June 29, Morning

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." — 1 Thessalonians 4:14 · KJV

Let us never imagine that the soul lies unconscious. "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" is Christ's whisper to every dying saint. 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. It is the body that sleeps in its lonely bed of earth, under a blanket of grass. And what is this sleep? The idea bound up with sleep is rest, and rest is exactly what the Spirit of God means to tell us. Sleep makes every night a Sabbath for the day. Sleep closes the door of the soul and tells all intruders to wait outside a while, so that the life within may walk in its own quiet garden of ease. The worn-out believer sleeps peacefully, like a tired child slumbering on its mother's breast. Oh, how happy are those who die in the Lord! They rest from their labors, and their works follow after them. Their quiet repose will never be broken until God wakes them to give them their full reward. Watched over by angels, curtained by eternal mysteries, they sleep on as the heirs of glory, until the fullness of time brings the fullness of redemption. And what an awakening theirs will be! They were laid in that last resting place weary and worn, but they will not rise that way. They went to their rest with lined foreheads and wasted faces, and they wake in beauty and splendor. The shriveled seed, so plain and shapeless, rises out of the dust a lovely flower. The winter of the grave gives way to the spring of redemption and the summer of glory. Death is a blessed thing, since by divine power it strips off this everyday work clothing to dress us in the wedding garment that can never decay. Blessed are those who "sleep in Jesus."