'What a precious thought it is that our lives are not our own. We have but the life of Christ. It is this thought that makes a man triumph even in death. Why? The sting of death is gone! Death does not sting the righteous man, because he is freed from sin.
It was the knowledge of this that enabled the martyrs like Jerome and Huss to go to the stake, singing songs of triumph and victory. "Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
Our lives are hid with Christ in God, so that we fear not the power of wicked men or of the devil himself. When we have given ourselves to Christ and our life is hid with Him, what matters it whether this life be cut off soon or not? We walk with Christ and He controls our lives. Wicked men or devils can no more touch our life than they could hold Christ in the grave.
Col_3:3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Oh, that we might feel the power of that life and know that we are His!
When we do get it, the power of God will accompany the message, as we go forth bearing it. What difference if men bring reproaches on us--we are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God, and the life we live, we live in Him and through faith in Him.
This is the power of the gospel and the hope that makes the Christian triumph even in death. It is the hope of the resurrection, for when the man is called to lie down and sleep, he sleeps in Jesus. His life is just as sure and even surer then, than if he were alive upon the earth. His probation is sealed; he has fought a good fight; he has finished his course and kept the faith. Well might the apostle say that he did not sorrow for those who slept, as for those who had no hope.
When the church of God and the ministers of God have died indeed, giving up everything that has pertained to their own life, then they will belong to Christ in deed and in truth. If Christ is willing to intrust us with some of these things; if we are to be spared on earth for awhile, it is all right. If on the other hand He thinks best to take us away, that is all right too. Whether sleeping in the grave or working for the Master on the earth, matters not, for it is Christ all the time.
When we get hold of these ideas and make them ours and we may have them as soon as we please, they are precious to us. Having counted the cost of giving up all those things that have been dear to us, if we are prepared to count them all but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord, then we can yield ourselves wholly to Christ. Just as soon as we are willing to count the cost and to let ourselves be crucified with Christ, by giving up the pride of life, the lust of the flesh, and all those things which have pertained to our old life, making no provision for the flesh, then the power of Christ comes upon us. But we are living yet on earth! Yes, but we have given up our life and all there is to us is Christ working in us.
The very moment that a man denies everything pertaining to the flesh, that very moment he can say that Christ is his, and that he has the life of Christ. How does he know it? Through faith in the operation of Him that raised Christ from the dead!
"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him." '
(Excerpt - GC Sermons 1891 E.J. Waggoner #10)
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