March, 1942
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THE- K I NG ’ S BUSINESS
word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlast ing, life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). When 1 asked the question, "Are you sure that when you pass out of this world you will go to be with Christ?" she replied with beautiful confidence, " T know that my Re deemer liveth.' " . Just then the husband came into the room and the wife beckoned him to come near. She put her arms around him and told him that she was going to heaven. She tried to express to him what Christ meant to her, how He had enabled her to live victoriously and was empowering her to die triumphantly. She told him also that if he would put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and accept. Him as his Saviour, they two would meet again. A few moments later, the father and mother, who had said such hard words against the love and mercy of God, also entered the room. Their daughter spoke ,to them persuasively of the grace and love of God, and reminded them that she had endeavored earnestly to lead them all to Christ. "It may be," she said, "that this is God's way of bringing you to give heed to those things that are really worth while." . Two hours later, she passed into the presence of the Re deemer whom she loved. That afternoon, I had the privilege of leading the hus band and also the father and mother to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their lives during the years which followed revealed that a real heart change had taken place with each of them. "Just think!" they often would e x c l a i m rapturously. "Now all of us are going to be ‘ever with the Lord!'" —Louis T. Talbot.
By JOHN F. MacARTHUR* Los. Angeles; California
Death? “ And as it is appointed unto men once to die" (Heb. 9 :27). thing may be in the body that was present in life, with the exception that the heart has shipped. What is missing? Certainly it is nothing that can be seen under a microscope. No, that which is missing is the elusive part that is the man. II. THE NATURE OF DEATH. Science comes from the dissecting room, scalpel in hand, to report a failure to .find anything in the hu man organism bearing the stamp of immortality. But we affirm immor tality of that which we call SPIRIT! Spirit is that which nq scalpel has •ever laid open; that which no lens has ever enabled the eyes to see; that to which belong none of the known properties of matter and which is, nevertheless,' dominant over mat ter; that which thinks and reasons, plans and Wills, loves and fears, suf fers and enjoys; that which, using *Pastor, Eagle Rock Baptist Church*
Socrates said, “You catch my body, but you cannot catch iny S°ul, myself, to bury me.” Socrates, undoubtedly, reached this conclusion by philosophiz ing, but even deeper it was a revela tion of the self within him. The Scriptures everywhere recognize the distinction between the body and the spiritual nature of a man. ‘The Lord,. . . stretched, forth the heavens, and 1a y e t h! the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him” (Zech. 12:1). “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s’’ (1 Cor. 6:20)'. ‘‘For what man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man, which is in him?” (1 Cor. 2:11). . The history of creation shows man to be a compound being. Notice the order of events in Genesis 2:7:-First, God formed man out of the dust ■of the earth. Out of the material ele ments God made .a body, vastly more beautiful N than oUrs today, but com posed of the same identical substance. It was a dead body—no consciousness, no reaction, no responsiveness, no sen sation, no motion, no life. Next, God breathed into the nostrils of that life less body the breath of life, or the living spirit, and man became a hy ing, eternally existent soul, with the life of God inhabiting his body. At death- the procedure is similar:
the marvelous mechanism of the body, sees, hears, and feels. Actually it is the man who works through the physical mechanism. This body is a materia} agent and instru ment “1” use, but “I” am a soul! What is my “soul” in the larger sense? It is the real “I.” It is not my body, for the cells of the; body change com pletely every seven years. It. is not my brain, for I have had. several brains since the days of my babyhood. No, I am not the brain, I ’ possess it! I use it! It is mine, but it is not “I.”- Unquestionably “I” am the< same per son as I Was seven years ago, regard less of how my body changes. Thus, I am assured, I am a perma nent, . mysterious, unchanging, spir itual being within this ever-changing body of mine and behind this ever- changing brain. If my tiody is chang ing constantly, yet I remain the same, certainly I willysurvive the passing of the whole body at death. Suddenly there is light on this mys tery—I live in a body; I am a soul!. When the redeeming blood of Calvary flows through my ,soul, taking away the. guilt and wages of sin, and unit ing me to Christ, I know that when the sun is in ashes and the stars have gone out, I shall, be but beginning eternal life with Christ, untrammeled,: unhindered forever .and forever, world without end, Amen!,
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