May 26
18
Four Facts About Those Who Die In Christ
I Thessalonians 4:13-18
“I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” Sorrow at the loss of a dear companion and friend is unavoidable. But believers do not despair in their sorrow. Our sorrow is sweetened with hope, both for our departed friends and for ourselves. And our hope is based upon four facts revealed in these verses.
1. THOSE WHO DIE IN CHRIST ARE NOT DEAD. They “are asleep” (v. 13). When the scriptures speak of believers as dying, or dead, it is only to accommodate our weak understanding of things. The bodies of God’s saints sleep in the earth, in the arms of Christ, awaiting the resurrection. But their souls are awake and alive with Christ in heaven serving him day and night.
2. THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO HEAVEN WILL COME WITH CHRIST WHEN HE RETURNS TO THE EARTH (v. 14). When Christ comes the second time in his glory, he will come with tens of thousands of his saints. Those who are now with him in heaven will come back with him upon the clouds of heaven.
3. THE DEAD BODIES OF THOSE GLORIFIED SAINTS WILL BE THE FIRST TO RISE IN THE RESURRECTION (vv. 15-16). When the Lord appears in the air, the bodies of our departed brethren will arise from their graves and be again united to their souls in glorification. Then we, which are living, shall be caught up with them to meet the Lord in the air. He will destroy this present earth, create all things new, and we shall descend with him to his new creation. And all this shall be done in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye!
4. AND WE, WITH OUR FRIENDS WHO NOW SLEEP IN CHRIST, SHALL FOREVER BE WITH THE LORD (v. 17). There will be no more parting then! We shall be with Christ and with one another forever! “Wherefore comfort (exhort and instruct) one another with these words.” Though all earthly relationships, precious as they are, must be dissolved, and though our bodies must return to the dust (This is the result of sin.), our union with Christ and our union with one another in Christ shall never be broken. This is the fruit of grace! Death for God’s saints is not an enemy, but a friend which ushers us into the portals of glory to be forever with Christ!
Don Fortner
The necessity, source, effects, and end of regeneration!
C.H.Spurgeon
John 3:3, “ Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be BORN AGAIN, he cannot see the kingdom of God.“
Regeneration (or the New Birth) is the sovereign act of God, performed by the Holy Spirit through the Word, bringing a Hell-deserving sinner from spiritual death, to life in Christ.
1. The NECESSITY of regeneration.
Every man and woman enters this world not as a blank slate, but as a fallen creature–“dead in trespasses and sins”. (Ephesians 2:1). Our hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked! (Jeremiah 17:9). By nature, we are enemies of God (Romans 8:7), children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3), and slaves to sin and Satan (John 8:34). In our natural state, we have no spiritual life, no spark of goodness, no inclination toward God. Our will is bound by sin, our affections are corrupt, and our understanding is darkened! (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Since this is the spiritual condition of every person, then nothing short of a new birth can save us. The words of Jesus to Nicodemus are absolute–unless one is born again, he cannot even see the kingdom of God. Neither reformation, education, morality, or religion; can produce spiritual life from spiritual death. The heart of man is a little Hell; full of sin, and only fit for the eternal fire. We are all born with a bias toward evil, and leave the womb as heirs of wrath!
“Do not be amazed that I told you, that you MUST be born again!” (John 3:7) To be born again is not a luxury, it is a necessity. There is no other way to Heaven. Without the new birth, you can never enter the kingdom of God.
2. The SOURCE of regeneration.
Regeneration is not man’s work, but the Spirit’s work from beginning to end. Man can no more create a new heart in himself, than he could create the world! It is the sovereign act of the Holy Spirit, applying the saving work of Jesus to the heart. The Spirit quickens whom He wills, through the preaching of the Word, according to the Father’s eternal decree, and the Son’s redeeming grace (Titus 3:5).
3. The EFFECTS of regeneration.
When the Spirit regenerates, He gives a new heart. The man now loves what he once hated–Jesus, holiness, and truth; and hates what he once loved–the world, the flesh, and the devil’s delights. In regeneration, the man becomes a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17); his affections are transformed, his desires are sanctified, and his life is increasingly conformed to the Lord Jesus.
4. The eternal END of regeneration.
The life begun by regeneration on earth, is consummated in the glories of Heaven. The believer, once a child of wrath, is now an heir of God and a co-heir with Jesus (Romans 8:17). The end of regeneration, is eternal communion with Jesus, and the enjoyment of His presence forever! (Revelation 22:4–5).
Christian, marvel at the sovereign mercy of God–that when you were dead in sin, He made you alive in Jesus! (Ephesians 2:5). Let this truth humble you, sanctify you, and move you to worship Him who has rescued you from the dominion of darkness, and brought you into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom you have redemption, and the forgiveness of sins! (Colossians 1:13–14)
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” 1 Peter 1:3
Idling life away like an idiot or a madman!
J.C.Philpot
“ Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17
When one is spiritually reborn, he sees at one and the same moment . . .
God, and self,
justice, and guilt,
power, and helplessness,
a holy law, and a broken commandment,
eternity, and time,
the purity of the Creator, and the filthiness of the creature.
And these things he sees, not merely as declared in the Bible, but as revealed in himself as personal realities, involving all his happiness or all his misery, in time and in eternity. Thus it is with him as though a new existence had been communicated, and as if for the first time he had found there was a God!
It is as though all his days he had been asleep, and were now awakened; asleep upon the top of a mast, with the raging waves beneath;as if all his past life were a dream, and the dream were now at an end. He has been . . .
hunting butterflies,
blowing soap bubbles,
angling for minnows,
picking daisies,
building houses of cards, and
idling life away like an idiot or a madman!
He had been perhaps wrapped up in a religious profession, advanced even to the office of a deacon, or mounted in a pulpit. He had learned to talk about Christ, and election, and grace, and fill his mouth with the language of Zion.
But what did he experimentally know of these things? Nothing, absolutely nothing!
Ignorant of his own ignorance (of all kinds of ignorance the worst), he thought himself rich, and increased with goods, and to have need of nothing; and knew not that he was wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
You must be born again!
(Don Fortner)
“You must be born again!” John 3:7
In order for God to save a sinner two things must be done:
God must do something FOR you, and God must do something IN you.
Redemption is the work of God FOR sinners.
Regeneration is the work of God IN sinners.
Both are the works of God. Man has nothing more to do with regeneration, than he has to do with redemption.
“You must be born again” because by nature we are fallen, sinful, depraved children of human flesh. All flesh is defiled. All flesh is corrupt. All flesh is sinful. All flesh is condemned. All flesh must die. Unless we are born of the Spirit, we will die in our sins, and our flesh shall be justly damned.
“You must be born again!”
You can reform your life without the new birth.
You can be baptised without the new birth.
You can join the church, be zealous in religion, teach a Bible class, serve as a deacon or elder; you can even preach with great success without being born again.
“You must be born again” for without the new birth . . .
you will never enter the kingdom of God,
you will never be a part of the family of God,
you will never have eternal life,
you will never be admitted into the presence of God’s glory in the bliss of Heaven.
Only new creatures will enter the New Jerusalem.
Only holy men will walk into the Holy City.
Only Heaven born citizens will possess the bliss of Heaven.
Regeneration is the sovereign, irresistible work of God the Holy Spirit. At the time appointed by God, the Holy Spirit comes to the sinner, who was chosen by grace in eternal election and redeemed by Christ at Calvary–and creates spiritual life in that sinner by His sovereign, irresistible, effectual grace.
To be born again is to be made new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).
In the new birth, God the Holy Spirit gives chosen, redeemed sinners . . .
a new heart to love God,
a new will to bow to the rule of Christ,
a new mind to understand the things of God,
a new spiritual nature to know, enjoy, and live upon spiritual things,
new eyes, eyes of faith, with which to see Christ,
new ears with which to hear His voice,
new hands, hands of faith, with which to lay hold of Christ and do His will,
new feet, with which to flee to Christ and walk with Him in the newness of life.
John 3:3, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again!”
| Reader! marvel not that you must be born again! (From Octavius Winslow’s, “The Restored Sheep”) Alas! the life of an unconverted person is one entire, unbroken, departure from God! What hue sufficiently dark can portray the life of an unrenewed man? He may be…. upright and honorable as a man of the world; faithful in all the relations of life; admired for his private rectitude, and honored for his public character and career. His morality, stainless; his virtue, unquestioned; his liberality, generous; his philanthropy, distinguished; his religion, admired. And yet, destitute of the converting grace of God; a stranger to the great change of the new birth; an unbeliever in the Lord Jesus Christ, his life is but a blank; and dying in this condition, he can in no way enter into the kingdom of heaven! Reader! marvel not that you must be born again! |
The Bible cannot quicken, nor sanctify, nor comfort!
(Octavious Winslow)
“ For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.” 1 Thessalonians 1:5
Apart from the Spirit, the Bible cannot quicken, nor sanctify, nor comfort. It may be . . .
read constantly,
and searched deeply,
and known accurately,
and understood partially,
and quoted appropriately.
Yet, left to its own unassisted power, it comes but in word only, producing no hallowing, no abiding, no saving results.
Unaccompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Bible is inactive and inoperative-a mere dead letter!
All that we spiritually know . . .
of ourselves,
of God,
of Jesus,
of His Word-
we owe to the supernatural teaching of the Holy Spirit. All the real light, sanctification, strength and comfort we possess on our way to glory-we must ascribe to Him.
| All glory to the gospel of Free Grace! (Henry Law, “The Raven” 1869) Christ is the sum and substance of the Bible! Christ . . . chosen, sent, anointed, accepted of God. Christ wondrous in His person, the mighty God, therefore infinitely glorious to save. Christ loving from everlasting to everlasting, with love knowing . . . no origin, no end, no intermission, no degrees; with love always . . . unchangeably the same, perfect, pure, intense, enduring. Christ hanging on the accursed tree, laying down His life a sufficient ransom price. Christ by His death . . . closing the gates of hell, quenching God’s fiery wrath, paying all demands, satisfying every claim, glorifying every attribute, washing out each crimson stain of all His ransomed flock. Christ gloriously fulfilling every iota of the glorious Law, saying to each command, ‘I fully have obeyed’; and then transferring the vicarious obedience, as divine righteousness, to His bride the Church, as her robe for heaven; her luster in the courts above. Christ purchasing the Holy Spirit, and sending Him to bless the Church with all His powers . . . to teach, to sanctify, to comfort, to adorn, to beautify. Christ rising from the grave, a proof that God is satisfied, and all redemption fully earned; a pledge that the ransomed in their turn shall put on the beauties of a resurrection body, worthy of a resurrection state. Christ ascending . . . to the right hand of the Majesty on high; representing all His people in Himself; bearing their names upon His heart; receiving all gifts for them; pouring down all blessings on them. Christ coming . . . to institute a glorious reign, to change the living, to raise the dead, to execute eternal judgment, to fill all heaven with glory, to awaken the eternal song of never ending hallelujahs! O my soul, what a flood of tidings of great joy! All things are yours! The world! Things present! Things to come! All are yours! All glory to the gospel of Free Grace! |