CHRISTIANITY-HOPE
There is one
single fact that one may oppose to all the wit and argument of infidelity;
namely, that no man ever repented of being a Christian on his deathbed.
When the
emperor Valens threatened Eusebuis with confiscation
of all his goods, torture, banishment, or even death, the courageous Christian
replied, “He needs not fear confiscation, who has nothing to lose; nor
banishment, to whom heaven is his country; nor torments, when his body can be
destroyed at one blow; nor death, which is the only way to set him at liberty
from sin and sorrow.”
The
[Christian] message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity – hope of
pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory – because at the Father’s will
Jesus became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might
hang on a cross.
J.I. Packer
The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations,
ed. Mark Water, 2000, Baker, p. 159.