IN a pretty cemetery in South London is to be seen a tombstone which has, as an epitaph, the single word “Waiting.” It is the resting-place of the body of one who, when here, was a “living epistle,” exemplifying that brief and comprehensive view of what a true Christian is, as recorded in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-109For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; 10And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:9‑10). There are three things we read of in that passage which characterized the Thessalonian Christians:
First, “They had turned to God from idols.” That is, they were converted. There was “aversion” from sin, and “conversion” to God; not merely a turning from one set of ideas to another, but a being turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God. How needful this is in the case of every one of us is seen in the fact that “God commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” Why? Not only in view of a dying bed, but “because He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world by that Man whom He hath ordained.” TODAY He is “the God of all grace,” and meeting Him as such we obtain instant salvation. But in the “APPOINTED DAY” above referred to be will be “the God of judgment,” and, meeting Him as such, men will receive “the due reward of their deeds” — “eternal judgment.”
Next, we read, they “serve the living and true God.” Before this, they served idols. Like the Ephesians, they “walked according to the course of this world, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” But now, having turned their backs on sin and Satan, they rejoice in a happy service, having God for their object.
This recalls an incident to mind connected with an old peasant in a little village in Germany, who also knew what it was to have turned from sin unto God. The lady who tells it says that, like most of the villagers, he possessed one or two apple and pear trees, and used to amuse himself in the summer by picking up the fallen fruit and heaping it up in a corner of the shed. One day, when out for a walk, she came upon him as he was stooping to pick up a fallen apple. “Don’t you get weary,” she asked, “of stooping so often, and they lying all alone by the roadside?” “No, no, Miss,” he answered, smiling, and offering her a handful of ripe pears, “I don’t weary; I’m just waiting — waiting. I think I’m about ripe now, and I must soon fall to the ground; and then, just think, the Lord will pick me up! Oh, Miss, you are young yet, and perhaps just in blossom; turn well round to the Sun of righteousness,’ that you may ripen sweet for His service.”
This brings us to the third thing. We read these Thessalonian Christians “turned to God... to wait for His Son from heaven.” Many long years have passed away since then, but these dear people, like many others, are still waiting, consciously waiting, for that glorious moment when Christ shall come. True, they are no longer “in the body pent,” for their spirits, having returned to God who gave them, are waiting “with Christ” for the time when “they that sleep in Jesus God shall bring with Him,” to take up their bodies of glory, and thus to be “forever with the Lord.” Blessed attitude for every child of God, to go on from day to day waiting for “the Lord from heaven”!
But what about those who have never turned to God, never been converted, never repented? Alas! their bodies will turn to ashes, but their spirits will likewise return to God who gave them, and in “hades” (not the grave, as some fondly imagine, but the unseen world) they will remain imprisoned, waiting for the moment when the “dead, small and great, shall stand before God,” only to find, alas! that their portion must be “the second death” —eternal separation from the God they neglected or refused.
Oh, my reader, if unsaved, be wise now; heed God’s message of salvation now; repent and believe the gospel now! Wait not for a dying hour. Many are ushered into eternity without a moment to think; and even if you be allowed a dying hour, you may be then quite unfitted, physically, to give attention to this momentous subject. A death-bed is a poor place to prepare for eternity!
N. L. N.