Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead (Isa. 26:19).
This is the day of which the apostle Paul spoke, when "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first" (1 Thess. 4:16).
In our promise text death is pictured as a sleep, for the prophet says, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust." The awakened saints, immortalized, will sing victory over death and the grave. When "this mortal shall have put on immortality," "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump," "then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor. 15:52, 54).
What a future this prophecy unrolls before us! Sometimes even Christians, speaking of a believer who has died, will say, "Our dear friend has gone to his final resting place." Let us never believe that for a moment! The grave is not the final resting place of any Christian. It is just the couch where they sleep through the night waiting for the resurrection morning, which has no shadow.
A converted Japanese artist said recently to a Christian worker, "I suppose the reason English artist put so much perspective into their drawings is that Christianity has given them a future, and the reason Oriental artists fail to do so is that Buddha and Confucius do not raise their eyes above the present."
So let us look forward in faith into "the great beyond, the wide, unbounded future of glory that is for the redeemed" (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9, p. 288).
MEDITATION PRAYER: "Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death" (Ps. 13:3).
This is the day of which the apostle Paul spoke, when "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first" (1 Thess. 4:16).
In our promise text death is pictured as a sleep, for the prophet says, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust." The awakened saints, immortalized, will sing victory over death and the grave. When "this mortal shall have put on immortality," "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump," "then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor. 15:52, 54).
What a future this prophecy unrolls before us! Sometimes even Christians, speaking of a believer who has died, will say, "Our dear friend has gone to his final resting place." Let us never believe that for a moment! The grave is not the final resting place of any Christian. It is just the couch where they sleep through the night waiting for the resurrection morning, which has no shadow.
A converted Japanese artist said recently to a Christian worker, "I suppose the reason English artist put so much perspective into their drawings is that Christianity has given them a future, and the reason Oriental artists fail to do so is that Buddha and Confucius do not raise their eyes above the present."
So let us look forward in faith into "the great beyond, the wide, unbounded future of glory that is for the redeemed" (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9, p. 288).
MEDITATION PRAYER: "Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death" (Ps. 13:3).
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