l stand on her look-out, and be
prepared for the sign of His coming.

Let us, my brethren, with regard to those who have left us in the
Lord,--let us, with regard to ourselves and our own future, be ever
looking for and hasting to that day of God; the day when that better
thing which God hath provided for us shall be manifested, and they
with us shall be complete, who without us were not perfect.

And let us not be discouraged by unpromising signs, or by prevalent
unbelief. Remember what our Master has said to us in the services of
this day, "Heaven and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not
pass away."

III.

WE have traced the condition of the blessed dead, from their departure
and being with Christ, to the glorious day of the resurrection. Their
spirits are safe in His keeping, till that day when He shall call
their bodies out of the graves, and they shall be once more complete
in manhood, body, soul, and spirit. And our present consideration is,
What, on that resurrection, is the next thing which shall befall them?
Now the best, because the most general text on this matter, is that in
Heb. ix. 27, "IT IS APPOINTED UNTO MEN ONCE TO DIE, BUT AFTER THIS,
THE JUDGMENT."

You will see that here is enounced something common to our nature. We
are all to die; we are all to be judged after death. And that this is
really true of all, and not merely stated generally, to be met
afterwards by special exceptions, St. Paul shows, when he, speaking of
things belonging entirely to his own practice, and his own
justification before God, says, in 1 Cor. v., "We labour, that whether
present in the body or absent from the body, we may be accepted with
Him. _For we must all be made manifest_ (there is nothing about
_standing_ in the original) _before the judgment seat of Christ, that
every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that
which he did, whether it be good or bad_." You will see that here he
expressly includes himself among those who are to be made manifest
before the judgment seat of Christ.

Now perhaps you are wondering why I am accumulating this Scripture
evidence to show a matter which seems to all so plain. But I have a
sufficient reason. And that reason is, because in other passages of
Scripture the blessed dead, or rather the believers in Christ, whether
living or dead at that day, are spoken of as if they were not
subjected to the general judgment of all, but passed into the gloriou