THE POWER OF DEATH

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 10, 1880

THE POWER OF DEATH.

THERE is no empire so vast as the empire of death. Kings and conquerors, emperors and nobles, men of wisdom, valor, and strength, all bow their head at the touch of the grim destroyer. Over the human family he rules with a sceptre of supreme and unmitigated despotism. He breaks the strong and crushes the weak. He drives the plowshare of distruction through families and homes. He severs the tenderest ties, and treads beneath his iron hoof the broken hearts of stricken and desolate humanity. Every flower fades at his touch. Beauty vanishes at his breath. Pride and glory go down into common and undistinguishable ruin before him. He reaches for the highest, he slays the mightiest, he brings low the honored and the exalted.

Even Christ himself, the Son of God and heir of all things, the Anointed of the Lord, bowed his head beneath the dominion of the king of terrors. But at last the Conqueror of death had appeared. He who died on Calvary lives at God's right hand. He who entered Joseph's tomb burst asunder the bars of death, and flung wide the gates of hell. He says, "I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for-evermore, and have the keys of death and of hell." He breaks the sceptre of the tyrant, he snaps his chains asunder. He says to his disciples, "Because I live, ye shall live also." He leaves a shining pathway through the valley of the shadow of death, and calls his people to follow him in resurrection life. Even in this world, dying to sin, buried with him by baptism, quickened by his grace, raised to walk in newness of life, they prefigure and anticipate that victory over death which shall leave the king of terrors without a captive or a subject, to be cast by the Almighty hand into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. Christ through death destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and delivers those who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage. Their wails of sorrow are changed to songs of triumph; their fears and anxieties give place to hopes that find anchorage within the veil. They sing amid the deathshades, and they sink to their rest with a smile of victory playing on their pallid faces. All things are theirs, whether life or death; and they wait the morning when He who abolished death in his own body, shall interpose on behalf of his people, and shall swallow up death in full and final and eternal victory.

Christian soldiers, partakers of the resurrection life of a risen and ascended Lord, be strong in God. Fear not; your conflicts are brief, your trials are but for a little while, your light affliction is but for a moment. Bereavements and mournings and separations will soon be over, and then shall come the final victory, the eternal psalm, the palms that never wither, the crowns that never fade, the harps of gladness, the garments of praise, and the life eternal in the kingdom of our God.—Christian.