The Happiness of Being With Christ, Preferable to Continuance on Earth # 2 (and others)

The Happiness of Being With Christ, Preferable to Continuance on Earth # 2 (and others)

2. Christians Are Present with the Lord Immediately After Death. The very language of the text is conclusive on this. "Absent from the body - present with the Lord." "I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far!" (Philippians 1:23). The answer which Christ gave to the dying malefactor, "Today shall you be with me in Paradise." Solemn thought! To be present with the Lord implies:

a. That we must leave this vain world with all its engagements and connections.

b. We must die. The tabernacle must be dissolved. Could we but make our exit like Enoch and Elijah, and carry these bodies with us, to be changed into spiritual bodies in the transit - we would be content to go. But we must go the way of the flesh. Yet, joyful thought, 

c. When death has made the separation - as soon as the spirit if free, it shall be present with the Lord. Angels shall take it in charge, and conduct it to Him who ransomed it by His precious blood and the body shall be raised and refined and reunited with the soul in God's own time.

3. To Be Present With Christ, Is Preferable To Continuance in Life. The Apostle expresses a desire "to be absent from the body - and to be present with the Lord." The words import a preference. "We are confident," We are bold, courageous, inspirited to a willingness, "to be absent from the body" - and to be present with the Lord."

a. On account of the deficiency of human life. Nothing here can satisfy the boundless desires of the soul. "The fashion of this world is passing away." "You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand!" (Psalm 16:11).

b. On account of persecution. In Heaven all will be love, and peace, and joy. "The wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

c. The enjoyment of Christ's presence in Heaven will be uninterrupted - no satan to harass us, no sin to tempt us, no evil heart of unbelief to cast us down, no bodily affliction to sorrow us.

d. The enjoyment of His presence will be eternal.

APPLICATION

1. This preference arises from that confident assurance which saints have of a better state, "to be absent from the body - and to be present with the Lord!"

2. The subject affords great comfort under the loss of pious relatives and friends. They are present with the Lord. They are not lost, but only gone before us.

3. Is our piety anything like that of the apostles? Are we so weaned from the world as to be willing to be absent from the body - and to be present with the Lord?

~William Nicholson~

(The End)
____________________________

I Did The Will of God

I fled Him when His grace pursued,
I did despite unto His name,
And delved me into sin so rude
That there my soul enforged a chain.

When captive to my own desire,
When blue with guilt and unnamed shame,
Hos long arm reached into the mire
And plucked me out - bless be His name!

Shall I leave others in their woe?
Shall I ignore their cries who sink?
Forbid it, Lord; I'll rise and go
'Twixt Thee and them to be a link.

Unwearied may I lift the load
Of those who stagger 'neath sin's spell;
Stab my poor heart with love's strong goad
To battle powers of earth and hell.

Earth's little strand is far too small
To barter for the judgment day,
When powers and thrones and wealth and all
Forever shall have passed away.

Oh, day of days, when I shall be
The cynosure of ten million eyes,
Oh, may my Saviour say to me,
"Well done," as my eternal prize.

When unsupported I shall stand
Before Thy blazing bema seat,
Give me, my Lord, to understand
Thy greatness and Thy love for me!

~Leonard Ravenhill~