“MAN proposes, God disposes,” is a well-known and very true French saying.
The apostle James (4:13-15) says much the same under the guidance of God’s Spirit: “Ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.”
How little we know what a day, nay, what an hour may bring forth! It is generally the unexpected that happens, and often the least desired. Since this is the case, would it not be a mark of wisdom to be ready for anything? Sickness, poverty, death may come—are you prepared to face either?
The rich man (Luke 12) counted on a long life and said to himself, “Thou hast much goods laid up for many years.” But God said unto him, “This night thy soul shall be required of thee.” Not even one day’s illness was accorded to him wherein to prepare for death; he was cut off like the flower of the grass. So it may happen to you, to me—are we ready?
A young man was lately returning from South Africa to be the support of his widowed mother, and he was well worthy of the love she bestowed upon him. His last letter had been full of affection: “Coming home to you, mother,” he wrote, “never, never to part.” It was touching to read, and it filled his mother’s heart with joy as she eagerly reckoned the days ere they should meet, for she had heard that he had actually embarked. But the days lengthened into weeks and the weeks into months—three had passed, till with a heart made sick by “hope deferred,” she said, “He cometh not.” Then came the fatal day when the tardy War Office apprised her of the heartrending fact that her loved son had succumbed to enteric on the voyage home.
“Never, never to part!” Ah, how those words ring in her ears, and ring in ours too! We cannot apply them to anything on earth; it is the place of partings, of heart-breakings.
Have you ever imagined the feelings of that other mother—a widow and childless—who left the city Nain with the funeral cortege of her son and met Jesus on the road? And then have you pictured the return journey with her living son restored to her from the portals of the grave? Yet even then she could not say, “Never, never to part.” He had been rescued from the tomb, but only for a space—death and the grave remained ahead of him still—and the sad parting of mother and son must again take place.
The Lord Jesus was the only One who ever came out of the grave never to return thither. He really died, He was really buried “according to the Scriptures,” and then He rose triumphant over death, out from among the other sleeping dead, “now no more to return to corruption,” and believers are to have the same portion. “He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit.” Hence someday the sleeping dead in Christ will rise as He did—forth from among the wicked dead they will come—they will find themselves, even as to their bodies, on the other side of death and the grave, and for the first time will be able to say, “Never, never to part,” which the widow of Nain even in her overwhelming joy could not say any more than we can. But, thank God, it will come true at last, true to the very letter, in heaven—
“There’ll be no more parting,
There’ll be no parting there.”
Well, friend, have you a title to heaven? If “this night your soul be required of you,” will an abundant entrance be granted you into that “haven of eternal rest”? “To this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living” (Rom. 14:99For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. (Romans 14:9)). He died that you might live, He rose that you too might rise from among the dead, He lives that you may be saved by His life. Do not turn away from Him who speaks to you from heaven. He is a Saviour who has proved His love and His power, by doing what none other could do; and through death He now delivers from sin, and Satan, and death, all who trust Him. Will you not thank Him, and join in singing ―
“Low in the grave He lay—
Jesus, my Saviour!
Death cannot keep his prey—
Jesus, my Lord!
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes;
He arose a victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever with His saints to reign:
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose.”
H. L. H.