Second Coming
Stanley William McKenna Walker was the son of a wealthy British shipbuilder. At age 50, he was the heir to a $4 million estate in England. But, this man had become a wino on Chicago's skid row. For many years, he barely survived by eating left-over garbage and sleeping in two-bit hotels.
When his millionaire father died, the authorities searched throughout the saloons and flop houses of Chicago, trying to find him so they could inform him of his new inheritance. When they finally located him, they discovered that he had just died the night before in the doorway of a Chicago rescue mission.
Some people will miss the riches of heaven because they are drunk on sinful living
Years ago a corps of civil engineers went to take a look at a dam in Pennsylvania that controlled the waters of several streams that flowed down toward a valley Concerned by what they saw; they went to the town just below the dam and reported to its officials.
The dam is unsafe. The people of your town are in danger." The officials said
You're just trying to scare us. The dam is all right. We've heard this before."
That fall, the engineers revisited the dam and came back again, saying, "We are warning you. You are in danger every hour."
Again, the people laughed as if to say, "Scare us if you can."
In the spring, the engineers again went to the dam, and again they warned the townspeople. Their warning was dismissed.
Fifteen days later, a boy on a horse rode through the valley at a dead run shouting, "Run for your lives! The dam has broken and the water is coming. "
The people only laughed at him, certain he was only trying to scare them. But in a few minutes, a wall of dirty water struck the town, and in less than thirty minutes, Johnstown was in ruins. More than 3,700 people died.
In his autobiography, Just as I Am, Billy Graham tells about a conversation he had with John F. Kennedy shortly after his election: "On the way back to the Kennedy house, the president-elect stopped the car and turned to me. 'Do you believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ?' he asked.
" I most certainly do."
"'Well, does my church believe it?'
"They have it in their creeds."
"They don't preach it," he said. "They don't tell us much about it. I'd like to know what you think."
"I explained what the Bible said about Christ coming the first time, dying on the Cross, rising from the dead, and then promising that he would come back again. 'Only then,' I said, 'are we going to have perrmanent world peace.'
"Very interesting," he said, looking away. 'We'll have to talk more about that someday." And he drove on.
Several years later, the two met again, at the 1963 National Prayer Breakfast. "I had the flu," Graham remembers. "After I gave my short talk, and he gave his, we walked out of the hotel to his car together, as was always our custom. At the curb, he turned to me.
"Billy, could you ride back to the White House with me? I'd like to see you for a minute.'
"Mr. President, I've got a fever,' I protested. 'Not only am I weak, but I don't want to give you this thing. Couldn't we wait and talk some other time?'
"It was a cold, snowy day, and I was freezing as I stood there without my overcoat.
"Of course,' he said graciously."
But the two would never meet again. Later that year, Kennedy was shot dead. Graham comments, "His hesitation at the car door, and his request, haunt me still. What was on his mind? have gone him? It was an irrecoverable moment."