God's Alarm Clock by B. E. Beddoe

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 24, 1914

God's Alarm Clock

By B. E. Beddoe

RETIRING at her usual time, a little girl slept soundly for about ten hours. Then, upon being wakened, she began to cry. Her father asked what was the trouble. She answered, "Why, papa, I just went to bed." Ten hours seemed but a moment.

By inspired writers death is likened to sleep. Jesus said, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." David prayed, "Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death." Again from David: "Thou turnest man to destruction. . . . Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep."

Cheering is the thought that we sleep only for a time. "So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." Job 14:12. Then Job continued by saying: "All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee." Verses 14, 15.

Often, as we retire for a night's rest, we set the alarm clock, that it may waken us at a definite time. We sleep. The clock measures off every minute of those hours. The alarm keeps watch for its appointed minute. When that time has come, we are wakened.

Our loved ones may be claimed by the grave. Death may claim us. Yet ye know this sleep is but for a time. While these sleepers know nothing of the passing of time, there is One who counts the years. At the "appointed time," "the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised."

B. E. BEDDOE.