The Last Enemy - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
1 Corinthians 15:25-26 NKJV

The Last Enemy
Are you at times afraid of the last enemy, death? Do you see for yourself a dark shadow ahead over the terminating portals? When you first see the darkening portals, the promptings of nature may produce fear, but He says, "Do not be afraid" (Rev. 1:17). He knows that by His resurrection He has divested the grave of all its terrors. He has keys of death, and He will bear you through the portals of death into His presence. Know that He understands - He Himself has died! And He wants the rest of your pilgrimage here to be peaceful and unclouded.

Death is our last enemy, but He will take away every vestige of weeping - because of Him death no longer has a sting. Through Him the ashes of the sepulcher will spring up into a body of glory like His. At death, the soul will be with Him, but its bliss will not be perfect until it is united with its incorruptible tabernacle. The call shall be, "Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust"(Isa. 26:19)!

We cannot tell all the joys that await us, but we do know its chief glory - "We shall be like Him" (1 Jn. 3:2). Having this hope in you, are you one who "purifies himself, just as He is pure" (1 Jn. 3:3)? We are not to fear dying, but are to look forward with triumphant hope to that day when all believers are resurrected and with Him in the Father's house.

-- J. R. MacDuff

We bless Thee, God and Father, we joy before Thy face;
Beyond dark death for ever, we share Thy Son's blest place.
He lives a Man before Thee, in cloudless light above,
In Thine unbounded favor - Thine everlasting love.

-- Alexander Carruthers