THOSE WHO “DIE IN THE LORD”
B. Taylor
I do not think anyone here is in the category of verses 9 to 11, but if anybody was, if the Lord should come before the hour was over they would find themselves still sitting here with the coffin empty and everybody else gone. It is a very solemn matter to think of persons being tormented to the ages of ages, persons going into eternity with no rest, persons who have to do with this mark of the beast that comes from beneath.
But the chapter begins with persons who are marked off in relation to Christ, and this verse 12 is inserted in this paragraph we have read. Our brother was a person of endurance.
“Difficult times shall be there”, it says (2 Timothy 3: 1); we are in difficult times now and our brother was one who had endurance. It says, “Ye have need of endurance”, Hebrews 10: 36.
It also says, “Here is the endurance ...”; there are saints who will be going through this period which in character is already upon us in a way. Earlier it says persons cannotsell without the mark of the beast (Revelation 13: 17).
But here is a voice from above, and that is what we want to get today, not to hear a eulogy from man but we want to hear as John heard. He heard things and saw things; “And I heard a voice out of the heaven saying, Write”. So John wrote; he saw things, he heard things, he wrote things, and the beginning of the book tells us about the blessedness of keeping the things written in it. So there is blessedness connected with verse 12 too, as well as verse 13.
What a wonderful matter it is to die in the Lord! Our brother has died in the Lord and has fallen asleep through Jesus, Jesus being the instrumentality of His dying; “Blessed the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth”. That does not throw an aspersion or anything negative on those who have died before. The Old Testament saints are also resting from their labours.
Samuel rebuked Saul for disturbing him (“Why hast thou disquieted me?”, 1 Samuel 28: 15).
But it brings out the uniqueness of the present dispensation of the kingdom of God and of persons who are dying from this point, who, as the scripture says, “die in the Lord”. So we would not seek to have our brother back. The Lord could raise him in flesh and blood condition, but He is going to raise him in an incorruptible condition; this mortal must put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15: 53). He is going to do that very soon, and not only to those who have died already; “the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 17. What a meeting that will be! What does “in the Lord” mean to you? “Blessed the dead who die in the Lord”, and the Spirit answering confirms that. “Yea, saith the Spirit”. Divine Persons are speaking.
The Lord has spoken in taking our brother, and he has heard a voice out of heaven. John hears a voice out of heaven and that is what we want to hear today. We might have a eulogy; we could all praise our brother; but these are definite remarks out of heaven; one class of people is spoken about and then another class, the saints, and we might say that our brother followed the Lamb. He was with the truth, he was regulated by the truth, he was guided by the truth. I remember him when he was first married.
I could see, as a young person myself, that here was a man committed to the Lord’s interests and identified with them. Now this is a comment of the Spirit, “their works follow with them”. What a wonderful matter to have something following in that way. “God is not unrighteous to forget your work”, it says (Hebrews 6: 10), and so what our brother has done in the body will not be forgotten; he will receive the things done in the body. How wonderful that is! How blessed it is! Now it is blessed for us too, as this book says, to hear and read. So we are hearing today and reading and let us be conscious of being blessed today and encouraged in relation to what is in the Lord, for His name’s sake.