The Hope of the Church # 3

The Hope of the Church # 3

Oh no, He is not telling us here that the soul is sleeping, that the spirit is unconscious. He is speaking of the tired, weary, worn bodies of the people of God, put to sleep till Jesus comes. So He says, "I do not want you to be ignorant concerning those which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope." We are not forbidden to sorrow. Our blessed Lord when He was here on earth was a Man of Sorrows; He was acquainted with grief. He looks in sympathy upon us in our sorrow. "In all their afflictions He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them." We are not taught in scripture that we must adopt a cold, hard, stoical attitude when bereavement enters our home, and snatches our dear ones away. Why, the sisters of Bethany wept at the death of Lazarus, and Jesus wept with them. He has bidden us weep with those who weep at a funeral, and rejoice with those who rejoice at a wedding. We are to enter into the joys and sorrows of one another. What He does tell us is that our griefs and sorrows are not hopeless. These people of Thessalonica, so far as this world was concerned. had no hope whatever of meeting their departed loved ones again in their unsaved state. But to the Christians he says regarding those who sleep in Jesus they were not to sorrow as others which had no hope. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." We do believe that - don't we? Listen to me; if you do not believe it, you are not a Christian. I do not know if you have any professing Christians on this side of the water who do not believe it, but we have some on our side. They tell us that you can be a Christian, and you do not need to believe in the Resurrection of Christ; that in some way or other His Spirit is permeating men; that His teaching is living after Him, and doing men good. One of our preachers from New York speaking over the radio, referred to Matthew Arnold's well-known statement when he said that the Body of Jesus still sleeps in a Syrian tomb, but that His soul goes marching on. People said, How magnificent! magnificent nonsense!! It's a "John Brown body"sort of thing. If the Body of Jesus still sleeps in a Syrian tomb, then, according to First Corinthians 15, "your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." We begin with the truth of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." So I take it that you cannot begin as a Christian until you recognize the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. "He was delivered for our offences, and He was raised again for our justification." "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him," or, "will God lead forth with Him." What is He referring to? Why, simply this, that in the Old Testament it is written, "The Lord my God shall come and all the saints with Thee." And in the New Testament He tells us the same wonderful truth. And so the Apostle says that when the Lord Jesus returns again, when He comes forth to reign, when He sets up His glorious Kingdom, He is going to bring with Him all His saints, both those who have died in the past and those who will be living at the time. They are coming back with Him; they are going to be manifested with Him in glory, and the word will be fulfilled: and "every eye shall see Him and they also which pierced Him; and all kindreds of the earth wail because of Him." But He will not come alone; He will come with all His redeemed, the entire heavenly company; those which have been put to sleep by Jesus will God lead forth with Him. The apostle John in his Book of the Revelation, written some forty years after Paul wrote this Letter, described symbolically His coming leading forth His saints. He pictured Him as a mighty warrior, whose Name is called the Word of God, who is clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, riding upon a white horse. And John says, "The armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean." It is a picture of the heavenly host returning with Christ to set up His heavenly Kingdom.

But how is this going to be? You say, the bodies of our dear ones have crumbled away to dust, and their souls are with Christ, and if they are not coming back as disembodied spirits, how then will God lead them forth with Him? The apostle explains it in another verse: "For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout." "The Lord Himself." There is something lovely about that. "The Lord Himself." I like that word - don't you? It is not mere symbolism. He is not talking about the death angel, he is talking about "the Lord Himself." Before He went away He said to His disciples, "In My Father's house there are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there ye may be also." You remember those two shining ones who appeared on the Mount of Olives just after Christ was taken up into Heaven? This same Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven." "This same Jesus." I love those words. "This same Jesus." Nineteen hundred years in the glory have not changed Him in the least. He is the same today as when He was here on earth. He is glorified now, but in His own Person, His character, He is the same blessed, living, loving, gracious, compassionate Lord that He was when He was here on earth. When I was a boy they used to sing in the Sunday school:

"I think, when I read that sweet story of old
When Jesus was here among men,
How He took little children as lambs to His fold,
I should like to have been with Him then,
I wish that His hands had been laid on my head
That His arms had been thrown around me.
And that I might have seen His kind look when he said,
Let the little ones come unto me!"

~Harry A. Ironside~

(continued with # 4)