Spurgeon: June AM
* 06/29/AM
"Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."
--1 Thessalonians 4:14
Let us not imagine that the soul sleeps in insensibility.
"Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," is the whisper of
Christ to every dying saint. They "sleep in Jesus," but their
souls are before the throne of God, praising Him day and night
in His temple, singing hallelujahs to Him who washed them from
their sins in His blood. The body sleeps in its lonely bed of
earth, beneath the coverlet of grass. But what is this sleep?
The idea connected with sleep is " rest ," and that is the
thought which the Spirit of God would convey to us. Sleep makes
each night a Sabbath for the day. Sleep shuts fast the door of
the soul, and bids all intruders tarry for a while, that the
life within may enter its summer garden of ease. The toil-worn
believer quietly sleeps, as does the weary child when it
slumbers on its mother's breast. Oh! happy they who die in the
Lord; they rest from their labours, and their works do follow
them. Their quiet repose shall never be broken until God shall
rouse them to give them their full reward. Guarded by angel
watchers, curtained by eternal mysteries, they sleep on, the
heritors of glory, till the fulness of time shall bring the
fulness of redemption. What an awaking shall be theirs! They
were laid in their last resting place, weary and worn, but such
they shall not rise. They went to their rest with the furrowed
brow, and the wasted features, but they wake up in beauty and
glory. The shrivelled seed, so destitute of form and comeliness,
rises from the dust a beauteous flower. The winter of the grave
gives way to the spring of redemption and the summer of glory.
Blessed is death, since it, through the divine power, disrobes
us of this work-day garment, to clothe us with the wedding
garment of incorruption. Blessed are those who "sleep in Jesus."