Sin and death are not stronger than omnipotence. If they were, then ’the ear of the Lord, though never heavy and the arm of the Lord, though never shortened, could not save. But, though sin has wrought wrack and ruin, though death has pitched his black pavilions on man’s sterile and blasted estate, God can repair the con sequences of sin. He can and will, with His voice, break the long and deep stillness of the sepulcher, break the bolts and open the gates and let the light pour in from Heaven upon the darkness. And this He will do in His own time. The dead in Christ shall come forth at His call, invested with bloom and thrilling with the vigor of immortality, the mortal gloriously clothed with the immortal, the corruptible gloriously beautiful with the incorruptible. Thus shall the glory of God be vindi cated. That which is “sown a natural body,” impaired by sin, “under sentence of death, hard to keep alive, fretted with infirmities, gross in itself and sustained by gross food, ever renewing its ever-failing strength until it fails forever,” shall be raised a spiritual body, free from sin, fearless of death, teeming with immor tality, ‘Tull of elements and combinations adapting it to all possible spiritual demands in all immensity and to all eternity.” These truths the resurrection of Jesus confirms. T h e C o n f e s s io n Like a lily abloom in the dark is the confession of Thomas—after the resurrection. “But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:24,25). For eight days, Thomas had an interior agony— doubt. All those long days, Thomas was tortured with remembrance of the bloody crucifixion—went mourn ing when he should have been singing, groaning gloomily when he should have been glorying greatly. He missed the sunrise and the climbing sun of the res urrection morning. “After eight days . . . came Jesus... Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but be lieving. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God” (John 20:26-28). It was then that. Thomas came out of the rigors of the arctic night of his gloom into the warm tropical clime of light, and threw off his weights of doubt. It was then that Thomas got out of the quicksand onto the solid rock. It was then that Thomas got off the footstool and mounted the throne, turned from the blind alley to the highway, got into harmonious relations with his fellow disciples. Moreover, the only way I know for you to know thé joy that came into the heart of Thomas is for you to confess Him as Lord of your own heart and life. Con fess Him, thou! Give Him thy ways, and He will over arch life’s pathway as the heavens overarch flowers, filling them with heat by day and yielding cooling dews at night. Confess Him! Give Him but a flickering aspiration, and He will give thee balm for the bruised reed and flame for the smoking flax. Confess Him! Give him the publican's penitent prayer, and He will give thee mercy like the wideness of the sea. Confess Him! Say to Him, “My Lord and my God,” and He will give thee to drink of the water of the river of life and bring thee to the banquet hall in the house of many mansions. By faith, confess Him as your Sav iour in your own heart and before men, and He will bring you out of ruin into riches, even the riches of His grace. Rege Eleven
sun. The resurrection, explicitly declared, frequently repeated, amply Illustrated, appears in every form of proposition, of promise, of prophecy. Clear as the cloud less sky, strong as the noonday sun, absolutely irresist ible in convicting and confirming energy, the resurrec tion is actually exemplified, so visibly and tangibly foreshown and pledged in the resurrection of Jesus. He is the “first fruit” from the great harvest field—the cer tainty that the full ingathering will follow in due sea son. The certainty we have had birth in the revelation of God. The Bible is the strong support of the resurrec tion reality. Silent are the mythological imaginings of pagan antiquity. Silent are the philosophical schemings of those who deal mainly in the speculative. Nowhere except in the Bible do we have any provision for the resurrection of the body, or any promise of such a con summation. “To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertain ing to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). T h e C o m f o r t All Christians have loved ones who, slipping from their arms into the pathway of glory, still turn to smile upon them from afar/ and beckon them to follow after them. So many millions long for the sound of a voice that is still, for the look of eyes closed in death, for the touch of a vanished hand. Though we sorrow that "as in Adam all die,” we give thanks that “in Christ shall all be made alive.” What a comfort! “Because I live, ye shall live also.” What a comfort—to think upon the resurrection! Without the resurrection, we would have no hope of seeing our redeemed loved ones who have gone on be fore. Man, instead of living forever, would dwindle into the existence of a moment; then the silence of eternity would settle on his tomb. Sin would be triumphant, proven stronger than omnipotence. It would be the master power of the universe. God might sit on the central throne of creation and weep over the withering magnificence and beauty He could neither rescue nor renew. Shocking such thought! But comforting is the as surance, and assuring the comfort, that by the resurrec tion God promises a greeting in Heaven for our goodby on earth, a meeting for our separation from redeemed friends and loved ones, a day a thousand times brighter than the night of bereavement. What comfort is there to know that death shall not, like some coarse comedian or heartless satirist, mock our hopes. What consolation there is to know that we shall not, in deepest mourning dressed, go down to the end, weeping for our children and finding no comfort. T h e C o n f ir m a t io n The huge heart of the world moans with the echoes of the question: “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job. 14:14). God brought the resurrection to pass as an eternally affirmative answer to that question. High above all the harmonies of art, and high above all the uproar of passion, and high above every sound that rises from the earth, ascends the original and universal and perpetual cry: the pleading of the mortal race for personal and relative immortality. God, by the resur rection of Jesus from the dead, tells us that we too shall live. To us, living for eternity, death is abolished; life shines upon our vision like the morning star, and im mortality expands to our view like the sunrise on the mountains. Because of this confirmation, we gladly “wear the world as a loose garment,” and are ready, at a moment’s warning, to throw it aside, and sink to our hopeful sleep and rest in the place where Jesus lay, having joy in the ceaseless love of Christ and the in exhaustible fullness of God. APRIL, 1447
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker