IT'S hard times we've had. Ever since my husband was hurt he hasn't been able to do much on the diggings, and so we've had to struggle on as best we could, and now I'm laid up.”
“But there will be an end to all this trouble down here, will there not?”
“Ah, yes, there's a debt we must all pay.”
“Is there? And what remains for us after that, then?”
“Well, that we don't know.”
The first speaker was a woman of about fifty years of age, with livid face and difficult breathing, denoting a dangerous physical condition.
She died within about three days of the date of our conversation related above, and we write to call attention to her two statements: —
Firstly, that “there's a debt (and death was referred to) that we must all pay.”
Secondly, that “we do not know what is beyond the grave.”
It is evident, therefore, that there shall be some who will not pay that which is often termed “the debt of nature.”
Who, then, are these?
If we turn to the first chapter of the epistle we find that the words quoted above were written “to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints" (i.e., saints by divine calling).
Again in the fourth chapter of 1st Thessalonians, ver. 14, we read:—" For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangels and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
And in the first chapter of this epistle we find that this is written to those who were “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from, heaven,... even Jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come.”
And has this promise of the return of our Lord, written by Paul, "moved by the Holy Ghost," fifty years after the birth of Christ, been fulfilled?
We know that it has not.
Has it then become obsolete, or did it refer only to the time at which it was written?
No; else had the immutable words of the living God, "who cannot lie," been then fulfilled.
It remains therefore as a hope for us.
For whom? “Those who love not our Lord Jesus Christ?”
Assuredly not.
How shall they, in their sins, be "caught up" to enter in with that spotlessly pure One?
If not "turned from idols"—and we need not go to heathendom to find such—then they serve not "the living God," nor do they “wait for his Son from heaven, "but on them" the wrath of God abideth.”
Thus, then, we see that there are those who, if they go on as they are, must "pay the debt," and who well may wish that they might have some excuse for not knowing what is beyond; and there are those who do not look even for the transition sleep, but "wait for God's Son from heaven," even He who paid for them the debt.
Dear reader, how do you stand as to this? Are you going along dreading death, feeling that it must come, that each week brings you nearer to it, and yet desiring that it might be far off. Or do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as the One who died in order that you might have eternal life, and might then look for His coming to take you into that eternity of bliss of which He is the center?
And now as to the second point—viz., that if we die, we depart not knowing what is beyond.
Is this true?
Men try to believe it, and urge as a reason for it that " no one ever came back to tell us what was beyond.”
The statement that "we don't know" bears the mark of the Serpent who deceived Eve, and the statement that "no one ever came back to tell us” emanates from the same source.
Firstly, we do know, for the Word of God tells us clearly that on the one hand there are some who shall be forever with the Lord in that place of which He is the sun and center; and that on the other hand " the fearful, and the unbelieving...shall have their part in the lake of fire which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death " (Rev. 21:88But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. (Revelation 21:8)).
Secondly, One did—after that He had been crucified—rise again and show " himself alive by many infallible proofs,... speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God " (Acts 1).
Dear reader, again we urge in all earnestness and love, do you know this One of whom the believer can say, “He was given for my offenses, and raised again for my justification"? or are you striving to prove that the word—true of so very many, alas! in these dark clays—shall be true of you also, " Neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead " (Luke 16:3131And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. (Luke 16:31)).
A. F. S.