THE LORD’S PERSONAL SERVICE
E. M. Walkinshaw
The personal service of Jesus has already been twice referred to, dear brethren, that He has put our brother to sleep. I would like to speak of the affection that enters into that, and to say that Jesus could have said of our brother “our friend”. Mr. Percy Lyon once said that Jesus does not say of Lazarus ‘our late friend’ but “our friend”. Yet Jesus waits two days then He says, “I go that I may awake him out of sleep”. I think it is very touching that Jesus should give personal attention to each believer who falls asleep before the rapture, and He has given personal attention to our brother. It has often been said that the burial of a saint is not the time to eulogize the dead but the living, and therefore if there is a eulogy in this occasion it must be of the living, and that is of Jesus. I am sure if it were possible—which it is not that our brother could hear what I have just said, he would say ‘Amen’, as indeed we all would. But Jesus says, “I go that I may awake him out of sleep”. What it meant to Jesus that “Lazarus, our friend, is fallen asleep”. Of course, He says plainly later that he is dead, but in the glory of the power of the Son of God He is able to raise him from the dead, and if He can raise one person from the dead He can raise myriads from the dead, as it has so often been said. Hence I thought of speaking of the affection of Jesus that enters into putting a saint to sleep.
Our brother has had that experience, which we have not, and we rejoice that our brother is now with Christ, which is very much better. But when Jesus says, “I go that I may awake him out of sleep”. He is suggesting that He is on the way. Two days He waited, and in the way in which He speaks to the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia it is as though He is on the way.
He does not say, ‘I will come quickly’, but “I come quickly”, suggesting that He is on the way to awaken every believer out of sleep and to catch up together with them every living believer to be for ever with Himself; none will be overlooked. Jesus has been on the way, in His affections, if I may say it without being fanciful, for nearly two thousand years. I do not wish to make too much of the two days and the two thousand years, although one day in the sight of the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. There may be something in it, because in Scripture there are hidden depths which we have not yet fathomed, if we ever will, but the point I desire to make is as to the love of Christ; He died for us. He died for our sins, and He was buried, and He was raised again the third day according to the Scriptures, and I think I can say, beloved brethren, He is on the way when He says, “I come quickly”.
Then He adds, “hold fast what thou hast”; the words given in this meeting are not for our brother, they are for us. Our brother has given us an example; the Lord would give us a word so that we might hold fast what we have, and that we might fill the ranks so that the testimony of our Lord might be carried through until it finds its consummation in glory.
May we all be comforted, dear brethren, especially our sister. She will know a touch from the Lord which we shall not know in quite the same way; we ask Him to grant it to her. He will, whether we ask or not, but we are glad to ask Him to grant it to her and to any other sorrowing relatives too. But let us remember that in His heart the Lord is carrying every saint and He is on the way to catch them all up to be with Himself. May our hearts be very much encouraged by it for His name’s sake.
Word at the burial of Mr. A. J. Ellis, Barnet
10 May 1979