The Parrot and the Burglar

            An old story goes like this:

            Late one night, a burglar broke into a house that he thought was empty. He tiptoed through the living room but suddenly he froze in his tracks when he heard a loud voice say, "Jesus is watching you."

            Silence returned to the house, so the burglar crept forward again. "Jesus is watching you," the voice boomed again.

            The burglar stopped dead again. He was frightened. Frantically, he looked all around. In a dark corner, he spotted a birdcage and in the cage was a parrot.

            He asked the parrot, "Was that you who said Jesus is watching me?"

            "Yes", said the parrot.

            The burglar breathed a sigh of relief; then he asked the parrot, "What's your name?"

            "Clarence," said the bird.

            "That's a dumb name for a parrot," sneered the burglar. "What idiot named you Clarence?"

            The parrot said, "The same idiot who named this Rottweiler, Jesus."

            Like the burglar, all of us will be held accountable some day by Jesus, and this Jesus is more powerful than a Rottweiler, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare” (I Pet. 3:10.) NIV

You Can’t Stop the Resurrection

I read in a bulletin article about thirty years ago about an interesting grave in Hanover, Germany. It was the grave of a woman who, for her entire life, did not believe in the resurrection.

In her will she directed there be put huge slabs of concrete over her grave fastened to the ground by steel clasps. She said before she died, "I don't believe in the resurrection. But if there is a resurrection, I'm not going to go, I'm staying in the grave. And on the tombstone she had these words written, "This grave is to never be opened."

Guess what? Beneath those stones was a little seed. It began to grow. And that little seed formed a plant, which pushed up those stones from the ground. And somehow the plant that grew from the seed began to push those slabs and so disjointed them that the clasps became undone. The slabs were pushed aside, all because of that little seed.

The moral in that story was that some day, God will only have to speak one word, “Arise!” No matter who died in unbelief, they will not have spared themselves the day of resurrection and judgment. All will rise to face God.