Morning, June 29, adapted from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” — 1 Thessalonians 4:14

Let us not imagine that the soul sleeps unconscious. “Today you shall be with me in paradise,” is the whisper of Christ to every dying believer. They “sleep in Jesus,” but their souls are before the throne of God, praising him day and night in his temple, singing hallelujahs to him who washed them from their sins by his blood. The body sleeps in its lonely bed of earth, beneath the bedspread of grass. But what is this sleep? The idea connected with sleep is “rest,” and that is the thought which the Spirit of God would communicate to us. Sleep makes each night a Sabbath rest for the day. Sleep shuts closed the door of the soul, and bids all intruders wait for a while, that the life within may enter its summer garden of peace. The work-weary believer quietly sleeps, as does the weary child when it slumbers on its mother’s breast. Oh! happy are they who die in the Lord; they rest from their labors, and their works follow them. Their quiet rest shall never be broken until God shall rouse them to give them their full reward. Guarded by angelic watchers, concealed by eternal mysteries, they sleep on, the inheritors of glory, till the completion of time shall bring the completion of redemption. What an awakening shall be theirs! They were laid in their last resting place, weary and worn, but as such they shall not rise. They went to their rest with wrinkled brow, and aged features, but they wake up in beauty and glory. The shriveled seed, so lacking of form and loveliness, rises from the ground a beautiful flower. The winter of the grave gives way to the spring of redemption and the summer of glory. Blessed is death, since it, through divine power, disrobes us of this work-day garment, to clothe us with the imperishable wedding garment.  Blessed are those who “sleep in Jesus.”