The most prominent placement of this statement in God’s Holy Word is where the promise of the glorious end of these evil days for believers is presented. And what a presentation it is!
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–18)
So it was the other morning when I began my day with a number of thoughts about the depressing things going on in the world. Paul’s great prophetic utterance above, ending with the comforting exhortation, finally emerged near the surface of my aging gray matter. Then the thought struck that obliterated the depression the minion whispering earlier intended to inflict to ruin my day.
The words of “Blessed Assurance” burst into my memory–melody and all.
The Holy Spirit brought to mind that great old hymn I’ve heard all my life. You may have heard and sung it, too. And what a remembrance it was; what a comforting truth it delivered! Depression from all the oppression that dark region of Satan’s realm could fling had no chance of surviving that burst of “Blessed Assurance”!
Here are the lyrics to remind all of us of the magnificent future we believers in Christ have as inheritors of all of the heavenly riches that belong to Jesus Himself.
We can’t avoid the pure evil assaulting our eyes and ears–our spiritual senses—such as yet another attempt on the same presidential candidate’s life while he played golf Sunday, September 15, in Florida. Yet all the wickedness we observe fades in the brightness of the Lord Jesus’ promise to call us into His presence at any moment. We have blessed assurance that we will not face the concluding seven hell-on-earth years marked by Antichrist’s regime or face the wrath and judgment of the righteous God of Heaven. We will be in Jesus’ Father’s house–which is our house, too (John 14:1–3), because of what Jesus did on that old rugged cross at Calvary.
As that old hymn, “Blessed Assurance,” says, we who are in God’s family are heirs…heirs of salvation and all of Heaven’s glory.
So, as we’re thinking about what Jesus has done for us, we can cast aside the depression–the oppression—Satan desires to inflict. All of this brings to mind another hymn with lines that express how Christ’s work on that cross and His Resurrection give us blessed assurance. This hymn tells us what we should be doing to do the work assigned us while we’re on earth:
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