SLEEPING AND WAKING Them also
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. Thessalonians
4, verse 14. Or, as these words have been
rendered, those who are laid asleep in Jesus. We bid an earthly
friend good night, in the pleasing expectation of meeting next morning. The saints are laid asleep in
the grave of Jesus, in the sure and certain hope of meeting Him
in the morning of immortality. Child of God, weep not for those
who have departed to be with Christ. It is with them far better. Do not think of them gone. That
is a word taken from the vocabulary of death, and which, it is to
be feared, is often employed with many in the heathen sense
of annihilation. Seek not the living among the
dead. Think rather that the last sigh was scarce over on earth
when the song was begun in heaven. The Spirit winged its arrow-like
flight among ministering seraphim. Hear that voice stealing down
in the soft whisper of heaven's music, and saying, If you loved
me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go to my Father. The body, the casket of this
immortal jewel, the soul, is left for a season to the dishonours
of the tomb, but it is only for a brief night-watch. That dust
is precious, because redeemed. Body, as well as soul, was purchased
by the life-blood of Immanuel. Angels guard these slumbering
ashes, and the day is coming when God shall send His angels
with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together
His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the
other. O if there be joy among the angels
of God over one sinner who repents, what shall be the joy of those
blessed beings over the myriads of rising dead, hastening at
their summons to their crowns and thrones? Christian mourner,
your brother shall rise again. Wish him not back amid the storms
of the wilderness. Be thankful, rather, that the
wheat is no longer out in the tempest and rain, but safely
garnered, eternally housed. Would you, if you could, weep
that Blessed One back from glory? Would you ask Him to unlearn
Heaven's language and be once more involved in the dust of
battle? no, rather rejoice in hope of
the glory of God. Death is not an eternal sleep,
yet a little while, and he that shall come, will come, and will
not tarry. Jesus is now whispering in your
ear the glorious secret, hidden from ages and generations, and
which was left to him, as the abolisher of death, to disclose. Your dead shall live, together
with my body shall they arise. He is pointing you onward to
that hour of Jubilee, when the summons shall be addressed to
all his sleeping saints. Awake and sing, you that dwell
in dust! O happy day, when I shall see
my Saviour God in all the glories of His exalted humanity! And
with Him, the once loved and lost, now the loved and glorified,
never to be lost again! The Lord my God shall come, and
all the saints with you. Not one shall be lacking. In
concert with those whose tongues are now silent on earth, we shall
then unite, in the lofty anthem, sung by the ingathered church
triumphant. O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? Thanks be to God, who gives us
the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.