1 Thessalonians 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. At our birth our bodies became a battleground between life and death. During the first ten years death makes many conquests. At ten years death begins to fall back. At twenty, life is triumphant. At thirty, life foresees the future. At forty, the battle is hot. At fifty, death inflicts some wounds, and life begins an orderly retreat. At sixty, life feels her strength failing. At seventy, the retreat becomes a rout. At eighty, death waves the black flag and cries, "No quarter!" This is no fancy picture; it is no preacher's dream; it is a fact undeniable, inevitable, universal! Indifference cannot affect its certainty, and scepticism cannot refute its truth. There is only one other fact with which we can confront this fact of death, and that is the resurrection of Jesus. Here fact meets fact. That is what we demand. We want a fact, a case, an instance, one single instance of resurrection. Once a sea captain found his crew on shore apparently dead. The surgeon took one of the men and applied remedies, and the poisoned man stood on his feet. The captain shouted with joy, for in that one risen man he saw the possibility to save them all. So Christ brings life and immortality to light. His resurrection is not metaphysics, but history. Not speculation for the future, but a fact of the past. Not a problem to be solved, but the solution of all problems. (R. S. Barrett.) Parallel Verses KJV: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. |
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