1 Thessalonians 4

1 Thessalonians 4:1-14

SOME MODELS 1 Thessalonians 1:1-4THE Church at Thessalonica originated in the face of furious opposition. The report of it, as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Acts, shows that Paul evinced great courage in entering in to the Jewish synagogue and for “three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead”.The fruit of this preaching was a certain number of Jewish converts and a larger number of Greek, “and of the chief women not a few”.“But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people”. The consequence was that Paul and Silas, in order to end the uproar and create greater safety for the new believers, departed by night and went in turn to Berea and Athens and on to Corinth.It is easy to understand how the Apostle’s heart would be ill at ease until he had heard how the uproar turned out, and knew the safety of his Christian brethren.To that end he had sent Timothy from Athens to bring him a report; and now, to encourage the little body of believers, he writes this First Letter, probably in the year A. D. 54.It had, as Scofield suggests, a threefold object: to confirm the new believers in the fundamental truths of Scripture, to exhort them to holy living, and especially to comfort them concerning some believers who had fallen asleep. Inasmuch as the time since his departure was short, in all probability, these believers had been put to sleep by the opposition.The somewhat natural division of this First Epistle we shall attempt to follow in this discourse, and consequently talk to you on a Model Salvation, a Model Servant, and a Model Sanctification. However, we shall follow this outline of the Book with discussions devoted to the great Biblical doctrines of the Return, the Resurrection, and the Rapture, which are introduced into the fourth chapter.Since framing the outline for this sermon we have discovered that Dr. Scofield, in the Scofield Bible, presents a similar, in fact, an almost identical, outline of the same.We call attention first toA MODEL His salutation completed (1 Thessalonians 1:1-3), he addresses himself to this subject of salvation in the remainder of the chapter. What he has to say might be considered under the following suggestions: salvation as evidenced in consecration, as it existed in the form of ensamples, and as it sounded out the saving word.It was evidenced in true consecration.“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”. Paul was one of those preachers who needed not to make a defense of his own conduct, and required not from others a recommendation of character. His unselfishness in service, his consistency of conduct, his evident character, had all been as an open book, and friend and foe alike had seen in him, and heard from him, nothing that demanded explanation or required defense.On the other hand, his very consecration to the cause which he had but recently espoused was in clear evidence of his sincerity in action. Robert Morrison, that great missionary, at the call of whose name the pulse of the Church of God is quickened, gives us an insight into his very soul in this circumstance. After his conversion he raised the question, “Lord, where shall I serve?” And he tells us how it was answered. “I learn from Thy Word that it is Thy holy pleasure that the Gospel should be preached “in all the world for a witness unto all nations”. Thou hast given commandment to Thy servants unto the “end of the world” to “preach the Gospel to every creature” promising them Thy presence. When I view the field, O Lord, my Master, I perceive that by far the greater part is entirely without laborers, or at best has but here and there one or two, whilst there are thousands crowded up in one corner.

My desire is, O Lord, to engage where laborers are most wanted.”That was the spirit that sent him to the heathen land and made him a burning and a shining light against its blackness of darkness. And that is the spirit of conquest, wherever found in the Church.Paul’s salvation effected in him an ensample.“Ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost. “So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia”. Herein is a twofold instance of ensample: to them, first, Paul had become an example, and second, they, in turn, became ensamples to all that were in all Macedonia and Achaia.The business of the world is carried on largely by samples. The great factories of earth sell their products through samples; fruits of the earth are sold after the same manner, by samples. It is no wonder that Christianity is judged by samples. The overwhelming majority of men do not read the Prophets or the Apostles. The Letters of Paul are largely left, as it were, in unbroken envelopes. But they do read you, and they read me.

We are the living “epistles * * known and read of all men”. If it were possible today to say of the church-members, as Paul said of the Thessalonian Christians, “Ye were ensamples to all that believe”, what spiritual power would be engendered thereby! “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth” (Romans 14:22).Chauncey M.

Depew, writing of his personal experience when he was in his ninety-first year, in the form of a Holiday Greeting to the World, said among other things, “The essence of happiness in this world, and salvation in the next, is to live in Christ, to absorb His spirit, His love, His all-embracing humanity.”That spirit will, if truly entertained, never fail. The woman, who gave birth to John Chrysostom and brought him up in the ways of truthfulness and piety, excited from a heathen’s lips these words, as he looked upon her and thought of her life, “Oh, what wonderful women these Christians have.”The mother of Gregory, that spiritual giant of the fourth century, was seldom seen, we are told, except as she attended worship, or carried baskets of food or clothing to the poor, or went visiting the sick; while the Godly mother of Bernard is said to have trained him, giving him utterly to God, and in the eagerness of her impassioned devotion, to have inspired him with the highest spirit of service. You have all heard that story, that doubtless had a truthful origin, of how a Sunday School teacher put to her class the question, “What is your favorite version of the Bible?” One answered, “The King James”, Another, “The American Revision”, a third, “Moffat’s New Testament”. One lad, whose Christian mother justified his remark, said, “I like my mother’s version best; she lives it!” The best exposition of sacred Scripture is a holy life.Paul was a power with his converts in proportion as he could truthfully say to them, “Be ye followers of me” and the Macedonian Christians were effective with their unregenerate neighbors in proportion as they were “ensamples to all that believe”.But, as “faith without works is dead” so Christianity demands more than a holy life. It demands an aggressive ministry; and I find a third point in this model salvation that requires emphasis:It sounded out the saving word.The Apostle says,“From you sounded out the Word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing. “For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the Living and True God; “And to wait for His Son from Heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:8-10). It will be remembered that this was the chief characteristic of the Apostolic Church. When Saul of Tarsus raged in his persecution against the people of Christ, he succeeded in scattering the Church, not in silencing it. In fact, his opposition accomplished1 exactly the opposite result, for“They that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the Word. “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. “And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. “For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. “And there was great joy in that city”. Later this same Philip bore the word of testimony in the presence of the treasurer of the Ethiopians, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen, and preached unto him Jesus, and his baptism followed; and doubtless a church for Northern Africa was born out of that witness.The greatest single need of the Church of God today is that of witnessing. In the language of the Word, the last affirmation of the ascended Christ was, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth”. Would God that every man of us, and every woman member of the Church militant might be able to say with Catherine Hankey:“I love to tell the story Of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, Of Jesus and His love. I love to tell the story, Because I know ’tis true; It satisfies my longings As nothing else can do. “I love to tell the story: ’Tis pleasant to repeat, What seems, each time I tell it, More wonderfully sweet. I love to tell the story: For some have never heard The message of salvation From God’s own holy Word. “I love to tell the story; For those who know it best Seem hungering and thirsting. To hear it like the rest. And when, in scenes of Glory, I sing the new, new song, ‘Twill be the old, old story That I have loved so long! “I love to tell the story; ‘Twill be my theme in Glory, To tell the old, old story Of Jesus and His love.” But we pass to the second point in our study:A MODEL SERVANT Here we speak of Paul himself, and you will find in the Epistle a defense of our claim.First of all, He was a courageous servant. This is evidenced in the statement,“For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain: But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the Gospel of God with much contention. “For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: “But as we were allowed of God to be put m trust with the Gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. “For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness. “Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the Apostles of Christ. “But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: “So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us” (1 Thessalonians 2:1-8). It is impossible to follow the Apostle Paul through the assiduous labors recorded in Acts, or trace his steps, as those are revealed in these Epistles, without marveling at the courage of the man. He does not ask, as did Caleb in the Old Testament, for the hardest task to be assigned to any servant of God; but, like the true warrior, takes his way to the very spot where the fight is thickest, and there exposes his person to any danger incidental to victory. There can be little question that the martyrs of all the ages have been inspired and enheartened by the Pauline example. When he faced the block without fear, saying, as he drew nigh to that decapitation, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His Appearing”, he was clearing the path for martyrs who should follow, and was exhibiting a spirit of courage that would sustain them in kindred ordeals.There is an echo of Paul in the experience of Latimer and Ridley. When you remember that their faith had been subjected to every conceivable indignity, made to endure every suffering that was possible to leave them life, including an attempt to freeze them to death in the tower of London, where they spent a winter without fire, and how at last they were led forth to be not only thawed out by the flame, but consumed in the same, joyfully they went, and the old man Latimer, cheerfully encouraged his friend by saying, “Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light by the grace of God such a candle in England as I trust shall never be put out.”One of the most popular hymns of modern times is known as “Stand up, Stand up for Jesus.” The hymn was written by Rev.

George Duffield, a Presbyterian minister. It originated after this manner: one Sunday a young Episcopalian clergyman preached to five thousand men in Jayne’s Hall, Philadelphia.

His text was Exodus 10:11. The sermon was said to be one of the most wonderful of modern times. All Philadelphia was deeply stirred by a very great revival. The preacher, young Dudley A. Tyng, threw himself into the work with great heartiness. He was one of the noblest, bravest, manliest of men. The following Wednesday, after preaching the great sermon, he left his study for a moment’s rest, going out to his barn. There was a mule at work there in the power machine, shelling corn.

He paused to stroke the mule’s neck, when the sleeve of his silken gown caught in the cogs of the machine and his arm was literally torn out by the roots. Just before he died, his father at his bedside asked him if he had any message to send to the men in the great noon-day prayer-meeting and to the ministers associated in that work. “Tell them,” he said, “to stand up for Jesus!”On the Sunday following his death, Rev. George Duffield preached from Ephesians 6:14 and read the verses of the hymn as he had written them the day before. The Superintendent of the Sunday School had them printed. Later a Baptist newspaper, publishing the same, music was found for the words, and the Church has joined heartily in the music ever since because of the inspiring sentiment that the words contain:“Stand up! stand up for Jesus! Ye soldiers of the Cross; Lift high His royal banner, It must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory His army shall He lead, Till every foe is vanquished, And Christ is Lord indeed. “Stand up! stand up for Jesus! Stand in His strength alone; The arm of flesh will fail you;— Ye dare not trust your own; Put on the Gospel armor, And, watching unto prayer, Where duty calls or danger, Be never wanting there. “Stand up! stand up for Jesus! The strife will not be long; This day the noise of battle, The next the victor’s song. To him that overcometh, A crown of life shall be; He with the King of Glory Shall reign eternally.” The greatest needs of the Church of God, in this hour, is the courage to be a Christian.He was a conscientious servant.“For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the Gospel of God. “Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe: “As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, “That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto His Kingdom and glory” (1 Thessalonians 2:9-12). This language strangely contrasts a certain course of conduct characterizing these latter days. There is an enormous amount of complaint on the part of evangelists because so little work now opens for them. The failure of evangelism is not wholly due to the apostate condition of the Church. The professionalist may blame himself for much of it. His methods have broken the entire system down and have produced with the sanest and most spiritual of church people a certain antipathy to the whole procedure. In America, at least, evangelism has been commercialized, and because one man with the enormous backing of the churches of great cities was able, by the adoption of rather questionable methods, to secure enormous sums for a meeting of a few weeks, hundreds of others grew equally ambitious and commenced to ape in the matter and carry about with them a great company of salaried assistants, women workers, boy specialists, pianist, chorister, soloists, tabernacle men, book table women, and demand of those who sought their services what was known as “an expense account” of travel, entertainment and advertising, that together with the offering required at the end, would exceed a century outlay on the part of the early Christian church.

In addition to this unscriptural and indefensible charge many of these professionals have exercised a ministry that has been fruitless so far as any definite results were concerned.Two men, who have been much in the ascendant in recent years in America so far as crowds were concerned, one of them from over seas and the other native to the soil, are men, who though they address thousands through the co-operative endeavor of the churches that call them, have never been known to hold a meeting anywhere that added any considerable number of people to the churches thus engaged and burdened. The unfortunate result is that evangelism itself is discredited and faithful evangelists are finding it even more difficult to secure work than the faithless, since their methods are uniformly less spectacular and consequently less popular with the jazz-loving age.In all this we are not attempting at all to say that all evangelists ought to labor as Paul and his companions did, night and day without charge to anybody, for we believe that the Church of God is often guilty of withholding more than is meet and suffering spiritual poverty as a result. But we are saying that the show of the spirit of sacrifice on the part of evangelists, and above all, a blameless behavior among them that believe, together with a ministry of exhortation and comfort and warning would result in a worthy walk on the part of them called unto the Kingdom and glory of Christ.He was a commissioned servant.“For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the Word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. “For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: “Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own Prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: “Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. “But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire. “Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us. “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His Coming? “For ye are our glory and joy” (1 Thessalonians 2:13-20). Paul here affirms afresh that he had originated no Gospel, but had passed on to them that which he had received, even the Word of God “which effectually worketh also in you that believe”. He reminded them that their experience was like others, the experience of suffering, and still more like that of their Lord and His Prophets, who had been killed, and now His Apostles who were suffering persecution. And yet, the great Apostle reminds them that these things are all forgotten in the joy and rejoicing over them as trophies through the Gospel.Possibly one secret of Paul’s power was his consciousness of a commission from the Lord associated as it was with His promised presence. We believe that there is such a thing as a daily commission and a daily direction of the Spirit. Each morning brings us new duties; each day makes its new demands, and both duties and demands require new guidance. But we have a sure promise from the ascended Lord, “When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth”; “He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it unto you”.

It is doubtful if Paul ever spent a day without the sense of Divine presence. Therein is the secret of the Apostle’s power, and therein is the measure of any spiritual success enjoyed by the present disciples of the Church of Jesus Christ. But our future study brings us toA MODEL “Wherefore when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone; “And sent Timotheus, our brother, and minister of God, and our fellowlabourer in the Gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to Comfort you concerning your faith; “That no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto. “For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know. “For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain. “But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you: “Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you, in all our affliction and distress, by your faith: “For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord. “’For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God; “Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith?” “Now God Himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you. “And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: “To the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints”. “Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. “For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: “That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; “Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: “That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter; because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. “For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. “He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us His holy Spirit. “But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. “And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more: “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to Work with your own hands, as we commanded you; “That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, 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 this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the Coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. “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, shall 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” (1 Thessalonians 3:1 to 1 Thessalonians 4:18). This sanctification voices itself in a steadfastness in obedience to the holy will and in an adequate objective.Their steadfastness was the Apostle’s comfort.“Wherefore when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone; “And sent Timotheus, our brother, and minister of God, and our fellowlabourer in the Gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith; “That no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto. “For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know. “For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain. “But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you; “Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you, in all our affliction and distress, by your faith: “For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord. “For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God; “Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith? “Now God Himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you” (1 Thessalonians 3:1-11). It would be easy to go into history and bring abundant and beautiful illustrations of steadfastness both in the faith and in the service. Savonarola would be a fine subject for such an illustration. Knox and Calvin could scarcely be equalled. Their indomitable wills and their determined conduct would not only illustrate but embellish the whole discussion. But the average man might feel a fear of failure when such outstanding examples were set before him and secretly say in his own soul, “I am not made of the same kind of stuff, and can never attain to the heights of faith or reveal the rock-ribbed stability of such exceptional and outstanding souls!”I bring you, therefore, an illustration from common life, one that will show the way to the humblest among us. It comes from “The Treasury”, and is related in the following words:“There is no use in keeping the church open any longer.

You may as well give me the key,” said the missionary in Madras, as he stopped at the door of a little house of God in a village where natives had once professed Christianity, but had declined in interest and quit attendance, returning to their idols. The woman to whom he addressed these words was poor in purse but steadfast in spirit, and she objected.

The missionary added as he looked on her sorrowful face, “There is a place of Christian worship in the village there, only three miles off, and those who want really to serve God can walk that distance!”“Oh, sir,” she pled most earnestly, “do not take the key away. I at least will go to the church daily; I will sweep it. I will trim its lamp and keep it burning; and I will go on praying. Some day God may hear and a blessing may come.”So the missionary said, “Oh, well, keep the key then,” and went his way. Some years afterward he returned to that same village and to his surprise he found the church crowded with repentant sinners. A great harvest of souls had been reaped and the steadfastness of this Godly woman was the secret of the whole success.Their sanctification was the will of God.“And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: “To the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. “Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. “For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: “That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; “Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: “That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter; because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. “For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. “He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us His holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 3:12 to 1 Thessalonians 4:8).The word “sanctify” conveys the idea of becoming morally or spiritually wholesome, pure. Such is the product of Christianity itself. Christ was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. We are convinced both from Scripture and observation that the work of grace in the heart of the believer produces a holy life, and in proportion as life itself is surrendered to the government and guidance of the Holy Spirit, it is unblameable and effective.There are a great many people who seem to think that sanctification is wholly an emotional experience and an end in itself, and they widely proclaim that they have received “the baptism of the Holy Ghost and are wholly sanctified.” But time will shortly prove whether there is anything in the profession. If they increase and abound in love toward one another and toward all men, if they behave in an unblameable way, if they walk uprightly, if they abstain from evil, if they defraud not their fellows, if they despise not men, but on the contrary set themselves assiduously to the tasks of a Christian and, day by day, by deeds that demonstrate their faith, prove their continued fellowship with the Father, then the sanctification which true Godliness would disclaim may yet be seen in them.It is a fact as Rev. A.

E. Barnes-Lawrence says, “God is still seeking for men whom He can entrust with power.

The Church of God is crying out for them, amazed at the feebleness of its own ministry and worship. The millions about us are looking for deliverance from their sin and misery, and the Holy Spirit is waiting to effect it by us. The gift of spiritual power is not less for all Christians to-day than at Pentecost. There was an opened Heaven then—is there not an opened Heaven now? There were opened hearts and opened lips then—why are there comparatively few opened hearts and opened lips now? If this gift is for all, then we Christians ought to possess it. If it is lacking, why is it lacking? These are questions each one of us should earnestly ask.

It is not so much our usefulness that is at stake, as it is the glory of God and the hastening of His Kingdom.”Their spiritual success was the Apostle’s great objective.“But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love owe another. “And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more: “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; “That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing” (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12). Such is the objective of the true Church to this hour, and such also is the desire of every genuine regenerated believer.“My gracious Lord, I own Thy right To every service I can pay, And call it my supreme delight To hear Thy dictates and obey. “What is my being, but for Thee, Its sure support, its noblest end? ’Tis my delight Thy face to see, And serve the cause of such a Friend. “I would not sigh for worldly joy, Or to increase my worldly good, Nor future days nor powers employ To spread a sounding name abroad. “ ’Tis to my Saviour I would live, To Him who for my ransom died; Nor could all worldly honor give Such bliss as crowns me at His side. “His work my hoary age shall bless, When youthful vigor is no more; And my last hour of life confess His saving love, His glorious power!”

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

HEAVEN AND OUR FLIGHT 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17CERTAIN ministers disparage any preaching about Heaven! In the search for popularity, some have discovered that the thing to say is that they are not trying to fit men for Heaven but for earth; and since the first man is of the earth, earthy, he likes that statement of religion. Sometime ago one writing from London, and paying compliments as undeserved as extravagant to a Modernist minister, said, “According to him this New Theology is the Gospel of the humanity of God and of the divinity of man,” and he is fond of the phrase, “I am trying to fit men for earth, rather than for Heaven.”It is doubtful if the ministry has any such vocation. Men have never been deficient in their interest in earthly things, nor particularly unfitted to follow its possibilities, find the solution of its problems, avail themselves of its commercial rewards.We need a John Bunyan to come back and criticise us for the “muck-rake” business, and if possible, persuade us to take our eyes off the earth occasionally, and take a look at Heaven. It is related that King Henry II. once asked the Duke of Alva if he had observed a certain eclipse that had occurred that year. “No,” replied the Duke, “I have found so much business to attend to upon the earth, that I have found no time even to look up to Heaven.” That very expression is significant as applied to the century to which we belong. It voices the conduct of a great multitude, and it opposes the teaching of God’s Word. “Other worldliness” is the need of the hour, and “upper worldliness” the very heart of the Gospel of the Son of God.

Why am I not justified in inviting your attention to this theme, “Heaven and our Celestial Flight”? The text not only teaches this doctrine, but lays the foundations of its belief, by telling us of the resurrection body; by hinting what are to be our supernatural abilities, and by describing our celestial flight.THE BODY Permit three remarks about it.It will not depend upon the heart-beat. There is a natural body—it lives by the heart-beat. Out of the heart are the issues of life. “The life of the flesh is in the blood”. The body in which Jesus dwelt before His crucifixion was a natural body. Its life depended as much upon the heart-beat as does that of yours and mine. That was not at all true of His resurrection body; in it the heart was still speared and open. To Thomas, He said, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing”. No less an authority than Dr.

Howard Kelley, the great Baltimore scientist and surgeon, said there was not a drop of blood left in the veins of Jesus’ body. The New Testament record makes it clear that His heart broke and emptied its contents into the pericardium, and that, in turn, poured it upon the ground, following the withdrawal of the sword point. So when risen it was no longer a natural body, dependent upon the action of a natural origin, the heart; but it was a body animated by the Spirit, and He has a spiritual body, and our resurrection bodies shall be like it, for when we shall see Him we shall be like Him.Our resurrection, bodies will not be subject to sickness and death. Speaking of their state in the Millennial period, John, in the Revelation, says, “God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed, away” (Revelation 21:3-4).That is the description upon which Horace Stanton bases his remark of the resurrection body, “It is immortal. It cannot be pierced, nor injured by accident or enemy.” And is not Stanton confirmed in this statement by the words of the Apostle Paul, “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, than shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:51-54).Some years ago, when suffering with rheumatism, every joint racked with pain, Mrs.

Riley hung on the door near the head of my bed, and where I could behold it constantly, Dr. A. B. Simpson’s chart of the Four-Fold Gospel, and some of the passages taken from God’s Word and printed in great red letters gave promise of the time when pain should be no more. It was instructive and comforting. In the day of health we did not prize it, but, in the day of sickness and suffering, we gave it some proper esteem, also the provision of God’s grace that proposes eventually to put this away and make Christ Conqueror against the last enemy, and we shall be able to say of that supernal hour, what Frederick W. Faber said when he wrote:“Hark! hark, my soul! angelic songs are swelling O’er earth’s green fields and ocean’s wave-beat shore; How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling Of that new life when sin shall be no more. “Onward we go; for still we hear them singing, ‘Come, weary souls, for Jesus bids you come!’ And through the dark its echoes sweetly ringing, The music of the Gospel leads us Home. “Angels, sing on! Your faithful watches keeping; Sing us sweet fragments of the songs above, Till morning’s joy shall end the night of weeping; And life’s long shadows break in cloudless love.” It will not know limitations and deficiencies. Paul, in his great fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, makes that fact clear. Every limitation and every defect is to be left in the grave. The body that was sown in corruption is to be raised in incorruption; the one that is sown in weakness is to be raised in strength; the one that is sown in dishonor is to be raised in glory; the one that is sown a natural body is to be raised a spiritual body. The great Dr. Guthrie, speaking of Heaven, described it after this manner, “A city, never built with hands, nor hoary with the years of time; a city whose inhabitants no census has numbered; a city through whose streets rush no tides of business, nor nodding hearse creeps slowly with its burden to the tomb; a city without griefs or graves, without sins or sorrows, without births or burials, without marriages or mournings; a city which glories in having Jesus for its King, angels for its guards saints for its citizens; whose walls are salvation, and whose gates are praise.”There are some things about us that ought to make a man reflect upon the beauty of all this, and rejoice in the assurance of its coming.

I looked at the old blind man grinding the organ on the street, and his blind wife, holding the cup and appealing to passers-by for help, and hoped that they were Christians and would one day walk the earth for a thousand years with vision perfect. I looked at the man, both of whose legs were cut off and great leather pads were used to protect them while he dragged a stump of a body about the world, to hope that one day, in a resurrection body, he would walk the ways of the millennial world, and finally the streets of the Celestial City in a perfect body, his feet pressing the paths of the one, and the golden pavements of the other. I looked the other morning at the poor soul dragging himself down the sidewalk, his limbs, there, but useless from the knees; but the bend of the knees themselves had been made the feet on which to do his painful dragging. But if he is a man of God, there is coming a day when that defect will be corrected and the limitations that hamper will be known no more. These vile bodies shall be changed into frames like unto Christ’s glorious body, perfected in every part.Now the Word of God, regarding these resurrection bodies, involves a second remark:THEIR These are to be expected in spiritual bodies, and the Word of God makes clear the answer to that expectation. Christ’s resurrection body had transcendent endowments, with abilities never possessed by animals or men, but perhaps always known to angels. We are told that the men of the resurrection shall be equal unto angels (Luke 20:36). Dr. F. B. Meyer, in one of his addresses delivered while traveling in the States, said, “I visited Canterbury Cathedral. After I had wandered through the vast edifice, the verger asked me whether I would not like to see the crypt, and I readily assented.

But I soon regretted that I had done so; for, as he opened the doorway that led to the dark recesses of the vaults, there met me a cold, chill atmosphere, heavily laden with the moldy smell of corruption and death. I was ashamed to show any reluctance, after having asked to see the burial place of the nation’s great men, and proceeded to descend a winding staircase. The darkness was so dense that I could not see a foot in front of me, but the verger called to me that I would find an iron railing at hand, and by following that I would be guided safely to the crypt. I descended then, into the darkness of the tombs. On reaching the bottom, I was surrounded on all sides by black vaults, but in the distance I could discern a light, on approaching which, I found that the crypt really opened upon the cloister gardens of the old cathedral. There the glorious Spring sunshines was bringing flowers into bloom, and in the midst of the garden there was a beautiful fountain playing, and I then realized how through darkness I had come to the bright glory of the Spring sunshine.” He then applies it to the resurrection, likening our passing into the gloomy darkness of death, and our coming forth into the brightness of the Divine presence to take our place at the right hand of the everlasting Father, where there are praises forever more.

But the illustration fails signally at one point as a fit illustration, namely, when Myers went down, he had the same body that he brought up from the crypt. He was unchanged in person and powers and passing out of the darkness into the light wrought no change.

But it will not be so with us. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump”.Charles H. Gabriel was thinking of more than regeneration; he must have had the thought of the resurrection before him when he wrote his hymn, “Oh, What a Change,” for it reads,“Oh, what a change! From the darkness of night, Into the noontide of God’s shining light, Out of my weakness to strength in His might, Oh, what a change! Oh, what a change! “Oh, what a change! From my hunger for bread, Into the place where His children are fed, Into the blessing of life from the dead, Oh, what a change! Oh, what a change!” Two or three respects in which this will be both marvelous and supernatural:We will be indifferent to heat and cold alike. These changes in the seasons which seem to be essential to the life and vigor of the physical world are the basis of no little suffering in the world of man. Who can read the story of the mounted police of Canada, perishing in the cold of sixty degrees in the upper Northwestern Province, without a hurting of the heart? And who can think on the pitiless nights of mid-winter and the ten million little children scantily covered, with no fire on the hearth or coal in the stove, shivering the long night through, hoping for break of day when, by sheer physical action, they might start the blood to warmth; or who can think of those tropical regions where men swelter even at midwinter, without coming into some keen; appreciation of what it: will mean to the resurrection body, suffering neither heat nor cold?Someone says, “But does the Bible teach this?” Yes, it does! The interplanetary space knows a cold of which we dream not. Think of 270° below zero, if your imagination can be stretched so far, and that is what the scientists say can be found in this great untraversed territory.

Untraversed, did I say? Not so.

Natural bodies do not live there, and could not; but spiritual bodies will pass through it without the least difficulty. Those ministering spirits, who are sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation, constantly so do. The angels who come from the far away Heaven to the earth wear no livid countenances. When Jesus ascended, He knew the places through which He was to pass, for He Himself had taught that His Father’s House was far away. He had no fear of this unthinkable cold. Down through it came Moses and Elijah, but no chill oppressed them when suddenly they stood on the Mount of Transfiguration, face to face with Jesus and in full view of Peter and the other two Apostles.Nor can heat hurt!

The Book of Daniel tells us that the fiery furnace was heated seven times hotter than its wont. So intense was the temperature that the men who took hold of the three Hebrew Children to fling them into the furnace, perished without the touch of the flames, the very heat itself leaping out to strike them dead; and yet the Hebrew Children, attended by the Son of God, walked in that flame unharmed.

It was hot enough to burn away the bands with which they had been bound when cast into the midst of it; but their bodies had no hurt (Daniel 3:25),Again, you will remember that in Judges 13:20 the angel of the Lord appeared unto Manoah’s wife, to announce the coming of her child, and for him Manoah took a kid and offered it with meat offering upon the altar, and we are told, “It came to pass, when the flame went up toward Heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar”. It was hot enough to consume the sacrifice, but it had no effect upon the angel. The chariot that bare Elijah to Heaven was a chariot of fire. John, in the nineteenth of the Revelation, the seventeenth verse, speaks of an angel “standing in the sun”, that molten center of our part of the universe. Marvelous bodies we will have, and since pain, sickness and death are impossible to them, they must of necessity be immune from both heat and cold.They will be free from the law of gravitation. The risen body of Jesus could ascend into Heaven, as well as return to earth, without the slightest danger of a crushing fall, as did the body of every angel that ever came from Heaven on an errand of mercy, or to bring a Divine message, and as did the bodies of Moses and Elijah, and all them that rose at the time when Jesus came out of the grave.

That is the meaning of our text, “We which are alive and remain unto the Coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 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 shall 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”.This present body is held down by the laws of gravitation, which men tell us are fixed and inexorable.

Our future bodies will know no such clog. I wonder if it could be that this is a symbol of the great spiritual fact that, in proportion as men are Christlike, the world does not attract them. Seven times, Horace Stanton says, Jesus has traversed the space between earth and Heaven. He came down previous to His birth. At His crucifixion He went up to Heaven, because He said to the thief at His right hand, “To day shalt thou be with Me in paradise”. Then His spirit returned to earth to inhabit the resurrection body again; then in the resurrection body He ascended from the Mount of Olives, and, as He swept through the azure, they watched Him ascend (Luke 24:51) even to the right hand of God.

But He came back to visit and win Saul of Tarsus to Himself, and comes near enough to that mighty Jew to say, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me”? and make Himself heard. Not only so, but to be seen also, for Paul says, “Last of all He was seen of me” (1 Corinthians 15:8).

Then He re-ascended to Heaven again. One other night He came back to visit Paul, saying to His Apostle, “Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome”, then to re-ascend into Heaven. “Twice,” says Stanton, “His human spirit made the journey without the body, and five times in the resurrection body He crossed that interstellar space.” He had no wings; He moved through it at will. Hence, I reason,Our course will be directed by our wills, not by wings. The angels painted on canvass and carved out of stone all have wings. Not many of the angels in the Bible are so described. The cherubim had wings, and they are supposed to be types of creatures who are interested with Christ in Heaven, and who, in a way, control with Him the entire Heavenly host.

But the seraphim even, who flew so swiftly, is not described as having wings; and the angels who came to earth did not have wings, else they could not so easily have been mistaken for men, and Jesus in His resurrection body had no wings, and we will have no wings, for we are to be like Him. The Psalmist says, “Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest”.

But the will in the resurrection body will direct instead of wings.One of my favorite dreams is that of flying. I say “favorite”; I mean “most accustomed”. Thousands of miles have I traveled through space simply willing it, always waking with surprise that it is not so. Dr. George C. Lorimer says, “There are far North men who hold to an old opinion which has become a veritable belief with them, that if one take the raw hide of an otter and bind it about his feet, lift it to his knees, and bind them together, three times round his waist, passing it over the heart and twice about the neck, twice over the eyes, then tie a knot at the base of the brain, when the darkness falls, he can rise and go whither he will.

It is a superstition, yet it may be a suggestion of the time when the men who are bound—slaves of Jesus Christ, shall find that the very bands that held them have taken on transporting power and they cannot only pass from earth to Heaven, but from continent to continent, exploring in the eternity ahead, every sun and star and world of God’s great Universe, at will.”This is not only the plain hint of Scripture; it is equally the plain suggestion of science. The mind even now, with all of its physical limitations, has the ability to flit from continent to continent, fixing its thought where it pleases.

I am now in Minneapolis, in a second in New York, a second more in London, a second more in Constantinople, a second more in Pekin, in Sendai, and San Francisco—around the world. And, after all, the mind is a far more important part of a man than is his physical body. If the greater is subject to the will, the lesser can surely so become, and who can tell what journeys the future will know for the children of God? John Ruskin, the man known as a master of art, and yet whose mastery had more to do with an art of thought and language than with the art of canvass and marble, in his “Stones of Venice”, gives this beautiful description of the migratory storks and swallows coming from the North African coast, across the Mediterranean to the shores of Europe, and portrays what lies before them as they “lean upon the Sirocco wind”. Horace Stanton says, “The language with which he pictures their steady course, and the panorama developing before them might with equal propriety be used to depict the experiences of these celestial intelligences of which we have been speaking. Let us for a moment try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun; here and there an angry spot of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light; Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange and plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards the North, until we see the Orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands; and then, farther North still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the North wind bites their beaks into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight.”A few words onOUR FLIGHT and I shall finish.The first journey will be into the heavens. “The dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air”. It is perhaps the first Heaven, not the third. It is the Heaven of the temporary residence, not our Eternal Home. It is the Heaven where we shall celebrate with Jesus the nuptial ceremony; not the Celestial City in which we shall abide with Him forever. For you will remember that that Heavenly City into which Christ ascended is spoken of as being “up far above all heavens” (Ephesians 4:10). From it He will descend into the first Heaven and call us forth to meet Him there.

It is the trysting place of the Divine Lover and His betrothed. Henry Alford must have been thinking of it when he wrote:“Ten thousand times ten thousand, In sparkling raiment bright, The armies of the ransomed saints Throng up the steeps of light; ’Tis finished, all is finished, Their fight with death and sin; Fling open wide the golden gates, And let the victors in. “What rush of hallelujahs Fills all the earth and sky! What ringing of a thousand harps Bespeaks the triumph nigh! O day, for which creation And all its tribes were made! O joy, for all its former woes A thousand-fold repaid! “O then, what raptured greetings On Canaan’s happy shore! What knitting severed friendships up, Where partings are no more! Then eyes with joy shall sparkle, That brimmed with tears of late, Orphans no longer fatherless, Nor widows desolate.” Our second journey will be back to the earth.Christ is coming down from this celebration to occupy His throne in Jerusalem and rule “from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth”. And His saints are to reign with Him. A thousand years we shall spend upon the earth but not for one moment shall we be bound to it. In that day “they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint”. Or, as the great A. J.

Gordon said, “Celestial flight and terrestial travel shall be known at pleasure, and we shall weary in neither.”I am glad there is to be a thousand years upon the earth before we go Home to Heaven to abide for evermore. When one of the greatest souls England ever knew was approaching death, someone asked him if he were ready to go. He answered, “Yes, so far as having made my peace with God is concerned; but I cannot bear to go from the world and leave so much sin in it.” What a benediction to think that we shall be permitted to linger about it until sin shall be no more, until every scar on its beautiful face shall have been moved and every desert shall have been made to blossom as the rose. If a man takes pleasure in tearing out the deficient parts of his old home and putting in new, until it stands in completion, what joy God’s men and women ought to have in seeing a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, the physical beauty of which shall comport with its moral character; and such is not only the prospect but the sure prophecy of God’s Word; for did not Isaiah, the Evangel of long ago, tell us that we shall “Go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah 55:12-13). Oh glorious Millennium when the meek shall inherit the earth!“There is a Land mine eye hath seen In visions of enraptured thought, So bright, that all that spreads between Is with its radiant glory fraught. “A Land upon whose blissful shore There rests no shadow, falls no stain; There those who meet shall part no more, And those long parted meet again” Yet all of this is only a foretaste of that Heaven which shall be our eventual residence when Christ shall have turned over the key to God the Father, and God Himself, who is Love, shall become all in all.Then the universe will be our inheritance, and the will of God our blessed work and unbroken joy, our eternal portion. Someone has said that “sailors feel the influence of the fresh waters of the Amazon long before they enter that noble river, and we are told that when the nations, the Huns and Goths, had once tasted the delicious wines of Italy they could not rest satisfied till they were in that sunny land. Before Israel crossed the Jordan they had grapes of Eschol and the testimony of those who had viewed the land. Lo, too, the believer has a foretaste of Heaven and his soul is fired with a resolve to go up and possess the land in the strength of his God.”How are you living, man? Lift your eyes from the earth; cease from the muck-rake business; begin here to search and do the will of God, that you may go there to enjoy Him for ever!