“Not a cloud above,
Not a spot within.”
“LET me die the death of the righteous,” said Balaam of old, “and let my last end be like his” (Num. 23:1010Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his! (Numbers 23:10)). And who knows but that there was a measure of sincerity in the words of the hireling prophet, as from the “top of the rocks” he beheld the thousands of God’s people encamping in divinely prescribed order around that cloud-capped tabernacle?
No wonder, either, that even this poor money-loving prophet should at that moment give vent to such an expression; for Israel was indeed a blessed people. Jehovah Himself was in the midst of her, at once her Saviour, her Defender, and her Guide.
Yet, what a moral contradiction it was to hear this lover of the “wages of unrighteousness” saying, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his”!
Well, reader, I know neither your course of life nor your state of soul. God knows both. But I dare venture to say that the substance of Balaam’s prayer has been the burden of your thoughts, ay, many a time. Now I want to ask you to think a little more of those three monosyllables, “my last end.” Repeat them over to yourself again and again, “MY last end.” Take a pencil and write them down if you will, but weigh well their meaning, I pray you, so that at least one of God’s desires may be realized in your case. “O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” (Deut. 32:2929O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! (Deuteronomy 32:29)).
Life’s journey will come to a close some day. That is certain. You may, even now, be very near the end. A long eternity is before you, and, whether you like it or not, you are inseparably linked with it. I solemnly ask you, therefore, as you look beyond all earthly plans and pleasures, beyond earthly friendships and earthly ties, beyond life’s latest hour, What are your prospects! What shall the end be?
But I have a bright tale to tell you, and I want your attention. The happy subject of it, Richard H —, was for years a valued personal friend and fellow-laborer. From boyhood’s days he had known and loved the Lord, and from that time to the “home-call” his deepest delight was to serve and follow Him.
But it is of his end I desire to speak particularly. Shortly before he passed away, and after a visit from the doctor who attended him, he expressed a particular wish to know what he thought of his physical state. On being told that “departure” was soon to be looked for, he burst forth into quite an ecstasy of joy, saying, “Good news! Good news from the far country! Set the bells a-ringing! Hoist a flag outside, to announce that I, a sinner of the earth, washed in Christ’s blood, am going into the heavens; and going by a work that has glorified, God! Good news! good news!” he again exclaimed; “it’s like breaking up school and going home!”
It was a few days after this when, for nearly the last time on earth, I was privileged to see him. Physical weakness, through the rapid inroads of consumption, seemed to be increasing. But, oh, while things seen and temporal were gradually fading away, how strong a grip had faith got of that which is “unseen and eternal”!
After a warm, familiar greeting, he said, and said in such a way as it is impossible to describe on paper, “You haven’t come here to see death, Georgie. Death isn’t here—not a bit of it. It’s regions behind me, and He is before me.” Then, looking up to heaven, he said, as if in some deep, happy reverie ― “Holiness! the more holiness, the better; the more righteousness, the better; the brighter the glory, the better. They can but bring out to my soul the value of my title.”
What a bright sunset! What a peaceful close to life’s short day! Death, with all its accompaniments, was as nothing to him. Nay, he wouldn’t have it that he was dying, but only going home. And I shall not be a bit surprised, unsaved reader, if you tell us that you would fain have your last end like this.
But mark, let your wishes be what they may, depend upon this, that to live without Christ is the surest method you could possibly adopt of dying without mercy. Oh that the Spirit of God might awaken you this moment!
But let us inquire what was the real secret of such a victory as the one just referred to. He hadn’t a word to say, or a thought to bestow upon his good works or pious life, though I may safely say that all who knew him can testify of his self-denying, heavenly minded devotedness, both to Christ and His people, and that for many years ere he was called home. But it was Christ Himself, his own gracious Saviour, who covered his vision and filled his heart, so that everything else―grim death itself not excepted―was, as he so graphically expressed it, “regions behind him.”
Once, no doubt, like thousands more, he had turned his eye inward upon himself to find something which he thought God might accept as a ground for blessing him, and something, therefore, which he too might rest his hopes upon. But, when weary and disappointed in such a search, the Spirit of God had turned his longing gaze to One in whom God could and did delight, whose finished work at Calvary He had accepted. Yes, reader, it is the look without that brings the peace within. “Look unto Me, and be ye saved,” is the message from a Saviour-God to guilty men (Isa. 45:2222Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:22)).
Notice now, it is not― “Look at yourself till you feel you are saved.”
That may be man’s gospel, but it certainly is not God’s. God is not looking at you, dear reader, to see whether you are worthy of His confidence. He knows you are not, and has told you so. Your heart, He declares, is without its match for treachery― “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:99The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)).”
God’s eye rests with delight and satisfaction upon His beloved Son. He thinks everything of Jesus. He has highly exalted Him, enthroned and crowned Him, put everything into His hands and under His feet, yea, given Him power over all flesh. God has entrusted Him with the giving of eternal life, and with the dispensing of His righteous judgment. He is to be the Head of heavenly government― “King of kings” in that bright millennial day; “for He must reign,” says the Holy Ghost, and we who love Him say, “Alleluia! alleluia!” The once despised and hated Nazarene, God’s King in Zion! How it makes the heart well over with joy to think of it!
“He shall reign from pole to pole,
With illimitable sway;
He shall reign till, like a scroll,
Yonder heaven shall pass away.”
Well, then, I repeat, the gospel does not ask you, dear troubled soul, whether or not you are sufficiently worthy for God to trust you, but it brings the blessed welcome news that His Son is sufficiently worthy for you to trust Him; that in turning away from all thoughts of your bad self, as well as from all your vain efforts to establish a good self, and reposing the confidence of your heart in the worthy Son of God as your Saviour, everlasting life is yours. Listen to the highest of all authorities: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life” (John 6:4747Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. (John 6:47)).
Oh, let me ask you then, “What think ye of Christ?” It was this blessed Saviour, this crowned, honored, exalted, beloved Son of God, and Son of man in heavenly glory, that was before the happy soul of this dear departing disciple.
“But,” says one, “how was it that the holiness and righteousness of God, yea, the very brightness of the light of the glory of God, seemed friendly to him?”
Friendly to him! Yes, as friendly as the cross, as we shall see; But let us first listen to the words of Him who hung upon that cross: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son”―gave Him to be “lifted up” as a victim for sin. On this ground the believing sinner stands before God free from all condemnation.
Faith can say, “If the righteous Son of God was delivered for my offenses, and if God has accepted that sacrifice, I must be delivered from my offenses.”
But then God has not only given His Son to be delivered up to death and judgment for us, He has given Him in resurrection life and glory to us.
Bear in mind, too, that this is not Christian attainment. It is the common portion of all that believe in Christ. The Holy Ghost speaks of them as created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:2424And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians 4:24)); and, of course, creation is not attainment. It is what God has made them in Christ.
The old creation was by Christ (see Col. 1:1616For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: (Colossians 1:16)), while the new creation is said to be in Christ (see Eph. 2:1010For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)).
Now this happy young Christian had learned not only to look from self to Calvary’s Victim for the righteous discharge, and therefore the full forgiveness, of his many sins, but also to look off from self to Christ, the Heavenly Victor, for perfect acceptance before the throne of God. With childlike simplicity he believed what God told him in His Word, not only that the work of Christ on the cross was accepted for him, but that he too was “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:66To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. (Ephesians 1:6)).
Thus, you see, he knew from God’s Word that Christ was his righteousness and Christ his sanctification; and as to the glory of God being friendly, why, the effulgent brightness of that glory shines in the face of the very Man who once “bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (2 Cor. 4:66For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6); 1 Peter 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)).
What a trumpet-tongued witness is this, that those sins are forever put away from before the eye of God.
Well, dear Christian reader, this same Lord Jesus is soon coming again, and then once more shall we meet our dear brother shining in the fair beauty of Christ Himself. Oh, what a prospect! No wonder the believer’s heart leaps within him at the thought of it.
But “what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?” “If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Oh, reader, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there may be but a step between thee and death. And don’t forget that if death finds thee in thy sins, judgment also will find thee in thy sins, and an eternity in the lake of fire will be the never-ending end of thy guilty history. As God is true, HELL is the certain doom of the unrepentant. Oh, why will ye die? God waits to be gracious still.