Dear Friends,
The Christians in Thessolonica were distressed. While they were waiting
for Christ, some of their number died. What did that mean? Today’s
attached devotional answered the question. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,
John Janney

• I Thessalonians 4:13-18 (ESV)

  13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

IS IT NOT SWEET TO THINK

“Is it not sweet to think, hereafter,
When the Spirit leaves this sphere,

Love, with deathless wing, shall waft her
To those she long hath mourned for here?

Hearts from which ’twas death to sever;
Eyes this world can ne’er restore;
There, as warm, as bright as ever,
Shall meet us and be lost no more.

When wearily we wander, asking
Of earth and heaven, where are they,
Beneath whose smile we once lay basking,
Blest and thinking bliss would stay?

Hope still lifts her radiant finger
Pointing to the eternal Home,

Upon whose portal yet they linger,
Looking back for us to come.

Alas, alas ― doth Hope deceive us?
Shall friendship ― love  ― shall all those ties
That bind a moment, and then leave us,
Be found again where nothing dies?

Oh, if no other boon were given,
To keep our hearts from wrong and stain,
Who would not try to win a Heaven
Where all we love shall live again?”

[Thomas Moore]