God of my Fathers

Earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord while 
he holds open the gate of life and calls on the perishing 
to come in. Beware lest the sound that first awakens 
you be the crash of the gate when it shuts ! 

5. Earth — the dust of the dead in Christ — shall hear 
the word of the Lord, and shall come forth. At the 
mouth of a grave where a dead brother lay, Jesus said 
to the sorrowing survivors, " I am the resurrection and 
the life ; he that believeth on me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live." Oh for the blessed hope of immor- 
tality, burning bright within a disciple's heart, and 
shining through his countenance ! The resurrection of 
the dead is a precious, present truth. " Lord, I believe, 
help thou mine unbelief" This body for which Christ 
died, and for which he now lives and reigns, — this body, 
when it is dust, shall hear his voice, and come forth 
glorious like his own. 

Not hewn stone, and carved cedar, and beaten gold, 
but earth is the temple in which God gets true worship, 
and loves to dwell. Partially now, perfectly soon, the 
body of a believer is a consecrated temple of the living  
God. To believe, to know, to feel this, would do two 
things for me : With such faith I would not admit the 
unclean into this temple, for Jesus has bought and claims 
it as his own ; with such faith I would not, when the 
time comes, and the messenger approaches, be frightened 
to let this temple be taken down, for God will raise it 
up again. It is his, and none shall be able to take it, or 
keep it, out of his hands.   William Arnot