THAT there is an end to every man’s history here no one will dream of denying. Death is doing its work too surely for that; doing it daily, spite of all that wit and wealth may do to ward it off. The poor slave of sin has good reason to dread its approaches, and shrink in terror from its chilling grip. Indeed, his only chance of what he calls happiness is to forget that it is on his track, so he vainly tries to hide the unpalatable fact even from himself. But though he may succeed in turning his funerals into flower shows, and his cemeteries into lovely gardens, the same unwelcome truth faces him everywhere. Amid all this poor world’s shams he knows that death is an inevitable reality, and that his own turn will surely come.
Job describes the murderer and the adulterer (chap. 24:14-17) as evading the light to pursue their wicked course, and then adds, “If one knew them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.” How true! A servant of Christ once spoiled an evening for a dancing party by a simple two-paged tract entitled “Your Dying Hour.” He had each tract placed in an envelope, and offered to the different couples as they entered the ballroom. Thinking they were programs for the ball, they willingly received them, but only to find a reminder of the last thing in the world they cared to think of, “YOUR DYING HOUR.” Yes, “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment,” and an unconverted soul may well recoil from the thought of both.
But for the divinely instructed believer death and judgment have no terrors. He knows that Christ has, once for all, conquered death. He knows that the judgment righteously due for his sins has completely spent itself upon the holy Substitute; that death at its worst is but a putting to sleep, but a severing of the strings that bind him to this place, that his happy spirit may find itself with the Lord.
“Jemmie―” who lived a few years since in the north of Scotland, was visited one evening by two Christian neighbors. They found him nearing his end. Jemmie had long known the Lord, long lived in the enjoyment of His love, and now that he was dying all was calm within as to the future. His title to glory was unquestionable. All was well with his soul.
Yet Jemmie had just one thing pressing upon his mind that night of his departure, and his two visitors were anxious to discover the nature of this one trouble, if perchance they might in some way help him out of it. And what do you think it was, my reader? The thought of death alarmed him not. The grave had no terrors. He knew that the question of his guilt in the past had all been settled on the cross, that the future was all secured in the Father’s house. Was it, then, because he had neglected till the last moment to make his will? His will! Old Jemmie make a will! He had nothing to leave but circumstances of the deepest poverty. The neighbors discovered after he was gone that even his last penny had been spent, and nothing left in the cupboard but a few scraps of oatcake!
What, then, was Jemmie’s last anxious care? It was this: “I fear,” said he, “that I shall have to be beholden to the parish for a coffin!”
“No, Jemmie, not so,” said his kind visitors, who were both carpenters. “The parish shall not have the chance of doing that for you. We’ll promise to make the coffin for you when you need it.”
“Then I shall want no more in this world. I shall be gone before the morning.”
They pressed to have the privilege of sitting up with him, but Jemmie would not hear of it. “Oh, no, thank you; I want nobody to sit up with me. Just leave me alone with the Lord. I shall be gone before morning.”
The master carpenter now drew out his rule, and, as though to sweep away at one stroke any tittle of anxiety that might remain on his old friend’s mind as to the parish coffin, he carefully measured his length from foot to head!
Strangely premature as this may seem to the reader, it suited this dying pilgrim well, for it looked like putting the welcome promise into practice in good earnest, and no doubt his visitor knew that this would be a comfort to the dear old man, or he would never have done it.
No boarding-school boy could see the railway porter labeling his luggage for home with greater satisfaction than Jemmie witnessed the measuring of his poor worn-out earthly frame.
The carpenter soon left, and Jemmie might have heard during the night the sound of busy hands in the workshop close by; for, believing that his neighbor was really dying, the master tradesman was determined to do all in his power to remove completely the cause of Jemmie’s last trouble.
Next morning, when the neighbors peeped into his cottage, they found no response to their kindly inquiries; the silence of death was there; the familiar voice would greet them here below no more. He had, as he said he should, departed during the night.
“Jesus can make a dying bed
As soft as downy pillows are,
While on His breast I lay my head,
And breathe my life out sweetly there.”
Now for the other side of our subject. A gentleman of wealth and position, residing in the north of Ireland, was unwell. His great fear was that he might die in his sleep: So he paid a special attendant to wake him three times during each night, lest his fears should be realized. But with all his precaution he passed away in his sleep after all1 After spending the evening at the billiard-table he had retired to bed, and between the hours of special waking his soul was summoned away. Another hand woke him up to the solemn circumstances of eternity. Don’t ask whither, my reader; for if he died as he lived, that is, in his sins, and it is to be greatly feared he did, you know where.
What a contrast is presented in the end of those two men. It is well worth your while to consider it, my reader, for both left behind them something for you. One, a legacy more valuable than any other that could possibly be left you, a bright testimony to the fact that neither “death” nor what comes “after death” has any terrors for the one who knows Christ; the other the solemn warning (oh that you would take heed to it!) that without Christ there is neither solid comfort for the present nor anything but the most gloomy outlook for the future. To such, Death is indeed the “king of terrors,” and neither wealth nor paid watchers can keep him at arm’s length when once the summons goes forth. “There is no discharge in that war.” That King is sure to conquer.
How is it with your soul, dear reader? If unsaved, be not so mad as to delay such a matter another hour, fraught as it is with eternal issues. With the judgment of God resting upon you, how dare you trifle? Oh, repent of your sins! Come to the blessed Saviour. His grace will welcome. His blood will cleanse your soul. His love will captivate your heart. With Him on your side you need not fear. He has the keys of death and Hades in His hand. He assumed human form, “that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14, 1514Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; 15And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Hebrews 2:14‑15)).
May that blessed deliverance be yours! It certainly will if the great Deliverer be bowed to and trusted. Still He lingers for you. Bow to Him now.