GOD’S WORD FOR OCTOBER 19 ~ ~ 1Corinthians 15:50-52 ~ ~ “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

From the book, We Shall See God Today we hear from Charles H. Spurgeon:

Some people fear that we’ll be absorbed into a sort of anonymous spiritual state in the afterlife. But nothing could be further from the truth. You will have the same soul and the same body for all eternity. You will be more you in heaven than ever before.

My body is the same body that it was ten years ago, but I am told, and I believe it, that there is not a particle of matter in my body now that was in it ten years ago. Yet its identity is not disturbed thereby. Protect the seed, as God doubtless will, and you have protected identity. And though when we rise it will not be as flesh and blood, for “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” (1 Corinthians 15:50), yet it shall be the same body.

There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, and the glory is not the same, for there is the glory of the sun, the glory of the moon, and the glory of the stars. So I may have the same body – the same for identity, and yet as to its components, especially as to its qualities of weakness, mortality and corruption, it may be as distinct and changed as light is distinct and changed from darkness.

Oh my brothers and sisters, let this be an assured truth to us that we do not put the body into the grave to lose it. We put the body there as the chemist puts gold into the furnace; it shall come out the same as to its gold, but the dross shall be left behind. All that was precious in the fabric shall remain; that which was corruptible, defiled, sinful, shall have passed away.

According to our belief, the soul will than return to the body. There will be a joyful meeting. Soul and body often quarrel here, but they always hate to part, which proves how true is the marriage between them.

Will Christ reign? We shall reign with Him. Will He judge the earth? “do you not know that the saints will judge the world?” (1 Corinthians 6:2). Will He be ruler over cities? He will make us ruler over many cities. All the splendor and triumph, the victory and shouting, we shall have a share in. And when the grand hallelujah shall go up from earth and land and sea, and from the depths that are under the earth, our tongues shall sing the tremendous chorus and our ears shall be partakers of the ever-blessed harmony.

Well, what then? Then comes the end, when Jesus shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God the Father. Will the earth be renovated and refitted as the new heaven and a new earth? Will that new Jerusalem that is to come down at the coming of Christ be the future abode of saints?

This much we know, that we shall be forever with the Lord. With Christ shall be the heaven of believers forever, according to the Lord’s own prayer in John 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, may be with Me where I am, to see my glory”

His Glory which we shall take part in:

Life in its fullest sense; life with emphasis; eternal life; nearness to God; closeness to the divine heart; a sense of His love shed abroad in all its fullness; likeness to Christ; fullness of communion with Him; abundance of the Spirit of God; being filled with all the fullness of God. An excess of joy; A perpetual influx of delight; perfection of holiness; no stain nor thought of sin; perfect submission to the divine will; a delight and agreement in, and conformity to, that will; absorption into God, the creature still the creature but filled with the Creator to the brim; serenity caused by a sense of safety; continuance of heavenly service; an intense satisfaction in serving God day and night; bliss in the society of perfect spirits and glorified angels; delight in retrospect of the past, delight in the enjoyment of the present, and delight in the prospect of the future; something ever new and evermore the same; a delightful variety of satisfaction and a heavenly sameness of delight; clear knowledge; absence of all clouds; ripeness of understanding; excellence of judgment; and above all, an intense vigor of heart and the whole of that heart set upon Him whom our eyes shall see to be altogether lovely!!

I have looked at the crests of a few of the waves as I see them breaking over the sea of immortality; I have tried to give you the names of a few of the peaks of the long alpine range of glory. But AH! Where are my words, and where are my thoughts? “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9)

Our only satisfaction in thinking of it is that “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit” (1Corinthians 2:10). May His spirit dwell in you and give you foretastes of the rest which remains, foretastes of the eternal banquet where Christ will drink the new wine with us in His heavenly Father’s Kingdom.

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Ephesians 2:5

even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

2 Peter 1:3

as His divine power has given to us ALL things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,

2Cor. 9:8

 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.

Ps 68:19

Blessed be the Lord,
Who daily loads us with benefits,
The God of our salvation! Selah

Dan 11:32

 Those who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with flattery; but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.

Joel 2:25

“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten ……

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