Sarah Winchester built a very strange house in San Jose, California back in the late 1800's. She had inherited over twenty million dollars from the Winchester rifle fortune.
It is one of the largest houses in the whole country, the Winchester Mystery House. I went there several years ago, and it was something else, utterly amazing.
Sarah Winchester claimed to have heard voices in the night that told her to build this house for herself, and also for the spirits of those who were killed by Winchester rifles. Supposedly, she was also told that as long as she kept on building the house, she would live. But on the day that she stopped building, she would die. So she hired carpenters and they worked 24-hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. They worked, non-stop.
The house covered 4 acres, 160 rooms and 40 bedrooms. It has 47 fireplaces, two basements and three elevators. Mrs. Winchester kept on building and adding on. So today that old house is a very strange and amazing house of winding stairways and hallways, many that come to a dead end. It’s unbelievable.
But finally, even though the work continued, Mrs. Winchester passed away on September 5, 1922. And she finally left her house.
You know, that is how it is with everything in this world. A castle on a hill or a small house in the country, it is only temporary.
But the life to come, eternity, is forever. Something to think about today.