The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-18

on earth Enoch was translated that he should
not SCI DEATH simply because he walked with
God. So that we may all know that
q godly walk on earth is the only path that
leads to a blessed life hereafter The
path Enoch chose led straight to the gates
of glory Companionship with God here insures
anionship with him forever. The earthly
beginning of the way is dim in its outlines; but
it grows brighter and brighter unto the perfect
day. The path here is beseG with trials and
temptations but the route brings us into the green
pastures of Gods everlasting love and beside the
still waters of the river of eternal life. Our
present life is a labyrinth, amid whose mazes we
can easily lose our way. In 1T we may spend
our days trying in vain to find our way out. On
the one hand are the aluring pathways OF senSu-
al pleasures. In them you seek for satisfaction,
but. alas! they cheat you at every turn, till,
weary and worn, you sink down into the abyss or
ruin On the other are the byways of intel
leetual speculation, where men founder, and
wander, and seek in vain to find out God and
solve tue mysteries of the universe, only to end
the search In the quagmires of doubt and de
spair. But nevertheless, there is a pathway
through it that leads the wayfarer straight and
sure TO joys that have no alloy, to pleasure that
never end. There is pathway that leads to
truth, and brings us to know,
known; where we shall behold God in his glory,
and see him face to face and dwell through the
eternal years amid the undimmed glories of his
presence.
1t is pathway that is marked out for us by
the footprints of the worthless who through pa
thence have possessed the promises; it is path
way along which are placed the guide posts of di-
reeton. 1t takes along the crags of Sinai the man
ger of Bethlehem; the shades of Gethsemane; the
cross of Calvary; the tomb Of Joseph of Arima-
thea: It brings to the Olivet of Ascension, where
the gates of Immortality stand wide open;
whore angels chant their music; where the new
Jerusalem has its foundations, and where Jesus
sits enthroned in glory with the redeemed from
earth around Him clothed in white, with palms
in their hands and crowns upon their heads
''These are they who have come up out Of great
tribulation, and have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb;
therefore they are before the throne of God"
But perhaps some of you are asking what value
is the fact of EnochS translation to u.s. What
though we walk with God, do we not have to die;
do not our bodies go back to dust; do not our
spirits remain in some sort of intermediate state
where the saints must needs remain still upper
fected, awaiting the contingency of some still
unaccomplished deliverence, before can enter
as did Enoch into the immediate presence OF
God? So, perhaps, you have been taught, but
not so do read the testimony of Holy Writ
Doubtless the scriptures do indicate that the
spirits of the Old Testament saints not per-
mitted at death to enter at once into the fulness
of their glorifed estate They waited for de-
liverance that the promised Messiah was to
achieve. But when Christ died He descended
into hades the place of departed spirits His
mission there to destroy death. despoil the
it as the conqueror of death, and bursting open
the gates of nell, or hades, He came forth bring
ing the long -imprisoned saints, and with them
trophies He assembled on high, leading cap
tivity captive, and sat down on the
throne of mediatorial empire, the Sovereign of
the unseen world, and from that throne He
sent back to earth the cheering proclamation to
all who should hereafter believe on His name,
Fear not. Fear not the pains Of death Fear
not the caverns Of the hadean world, for am
Ha at and I
alive forever more; | have the keys of death
and Hades." 81 have taken away the sting of
death; have destroyed the victory of hell"
To this glorious consumm ation the writer Of
the epistle to the Hebrews alludes "These all
all the Old Testament saints except Enoch and
Elijah-having obtained a good report through
faith, received not the promise; God having
provided some better thing for u.s. that they
without US should not be made perfect" l can
not understand this language to mean anything
else than that these ancient worthless were held
in reserve until the coming of the dspensation
of a crucifed, risen and assembled Christ, and
that then they found in His conquer their
deverence and their full admission to the
fruition of the fuiness of glorfied Immortality.
Hence the sublime statement of the privileges
that belong to the Christian dspensaton:
But We have come"-not going to come at some
distant period-''unto Mount Zion, and unto
the city of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusa-
leum, and to an innumerable company of angels,
to the general assembly and church of the first
porn, winch are written IN heaven, and TO the
spirits of just men made perfect"
The natural mission of death is to complete
this and make permanent the separation of the
soul from God, but the mission of Christ has
changed its function, so that it has become no
more death, but an exodus of the departing
saint from the thraldom of an earthly state into
the immediate, instantaneous and complete full
ness of the presence of God Hence the language
of Paul, while | am present in the body am
absent from Christ" and 'to be absent from the
body is to be present with the Lord" Henceforth.
There is death; what seems so is transition"
Zone gentle sigh his letters breaks
We scarce say He's gomez
Before the willing spirit takes
Its mansion near the throne"
Hence, every man who walks with God under
the Christian dispensation does not die. He, like
Enoch, is translated. All, how near does this
precious truth make heaven appear to us. To
day sigh, weary and faint, on this earth. to-
morrow ransomed and glorifed saints
Blessed be God that he has made the pilgrimage
so short Blessed be God that only the thin
gauze of our feshly veil hides from cur view
the environment of the world of glory and that
now what we call death is merely the dropping
off from of the drapery of our mortal bodies,
to find ourselves clothed upon with Immortality
and eternal life. Brethren, laying aside every
weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
le. us lay hold in the way that Enoch trod and
like him, God will translate u.s. that we shall not
see death.
THE SONG OF DEBORAH.