HE WILL SWALLOW UP DEATH IN VICTORY.

 

MARCH 19.
 
He will swallow up death in victory.
 
Isaiah 25:8

 
DEATH is the fruit of sin.
 
It is God's standing testimony against it.
It is man's enemy.
It is the object of the sinners dread.
It has filled many saints with fear and alarm.
 
Some are all their lifetime subject to
    bondage through the fear of death.
It is a solemn event.
The consequences are momentous.
 
We must die.
 
No one can escape it.
No one will, except those who are alive when Jesus comes.
 
But though it is a foe, and
  a terrible one too,
   it cannot really hurt a Christian.
 
It is not now a curse, but a blessing.
 
As a penal evil it is abolished.
It will be swallowed up in victory.
 
The monster has lost its sting, and
  it will lose its existence.
 
The victory of Jesus over it will be
   complete, manifest, and eternally.
 
“There shall be no more death,
  neither sorrow, nor crying,
  neither shall there be any more pain!
 For the former things are passed away.”
            Revelation 21:4
 
It will be as perfectly done away,
  as completely lost sight of,
  as the stone that is cast and
   swallowed up in the depths of the sea.
 

Ah, grant me, Lord, in death to find,

That death is swallowed up in thee,

While on thy loving breast reclin’d

  I gasp for immortality !

Purchas’d by thine expiring groan,

And feel it in my heart made known.

 
James Smith 1849