The Death of the Saints Is Precious Before the Eyes of Jehovah

BIBLE STUDY #793- CHURCH IN THE HOUSES TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - DECEMBER 2, 2013

Topic: “The Death of the Saints Is Precious Before the Eyes of Jehovah” Psalms 116:15 We went through the hard experience of facing the death of my dear Carmen. I have no desire to write anything, I only wish silence. But, I should write now about the one who said that if it was necessary she would give her life for me. My silence for who that friend was: a lion to defend what was mine with all her strength, with great passion and who acknowledged my pain. But I wish that silence although everyone would have something to say. If you liked her life or not is not the point, her life was as she lived it due to the justice she learned when acknowledging about Jesus who called her to be with Him in the eternity. The Bible says: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Because if it is such a great joy to be accepted in His sight here on earth, what happiness it must be to be esteemed, precious to his sight over there before His own presence. When God in the creation looked at His deeds it is said that He saw that they were all good in a great manner. But it is not said that any of the things He made was precious to his sight. Then, how does death come to be precious to his sight when this is not said of any of his deeds? How is the death of His saints precious when death is the destructor of His deeds? Is it possible that something that destroys His creatures have a title of more value to His sight than the creatures itself? For some great reason it is like this to the eyes of God! Oh, my soul! The death of a believer seems to be one of those miracles that Christ implied when He told His disciples that they would be performing miracles greater than those He performed. Why, my brothers, what greater miracle than this that God sees in a different way the death of one of His own? Well, death as it is, is something vile to God’s sight, but once embraced by His saints, IT COMES TO BE PRECIOUS TO HIS SIGHT AS IF IT WAS SOMETHING MIRACULOUS! To change something in a way that it goes from being vile to being precious- isn’t this a greater miracle than the one that transforms water into wine? It sure is! Death does not harm its saints but rather its saints dignify death. Death does not take away the happiness from its saints, but rather its saints add luster to the vileness of death. Richard Baker said this: “If there is glory prepared for those who die in the Lord, those who die for the Lord will be much more glorified.” The day of farewell to my dear sister and friend Carmen, we read in John 11:33-39 where the Bible tells about that moment when Jesus confronted the death of His friend Lazarus. It says that Jesus, when He saw Mary and the Jewish …weeping He was deeply moved in the spirit. The tears of Mary and of his friends worked in strong sympathy in Jesus. What a live and beautiful manifestation of His true humanity! He was touched powerfully and still He restrained His emotion. In that instant Jesus restrained His lovely tears with great strength to do what He was going to do a moment later. All His inner self was moved by the love He felt for Lazarus and his sisters. All of a sudden Jesus restrains all His being to show serenity and to be able to ask them: “Where have you laid him?” It was more for Him to know where he was than to weep in that moment. When receiving the response He would go to the place where the tomb of His friend Lazarus was. Jesus wept! They all cried so much that they shuddered Jesus in all His being. The tears of Jesus consisted in silent tears. It was not a reproach or anguish; it was the pain He felt in that moment for His humanity in Him. Not for any reason, the evangelist John, about sixty years later after this event, presents before all ages with touching brevity the sublime spectacle of the Son of God in tears. What seal of perfect unity with us in the most compensated feature of our afflicted humanity! But there was nothing more in those tears than the sadness for the suffering and death of His friend Lazarus? Who can doubt that it wasn’t that to His eyes and ears each detail of that scene proclaimed that severe law of the kingdom: “the payment for sin is death,” and that this element in His visible emotion would have been added to everything else?”

The Jewish then said: See how He loved him! We thank those visitors from Jerusalem for this spontaneous testimony of human affability (sweetness in the treatment) of the Son of God. God is love! Jesus loves us! Amen.