In the close of 1 Thess. 2 you find the counterpart of the first chapter. There is a counterpart to all our history here. If we have to pass through the sorrows of the way here below, God keeps a register (as it were) of them on high. If the tears of God’s people are shed here, God takes cognizance of them there. “Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy books” (Psa. 56:88Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? (Psalm 56:8).) Again, if you find the saints crying to God in their sorrows and trials on earth in prayer, in heaven these prayers are gathered up and presented to Him as in “golden vials full of incense, which are the prayers of saints.” (Rev. 5:88And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints. (Revelation 5:8).) Every cup of cold water, every little self-denial, perhaps known to Him alone, is registered before Him, and will never be forgotten.
In chapter 1 The saints were in the wilderness; in the close of—chapter 2 Paul anticipates the other side of the picture, where he and those bright, loving Thessalonians, will be in heaven— “in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming.” They would then be his glory and joy. What a lovely scene! Paul, the laborer in the midst of those whom he had served while here—his children in the faith—whom he had cherished as a nurse her children—whom he had watched over with the solicitude of a father. There he would be in the midst of them all, and they would be his crown of rejoicing in the presence of the Lord at His coming—his glory and his joy.
And here let me say that the doctrine of rewards is very fully and constantly spoken of in the New Testament. You never find that God forgets these things. I feel sure, beloved, that He will remember things at that day which you and I have long forgotten—many a kind word, and many a thoughtful ministry of heart or hand of which we thought nothing at the time, it may be; yet He brings it forth from the memories of the past and stamps it with His approval, as the fruit of His own Spirit, and of the life of Christ in us.
Yes, and actions which seemed fair and beautiful to our own eyes, or to the eyes of others, will be found only suited to the grave of the past, and to be forgotten. God will put His own verdict on our actions, at the day when every mail will have praise of God, when that for which he is praised has been appraised of Him.
Look at Moses. When he first assays to serve the Lord and his brethren, what a poor thing he makes of it! In his fleshly zeal he slays an Egyptian and then flees away for fear. I turn to the list of worthies in Heb. 11, where God has put His verdict on their actions, and I find He has named it “the reproach of Christ!” What did Moses know of this reproach of Christ? Nothing whatever! But God looks at the work of His own grace and Spirit in the poor vessel, counts it to him in the same grace, gives it its true name in His sight, and registers it in His eternal Word as “the reproach of Christ!” Many a loved and devoted bidden one, whose actions and fruitfulness only meet His eye, will stand forth in the light of that day, far in the front ranks of God’s saints, while many who seemed to stand in those front ranks while here, are there far behind. “Many”—not “all,” nor “most,” thank God, but “many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”
In chapter 3 he thinks of that moment when all will be presented before God at the “coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints,” and His earnest longing desire is that their hearts may then be established unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father. He longs that His children in the faith may be fully up to the mark in that scene. The Lord would come for them (how, we shall see), and He would take them to Himself; but the laborer’s soul longs that his children in the faith—the sheep of the Lord’s pasture, whom he had shepherded and fed—might be found without a spot in that day of presentation to the Father.
Now, in chapter 4, we come to what we may term the Enoch chapter. The first chapter gave the wilderness, the second its counterpart in glory, the third His thoughtful care of them by the way, that all might come brightly before Him who loved them. In the fourth we find the holy and separate place of the saints while here, and their translation to the presence of the Lord.
I have called it the Enoch chapter. In Gen. 5 we read that “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him:” in Heb. 11 we read of him, “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” Now, in the first verse of our chapter, Paul beseeches them, that as they had “received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more;” then in the close of the chapter some (as Enoch) do not see death, but are translated to glory. He was taken out of this sad scene without seeing death ere the judgment fell upon the world of the ungodly. Three short words, pregnant with deep instruction for our souls, tell his history. Would not every heart I address desire that God might register its history with such like words? Would you not rest with deep satisfaction even with such a brief history, thus divinely penned?
Many a long history we find in God’s Word—chapter after chapter taken up with such. What a number of pages are given, us of poor, crooked Jacob’s history in the Old Testament! How short a comment, too, we have of it all in the New! It was a poor story; and yet few histories teach us more. And when all is over, the overwhelming grace of the words, “Jacob have I loved,” silences the thoughts of our hearts and the comments of our pens. Such is grace Jesus comes specially before us in our present chapter as the “Resurrection and the Life.” There are three chapters where I find Him as the Resurrection and the Life in a marked way, and in each He communicates His own condition at the moment, to those whom He blesses. So is it ever. In whatever condition He is as a man at the moment when he blesses a soul, such is the condition He imparts to the blessed.
In John 11 we find dead Lazarus raised to his life in the flesh again, by the Lord when in incarnation. Martha’s complaint brings out that wondrous word, “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” He had not yet passed through death Himself, and He raises him to his natural life again. But in chapter 20, which brings out all the wonderful fullness and preciousness of the work of Him who is standing in it in the glories of His resurrection, imparting the virtues of His risen life to His people, death and wrath are passed, redemption is accomplished, and the Second Man —Victor over all the powers of hell—stands dispensing His spoils. He has borne the wrath, put sin away, annulled the power of death, rifled the tomb of its contents, and brought light and incorruptibility to light. He stands in the midst of His gathered disciples preaching peace, and He breathes upon them life from the dead—life more abundantly, in resurrection. In 1 Thess. 4 he looks for purity in the saints here below, and then he solves the difficulty which rested in the minds of the sorrowing saints at Thessalonica. It was natural, we may say, that those who had fallen asleep should have been their difficulty then; perhaps ours now might rather be in the translation of the living. Their hope had been bright and fresh that Christ would come, and in the midst of this a breach came, and some of their number fell asleep. The question arises for the first time— “Have they lost their part in our blessed hope?” “Here we have been converted to wait for God’s Son from heaven. But beloved — and — have gone. Will they lose the blessing?” And again the old saying becomes freshly true, “Out of the eater came forth meat.” This new cause for mourning in the tribulations of this scene, gives occasion to a fresh unfolding in the pages of revelation of what was only known to God of the “unsearchable riches of Christ.”
“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which have fallen asleep through bless will God bring with him.” Jesus—the Resurrection and the Life—the true David—has disarmed the foe, and has destroyed him that had the power of death, with his own weapons. He has taken death into His own hand now, and if those whom He loves should have to pass away before He comes—if, as our beloved —, who sat with us here this evening week, and is now “present with the Lord,” was taken to wait on high the day of glory, what is the fact for her—for all who have gone before? She —they, have fallen “asleep through (or, by means of) Jesus.” Loving, touching, beautiful words! To all appearance His people may have to pass through death like those who know Him not, as far as the suffering and sorrow goes. But His hand is behind the scenes. He is laying that soul to sleep, as the mother hushes her child, taking the spirit to be with Himself till the morning of the resurrection, when the dust of His saints shall be gleaned up from the graves and both be united again. “God will bring them with him.”
Jesus will then, as the Resurrection (for those who have slept), and the Life (for those who remain until He comes), impart to the full His present glorified condition as a Man to them, and raise them in glory. Those who have gone have had the joy of His presence; if they have had to taste, to pass through death like Him, it is meet that they should have some advantage beyond those who are “alive and remain.” And so you find the latter do not “anticipate,” go before “them that sleep.” The hand of the mighty Potter will have been stretched forth—the moment dear to the heart of Christ will have come—the last display of His mighty power on behalf of His beloved saints in this evil world will have supervened, and He who fitted them for His glory by His blood, will remove them to glory by His power! He will search the tombs, the “dens and caves of the earth,” the depths of the sea—every corner of the earth where the dust of His saints lies hid. The mighty Potter will glean it up, and fashion it again into those beauteous vessels which will be fitted to adorn the courts of heaven.
“The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.” If one you loved were expected to arrive at your house, you would not send your servant to meet him; you would go yourself. So even the Lord Himself. He would carry out the word of comfort to those He had parted from of old— “I will come again and receive you to myself.” I must have that sweet moment of greeting with them Myself, before I present them in the glory. The voice of Christ, which His sheep have heard and have known—that same voice which cried from the cross when bearing their sins, and preached peace when He rose, will speak again, and its notes of joy and exultation to His people will reach them from the open heavens in their abodes on earth; it will call forth the dust again. As secretly and as silently as His own resurrection took place, so will theirs. The tombs still sealed—the sod still unturned and undisturbed—the world asleep to all that is passing, as were the sleeping watch the morning when Be rose and left the still sealed tomb—the undisturbed grave—clothes as the chrysalis is left in the folded form of the lovely ephemera which it had contained—all told of His mighty power, to which angels called attention when they said, in wonder themselves, to other wonderers, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay!”
It is said of Him, “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.” His satisfaction is never complete till then. Those poor, fluttering hearts, which often were afraid to trust His perfect love, will be the satisfaction of Christ’s heart in the day of this last putting forth of power for them while here. Is it too much to say that His heart goes forth to that day, and waits for it?
You and I may be of those who are alive and remain when that hour comes. It may be ours to take up the song of the Church, responsive to His shout and voice— “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” The vanquished foe once prostrate at the feet of Christ, now lets go the prey to its Conqueror.
Now, beloved, do your hearts prize this part of the “unsearchable riches of Christ”? Has the “Day Star” arisen in your hearts? Has the sweetness of that hope been learned? He has left us here and gone into heaven; hidden there for a little, He will come forth, and when He has taken us to Himself, He will set the world to rights—what men have assayed for long to do, in vain. He will come forth as rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth. But meanwhile He takes our hearts into communion with His own, in this hope that He has set before us. The world goes on its way on the one hand, saying, “Peace and safety;” on the other we see around us “men’s hearts failing for fear,” not knowing what may be tomorrow in a scene of overturning, overturning. In the midst of all, when that moment comes, His people “are not,” for “God has taken them.” Like Enoch of old, they may be “sought,” but are “not found,” for God has translated them; or like Elijah, when taken up in his fiery car, and the sons of the prophets sought for him and found him not. (2 Kings 2) So with these children of the light and of the day.
In chapter 5 you get one more practical word founded on this hope: — “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and (I pray God) your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 23). He sets us in the presence of the God of Peace-the special name He has taken to Himself since the resurrection of His Son. He leads us with consciences at rest into His presence thus known, and where our wills are silenced and unmoved. Then he turns the heart to look for Him who is coming. Thus He sanctifies, to present us unblameable in holiness—the spirit, or higher part of our being; the soul, or seat of our affections and individuality; and the body, the vessel which contains them. In short, the whole man is thus set apart to God and for His glory.
The Lord, then, give us to be Epochs in our way, knowing how to walk with God, and to please Him—to testify like him in the bosom of his family, by him whom he named Methuselah (“at his death he sends it”); showing in the home circle the faith by which he preached to a world hastening to judgment in those words— “Behold, the Lord cometh... to execute judgment.” (Jude 1414And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, (Jude 14).) Let us watch for that day, let us listen for that shout which we alone shall hear. As Paul, the persecutor, alone knew the voice of Him who spake to him from the glory, of old, and, while others felt some great thing had taken place, fell to the earth, he who was addressed alone was blest. So with us at that day. Amen.