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The Desire of Ages
Nain. He says, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.”
Matthew 28:18
. That power is not diminished by the lapse of years,
nor exhausted by the ceaseless activity of His overflowing grace. To
all who believe on Him He is still a living Saviour.
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Jesus changed the mother’s grief to joy when He gave back her
son; yet the youth was but called forth to this earthly life, to endure
its sorrows, its toils, and its perils, and to pass again under the power
of death. But Jesus comforts our sorrow for the dead with a message
of infinite hope: “I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold,
I am alive forevermore, ... and have the keys of hell and of death.”
“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He
also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He
might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and
deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage.”
Revelation 1:18
;
Hebrews 2:14, 15
.
Satan cannot hold the dead in his grasp when the Son of God bids
them live. He cannot hold in spiritual death one soul who in faith
receives Christ’s word of power. God is saying to all who are dead in
sin, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead.”
Ephesians
5:14
. That word is eternal life. As the word of God which bade the
first man live, still gives us life; as Christ’s word, “Young man, I say
unto thee, Arise,” gave life to the youth of Nain, so that word, “Arise
from the dead,” is life to the soul that receives it. God “hath delivered
us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom
of His dear Son.”
Colossians 1:13
. It is all offered us in His word. If
we receive the word, we have the deliverance.
And “if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell
in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” “For the Lord
Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise
first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we
ever be with the Lord.”
Romans 8:11
;
1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17
. This
is the word of comfort wherewith He bids us comfort one another.
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