Friday, February 25, 2011

Heaven is my home but I’m not homesick!

 Volume 8--Issue 104                                                                                                     March, 2011

Dear Friends,


    Life is short but no one, myself included, wants to dwell upon this fact.  I don’t know how it started but I found myself for a while every Sunday, reading the Obituary page within Sunday’s paper.  I did notice a bit of a depression would settle upon me after I read it but yet each Sunday I found myself strangely drawn to the list of those who passed away.  I was especially interested in those who were closest to my age and found myself very interested in finding out why they had departed so soon.

    When I was younger I can’t say that the thought of my own demise was very much on  my mind.  It was always for someone else, certainly not me.  Occasionally a person died in a car accident or an older relative would pass away but it seemed distant, over the horizon from my thoughts.  But the older I become the more it seems that the horizon is getting closer and closer.   Its not like you become fixated on your own mortality, you just know that you are getting closer to the finish line faster than you would like and all of your attempts to slow down the process is doing nothing more than speeding up the inevitable.  Heaven is my home but I’m not homesick.

    Charles Spurgeon the great Baptist preacher, once wrote along these lines:  “There may be some of you who stand today like a man upon the shore when the tide is swelling towards his feet. There came one wave, and it took away the grandmother; another came, and a mother was swept away; another came, and the wife was taken; and now it dashes at your feet.  How long shall it be ere it breaks over you—and you, too, are carried away by the yawning wave into the bosom of the deep of Death….Children, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, prepare to meet your God.”


Three things we must learn

    The first is that ‘all must die’.  There is just no way around it, we may glance at the obituaries or read in the paper of the riots in Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya.  Our radios tell us of the deaths of the four Americans on their yacht off the coast of Somalia by pirates.  Even the television has coverage of the earthquake in New Zealand where 75 people lost their lives and scores more are injured or unaccounted for.

    The devil may say, “Don’t worry about such things, eat, drink and be merry and enjoy the good things of life.”  But the devil has been a liar since the beginning and life is not that long, in fact life is short.  The time is fast approaching when you and I will be standing before our God and have to give an account of ourselves.  What will happen to us if we are not prepared to die?  What will become of us?

    The second is that the ‘wages of sin is death’.  We know that sin is the reason for death to reign in the lives of men.  That is why death is such an unnatural occurrence.  Humanity tries to make it sound so natural as if death is a necessary part of the cycle of life.  Life begins, develops, matures, and then fades away.  It is the way of man or the natural order of things.  But if it is so natural why then do people fear dying so much?  I can understand that pain and the failing of the body during old age can get one to wish the time would quicken but still why do people fear death itself if it is such a natural occurrence?

    If it is so natural there would be no fear involved but the truth is it is very unnatural.  It is the grim reminder that the wages of sin is death and then the coming judgment.  I wonder if the reason we fear death is because we then will have no excuses, no delays, nothing to hinder us from our standing face-to-face before God?  Even those who would deny any concern about coming face-to-face with God know in their inner most being that, “Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.”  Hebrews 9:27

The third point is ‘death can be transformed into eternal life’.   We can do nothing on our own to stop the inevitable.  But there is one who can change the order of things.  That one is Jesus Christ who conquered death by dying and who by that death and the resurrection that followed forever transformed death for all who call upon his name and follow him.  “Sin brought death for Adam, and by his sin death passed upon the race.” Romans 5:12  “The first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam, (Jesus) a life-giving spirit.”  I Corinthians 15:45
   
    Scotland's, Horatius Bonar wrote years ago;  “The first Adam dies and we all die in him; the second Adam dies and we live in him!  The first Adam’s grave proclaims only death; the second Adam’s grave announces life.  We look into the grave of the one, and we see only darkness, corruption, and death; we look into the grave of the other, and we find there only light, incorruption, and life.  In the one grave we find him still there, in the other grave he is not there.  He is risen and has in his hands the keys of death and Hades.  That whomsoever believes in him shall live.”


The story of two men

    Let me tell you the story of two men who died during the same year.  In 1899 two very famous men passed away from the bounds of earth to meet their maker, one a Christian and the other was not.  The unbeliever was Colonel Ingersoll who made a career of attacking the Bible and whose lectures on ‘immortality’ at Harvard University were well known.  The other was a believer named Dwight L. Moody.
   
Ingersoll died quite un-expectantly and his death was a shock to everyone.  The body was kept at the family home for several days because the family could not bear to part with it, but it was finally removed.  He was cremated but the display at the crematorium was so pitiful that the newspapers picked it up and communicated it to the nation.  Ingersoll’s had used his great intellect to deny Christianity.  But when he died his closest of family and friends viewed it as a hopeless tragedy.
   
    Dwight Moody had been in declining health for some time, and his family had taken turns being with him.  On the morning of his death his son, who was standing by the bedside, heard him exclaim, “Earth is receding; heaven is opening; God is calling.”  “You are dreaming, Father,” the son said.
   
    Moody answered, “No, Will, this is no dream.  I have been within the gates.  I have seen the children’s faces.”  For a while it seemed as if Moody were reviving, but he began to slip away again.  He said,  “Is this death?  This is not bad; there is no  valley.  This is bliss.  This is glorious.”  By this time his daughter was present, and she began to pray for his recovery.  He said, “No, no Emma, don’t pray for that.  God is calling.  This is my coronation day.  I have been looking forward to it.”  Shortly after this Moody was received into heaven.  At the funeral the family and friends joined in a joyful service.  They spoke.   They sang hymns.  They heard the words proclaimed, “Where , O death is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  (I Cor. 15:55-57)

    It is true that in Romans 5:14 it says that from Adam onward “death reigned.”  It reigned over Adam and has reigned over all his descendants.  But death has been conquered and the power of death has been broken by the Lord Jesus Christ so that today all who believe in him may live in hope.  There is life after our earthly sojourn is over and we can be assured of living for all eternity with our Father who is in heaven.  To be found in His presence for eternity is beyond anything we could dream or imagine.  Thank you Father for your amazing gift of eternal life.

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