SUCH was the simple yet decided testimony of one well-known to us, only a few days before he left this scene to “be forever with the Lord.”
He himself felt the end was near; although sometimes the doctor thought there were hopes of his recovery. In fact, he asked that the funeral arrangements should be simple, and that a few words might be spoken at the graveside, not about himself, but of the Lord Jesus, the One to whom he owed everything; and also, he wished them to say that he had now gone to be with the Lord.
At times his suffering was intense, but in the intervals he loved to speak of the Lord Jesus and His precious things.
The Lord was evidently leading his heart—even in the midst of suffering—to look beyond it all to that eternity of bliss which awaits every blood-bought saint of God.
Amongst other things, he repeated one verse of a sweet little hymn, —
“All taint of sin shall be removed,
All evil done away;
And I shall dwell with God’s beloved,
Through God’s eternal day.”
After repeating this, he turned to the doctor, who at the time was in the room, and said, “I shall be there, will you, doctor?” The doctor, alas! could not say that he would, he being a worldly man, probably indifferent about the welfare of his immortal soul. But with our aged and now departed friend and brother all was well. His feet had for many years been planted on the Rock. His trust was simply yet firmly in Jesus, the sinners’ Saviour, and it was this alone which gave him such confidence in the very presence of death.
“How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.”
Does the reader of this little paper know Jesus as his or her Saviour? Have you tasted even now something of the sweetness of His love—that love which many waters could not quench, neither could the floods drown? Have you, dear reader, ever thought of that love? — love which brought Jesus down from heaven’s brightest glory to die for sinners upon Calvary’s tree? Think, dear friend, for a moment of Jesus in all those terrible sufferings upon the cross, not only suffering, as surely He did at the hands of man, but forsaken of God, “smitten of God and afflicted.” And then, having thought of the terrible agony of that atoning death, can you say with an adoring heart: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed?” C. SK.