RESURRECTION, Harold Hunt Phil. 3:20,21, “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
God is coming back for these bodies, and he is going to rejoin them to our departed spirit. I don’t know how he is going to do it, but then, he is not depending on me to help, so it is not important for me to know how he will do it.
Job 14:11,12, “As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up. So man lieth down and riseth not, till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.”
How long is man going to be in the grave? Job says it will be “till the heavens be no more.” As long as the sun shines in the heavens, as long as the moon rules over the night, as long as the stars twinkle in the sky, these old bodies will stay in the grave. But there is a day coming, when the Lord will step out on the clouds of glory, and declare that time will be no more. The elements will melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up (2 Pet. 3:10), and God is going to speak to these bodies, and raise them out of the ground.
Men will forget, but God remembers, and on the resurrection morning he will find you. I get the idea that day may not be very far off, but people have believed that for a long time. I am consoled in the fact that God knows when that time will be, and he will be on time.
I believe that one reason a lot of people want to believe the time is near is because they are afraid that if it is a long time the Lord might forget who they were, and where they are buried. But God knows who you are, and he will know where to find you.
I knew a good brother who had diabetes, and had to have his leg amputated. I went to the hospital to stay with the family on the day of his surgery. There was a man from the funeral home there; he had come to pick up the leg. He took the leg back to the funeral home and preserved it in formaldehyde.
I did not ask the old brother why he wanted his leg preserved in formaldehyde; I knew what he was up to. When he died, he wanted the leg buried with him. He was trying to make it easy on the Lord. On the resurrection morning he did not want the Lord looking all over Union County trying to find that leg.
Job 14:13, “O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me in secret until thy wrath be past, that thou woudest appoint me a set time and remember me.”
We do not always think of the grave as a hiding place. But what more secure place is there for the Lord to hide his chosen ones from all the trouble raging around them. In the grave God hides their sleeping dust, preserves it, and watches over it, until that grand day when he will call for them. He will raise those sleeping bodies from the grave, reunite them with their departed spirit; and spirit, soul, and body, he will carry them home to be with him in all eternity.
Job 14:14,15, “If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait until MY CHANGE come. Thou shalt call and I will answer thee; thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.”
There is a change that is going to take place in the resurrection; these old bodies are going to be changed. I remember when I was a boy, we used to sing a song that said, “We will have a new body.” We will have a new body in that this body is going to be made new—THIS SAME BODY.
1 Cor. 15:42, “So also is the resurrection of the dead; it is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”
There are some changes that are going to take place on that day. There are some things we are going to leave in the grave. All that is vile, all that is corrupt, all that is sinful, we will leave in the grave.
The longer I live the more real that day becomes to me. I am not in a hurry to leave this old world. I wouldn’t mind to live to be about 90 years old, and preach at least once every day until then. I am enjoying living. I am having the time of my life. I have never enjoyed life more. I have never enjoyed the church more. I have never enjoyed preaching more than I have the last several years. I have never enjoyed my Bible more than I have the last few years. I enjoy visiting among the churches, and experiencing your fellowship, and preaching to you.
It is a delight to any God-called minister to have an opportunity to preach the gospel, and he appreciates any invitation to visit and preach to the Lord’s people. Jeremiah said this desire to preach is a fire shut up in the bones. The only way the preacher can get any relief from that burning desire is to preach.
But in spite of all that, I get more than a little anxious to see that eternal city. I like to close my eyes sometimes, and envision what it must be like. In spite of all the sin and wickedness there is in the world, this old world is still a beautiful place to live. Sometimes I like to just look around and admire the beauty of God’s creation. Especially in the spring, when the azaleas are in bloom, and the mountain laurel, and the rhododendron, and the dogwoods, and all the others, and the grass is its greenest green, and everything around us has that fresh smell of new life, we cannot help but be amazed at the beauty of God’s creation.
And then I like to think that as beautiful as this world is, how beautiful Eden must have been before sin ever entered the picture. But, not even Eden in that day could compare with what that eternal city must be like. I don’t know if there will be azaleas, and pretty little pink bushes, and pretty little white bushes in heaven, but I kind of think there will be. After all, heaven is a real place, and we will be walking around in real bodies. I don’t know any reason to think there will not be all those scenes over there that dazzle our minds down here.
But any way you look at it, I believe that heaven with all its splendor will outshine anything we have seen down here.
Sylvester Hassell: Enoch and Noah, and perhaps other prophets, preached righteousness, and predicted the coming terrible judgment of God upon the ungodly race, but in vain. Enoch walked with God, and, about a thousand years after the creation of Adam, was translated to heaven without dying; just as, about two thousand years afterwards, during the rampant idolatry of the kingdom of Israel, the prophet Elijah was similarly favored—these two witnesses, before the coming of Christ, thus being divinely enabled to demonstrate to an unbelieving world, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and its existence with the soul in glory. In the same manner, the bodies of the saints who are living on earth at the second or last personal coming of Christ, shall be changed, in a moment, without dying, from a mortal to an immortal state, and be caught up with their spirits to dwell forever with the Lord (I Thess. 4:15-17).” (Hassell)