“Someone has said, ‘some men die at thirty but are not buried until they are seventy,’ having observed that when a person ceases to grow in knowledge, ceases to grow in spirit, and fails to live up to his responsibilities, he withers and dies, even though he still walks upon the earth. People bring this premature death upon themselves by their own attitudes, as a self-inflicted punishment for turning away from the light of truth. Jesus may have had reference to these, hoping that they might change, when he said: ‘… he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. …’ (John 11:25-26.)

“The Master knows that even men in such a dormant status, more dead than alive, can be changed, and so he pursues them in his ever-loving, every-caring, ever-forgiving way.”

– Bishop John H. Vandenberg, October 1970