Book-14-Heavenly Recognition

Heavenly Recognition

Text.—"For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus at his coming? For ye are our glory and our joy.”—1Th 2:19-20.

THERE are times when all of us are interested in this question. Many times the minister goes into the homes of the members of his charge, and they do not care to talk about things that are spiritual and things that are eternal. The death angel has visited your home and taken one of your loved ones. When the minister comes again you will get the family album and turn to a picture that is more precious now than gold, and you will take it into your hand and press it to your lips, and then talk tenderly of the absent one, and you will be interested in all of the Scripture that speaks of the state of the dead. Then you will ask a question—one that is constantly coming up for settlement: “Does the Bible tell us that we shall know our loved ones in heaven?” A gentleman lived in a beautiful man­sion on the banks of a great river, and there was on the other side another beautiful mansion in which lived one who was to him a stranger. He says: “I often looked over the river and admired the mansion, but I was little interested in the people who lived there. One day a man came from that home to my home. He came many times, and one day when he went back he took with him my only daughter. Now I love to think of that home, and I am deeply interested, be­cause my home is divided and a part of the family lives on that side of the river, and I want to go over and visit.” This is like death. Some of our loved ones have moved into another world, and un­til they went we thought but little of that country. The home is now divided, and we feel that it will not be long until all of us shall have moved out and across the river, where we shall inhabit a new home and where we shall be reunited with those who are dear to us. But someone is ready to ask: “If we are to know our loved ones, how can we be happy if all of them are not with us in heaven?” God is our Father, and he loves us far more than it is possible for us to love our children. Jesus is our Elder Brother, and he loves us, too, more than it is possible for us to love our children. Then I ask, If God and Christ shall be happy when all of the children and brothers are not present, shall we, too, not be happy? We cannot understand and we cannot explain it, but we must believe that God and Christ shall know all who have been cre­ated in the image of the Father; and more, all who have been created in the image of God shall know God and Christ Jesus, God’s Son. Now, does it not logically follow that if we shall recog­nize our Father and our Elder Brother, we shall also recognize other members of the family?

Man possesses reason. He is com­posed of mind, and mind is composed of intellect, sensibility and will. Intellect is composed of being, space, time, person­ality, number and resemblance. Man can never forget; be may not be able to recol­lect. When the impression has been stamped upon the soul, it is there for all time. When Abraham spake to the man in the unseen world who was being tormented, he said: “Son, remember.” Every act of man’s life touches a chord that will vibrate in eternity. Man is hanging up pictures around the cham­ber of his heart at which he shall be forced to gaze in eternity. This man in Hades knew Abraham, and he recognized Lazarus as being the man who stopped at his home in this world and begged for the crumbs that fell from his table. He remembered that he received good things in the world from whence he had come and that Lazarus received evil things, and that now things had changed and that he was getting the evil things while Lazarus was getting the good things. I care not to speculate about hell, but I want to say that there is one thing of which I am certain, and that is that memory is a worm that shall never die. The fact that man must live over his life again shall make him miserable, if it has not been a life lived in Jesus Christ.

Paul before the throne is the same Paul who preached before Felix. He is Paul minus his imperfections. The twelve apostles were promised the honor of sitting upon the twelve thrones and with the privilege of judging the twelve tribes of Israel. When Peter, James, John and Christ were on the mount, some strange things happened. Jesus was transfigured and glorified, but he was yet known by these apostles. Moses stepped out from the unseen world, having been dead fifteen hundred years, and Elijah also appeared upon the stage of action. Can you tell me how Peter came to know these two distinguished spirits? Who gave him an introduction? He knew Moses as being different from Elijah, and Elijah and Moses as being different from Jesus. He knew Moses as Moses and Elijah as Eli­jah. Now, if Peter, here on earth and in his flesh, could recognize these souls of the unseen world, do you think he will be unable to recognize them when he is clothed upon with immortality and when he stands in their presence in the great eternity I

Let us look at the statement found in the Revelation (6:9-11): “I saw under­neath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And there was given to each one of them a white robe; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little time, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, who should be killed even as they were, should have fulfilled their course.’⁹ John saw the beings under­neath the altar. They remembered their persecution and how they had suffered for the gospel. They remembered that it occurred on this earth, and they re­membered that those who were respon­sible for their suffering were yet living on the earth. They were to expect the same kind of persecution to come to their brethren who were then living on the earth, and that they, too, were to come to be with them. When we come into the other world we shall Joe with Christ and we shall wor­ship him. “The four and twenty elders shall fall down before him that sitteth on the throne, and shall worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and shall cast their crowns before the throne, say­ing, Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were and are created” (Rev 4:10-11). To worship Christ we must know him. We must know him as different from all others. If we shall know him, is there any sufficient reason why we shall not know the four and twenty elders and all of the host of the redeemed? Our text tells us that these converts in this church at Thessalonica are Paul’s joy and crown. How could they be his if he is not to know them as his converts?

How can he present them unto the Father as his hope if he is not to claim them?

Man shall know himself in that world. He shall know himself as different from others. In the final judgment he will tell the Lord about the work accomplished in the name of Jesus Christ (Mat 7:21-24). Study the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew and you will find that the final test will be: “I was hungry, and ye fed me; naked, and ye clothed me. ’ ’ When we ask when this was done, we are to be told that it was when we did it unto his disciples.

“And I John am he that heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel that showed me these things.’’ He knew the angel as not being the Lord of glory. “And he saith unto me, See thou do it not: I am a fellow- servant with thee and with thy brethren the prophets, and with them that keep the words of this book. Worship God.” The prophets in the unseen world were the prophets on earth. Man lives out of the body. When death comes, the door is opened and the man flies away. All intelligence continues to live. The separation from the body does not in any way prevent the man from thinking and remembering.

“A solemn murmur in the soul Tells of a world to be, As travelers hear the billows roll Before they reach the sea.” The old patriarchs, we are told, died, and were buried and were gathered unto their people. Some buried in a strange land were themselves gathered unto their own people in the unseen world.

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. He is the God of Abra­ham and of Isaac and of Jacob. Abra­ham, Isaac and Jacob are themselves in the unseen world. They will be them­selves in heaven. Will it not be glorious to sit down with these great souls and converse with them on questions which have not yet been made plain? When we sit in the presence of Paul we may be able to hear him explain the things he heard when he was left for dead at Lystra—the day he climbed his mount of transfiguration. Then we may learn what he meant by the thorn in the flesh. Who knows but that we shall have won­derful experience-meetings over there? If we sit down in the presence of Abra­ham and of Isaac and of Jacob, do you not think we shall know them?

"They are perfectly blessed—the redeemed and the free— Who are resting in joy by the smooth, glassy sea;

They breathed here on earth all their sorrowful sighs, And Jesus has kissed all the tears from their eyes.

They are happy at home! They have learnt the new song, And warble it sweetly amid the glad throng; No faltering voices, no discords, are there; The melodious praises swell high through the air.

There falls not on them the deep silence of night;

They never grow weary—ne’er fadeth the light;

Throughout the long day new hosannas they raise, And express their glad thoughts in exuberant praise.

E’en thus would we praise thee, dear Savior divine;

We, too, would be with thee—loved children of thine;

Oh, teach us, that we may sing perfectly there When we, too, are called to that city so fair.”

We sorrow not as others which have no hope, for we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that he will bring with him all who sleep in him, and that together we shall be caught up in the air to ever be with the Lord.

"Look above thee! Never eye Saw such, pleasures as await thee;

Thought ne’er reached such scenes of joy As are there prepared to meet thee;

Light undying, seraphs’ lyres, Angel welcomes, cherub choirs, Smiling through heaven’s doors to greet thee; Can it be possible no words shall welcome Our coming feet?

How will it look, that face we have cherished, When next we meet? Will it be changed, so glorified and saintly, That we shall know it not? Will there be nothing that will say, I love thee, And I have not forgot?

O faithless heart, the same loved face transfigured Shall meet thee there, Less sad, leas wistful in immortal beauty,

Divinely fair. The mortal veil, washed pure with many weepings, Is rent away, And the great soul that sat within its prison Hath found the day. In the clear morning of that other country, In Paradise, With the same sweet face that we have loved and cher­ished,

It shall arise;

Let us be patient, we who mourn with weeping;

Some vanished face The Lord has taken but to add a richer And a diviner grace. And we shall find once more, Beyond earth’s skies, In the fair city of the “sure foundations,’’

Those heavenly eyes, With the same welcome shining through their sweetness, That met us here;

Eyes, from whose beauty God has banished weeping And wiped away the tear.

—Unknown.

Many suggestions contained in this book were prompted by general reading.