“ASLEEP THROUGH JESUS”

A. J. Gaskin

Acts 13: 34–37; 1 Thessalonians 4: 13, 14

The Lord has put in His claim on our beloved brother and taken him to be with Himself, so that we can now say that he is “asleep through Jesus”. It is indeed a blessed thing for the Christian that death no longer has any terror for him. Jesus Himself has been into death, He has conquered it and come out victorious. When He was here on earth He spoke in this way and could say of Jairus’s daughter, “She has not died, but sleeps” (Luke 8: 42), and of Lazarus, “Our friend is fallen asleep, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep”, John 11: 11.

I would urge anyone here who has not yet put his trust in Christ to do so now. The precious Saviour has been into death for all who put their trust in Him. The apostle in speaking of David says, “Having in his own generation ministered to the will of God, (he) fell asleep”.

Our brother in his measure has done that; he has served his own generation, ministering to the will of God. Many of us have been cheered by the thoughts our brother has passed on to us.

He could speak in a very precious way of the Lord Jesus; Christ was before him and the saints were before him and thus in his own measure he ministered to the will of God. Then it says of David that he “fell asleep, and was added to his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised up did not see corruption”. How glorious that is! The blessed Lord Jesus never saw corruption; death had no claim on Him. God has raised Him from the dead and set Him at His right hand in glory.

Now it speaks in Thessalonians of “those, who have fallen asleep through Jesus”, and that is just the case with our brother. He has fallen asleep through Jesus and is now in the bliss of being with the One he loved. But he is going to be raised in incorruptibility, for the dead in Christ will be raised first and for a moment will stand on the earth before being caught up together with those of us who remain, to be for ever with the Lord. It is something the world will know nothing about, but what a victory it will be for God! “So”, says the apostle,

“encourage one another with these words”. May the Lord indeed encourage our hearts, for His name’s sake.