A story is told about a beautiful monastery that is perched atop of a mountain or a cliff in the beautiful country of Portugal.

Visitors who made it up to that monastery, that retreat, they are rewarded with a magnificent view of the Portuguese

countryside. There's only one problem. The only way to reach that monastery is to be hoisted

by an aged monk up the cliff in a wicker basket, tied to a rope.

Well, one day an American visitor, American tourists decided to go up there and he wanted to see it,

so he showed up with his guide.

They got up okay, being pulled by this very aged gray-headed monk or this robe in the wicker

basket. But as they were leaving, that same gray-headed old monk was lowering them down,

and the basket began to swing widely to the right and to the left. And there is the rocky basin below.

The courageous American tourist now nervous wreck with the wide swing looked at his guide and he asked him, how often do they

replace the rope? And the stone-faced guide said to him, every time it breaks.

Now, I want you to just visualize this with me. I want you to put yourself in the place of this tourist, and imagine him sitting there in that wicker basket with the old man up there

and is going swinging from left to right. Think of how he felt as this

basket was swinging. Think of what he was thinking, how he felt at that very moment, a moment of

terror and a moment of fear. Would it break before we get down? Will I make it to the bottom?

Replacing the rope with a new one, after I fall,

it's not going to be any good to me. Now, beloved, listen to me, I want to tell you that this is

precisely the way so many Christian believers live their Christian life.

There are many Christian believers who live their Christian life like the tourist sitting

in a wicker basket.

They know they are saved, but they are not sure of their eternal future.

There are some who thinks that they are saved today, but will they be saved tomorrow?

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