IN a leading London journal, usually correct and a trustworthy in its information, the following statement may be found under date May 1st, 1912:
“Two miles beneath the ocean nearly thirteen hundred bodies are entombed in the remnant of what once for a brief space was the undisputed queen of the seas. There they will remain for eternity, undisturbed by even the rack of the tides.”
With all respect to the editor and his correspondent, we would ask, Is this really true, that there they will remain for eternity? How so? Who can tell us about eternity? Only the High and Holy One who inhabits it, He of whom Moses wrote, “Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” And what says He? “So man lieth down, and riseth not, till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep” (Job 14:1212So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. (Job 14:12)). “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.... And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works” (Rev. 20:11, 1311And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. (Revelation 20:11)
13And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. (Revelation 20:13)). Every one of those thirteen hundred shall rise again. Down the two miles of ocean depth the voice of the Son of man shall sound, and at His command every one of those imprisoned in that shattered giant of the deep shall come forth.
And every one of the readers of Gospel Gleanings shall hear His voice also. In that day of The Great Assize every one shall appear. Not alike, not for the same purpose, but they shall all be there. There are some in those ocean depths who will not lie there “to all eternity,” nor even for all time. There are some there who in life and health heard the voice of the Son of God calling them from a state of death and sin into possession of life. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24)); and they believed His word. Just as they were they trusted Him, and they passed “from death unto life,” and when the crash came at midnight, and the deep cold Atlantic billows rolled over them, they simply “fell asleep through Jesus,” and their spirits passed in peace to His own blessed presence.
And in a little while His well-known voice shall call again, 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. 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” (1 Thess. 4). From their watery bed those redeemed bodies shall rise, changed to the likeness of their Saviour’s body of glory. Is my reader going to join them when they meet their Lord in the air? There at home with Him shall they enjoy His and their Father’s house; from His hand shall they receive the white marriage-robe when all that His grace has wrought in them shall be manifested at “the judgment seat of Christ,” and heaven shall ring with the bridal joys of the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”
And while heaven is celebrating all this, and ocean’s depths lie undisturbed, still holding in their quiet bed the “Titanic’s” lost victims, this guilty earth, with its vaunted pride, its godlessness, and its sin shall be the scene of its forgotten Creator’s just judgment, when He “shall arise to shake Terribly the earth,” and then, having purged from His kingdom “all things that offend,” His beloved Son, the murdered Man of Calvary, shall reign for a thousand years in righteousness and glory. And with Him shall reign His risen glorified saints. “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom,” this earth and heaven shall pass away, and again the voice of the Son of man shall sound summoning every sinner in earth or sea or hell from their graves, to stand before His judgment throne. In the dark caverns of despair lost demons are awaiting that day “in chains of darkness,” sinners for whom no Saviour has been found, no salvation provided, but for whom the lake of fire has been prepared (Matt. 25:4141Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: (Matthew 25:41)). And with them in their eternal doom shall be associated those for whom a Saviour died, to whom a salvation, divine, blood-bought, has been offered, but who have spurned God’s invitation and despised His grace, and perished accordingly. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”