her old chief, Edem, had caught the infection, and she nursed him faithfully until he died. Then with her own hands she made a coffin, dug the grave, and buried him. When finally two missionaries arrived from Calabar, they found her exhausted from her arduous labors, while her hospital-home in Ekenge was full of corpses, not a single soul having been left to take care of the sick. Meanwhile the British armies had penetrated the country west of the Cross River, and had even gone beyond the Niger, where mighty cannibal tribes inhabited the Ibo country. At Itu there was a great slave-market from which captives were constantly shipped to Calabar. At Arochuku, thousands of pilgrims worshiped a most terrible idol, called the long Ju-Ju. The British force took Arochuku, subdued the tribes, and demolished Ju-Ju. In this way a vast and populous country was thrown open to the work of Christian missionaries. Mary Slessor could not restrain her desire to follow the missionary call into this wild and unknown territory, and finally the Mission Council permitted her to take up work among the degraded natives of this section of Nigeria. She was now fifty-four years of age, but with fresh vigor she set out on the new venture. Twelve more years she was spared for work and achievement in Nigeria. She established herself first at Itu and, later, when a medical missionary took charge of this important field, she pushed on up country. Everywhere the people received this strange, good woman with joy and respect. In her work she was assisted by Christian boys and girls from Okoyong, and the progress of the missionary enterprise was as rapid as it was encouraging. The old Ju-Ju idol had been overthrown by the Christian God, and so the natives wanted to know who this mighty Lord was. At one unknown place, called Akani Obio, Mary Slessor was kindly received by a chief named Onoyom, who at Calabar had been instructed in the Christian religion, but who later on had returned to heathenism. He now offered to build a church in which Mary Slessor might teach the people, and contributed fifteen hundred dollars for the mission compound which she erected. When, with other converts, he later came to the Lord's Table, he said: "Akani Obio is now linked on to Calvary. I am sure our Lord will never keep it from my mother." Her success was so great that the British Government, in 1905, again asked her to administer justice in and around Itu. She consented to do the work, but refused the high salary offered to her, since she was supported by mission funds. With great tact and skill she discharged the duties of this office until ill health obliged her, in 1909, to resign the post. For a number of years she rode from village to village on a bicycle, which her Government friends had bought for her, but toward the end of her life she had to be drawn from place to place in a rickshaw. In 1912, her health was completely shattered, and her many friends arranged for a short vacation in the Canary Islands. She accepted the offer, hoping that her life might be spared for a few more years of service. She was a frail little lady, with a face wrinkled like yellow parchment, but in spite of her weakness she was full of enterprise and fun. When she returned to Calabar, she received from the King of England the silver cross of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which is conferred only on persons who are eminently distinguished for philanthropy. She was glad to escape the publicity connected with this great honor and said, as she returned to the interior, that she could never "face the world again after all this blarney." Her mind was still busy with new missionary projects. Near Itu she founded an industrial home for women and girls. To Scotland she sent letter after letter asking for new workers. She urged the Missionary Council to provide motor cars for their missionaries in order that they might gain more time for missionary work. She herself moved from place to place, opening village after village to the ever increasing number of Christian missionaries that were sent to Nigeria. Finally, only one solitary city, the populous town of Iban, held out, refusing steadfastly to receive the Christian missionaries. But she was undaunted. So long and ardently she pleaded with the town chiefs that at last she gained the victory. That night she wrote a letter to her friends in Scotland, telling them that "she was the happiest and most grateful woman in the world." But a last heavy blow was to strike this ardent woman missionary. This was the cruel World War, which penetrated also into Africa. When she heard the first news of the great tragedy, she was at Odore Ikpe, where she was building a mission compound. When she heard that Belgium had been invaded and the French armies were on the retreat, and when she learned that her own country was involved in the struggle, she sank back as if struck by lightning. Her native girl helpers put her to bed, where she lapsed into unconsciousness. Afterwards they placed her in a boat and rowed her to Itu. Under the careful medical care she rallied and returned to her mission station, where she taught her classes as usual, though she could no longer stand while conducting the service. But right to the last Sunday of her life and by sheer force of will, she continued in her work. Death claimed her on Wednesday, January 13, 1915, just as the dawn was breaking. Her body was taken to Calabar, where she was buried on Mission Hill, a most beautiful cemetery, which overlooks a large part of the city where she labored so faithfully when she served as a missionary apprentice. For thirty-nine years she had served Africa, bringing to this darkened country the light and life of her Lord. From Great Missionaries to Africa by J. Theodore Mueller. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, ©1941.

the father's house and the way there

"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:1-6). In these verses, there are two outstanding truths emphasized: first, that of the Father's house, and second, our Lord's personal return for His own. We are all familiar with the fact, I presume, that the Bible was not written in chapters and verses. These breaks in the text were put in by editors, and that in rather recent years, some of them as late as the time of the Protestant Reformation. And sometimes the chapter breaks seem to come at rather unfortunate places. I think such is the case here. Who, for instance, beginning to read the first verse of chapter fourteen, connects it in his mind with our Lord's words to the Apostle Peter at the close of chapter thirteen? And yet, there is a very real connection. The Lord Jesus had been giving His last messages to His disciples. He had intimated that soon they would forsake Him and flee. He had told them that He was going away and for the present they could not come where He was to go. And in verse thirty-six of chapter thirteen we read: "Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards." He was going, you see, to the Father's house. He was going home to God by way of the cross and resurrection, and Peter could not follow immediately. But the Lord says, "Thou shalt follow Me afterwards." Peter did not understand that, and he said to Him: "Lord, why cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down my life for Thy sake" (John 13:37). "Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied Me thrice" (John 13:38). And then He immediately adds: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me." You see, the Lord Jesus is addressing these words, of course, to all His disciples, but directly — directly — to the disciple who was to deny Him in so short a time. And this is surely very comforting for our hearts. Peter was to fail the Lord — Jesus knew he would fail — but deep in Peter's heart there was a fervent love for the Lord Jesus. And when he said, "I will lay down my life for Thy sake," he meant every word of it. But he did not realize how untrustworthy his own heart was. It was a case of the spirit being willing, but the flesh weak. And Jesus knew something of the fearful discouragement that would roll over the soul of Peter when he awoke to the realization of the fact that he had been so utterly faithless in the hour of his Master's need. In the very time that Jesus needed someone to stand up for Him and to say boldly, "Yes, I am one of His, and I can bear witness to the purity of His life and to the goodness of His ways" — at that time Peter, frightened by the soldiers gathered about, denied any knowledge of his Saviour. And, oh, the days and nights that would follow as he would feel that surely he must be utterly cast off, surely the Lord could never put any trust in him again! But if he remembered these words, what a comfort they must have brought to his poor aching heart! For Jesus is practically saying, "I know all about it, Peter. I know how you are going to fail, but I want you to know this; in My Father's house are many mansions, and you are going to share one of those mansions with Me some day. I am not going to permit you, Peter, to be utterly overcome. I am not going to permit you to go into complete apostasy. You will fall, but you will be lifted up again, and you will share with Me a place in the many mansions." When He says, "Let not your heart be troubled," He does not mean, "Do not be exercised about your failure," for He Himself sought to exercise the heart of Peter, and in a wonderful way restored him by the Sea of Galilee later on. But He means this: "Do not be cast down. Do not allow the enemy of your soul to make you feel there is no further hope, there is no opportunity for you." I wonder if I am speaking to someone this evening who has failed, perhaps, as Peter failed. Under the stress of circumstances you, too, have denied your Lord, denied Him in acts if not in words, and the adversary of your soul is saying to you now, "It is all up with you; your case is hopeless. You knew Christ once, but you have failed so miserably, He would never own you again." Oh, let me assure you His interest in you is just as deep as it ever was. If you truly trusted Him as your Saviour, the fact that you failed so grievously, and the fact that you mourn over it, only emphasizes the truth that you belong to Him. Still He says, "[Return], O backsliding children, [unto Me]; for I am married unto you" (Jer. 3:14) — not, "I am divorced from you." And therefore He waits for you to come back and confess your failure and your sin, and He has promised complete restoration, for, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). And some day for you, too, there will be a place in the Father's house. "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me." You see, in the days gone by before Jesus came to them at all, the people of Israel did have faith in the one true and living God. Now they had never seen Him, and Jesus is saying to His disciples, "You have believed in God when you couldn't see Him, now I am going away in a little while and you won't be able to see Me, but I want you to trust Me just the same as when I was here. Just as you have believed in the unseen God through the years, I want you to put your faith in Me, the unseen Christ, after I have gone back to the Father." Do we have that implicit trust and confidence in Him, realizing that He is deeply interested in every detail of our own lives? The Word says, "Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you" (1 Pet. 5:7). There is absolutely nothing that concerns His people that He Himself is not concerned about. And therefore He would have us put away all the stress and all the anxiety. He says, "Be careful [anxious] for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Phil. 4:6). "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me." And then He adds, "In My Father's house are many mansions." "My Father's house," and by that of course He means Heaven, and He is speaking of a place, a place to which He was going, and a place into which some day He will take all His own. I often hear people say, "Heaven is a condition rather than a place." Heaven is both a place and a condition. It is true we do not read a great deal about Heaven in the Bible. Somebody has said, "Heaven is the land of no more." We have more in the Bible about what will not be in Heaven than about what will be there. Remember in the book of Revelation we read that there will be no more sin, there will be no more tears, there will be no more pain, there will be no more sorrow, there will be no more curse, there will be no more darkness, there will be no more distress of any kind in the Father's house. The Father's house is the place where Christ is, and that is the place to which the redeemed are going. Some of you may have thought the expression here, "In My Father's house are many mansions," is rather peculiar. Somehow or other, the word mansion to most of us in the United States has an accustomed meaning that it did not originally have. When we see a great building we call that a mansion. But the word as originally used did not have that meaning at all. It had rather the meaning of an apartment, as we use that word today, a splendid apartment. So one building might have many mansions in it. And Jesus is telling us, "In My Father's house are many apartments, many resting-places." There is a place, an individual place, for every one of His own, all in that Father's house. "If it were not so, I would have told you." What does He mean by that? The Jews had had a belief in a heaven of bliss after death, and Jesus said, "If you had been wrong in that, I would have corrected you." But because He didn't correct it but rather affirmed it, we know that it is true, that there is a glorious home beyond the skies for the redeemed which we shall share with Him by-and-by. He adds, "I go to prepare a place for you." What does He mean by that? You see the mansions are different from what they were before He went back there. Before He went back to the Father's house, the sin question had never been settled. Before He went back to the Father's house, the veil had not been rent, the blood had not been sprinkled on the mercy-seat. So the saints of old went to Paradise on credit. They did not have the same blessed access into the immediate presence of God that the saints have now. We read in the Epistle to the Hebrews that we have now come to the spirits of just men made perfect. They were the spirits of just men of all the centuries before the cross; God had redeemed them and taken them to Paradise, but they were not yet made perfect. They could not be until the precious blood of Jesus was shed on the cross. Now having settled the sin question, He entered into the holiest with His own blood in antitypical fashion, sprinkled His own blood on the mercy-seat above, and now a place is prepared in the holiest for all of His own, and the spirits of just men of the past have been perfected and we who believe now are perfected forever. So we are all suited to that place to which we are going. "I go to prepare a place for you." And then He said, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." Now I know that a great many people think of this as a word in regard to death, and of course, when a believer dies, that believer goes to be with Christ. But we are never told in Scripture that in the hour of death Christ comes for His people. If we may draw an analogy from something our Lord said when He was here on earth, we gather that that is hardly true. We are told that a dear child of God was dying — he was a beggar, it is true. He was an outcast, lying at the rich man's gate, but he was a real son of Abraham. He had faith in the God of all grace. And the beggar died, we are told, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. Angels carried the poor beggar — poor no longer — into Paradise. What I rather gather from that, is that the last ministry of angels, who are ever keeping watch over the people of God, will be to usher them into the presence of God. He is yonder in the Father's house, and His angels usher His saints into His presence. But He is speaking of something different here. Death is the believer going to be with Christ. That is what the Scripture tells us — "Absent from the body ... present with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:8); "To depart, and be with Christ; which is far better" (Phil 1:23). But a believer going home to be with Christ is spoken of as being unclothed, having laid his body aside. He is there in the presence of the Lord a glorified spirit, but he is there waiting for his redeemed body. When the Lord Jesus fulfils that which is spoken here in the fourteenth chapter of John, then believers will receive their glorified bodies and will be altogether like Him. This coming, referred to here, is developed for us more fully in the fourth chapter of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. There we read in verse thirteen: "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep" —that is, saints whose bodies are sleeping in the graves but whose spirits are with Christ— "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17). This is the coming our Saviour refers to when He says: "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself" (John 14:3). It is at that coming that the expectation of our completed redemption will be fulfilled. In Romans eight the Apostle Paul tells us in verse nineteen: "For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God." Verses twenty-two and twenty-three: "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption—" What does he mean by that? —"to wit, the redemption of our body." Our spirits have already been redeemed, we have already received the salvation of our souls, but we are waiting for the complete salvation of the body, the redemption of the body at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. "For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope" (Rom. 8:24). What hope is it then? The hope of the coming of our Lord. And to this He refers again in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians, where we read in verse twenty: "For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." This is the glorious event that will take place when the Lord comes back again, when He comes back for us. There is the widest difference, you see, between this and the time when He is manifested as the Son of Man to deal in judgment with the godless world and eventually to set up His kingdom. This was a little secret the Lord was revealing to these apostles that night in the upper room. In the three Synoptic Gospels it was not mentioned. It was the Apostle Paul who was the chosen instrument to develop it, but it seems that the Lord Jesus, just before He went away, had a secret welling up in His heart, as it were, which He could not hold back any longer and He must tell them a little about it, so He says, "I am going away, but I am going to prepare a place for you. But if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you" — not, "I will send the death angel for you," or any other angel, but "I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there ye may be also." You see, He will never be satisfied until every one of His redeemed people is with Him in the glory in the Father's house. His heart is yearning for that. Now a word about the Father's house. Notice it is the Father's house, and the Father's house is for all the Father's children. We hear a great many strange things these days. Some people would try to tell us that it is only the deeply spiritual people of God that will be caught up with the Lord Jesus at His coming. When people talk like that, how little understanding they have of the Father's heart! You think of a normal father or mother here on earth, with, say, eight or ten children, and that is quite a family, isn't it? The father's house is open to all the children. I pity the home, and pity the children where the father or the mother makes distinctions among their children. I think it is a sad thing when out of a number of children one perhaps occupies a special place in the heart of the father and the others are held at a distance. "Oh," but you say, "maybe one or two are naughty children. Of course the father couldn't love naughty children as much as he loves the good children." Is that true? Why, even the naughty children are so dear to the father's heart that they give him many sleepless nights as he thinks about their naughtiness. He loves them and truly longs to see them all that they ought to be. There is always a welcome for them at the father's house. We need to remember, too, that in the Father's house above, there is no distinction. People often say to me, "Oh, if I can just get into Heaven and get a seat behind the door, I shall be satisfied. I know I don't deserve anything better." My dear friend, you don't deserve to get there at all. I don't deserve to go there. But I am not going there because I deserve to go, but I am going to Heaven because I have been born again, and the Lord Jesus Christ is preparing a place for me, and the Father's house is for all the Father's children. Another thing is this: There are no seats behind the door over yonder! I wish I could say it so loudly that everybody would get hold of it. There is nothing like that in the Word of God. There are no distinctions in the welcome that believers will have in the Father's house. I repeat, the Father's house has the same welcome for all the Father's children. You say, "Well, but doesn't the Bible indicate some will have greater rewards than others?" Oh, yes, but rewards have nothing to do with the welcome into the Father's house. The rewards especially have to do with the coming glorious kingdom, of course given in Heaven, given at the judgment-seat of Christ, but the differences are in the kingdom. For instance, look at the Second Epistle of Peter: "So an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into—" Into what? Into heaven? No; it is not true that some people will get an abundant entrance into Heaven and other folk will not have anything like so warm and cordial a welcome. What does it mean? It says that some people have an entrance ministered unto them abundantly. Yes, but into what? "Into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:11). Do not confuse, or confound, in your thinking, the Father's house with the everlasting kingdom. The Father's house is the home of the saints; the everlasting kingdom is the sphere of service and rewards, where through all eternity, first in the Millennium and then in the ages to come, we shall be serving our blessed Lord who has prepared a place for us in the Father's house... The Father's house is the home of all the Father's children. But we make our own places in the kingdom by our own devotedness to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you get the difference? So there is a place for all in the Father's house. About the way there. Will everybody get to the Father's house? I wish that they would. Richard Baxter used to pray, "Oh, God, for a full Heaven and an empty hell!" But alas, alas, many persist in rebellion against God and so that prayer can never be answered! There is only one way to the Father's house. And what is that way? I have had people say to me so many times, "We are traveling different roads, but we will all get to Heaven at last." No, no; I don't find that in my Bible. My Bible says, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. 16:25), and it warns me against taking the broad way that leads to destruction and tells me to take the narrow way that leads to life. And so here Jesus says, "And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto Him—" Thomas was honest and he was never afraid just to blurt out all the truth. He said, "We don't know what You are talking about. We have to confess we are ignorant, and we don't know where You are going, and how can we know the way?" Jesus said unto him — and, oh, dear friends, you get what He said, for it is for you as well as for Thomas — "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me" (John 14:6). Oh, don't talk about many ways. There is only one — Jesus is the only way. There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus. Have you come to Him? Are you trusting Him? If you are, you are on the way to the Father's house, and now you can wait with equally glad expectation for the hour of His return, for He said, "If I go, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself." When will He come? We can't tell that, but we are waiting for Him day by day. "I know not when the Lord will come Or at what hour He may appear, Whether at midnight or at morn, Or at what season of the year. I only know that He is near, And that His voice I soon shall hear. I only know that He is near, And that His voice I soon shall hear." From Care for God's Fruit Trees and Other Messages by H.A. Ironside. Rev. ed. New York: Loizeaux Brothers, [1945].