MARTYRS’ WEDDING DAY

1Pet. 1:3 ¶ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

For the lost, death is the end; all of their hopes are in this life. It is not so with the Christian, our hopes are all in the world to come. All of our earthly, dreams, pleasures, and accomplishments will fade into a forgotten haze when we shut our eyes in death. In an instant of time, our eyes will open again in a place of unspeakable glory. As David declared, we will begin to enjoy pleasures evermore. John Trappe was a Scottish pastor in the 1600’s. He wrote a commentary of the Bible which is filled with wisdom and humor. Here are his thoughts about today’s verse.

“Unto a lively hope] Sure and solid, clearing the conscience, and cheering the spirit. If it were not for hope, the heart would break; as they do whose lives and hopes end together. True hope lives when the man dies. It hath for its motto. The righteous hath hope in his death, as St Stephen had; who went with good cheer to take his end. And many of the holy martyrs went as willingly to die as ever they did to dine; they called it their wedding day. They knew it was but winking only, and they should be in heaven immediately; hence their invincible courage at the hour of death. The ungodly are not so; their hopes are dying hopes, they are no better than as the giving up of the ghost.”

I love this quote from Trappe. He said the martyrs looked at the day of their execution as their wedding day. We all know what that means, the joyful anticipation deepens as the wedding day draws near. For the martyr, his eyes are not on the momentary suffering, but on the eternity that follows. Heaven had become so real and Christ so precious that there was an actual joyful anticipation as the day of their death drew near. They said their death was just a “winking”. Their eyes would wink and they would then see Jesus. Just think about, we are all just one blink of the eye to our heavenly reward. That truth can change everything about the way we live.  MARANATHA !!!