surrection, have made sure that what He has
passed through, you will pass through, and where He is, and what He is,
you will be also.

Two men die by one railway accident, sitting side by side upon one seat,
smashed in one collision. But though the outward fact is the same about
each, the reality of their deaths is infinitely different. The one falls
asleep through Jesus, in Jesus; the other dies indeed, and the death of
his body is only a feeble shadow of the death of his spirit. Do you knit
yourself to the Life, which is Christ, and then 'he that believeth on Me
shall never die.'

THE WORK AND ARMOUR OF THE CHILDREN OF THE DAY

'Let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on
the breastplate of faith and love; and for a
helmet the hope of salvation.'--1 THESS. v. 8.

This letter to the Thessalonians is the oldest book of the New
Testament. It was probably written within something like twenty years of
the Crucifixion; long, therefore, before any of the Gospels were in
existence. It is, therefore, exceedingly interesting and instructive to
notice how this whole context is saturated with allusions to our Lord's
teaching, as it is preserved in these Gospels; and how it takes for
granted that the Thessalonian Christians were familiar with the very
words.

For instance: 'Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so
cometh as a thief in the night' (ver. 2). How did these people in
Thessalonica know that? They had been Christians for a year or so only;
they had been taught by Paul for a few weeks only, or a month or two at
the most. How did they know it? Because they had been told what the
Master had said: 'If the goodman of the house had known at what hour the
thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his
house to be broken up.'

And there are other allusions in the context almost as obvious: 'The
children of the light.' Who said that? Christ, in His words: 'The
children of this world are wiser than the children of light.' 'They that
sleep, sleep in the night, and if they be drunken, are drunken in the
night.' Where does that metaphor come from? 'Take heed lest at any time
ye be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this
life, and so that day come upon you unawares.' 'Watch, lest coming
suddenly He find you sleeping!'

So you see all the context reposes upon, and presupposes the very words,
which you find in our presen