Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Who can count the dust of Jacob or number even a fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my final end be like theirs!”

• Numbers 23:10

“I will deliver this people from the power of the grave;
    I will redeem them from death.
Where, O death, are your plagues?
    Where, O grave, is your destruction?

• Hosea 13:14

“Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”

• 1 Corinthians 15:55

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”
“Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”

• Revelation 14:13

“Come now, thou greatest of feasts on the journey to freedom eternal;
death, cast aside all the burdensome chains, and demolish
the walls of our temporal body, the walls of our souls that are blinded,
so that at last we may see that which here remains hidden.
Freedom, how long we have sought thee in discipline, action, and suffering;
dying, we now may behold thee revealed in the Lord.”

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

The final stanza in Bonhoeffer’s “Stations on the Road to Freedom” is Death.  We are indeed freed from our actions (our toils) and our suffering (our pain).

Death is not the final end of the righteous as Balaam said in his first message, and his end was not a glorious one.  But all who truly come to the Lord in faith will conquer death, and in so doing there will no longer be tears, suffering, or pain.

Jesus was disciplined.  Jesus took action.  Jesus suffered unto death on a cross.  And although Jesus died, Jesus rose from the dead.

He is risen!  He is risen, indeed!

And for those who love Him, we will rise and be free.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.