GEORGE HERBERT once wrote: “Old men go to death; death comes to young men.”
We look upon death as the natural end of old age, and some men think that when they have their span of life, they will be ready for death. But death often comes unexpectedly.
You were reading your newspaper this morning and glancing down the list of deaths. Did you not notice the name of a child there? Did you not read of the death of that young fellow in his early manhood? Death comes so quickly and so silently, that before the hands of your watch point to the hour, your soul may be in eternity.
A tram conductor started off to his work one morning, and he jumped on to a passing car, as he had often done before, I suppose. But while his foot was still on the step, the car swung past one of the posts carrying the overhead wire, and the man was crushed to death.
My reader, however young you are, you, are not too young to die, and were you to be hurried into eternity without a moment’s notice, as this man was, what would happen to your soul? To meet death in your sins means eternal ruin, for after death is the judgment.
Death came into this scene as the fruit of sin, and we, lying under sentence of death, were in danger of everlasting perdition. But God intervened. He sent His own Son to bear the punishment of sin, and Jesus by dying conquered death. The Prince of Life became subject to death, but death had not dominion over Him. God raised Him from among the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in heaven.
Now the one that comes to Christ as a helpless sinner may know that Jesus bore on Calvary’s tree the punishment due to his sins. Thus trusting in Christ’s finished work, the believer need no longer have any fear of death, for Jesus has conquered death and the grave.
My reader, can you join in saying, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”?
M. L. B.