Death

"The body without the spirit is dead."James 2 ;26.                                                                                 What is death? Can a man define it ?Does inspiration tell us what it is ?  Yes; in the words now before us we have the simplest , the shortest , the most explicit explanation in the world ; death is the body without the spirit . It is a wonderful explanation , marked off distinctly from all other explanations . It is not said that to die is to have the life of the body extinguished , ; no, the life is not extinguished , it is away ; there is something absent , the body is without the spirit .It is not said that to die is to have the spirit without the body , in other words , that the spirit without the body is dead ; no, the spirit cannot die , whether in the body or out of the body. Do not believe in the sleep of the soul ; the soul never sleeps . Even in the watches of the night it is the body and not the soul that slumbers . The sleep of death is like the sleep of life ; it belongs to the weary frame , not to the living spirit .
     Thou who art weeping disconsolately over thy dead , there are words which need to be uttered to thee , "He is not here , He is risen ." You say , "He is dead ," yetit is not so ; death applies not to the spirit , and the spirit is the man . It is only the body that can die ; it is the body without the spirit that is dead .Bethink ye , what mean these words , "Though He were dead , yet shall He live "? They mean that what you call death is not the contradiction of life . " I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection ," says the weeping Martha at the grave of Bethany ; yes , but , says the Master , you expect too little , for he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die at all . Martha thought that the life life of the body was extinguished until the day when he would be revivified ; she did not know that death was itself only the flight of the spirit . But you should that , you the child of the resurrection , the recipient of the dawn Why are you hovering ever near to the spot where the dust reposes ? Why seekest thouthe living amongst the dead ? Why do you measure your nearness to the departed by your nearness to the cemetery ? What comunnion has the cemetery with life , what intercourse has the spirit with death.? If the departed would meet you , it will not be in the graveyard ; it will be in those moments when you are farthest from the graveyard . Not from out of the tombstone shall their voices come , but through the thoughts that make you forget the tombstone , not from the symbols that are memories of death , but through the hopes that tell of immortality . In those moments when heaven is opened and the ladder is revealed stretching from earth to sky ; in those hours in which your own spirit is caught up to meet its Lord in the air ; ;in those days when from the top of Nebo faith has beatific glimpses of the promised land ; in those seasons of summer warmth in which love lifts up her voice and sings , "O death , where is thy sting !O grave , where is thy victory!" you may picture , if you will , the communion of those ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who are heirs of salvation .

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