Transcript – Can't Wait Until The Morning

(Note that all transcripts were created from audio recordings, and therefore any mistakes are the transcriptionist's, not the speaker's.)
Filename -- Cant_Wait_Til_Morning_Can_Only_Imagine_031122_bdm_transcript.htm

Most of you have heard the name of Doctor W. A. Criswald. For over fifty years he was the senior minister at first Baptist Church in Dallas.

He tells a story that one time he was on a plane. And the man he sat beside recognized the well-known minister, and told him a story of something that happened recently. They had gone to bed the night before, everybody seemed fine, they woke up the next day and his young son had a little fever. So they agreed the little boy could stay home from school, the man went on to work and he got a call a few hours later, he better get home. A doctor had come and he had diagnosed severe meningitis.

And in the space of just about a few hours they went from a happy house to realizing their boy was about to die and nobody could stop it. And the father set up a vigil by this boy’s bed. He said, “Daddy?”, He rolled over in his bed and he looked at me. He said, “Daddy, it’s getting very very dark.” Dad said, “Yea I guess it is.” “I guess it’s about time to go to sleep isn’t it?” “Yes I guess it’s time for you to go to sleep.” He said his son had a special way of fixing his pillow at bedtime. So he fixed it. He said, “Goodnight Daddy, I’ll see you in the morning.” And closed his eyes, and never woke up.

Doctor Criswald said that when the father said that he just leaned over against the window of the plane, and just looked out the window for a long, long time. And then he turned back around with tears running down his cheeks and he said, “Doctor Criswald, I can’t wait till the morning!”

Now either we believe that, or we don’t.

This past week I was outside with my youngest son and he said, “ Daddy look up there.” And it was the stars, he said “Only God could do something like that.” And it made him think of a little story of a little girl out with her daddy.

It was night. They were looking up at the stars and she said, “Daddy, if the wrong side of Heaven is that beautiful, what must the other side look like?” That’s our dilemma. We believe in something that’s too fantastic for our minds to wrap around. We can only imagine. Have you ever done that? Have you ever been on top of a mountain, or watching a waterfall or watching the waves crash, or holding a little baby, and there was a stirring deep within you. And you just started to imagine. What’s it gonna be like, in the life to come? When we’re finally in the presence of the Lord?

Bart Miller’s father died of Cancer in 1991 and he told his son not to feel sorry for him. He said, “Son I’m going to be where I’ve always wanted to be. And I’ve always wanted to be with Jesus. Son I love you, but when I finally get to be with Jesus, I wouldn’t come back even if I could.” And Bart wrote down in his journal, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE. And 8 years later, 1999, he was looking in his journal and he saw that phrase, “I can only Imagine” And he wrote what has become one of the great Christian songs of this Generation.

(I CAN ONLY IMAGINE) >Song

Return to Sermon SoundBytes