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Overland Monthly / OV212 - Refrain Thy Voice From Weeping and Thine Eyes From Tears
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OV212 REFRAIN THY VOICE FROM WEEPING AND THINE EYES FROM TEARS
BY C. T. RUSSELL Pastor of Brooklyn and London Tabernacles
"The Lord, through the Prophet
Jeremiah, sends a message of consolation for the heart of every
bereaved parent trusting in him. We read, ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children,
refusing to be comforted for her children because they were not.
Thus saith the Lord, ‘Refrain thy
voice from weeping and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be
rewarded; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.’"—#Jer 31:15-17  .
THE LORD through the Prophet Jeremiah
sends a message of consolation for the heart of every bereaved parent
trusting in him. We read: "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and
bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be
comforted for her children because they were not. Thus saith the Lord:
Refrain thy voice from weeping and thine eyes from tears, for thy work
shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the
land of the enemy."—#Jer 31:15-17 .
Five items in our text fasten our attention:
First: Sorrow for the dead, which is
universal; as the Apostle declares, "The whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain together."
Second: The nature of the comfort
described—the hope of a resurrection, the hope of the recovery of the
dead—"They shall come again," they shall be restored to life.
Third: That in death our dear ones are in
"the land of the enemy;" in harmony with the ApostleÂ’s declaration,
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."—#1Co 15:26.
Fourth: That the labors of the parents in
endeavoring properly to rear their children are not lost, "Thy work
shall be rewarded."
Fifth: Last but not least in importance
in this text is the declaration that this is the Word of the Lord,
which cannot be broken—the Word which is sure of fulfillment, however
different it may be from the word of man on this subject.
Tears Not Weakness—"Jesus Wept.
Sorrow for the dead is not a sign of
weakness, but rather the reverse—a sign of love and sympathy, of
something more than selfishness. If any demonstration of this thought
were necessary it is furnished us in the statement of the shortest
verse in the Bible—"Jesus wept." Our Lord’s tears were shed on a
funeral occasion, too; Lazarus, his friend, the brother of Martha and
Mary, was dead. Our Lord entered fully into the spirit of the occasion,
with a deeper appreciation of the awful meaning of the word death than
could possibly be entertained by those about him. He appreciated more
than any of the fallen, dying race the great blessing and privilege of
living, and what a terrible affliction was death—destruction,
annihilation.
On the other hand, however, he understood
more clearly than any of his hearers the gracious plan of God for the
rescue of the race from annihilation. He realized that for this purpose
he had come into the world,
OV213 that he might give his life as the
ransom price for Father Adam, and thus incidentally for every member of
the Adamic race involved in death through the first transgression in
Eden. The Master realized from the standpoint of faith in the FatherÂ’s
plan, and his confident intention to carry out his own part in that
plan and to lay down his life as our redemption price, that thus
resurrection blessings would come to every member of the race.
Not Dead, but Sleeping.
Let us note carefully the nature of the
consolation which our Lord tendered to the sorrowing ones about him on
this occasion. Let us be assured that "He who spake as never man spake"
gave the soundest and best comfort. The consolation which he gave was
that "Lazarus is not dead, but sleepeth." He neither spake of him nor
thought of him as being dead in the sense of annihilation, because he
had full confidence in the divine plan of redemption and in the
resurrection blessings resulting. Hence the interim of death he spoke
of as sleep—quiet, restful, waiting sleep.
What a wonderful figure is this, so
frequently used throughout the Scriptures by all those who trusted in
the divine plan of a resurrection morning. In the Old Testament
Scriptures we read frequently of sleep. Abraham slept with his fathers,
so did Isaac, so did Jacob, so did all the Prophets, so did all Israel.
In the New Testament it is the same. Not
only did our Lord speak of Lazarus sleeping, but the Apostles
frequently used this same figure of sleep to represent their hope in a
resurrection—that the dear ones who went down into death were not
annihilated, but, as our text declares, "Will come again from the land
of the enemy"—will awaken in the resurrection morning.
Thus, too, of Stephen, the first
Christian martyr, it is written that though stoned to death, he "fell
asleep," sweetly, restfully, trusting in Jesus and the great power
which he ultimately would exercise to call forth from the power of
death all redeemed by the precious blood. This, too, we remember, was
the comfort the Apostle set before the early Church, saying, "Comfort
one another with these words"—"They that sleep in Jesus shall God bring
from the dead by him."—#1Th 4:14-18.
Referring to the matter on one occasion, the Apostle remarked, "We
shall not all sleep, but we must all be changed." He referred to those
who would be living at the second coming of Christ, whose resurrection
"change" will not be preceded by a period of unconsciousness in death.
Let us go back to Jesus and the sorrowing
sisters at Bethany, and hearken to the words of comfort extended to the
bereaved on that occasion. We cannot improve upon the great Teacher and
the lessons which he presented. Let us hearken to his conversation with
Martha. He says: "Thy brother shall live again." He does not say thy
brother is living now. He did not say, as some erroneously teach
to-day, thy brother is more alive in death than he was before he died.
No! No! The Lord would not thus mock the common sense and reason of his
hearers, nor could he thus violate the truth and declare the dead not
dead.
Hearken! The Lord admits that a calamity
has befallen the household. He says not a word about his friend Lazarus
having gone to Heaven—not an intimation of the sort.
On the contrary, he has tears of
sympathy, and holds out as the strongest and only truthful solution of
the sorrow, the hope of a resurrection—"Thy brother shall live again!"
The hope of all the dead centers in me. My death will effect the
cancellation of the original Adamic condemnation, and I shall have the
right then in harmony with the FatherÂ’s plan to call forth all the dead
from the great prison-house of death, from the tomb. "Marvel not at
this, for the hour is
OV214 coming in which all who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and shall come forth."—#Joh 5:23.
The Resurrection Morning.
At the close of his conversation with
Martha, explaining that her hope must center in a resurrection of the
dead and that he was the center of that resurrection hope, our Lord
asked for the tomb, intent upon giving an illustration of the power
which by and by in the resurrection morning will be exercised toward
the whole world of mankind.
Standing at the door of the tomb, our Lord cried in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!"
and the dead came forth—he had been dead, he was quickened by our Lord’s power and authority.
This, like other miracles performed by
our dear Redeemer at his first advent, we are particularly told, was a
fore-manifestation of his coming glory and power, an advance exhibit of
what he will do at his second advent, only that the work at the second
advent will be universal, higher, deeper, broader every way, "All the
blind eyes shall be opened and all the deaf ears shall be unstopped;"
all that are in their graves shall come forth, not merely to relapse
again into blindness and death, but a permanent recovery—not only
recovery from the loss of natural sight and hearing, but the eyes and
ears of their understanding will be opened also; not merely aroused
from a sleep of death to a few years more under present conditions, but
aroused to the intent that by obedience of the Divine arrangement of
the Millennial Age all the awakened ones may attain to all the glorious
perfections, mental, moral and physical, lost by AdamÂ’s disobedience.
Times of Refreshing Shall Come."
Glorious hope of a glorious time. What
wonder that the Apostle speaks of it as "times of refreshing from the
presence of the Lord when He shall send Jesus Christ. What wonder that
he speaks of those years of the Millennial Age as "times of restitution
of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy
Prophets since the world began."—#Ac 3:19-21.
Lazarus died again, JairusÂ’ daughter died
again, the son of the widow of Nain died again. Their awakening from
the tomb was merely a temporary matter, merely an illustration of the
LordÂ’s power; as it is written, "These things did Jesus and manifested
forth his glory." These were merely foregleams of the coming power and
glory and blessed work of the gracious Prophet, Priest and King whom
God had appointed not only to redeem the world, but in due time to
grant to all the opportunities secured by that redemption sacrifice.
Death, "The Land of the Enemy.
We cannot here go into details, but we
doubt not that a majority of you have our full thought on this subject
as presented in the "Studies in the Scriptures," in which we endeavor
to show amongst other things that the great blessing which will
ultimately be for the world of mankind, as well as for the Church,
centers in the coming of our Lord and Master, our Redeemer and King,
and that the great blessings centering in him are not merely temporary,
but designed of God to be everlasting and eternal to those who accept
Divine favors in the right spirit, reverently, thankfully, obediently.
Why should death be called "The land of
the enemy?" Why should it be written, "The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death?" All because, disguise the facts as we may, death
is an enemy. The suggestion that it is a friend comes not from the Word
of God, but from heathen philosophies. The suggestion that it is unreal
comes not from the Scriptures, but from heathendom. The suggestion that
the dead are more alive than they were before they died is totally out
of harmony with the Scriptural declaration—" The dead know not
anything;
OV215 their sons come to honor and they
know it not, and to dishonor and they perceive it not of them," because
"there is neither wisdom nor knowledge nor device in the grave whither
thou goest." (#Job 14:21 ; #Ec 9:10.)
The suggestion that we deceive ourselves and imagine without reason
that the moment of death is the moment of greater life, is of the
Adversary, who contradicted the LordÂ’s statement in Eden to our first
parents, and when the Lord had declared, "Ye shall surely die" for your
sin, declared in contradiction, "Ye shall not surely die."—#Ge 3:2-4.
The Adversary has kept up this false
teaching for 6,000 years, and at last not only heathendom is deceived
by his misrepresentation of facts, but very, very many of Christendom
likewise trust to the word of Satan, "Ye shall not surely die," and
believe that the dead are not dead, and reject the testimony of GodÂ’s
Word that "the wages of sin is death," that "the soul that sinneth, it
shall die," that "death has passed upon all men because all are
sinners," and that the hope of the Church as well as the hope for the
world lies in the fact that Christ died for our sins and redeemed us
from the death sentence, and in the FatherÂ’s due time is to effect a
resurrection of the dead.
The Key of DeathÂ’s Prison.
Let us comfort our hearts with the true
comfort, the substantial comfort of the Word of God—there shall be a
resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust. All that
are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and shall
come forth. The thousands of millions who have gone down into the great
prison-house of death shall be released, because the Great Redeemer has
the key, the power, the authority, to bid the prisoners to come forth,
even as the Scriptures declare.
What a glorious resurrection morning that
will be! What a glorious reunion! We understand the Scriptural teaching
to be that the awakening processes will continue throughout a
considerable portion of the Millennial Age, the thousand-year day of
resurrection and restitution. First will come the resurrection of the
Church, the "Bride," the "LambÂ’s Wife," the "Body of Christ." These, as
the Scriptures declare, will constitute the First Resurrection—not only
first in order of time, but first in the sense of chief. In that
company will be none except the saints; as it is written, "Blessed and
holy is he that hath part in the First Resurrection; on such the Second
Death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ,
and shall reign with Him a thousand years." (#Re 20:6.)
Nevertheless, that will be but a little flock, as the Scriptures
declare, including "not many wise, not many great, not many learned,
but chiefly the poor of this world, rich in faith, heirs of the
Kingdom." —#1Co 1:26,27; #Jas 2:5 .
Not long after the First Resurrection
(the glorification of the Church), will come the resurrection of the
Ancient Worthies—the overcomers of olden times prior to the Gospel Age.
The assurance is that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the holy
prophets—yes, all who were approved to God by their faith and their
efforts to obedience—will come forth from the tomb to human conditions,
glorious, grand, earthly illustrations of the heavenly Creator, to
constitute the earthly representatives of the Kingdom, the instructors
of mankind.
The instruction of the world will
forthwith proceed. We are assured that "the knowledge of the Lord shall
fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep"—to such an
extent that "They shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every
man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me,
from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord." We
cannot stop to describe that glorious time and the grand opportunities
it will give to every creature to know the Lord, to obey Him, to attain
to resurrection
OV216 in its full significance—a raising up to mental, moral and physical perfection.
After the Kingdom of God shall have been
fully established in the earth, and Satan shall have been bound, after
the darkness shall have rolled away and the true light shall have
lightened every creature, the time will come for the awakening of all
the families of the earth—not all at once, but gradually, "they shall
come again from the land of the enemy." The Scriptures do not go into
details on this subject, they leave much to faith; but give us a firm
foundation for that faith, nevertheless, in the positive promise of the
LordÂ’s Word.
The Last First, the First Last.
To our understanding those who have
fallen asleep last, will be among the first to be called back from the
land of the enemy, to be awakened, and thus the work of awakening the
sleeping ones will progress backward, as we might express it; the
living ones will prepare for their brothers and sisters and parents,
and they in turn for their brothers and sisters and parents, and so on
all the way back, until finally Father Adam and Mother Eve shall come
forth to see the world filled with their progeny, in accord with the
LordÂ’s original commission that they multiply and fill the earth.
They will behold with astonishment the
showers of blessing that have come upon the race from the Heavenly
Father and through the Heavenly Savior; they will see what havoc was
wrought by their disobedience, but that God in His wisdom and power was
both able and willing to overrule the matter and to bring order out of
confusion and resurrection out of death. They and all will realize
something of the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of the
Love of God. The grand plan of salvation shall loom up before them;
they will see how Abel, their son, who suffered for righteousness, was
a type and picture of the great Son of God who suffered for
righteousness and for our deliverance, and they will see how his blood
speaks peace for all for whom it is shed, speaks forgiveness and
renewed harmony with God.
The Tragedy of Sin and Death.
They will learn, too, of the terrible
degradation which came upon their race subsequently to their death;
they will read with appalled hearts and bated breath of the terrible
famines and pestilences which came upon the race as a part of the
original sentence or death curse; they will learn about the mental
aberrations which afflicted the world, so that men thought they were
doing God service in persecuting one another because of religious
differences of opinion, and how others, more or less consumed with
selfishness, land hunger, etc., warred and fought and devised engines
of destruction against each other, and killed one another by the
thousands in battle. They will wonder at the patience of God in so long
permitting the evil.
Thy Work Shall Be Rewarded.
Then truly they will see what God has
wrought: First, his justice, which provided the great redemption price
and would not otherwise clear the guilty. Second, his love, manifested
in the same connection in the giving of his Son. Third, they will come
to understand how that during this Gospel Age God has been selecting
his Church to be the Bride of Christ and joint-heir with him in the
Kingdom. Fourth, they will perceive that when this election was
complete and the members of the glorified company had all been tried
and polished and tested and glorified, then the blessing of the world
through the glorified Christ, Head and Body, came upon all mankind in
the restitution of all things spoken by the mouth of all the holy
prophets since the world began.—#Ac 3:20.
Finally, consider the LordÂ’s Word to us all as a race, and particularly his
OV217 word to parents, "Thy work shall be
rewarded." What a blessing and comfort! What a consolation and
encouragement are in these words to those parents who, seeking to train
up their children in the way they should go, are sadly wounded and
discouraged when the arrow of death smites down the dear ones they had
so loved and cherished.
They are disposed at first to say, Ah, my
love, my counsel, my motherly care, my fatherly provision, were wasted.
But not so, saith the Lord; thy works shall be rewarded.
You shall see the fruit of your labor in
the future; we shall know as we are known by and by. Our dear ones will
be with us, and to whatever extent time and effort will have been
expended upon them to mold and fashion them along the lines of
righteousness and truth, uprightness and godliness, these surely have
not been spent in vain. The child shall come forth that much more
advanced in its mental and moral development; to that much more easy
attainment of the grand heights which the Lord will then open up before
it.
How Rewarded?
On the other hand, the parent who has
been careless of his children, neglectful of his privileges and
obligations as a parent, will undoubtedly have his negligence rewarded
in the future as he shall see what he might have done for his children
but did not.
And more than this. By a Divine law of
reaction, every parent who is faithful in the discharge of his parental
duties shall have his work rewarded in himself, and likewise every
parent neglectful of his duties shall have his work rewarded in
himself. For who does not realize that there is no greater privilege or
opportunity for self-development than comes to the parent in his
endeavor to train up his children in the way they should go, in the
reverence and admonition of the Lord.
Character Building Is Included.
Undoubtedly it is true, too, that every
effort to do good unto others, especially to your own children, has its
compensating blessings upon your own hearts. May this blessing deepen
as the years go by.
In conclusion, I say to you, not only for
to-day, but for the future days, "Comfort one another with these words"
of our Lord to the effect that your little ones shall come again from
"the land of the enemy," and that their return shall be even much more
blessed, under much more favorable conditions than at present. Then,
the great King reigning, all evil will be in subjection, all evil doers
will be under restraint, all the influences of righteousness will be
let loose, and the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of
the Lord as the waters cover the great deep. Blessed prospects are
those before us, and to him who loved us and bought us, and to the
Heavenly Father, who designed the great plan, we give everlasting
thanks and praises, and show this by our daily lives
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