Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death: 25. The Chariots of the Skies

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Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death: 25. The Chariots of the Skies



TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 25. The Chariots of the Skies

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The Chariots of the Skies

More than twenty centuries after Enoch, a similar event is recorded of another man who was in unusual touch with God, Elijah. He went up while Elisha was watching, up into the air through the blue vault above, body and all. The fact is attested in this Book of God, by a most reputable witness (2Ki_2:1-12). His going is described in some detail. It is certainly dramatic. In a whirl of wind chariots of flame swept down from above and caught him up and away out of sight.

Elijah is one of the chief outstanding characters of this Book of God. He was a great leader of righteousness. He braved the licentiously idolatrous Ahab in his palace with severest denunciation of his damnable, evil practices. He locked up the windows of heaven for forty-two months, and then unlocked them in most dramatic fashion.

It was said by the last of the Hebrew prophets, Malachi, that he would return for a further bit of outstanding witnessing. This so took hold of the Hebrew imagination that they freely discussed whether Jesus was not Elijah returning as foretold.

John the Herald is said by Jesus, to have fulfilled at that time the ministry spoken of by Elijah. There is good reason for thinking it quite likely that, like Enoch, Elijah's earthly task is not yet done. Each man in his generation was distinctly the outstanding witness to God and God's truth, when belief in both was peculiarly imperilled.

It seems quite likely that the exceptional experience of those two men in their manner of leaving the earth points to a future bit of service down here in some great moral emergency. It was not a reward simply, though that element may have entered in incidentally. It points rather to the future when there will be exceptional need for their exceptional service for God to the race. Apparently they will yet know death.

But just now the bit to mark is that this dependable old Book states as facts that they went up, bodily, into the upper spirit world. So there is such a world. Their bodies went up there. Their bodies must have known some radical change fitting them for the new wholly different sphere.

And, as we shall see now in a moment, Elijah clearly retained his identity, and his grade of intelligence up in that spirit realm, not to say any more just now. And whatever would be true of the one, Elijah, would as likely be as true of the other, Enoch.

There are three instances recorded of dead persons being restored to life by Jesus. They are recorded as well authenticated facts. Their significance in this present connection becomes very marked. The three were at different stages of death. Jairus' daughter had just died (Luk_8:41-42; Luk_8:49-56, and parallels). The son of the widow of Nain was being carried out to his burial (Luk_7:11-17). Lazarus had lain in the grave four days (Joh_11:17-44).

The fact of death was quite clearly established in each instance. There could be no question in the case of Lazarus, nor of the Nain young man. And when Jesus said to the group in Jairus' house that she was not dead, but asleep, they laughed him to scorn, "knowing that she was dead."

That is, all the usual evidences of death in each case were so plain that the thing was beyond question. Their spirits were brought back to the bodies they had left. And the bodies themselves were retouched with vigor so as to serve as a dwellingplace for their spirits. Their spirits were still living while their bodies lay dead. They were recalled from where they were.

So there was not only continuation of spirit life, but identification of the human spirit and its body. Each spirit and its body belong together. Indeed we know that the body comes to take on the character of the human spirit living in it. It is chiefly noticeable to us in the face because that can be read more easily. But the impress of the spirit is in the entire body.

Some other human spirit didn't come back to Lazarus' body. Lazarus' returning spirit did not get into some other body in that graveyard. There was clear identification of spirit and body. When they had that glad reunion supper in Bethany with Jesus as the guest of honor, there was no question in anybody's mind about either the identity of Lazarus, or of their recognizing him and he them. Ask Mary what her plain senses told her.