{"id":50392,"date":"2000-09-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2000-09-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/eternal-life-next-great-chapter\/"},"modified":"2000-09-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2000-09-11T00:00:00","slug":"eternal-life-next-great-chapter","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/eternal-life-next-great-chapter\/","title":{"rendered":"Eternal Life: The Next Great Chapter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the final page of the final book of The Chronicles of Narnia, some of the children who have been to Narnia lament that they once again must return to their homeland&mdash;the Shadow-Lands. But Aslan (the lion who represents Jesus) has the best news of all for them:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>[Aslan spoke to the children,] &quot;You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Lucy said, &quot;We&#39;re so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&quot;No fear of that,&quot; said Aslan. &quot;Have you not guessed?&quot;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&quot;There was a real railway accident,&quot; said Aslan softly. &quot;Your father and mother and all of you are&mdash;as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands&mdash;dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream has ended; this is morning.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>And as he spoke he no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3737,3886,3887,4033,4134,4167,4326,4590],"tax_ctp_topics":[378,384,389],"class_list":["post-50392","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-death","tax_ctp_tags-eternal-life","tax_ctp_tags-eternal-perspective","tax_ctp_tags-future","tax_ctp_tags-heaven","tax_ctp_tags-hope","tax_ctp_tags-kingdom-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-paradise"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Eternal Life: The Next Great Chapter - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/eternal-life-next-great-chapter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eternal Life: The Next Great Chapter - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On the final page of the final book of The Chronicles of Narnia, some of the children who have been to Narnia lament that they once again must return to their homeland&mdash;the Shadow-Lands. 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