March, 1942
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NES S
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Exodus means a going out into-a new land and experience as did Israel. For Israel, it was going out of bondage into liberty, going out of a land of sorrow and affliction into a land flow ing with milk and honey. So death for the Christian is the way out from the partial to the perfect, from seeing through a glass darkly to seeing face to face. Death is not a terminus; it is a junction—there we change Cars for heaven. Paul spoke of death as an “unmoor ing.” Facing this experience, Paul wrote with flaming heart and pen, “The time of my departure is at hand” (2 Tim. 4:6). The word “departure” is the word used when a ship unfurls her sail and sets her chart for the home port. Here are we anchored to material things; in death the anchor is pulled up, and we set our sail for the Golden Port. To the believer, death is removal. “If our earthly house of .this taber nacle were dissolved, we have a build ing of God, a house not made with hands, eternal'in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1). We will exchange this earthly tent for a house—a permanent dwell ing. In death the stakes qre pulled up, the canvas rolled up, and we move into our eternal residence, si More wonderful than all else, death is a home-goings The Lord Jesus said, “In my Father’s hbuse are many man sions. . . . I go to prepare a place for you. . . . I will come again, and re ceive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2, 3). With Christ forever! Oh, the glory of His presence! The Christian, in se curity, ecstasy, and triumph, can cry out in the presence of death: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave,, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and, the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Death left its sting in Jesus Christ when He conquered it and died vicari ously for your sins and mine on the cross of Calvary. He came that He might “taste death for every man” (Heb. 2:9); and, thank God, in doing it He abolished death and “ brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:1Q).< When that great Christian father of H. B. Laird was dying- his son asked him on the evening of his death how he felt. He replied, “Do you remember how you felt when you were a little boy on Christmas Eve? Weil, that1, the. way I feel now.” And it was ’ this eager anticipation he went in to see the King. That should be the eager prospect before every believer. Are YOU a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? If not, will you- accept Him today (John 5:24; Acts 16:31)?
The brain, the eyes, the ears, and the nerves are still the same members; they aré still there. Yet, the brain cannot think, the eyes cannot see, the ears cannot hear, and, the nerves trans mit no feeling. Why? The reason is that it was not the body, but the real spiritual nature within the body that did the thinking, seeing, hearing, and feeling. Dr. Mayo, of Mayo Clinic iri Rochester, Minnesota, said:' “The keen blade of my scalpel may never uncover the soul, as a tangible part of the mystery called man, but I know it is there. I am as confident of its presence as I am of the most elemental truth to which my medical science adheres.” God’s Word unmistakably, unim peachably, inexorably, unchangeably teaches that man has a soul, and that here and now a man must decide the destiny of his soul. Death in the Scriptures never means annihilation, but always separation. Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19). Spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men” (Rom. 5:12). This spiritual death is the state in which millions of men 'now live. Going back to the first mention of death in the Bible, we find man en joying intimate fellowship with God. God had told Adam that in the day he sinned he would die. Adam had never seen any one die. With his God- given power of self-determination, Adam did sin, and in that day he died. This is what happened: His commun ion with God was broken. When he heard the voice “of God, he hid himself. He was out of correspondence with his spiritual environment. He was out of fellowship with God. He was spirit ually dead. Physical death came also, and this sentence was being carried out all the days of Adam’s life; and it was finally and fully executed in the separation of his spirit from his body. Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. Spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God. Now' we know what the Scripture m e a n s that says, “To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6). But spiritual death is not eternal death. Eternal death comes only when physical death cuts off a man’s bodily existence before he has trusted Christ as Saviour; that is, before the spirit that Is dead in trespasses and sins has been quickened into life by the regenerating work of the Spirit of God (cf. Eph. 2:1, 5; Tit. 3:5-7). What eternal death means to the soul, no one can fully know until he finds himself ushered into that awful ex-
perience. But, oh, why will men die! Just as you must be born into the world to relate yourself to it in physi cal life, so you must be born again into this world of spiritual values to come into communion and fellowship with God. Outside a living relation ship with God, a man is spiritually dead. III. WHAT DEATH MEANS TO THE UNBELIEVER AND BELIEVER. To the unbeliever, unregenerate and spiritually dead, physical death will mean separation from God forever. To the unbeliever, u n b o r n in Christ, physical death is a ghastly plunge into the t e r r o r of terrors, eternal death. God’s Word speaks of this ulti mate as “the second death.” How different is physical death to the believer! Instead of the ending, it is the beginning. Because the soul has been already in fellowship with Christ here in this life, physical death is the removal forever and forever of the material agent that separates the soul from full and complete commun ion with Christ. As the Christian loses the consciousness of this world, he ,is waking in the consciousness of’ Christ’s presence. As his physical eyes close in death, his spiritual eyes a r e opening to behold unspeakable glories. Christians s h o u l d use the word “transition” instead of “ death.” Sirlall wonder that . Moody shouted, “Earth is receding; heaven is opening; God is calling.” For the believer’s body, death is “sleep.’' This means that the body rests. There is an absence of terror and the presence of repose. The soul does not sleep. I do not believe it ever loses consciousness. Paul said that to be “ absent from the body” is to be “present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). To the believer, death is an exodus.
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