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Life Sketches of Ellen G. White
henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors;
and their works do follow them.”
Revelation 14:13
. Wonderful words
these, and especially when considered in the light of their setting at the
close of the prophecy concerning a threefold message to be sounded
preparatory to the end of the world and the second advent of Christ.
Heaven seemed desirous of helping us to understand that at the
time of the end, when these messages are proclaimed in the power of
the Holy Spirit, some of those engaged in this work will be permitted
to rest from their labors. All such, we are assured, are accounted
blessed of God. Nor are their unceasing efforts to bear aloft the banner
of truth, without result; “their works do follow them.” Today, in the
light of this assurance direct from heaven to the children of men, we
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can say of our dear sister who now sleeps, that she “being dead yet
speaketh.”
Hebrews 11:4
.
Elder Haskell reviewed the experience of the believers at Thessa-
lonica who were early called upon to suffer cruel persecutions, even
unto death. The apostle Paul, in his first epistle to the sorrowing ones
there, comforts them with the certainty of the Christian’s hope. “Sor-
row not, even as others which have no hope,” he exhorts; “for if we
believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep
in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming
of the Lord shall not prevent [go before] them which are asleep. For
the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the
voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in
Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:
and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another
with these words.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
.
The speaker invited attention to the expression, “For if we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, even so”—even as Christ was raised
from the dead—“them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with
Him,” and he illustrated this by the experience of Mary at the rent
sepulcher. Bitterly disappointed in not finding her Lord, “Mary stood
without at the sepulcher weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down,
and looked into the sepulcher, and seeth two angels in white sitting,
the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus
had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith
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