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The hope of immortality and eternal
life is as old as the history of man. The religion of every
country contains elements of the hope of a life beyond this
one. Job, in probably the oldest writing in the Bible, asks,
"If a man die, shall he live again?" and then by inspiration
answers the question, "All the days of my appointed time will
I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will
answer thee" (Job 14:14, 15). The great apostle Paul was
writing to the Thessalonians upon the duties and
responsibilities of a holy life, relative to our duty to God
and our fellow man, when, in answer to their questioning
concerning the future life and its possibilities, which I
infer was mingled with certain doubts and fears, he leaves his
subject in hand in verse 12 (1 Thessalonians 4) and in verse
13 begins a line of discussion relative to the question of
meeting our loved ones beyond the grave. "But I would not have
you to be ignorant, bretheren, 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 sleep in Jesus will God bring with him...For 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 whall 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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Genuine
faith contains no element of uncertainty, and so we believe,
as the great apostle has taught us, that those who have died
in Christ, God will bring with him, and that we all, who are
saved, shall be together forevermore.
That
troublesone question of a home beyond the grave is forever
settled in the words of the Master in John 14:1-3 "Let not
your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I
would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I
go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive
you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." If
the promise of a life beyond this present one had been a myth,
or tradition, instead of a fact, Christ would have told them
so; but he positively stated that their hopes were based upon
truth, insomuch that he told them to give it no more anxious
thought.
[ The End ]
 
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