Recently, while traveling to speak in Oklahoma, we stopped to study the Word on a Wednesday night with a church in Madill, Oklahoma. It was fun to meet family in the Lord, that we’d never met before. We enjoyed chatting with the minister there and, upon finding that Glenn was also a preacher, he asked us to wait a minute, because he had something in his office that he wanted to show Glenn.
In a few minute, he returned with this large Bible: It had belonged to his deceased mother who loved the preaching from the Word so dearly that she carried it around with her and had the preacher she was hearing (at any gospel meeting or tent meeting or camp meeting) to place his signature in the inside cover.
It was amazing! Right there, on those yellowed pages were the signatures of many of the greats among the last century’s gospel preachers! All faithful preachers are great, but there was Burton 
Coffman and Marshall Keeble, W. B. West and Willard Collins, Ira North and G.C Brewer, George Bailey and B.C. Goodpasture, to name a few, Glenn stood there marveling and was suddenly taken aback when he spotted the name of his own father there on the old page.
He was asked to sign the Bible and he did. You can find his signature right under his father’s if you look closely. Gary Colley’s signature was dated October 21, 1977. That means he was preaching in Madill, Oklahoma in a gospel meeting just about the time Glenn and I met at Freed Hardeman University that very fall. 
I was in the room with this preacher, Gary Colley, as he lay dying 45 years later. Forty-seven years separated the two signatures. The advent of cable television, laptops, cell phones and two generations of children separate the two signatures. Eight presidents, several wars, and the invasion of the terrorism of 9-11 are in that signature interim. All the material things outside that book have evolved and presented new challenges for humanity. But the things inside the book are still the same. The product of many miracles, the Words inside the old book are still being breathed by the living God. Amazingly they are freshly relevant to every new challenge that comes into view. In fact, I think if you asked Marshall Keeble or G.C. Brewer how long it was between 1977 and 2024, they’d have a hard time even distinguishing the two from eternity’s vantage point.
I got in the car that evening after touching those pages and felt like I’d come close to some beautiful feet (Is. 52:7) that carried the gospel of peace to people who directly and indirectly influenced my family—even me—to travel a heavenward path. But the men represented in the front of the Bible are not even in the same sphere of influence as are the heroes of faith between Genesis one and Revelation twenty-two. It’s pretty wonderful that I can look to the same divine instructions and share the same hope with men like Marshall Keeble and George Bailey. And, at the foot of the cross, the ground is level. They have no advantage over me! I hope I can talk about this copy with them one day. In the grand scheme, the day is coming right up.