Spurgeon Meditations

 

Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.

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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 theirsouls are before the throne of God, praising Him day and nightin His temple, singing hallelujahs to Him who washed them fromtheir sins in His blood. The body sleeps in its lonely bed ofearth, beneath the coverlet of grass. But what is this sleep?The idea connected with sleep is rest and that is thethought which the Spirit of God would convey to us. Sleep makeseach night a Sabbath for the day. Sleep shuts fast the door ofthe soul, and bids all intruders tarry for a while, that thelife within may enter its summer garden of ease. The toil-wornbeliever quietly sleeps, as does the weary child when itslumbers on its mother's breast. Oh! happy they who die in theLord; they rest from their labours, and their works do followthem. Their quiet repose shall never be broken until God shallrouse them to give them their full reward. Guarded by angelwatchers, curtained by eternal mysteries, they sleep on, theheritors of glory, till the fulness of time shall bring thefulness of redemption. What an awaking shall be theirs! Theywere laid in their last resting place, weary and worn, but suchthey shall not rise. They went to their rest with the furrowedbrow, and the wasted features, but they wake up in beauty andglory. The shrivelled seed, so destitute of form and comeliness,rises from the dust a beauteous flower. The winter of the gravegives way to the spring of redemption and the summer of glory.Blessed is death, since it, through the divine power, disrobesus of this work-day garment, to clothe us with the weddinggarment of incorruption. Blessed are those who sleep in Jesus."


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