DEPARTED SAINTS YET LIVING.
SUGGESTED BY THE DECEASE OF THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY,
(if interested see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Shaftesbury)
DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY
MORNING,
OCTOBER 4TH, 1885,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
“Now that the dead are raised even
Moses shewed at the bush,
when he calleth the. Lord the God
of Abraham, and the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the dead,
but of
the living: for all live unto him.” — Luke 20:37, 38.
DURING the past week the
sustained a very serious loss. In the taking home to himself by our
gracious
Lord of the Earl of Shaftesbury,
we have, in my judgment, lost the best
man
of the age. I do not know whom I should place second, but I certainly
should put him first — far beyond all other servants of God
within my
knowledge — for usefulness and influence. He was a man most true in
his
personal piety, as I know from having enjoyed his private
friendship; a man
most firm in his faith in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; a man
intensely active in the cause of God and truth. Take him whichever
way
you
please, he was admirable: he was faithful to God in all his house,
fulfilling both the first and second commands of the law in fervent
love to
God, and hearty love to man. He occupied his high position with singleness
of
purpose and immovable steadfastness: where shall we find his equal? If
it
is not possible that he was absolutely perfect, it is equally impossible for
me
to mention a single fault, for I saw none. He exhibited scriptural
perfection, inasmuch as he was sincere, true, and consecrated. Those
things
which have been regarded as faults by the loose thinkers of this
age are
prime virtues in my esteem. They called him narrow; and
in this they bear
unconscious testimony to his loyalty to truth. I rejoiced greatly in
his
integrity, his fearlessness, his adherence to principle, in a day
when
revelation is questioned, the gospel explained away, and human
thought set
up
as the idol of the hour. He felt that there was a vital and eternal
difference between truth and error; consequently, he did not act or
talk as
if
there was much to be said on either side, and, therefore, no one could be
quite sure. We shall not know for many a year how much we miss
in
missing him; how great an anchor he was to this drifting
generation, and
how
great a stimulus he was to every movement for the benefit of the poor.
Both man and beast may unite in mourning him; he was the
friend of every
living thing. He lived for the oppressed; he lived for
the
nation; he lived still more for God. He has finished his course; and
though we do not Jay him to sleep in the grave with the sorrow of
those
that have no hope, yet we cannot but mourn that a great man and a prince
has
fallen this day in
evil to come, and we are left to struggle on under increasing difficulties.
It must always be so. The godly must die, even as others.
Though our life
be
perfectly consecrated, yet it cannot for ever be continued in this world.
It is appointed unto men once to die, and that appointment
stands. We
expect the present rule to last till he shall come who shall
destroy the last
enemy. We are not troubled with Sadducean
doubts, to us, seeing that
Christ rose from the dead, it is a matter of certainty that
all his followers
must rise also; and seeing that Jesus ever lived, it is equally a matter of
certainty to us that all the saints are still living, for he hath
said, “Because I
live, ye shall live also.” Yet, if no infidelity is permitted to creep into
our
brain and disturb our belief, it may penetrate into our heart,
and cause us
great sadness. We who believe in Jesus should rise into an
atmosphere
more clear and warm than that of the sepulcher; for the Lord Jesus hath
“abolished death, and brought life
and incorruption to light through the
gospel.” We are not now sitting in the shadow of death, for
eternal light
has
sprung up. Children of God, it is in the highest degree proper that you
should think of things as your Father thinks of them; and he saith that “all
live unto God.” Let us correct our phraseology by that of Scripture, and
spear; of departed saints as inspiration speaks of them. Then
shall we come
back to the simple child’s talk which Wordsworth so sweetly turned into
rhyme — “Master, we are seven”; and in our family we shall
number
brothers, and sisters, and friends, whose bodies lie in the
churchyard and
shall speak of those who have crossed the border, and passed
within the
veil, as still our own. Like Jesus, we shall say, “Our friend Lazarus
sleepeth.” Like Paul, we shall speak of them as absent from the
body but
present with the Lord and regard them as part and parcel of the
one family
in
heaven and earth.
Our text was fashioned in a place which has the air of
death, burial, and
resurrection about it. The voice came to Moses in he
desert. This was a
strange place for Moses: the living, active, well-instructed mind
of Moses,
mighty in all the wisdom of
the
living God, was buried in a desert. It is singular to see the foremost
mind of the age in the remotest part of the desert, hidden away among
sheep. He who was a born king is here feeding a flock. It is
death to
Moses. Rest assured that Moses cannot be kept in this
living tomb; he must
rise to life and leadership. While there is a God and a providence Moses
cannot continue in obscurity. There are certainties wrapped up in
him
which cannot fail. A man need not be a prophet to stand at Horeb and
prognosticate that Moses will emerge from the desert, and shake
his
resurrection.
While Moses is in the desert he is thinking about another
case of death,
burial, and resurrection, namely,
favored nation of Jehovah, with whom he had entered into covenant,
saying, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” —
these were in
and
black and blue with the blows of task-masters. It has come to this, that
they are compelled to cast their male children into the river, and so to be
the
destroyers of their own race. The children of
of
slaves; yet they are God’s elect people, God’s favored family. It does
not
require a prophet to declare that this death in
elect nation must live, and rise and go forth free to serve the
Lord. No,
the
Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.”
And so, while Moses in the desert is thinking of
bush, and that bush is all ablaze. An ordinary bush upon the heath needs
only to be touched with a match: in one moment there is a puff of flame,
and
then all is over; nothing is left but a trace of ashes. Yet here was an
extraordinary thing — a bush that continued to burn, and was not
consumed. Here was life in the midst of death, continuance in the
midst of
destruction. This was an emblem of God abiding with a people, and yet
suffering them to live; or of the fires of affliction being rendered
harmless
to
the children of God. He who then spoke to Moses was the God of life,
the
God who could sustain in the midst of destruction, the God who could
preserve even a bush from being devoured by the intense fury of
flame.
Said I not truly that the surroundings of Moses and the
bush all favor a
display of life in death, and resurrection out of death.
Now we come to the central matter. Out of the midst of the
bush there
came a voice, a mysterious and divine voice, which said, “I am the God of
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob.” From this voice
our
divine Lord teaches us to gather this fact: that God’s people live when
they appear to have been long dead — for he who cannot be the God of
the
dead, or non-existent, still avows himself to be the God of the longburied
patriarchs. Our Lord proved from that utterance at the bush the
continued life of the Lord’s chosen, and also their resurrection:
how did he
do
this?
I. We
will not go straight to the answer, but we will beat about the bush a
little, that the reasoning may the more gently enter our minds. I
would say,
first, that in these words we have A GLORIOUS RELATIONSHIP DECLARED.
Moses calleth the Lord “The God
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and
the
God of Jacob.”
The glorious Lord did at the bush as good as say, “These
three men have
chosen me to be their God”,
so they had; through the grace of God they
had
deliberately chosen to part with their natural kindred in the country of
the
Chaldees, and to journey to a land of which they knew
nothing except
that God had promised that they should afterwards receive it for an
inheritance. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were three very different
characters; yet this was common to the three — that they believed
God,
and
took him to be their God alone. They nestled in the bosom of Jehovah
while the rest of the world went after their idols. In all their
troubles they
dew
to Jehovah; for the supply of all their needs they resorted alone to him.
They were men who had through divine grace deliberately
attached
themselves unto Jehovah the Most High throughout the whole of their
lives. It is a sublime sight to see a man trust in God as
Abraham did, and
obey the Lord fully as he did in the matter of Isaac, when he accounted
God to be able to raise him up even from the
dead. Surely there must be
everlasting life in a being who could thus confide in Jehovah. I call
you to
admire the fact that God called the patriarchs into the noble
position of
following the Lord fully, of fixed and settled choice. Being men of
like
passions with ourselves, they nevertheless cast in their lot with
the Lord,
and
for his sake preferred the life of strangers and pilgrims on the earth to
the
comforts of settled residence in
pleasures of
of
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. There is a nobility
about the choosers
of
the true God which will surely secure them from annihilation.
Next, these three men had learned to commune with God.
How
wondrously had Abraham spoken with God! Full many a spot was
consecrated as “the place where he stood before the Lord.” Isaac also
walked in the fields at eventide; and, doubtless, there entered
into secret
fellowship with God. The Lord also appeared unto him at night, and
led
him
to build an altar and call upon the name of Jehovah. The good old man
even in his blindness found solace in communion with the Lord God
Almighty. Jacob also was favored with heavenly visitations. We can
never
forget that mystic dream at
many times when he turned to the God of his father Abraham, and his
father Isaac, and God spake with him as
a man speaketh with his friend. It
is
a wonderful thing that the Lord should thus commune with men. He
does not thus show himself to the beasts which perish; he does not thus
reveal himself to the lifeless stones of the field. Those are
strangely
honored beings with whom God enters into close communion as he did
with these three men. I argue from it that these beings cannot dissolve into
a
handful of dust cease to be. Can those eyes cease to be which have seen
the
Lord? Can these souls perish which have conversed with the Eternal?
We think not so. But just now I ask you only to meditate
upon the glories
to
which the patriarchs were lifted up, when they were permitted to be the
friends of God.
What was still more notable, the Lord entered into
covenant with them. He
made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which he remembered,
saying, “Surely, blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I
will multiply
thee.” You know how the Lord swore to give unto the seed of Abraham a
goodly heritage, a land that flowed with milk and honey. Now, it
is a
wonderful thing that God should enter into compact with man. Doth he
make an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, with mere
insects of an hour? Especially, would he give his Son Jesus to die
to seal
the
everlasting covenant by his heart’s blood with mere shadows who are
but
for a little time and then cease to be? I am sure it is not so. If God
makes men capable of entering into everlasting covenant with
himself,
there lies within that fact the clear suggestion that he imparts
to them an
existence which is not for to-day and to-morrow, but for eternity.
Still, I
wish you mainly to regard the glory into which manhood is lifted up when
God enters into gracious covenant with it.
Moreover, to go further, these men were not only in
covenant with God,
but
they had lived in accordance with that covenant. I do not mean that
they had lived perfectly in accord with it, but that the main strain of
their
lives was in conformity with their covenant relationship to God.
For the
sake of that covenant Abraham quitted
longer in the
seeing it was said, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” By faith
he sojourned
in
the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with
Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of
the same promise.” These faithful
men
had respect to the recompense of the reward, and, therefore, they
were not mindful of the country from whence they came out, neither
sought opportunity to return. Jacob, the most faulty of the
three, greatly as
he
erred in his conduct to his brother Esau, was evidently actuated by an
intense faith in the covenant birthright, so that he ventured all
things to
obtain it. In his old age and death he was anxious not to be
confounded
with the Egyptians, or separated from the chosen household, and,
therefore, he said unto Joseph, “But I will lie with my fathers, and
thou
shalt carry me out of
made Joseph swear; for he must make sure of it. He was aiming at the
promise, despite the errors that he committed in so doing. Now,
doth God
enter into covenant with men and help men to live in accordance
with that
covenant, and after all shall they miss the blessing? Shall it end
in nothing?
Hiding beneath the shadow of God’s wing, shall they, after
all, perish? It
cannot be: they must live to whom God is God.
For this was the covenant, that they should have God to
be their God, and
that they should be God’s people. O brothers, I do not know how to speak
on
such a blessing as this, though I live in the daily enjoyment of it. This
God is our God. All that the Lord is, and all that he can
do, he hath given
over to us, to be used on our behalf: the fullness of his grace and truth,
the
infinity of his love, the omnipotence of his power, the
infallibility of his
wisdom — all, all shall be used on our behalf. The Lord has given
himself
over to his people to be their inheritance; and on the other hand, we, poor
weak feeble creatures as we are, are taken to be the peculiar treasure of
the
living God. “They shall be mine, saith
the Lord of hosts, in that day when I
make up my jewels.” “The Lord’s portion is his people: Jacob is the lot of
his
inheritance.” We are God’s heritage, we are God’s jewels, we
are
God’s children, we are dear to him as the apple of his eye.
We are to him
as
the signet upon his hand and the crown upon his head. He cannot have
chosen for his portion a mass of corruption, or a handful of
brown dust; yet
that is what the body comes to in death. He cannot have chosen for his
heritage that which will melt back into mother earth, and be no
more
found; this cannot be. The covenant hath within it the sure
guarantee of
eternal life. Oh what an honor it is that God should even say to
you and to
me
— “I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Beyond the angels,
beyond heaven, beyond all my other creatures, I reserve you unto
myself. I
have loved you with an everlasting love. I will rest in my love to you. I
will
rejoice over you with singing.” In this the Lord has highly
exalted his
covenanted ones, and raised them to great nearness to himself, and
thus to
glory and honor. What hath God wrought! What is man that God is thus
mindful of him, or the son of man that he thus visits him! Angels
are
nowhere as compared with seen, yea, cherubim with all their
burning bliss
and
consecrated ardor cannot match with men who are in covenant with
God. Blessed above all other beings are those who have Jehovah to be
their God, and who are themselves the Lord’s choice, and care,
and
delight. Each one of these points, if well thought out, will go to
strengthen
our
belief that the saints must live, must live for ever, and are at this
moment living unto God.
II. We
now come to that matter more distinctly under our second head:
here is ETERNAL LIFE
IMPLIED; for “God is not the
God of the dead, but of
the
living.”
It is implied first in the very fact of the covenant of
grace. As I have asked
before — Doth the eternal God covenant with creatures that shall
live only
to
threescore years and ten, and then shall go out like a candle-snuff? How
can
he be a God to them? I understand how he can be a helper and a friend
to
men of brief existence, but I see not how he can be a God. Must they
not
partake in his eternity if it be truly said, “I will be your God”? How can
the
Lord be an eternal blessing to an ending being? He has power, and he
will give me strength sufficient; he hath wisdom, and he will give me as
much of his wisdom as I am capable of receiving; must he not also cause
me
to partake of his immortality? How is he a God to me if he suffers me
to
be blotted out of existence? When David said in dying, “Yet hath he
made with me an everlasting covenant,” his comfort lay in his belief that he
should live in the everlasting age to enjoy the fruit of that
covenant. How
could there be an everlasting covenant with a creature who would
cease to
exist?
But next, this covenant was made up of promises of a
very peculiar order;
for
in very deed the covenant that God made with Abraham was not
altogether, or even mainly, concerning things temporal. It was not
the land
of
declared plainly that they desired “a better country, that is, an
heavenly”
(Hebrews 11:16). Even when they were in
for
a country; and the city promised to them was not
according to Paul in the eleventh of the Hebrews, they still were
looking
for
“a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” They
did
not find in their earthly lives the complete fulfillment of the covenant;
for
they received not the promises, but saw them afar off, and were
persuaded of them. The temporal blessings which God gave to them
were
not
their expected portion; but they took hold upon invisible realities, and
lived in expectation of them. They were evidently actuated by
faith in
something spiritual, something everlasting; and they believed that
the
covenant which God had made with them concerned such things. I have
not
the time to go into this subject; you get it more fully explained to you
in
the Epistle to the Hebrews; but so it was, that the covenant blessings
were of an order and a class that could not be compassed within the space
of
this present mortal life: the outlook of covenant promises was towards
the
boundless sea of eternity. Now, if the Lord made with them a covenant
concerning eternal blessings, these saints must live to enjoy those
blessings.
God did not promise endless blessings to the creatures of a
day.
More especially, beloved, it is to be remembered that for
the sake of these
eternal things the patriarchs had given up transient enjoyments. Abraham
might have been a quiet prince in his own country, living in
comfort; but
for
the sake of the spiritual blessing he left
the
pastures of
midst of discomforts. Isaac and Jacob were “heirs with him also
of the
same promises;” but they entered not into the pursuits of the people; they
dwelt alone, and were not numbered among the nations. Like Moses
himself, to whom God spake, they “counted
the reproach of Christ greater
riches than the treasures of
advantages of settled civilized life, to be rangers of the desert,
exiles from
their fatherland. They were the very types and models of those
who have
no
abiding city here; therefore, for certain, though they died in hope, not
having received the promise, we cannot believe that God deceived
them.
Their God was no mocker of them, and therefore they must
live after
death. They had lived in this poor life for something not seen
as yet; and if
there be no such thing, and no future life, they had been duped
and
cozened into a mistaken self-denial. If there be no life to come,
the best
philosophy is that which saith, “Let us eat
and drink; for to-morrow we
die.”
Since these men put this life in pawn for the next, they were sadly
mistaken if there be no such life. Do you not see the force of our Savior’s
reasoning? — God, who has led his people to abandon the present for
the
future, must justify their choice.
Besides, the Lord had staked his honor and his repute
upon these men’s
lives. “Do you want to know,” saith
he, “who I am? I am the God of
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. If you want to know how I deal with my
servants, go and look at the lives of Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob.” My
brethren, as far as the earthly lives of the patriarchs can be
written in
human records, they are certainly full of God’s lovingkindness; but still
there is nothing so remarkably joyous and majestic about them
from a
natural point of view as to make the Lord’s dealings with them
appear to
be
specially wonderful. Others who feared not God have been as rich, and
powerful, and honorable as they. Especially is the life of Jacob ploughed
and
cross-ploughed with affliction and trial. He spake
the truth when he
summed up his life in the words, “Few and evil have the days of
the years
of
my life been.” Does the Lord intend us to judge of his goodness to his
servants from the written life of Jacob? or
from the career of any one of his
servants? The judgement must include the
ages of an endless blessedness.
This life is but the brief preface to the volume of our
history. It is but the
rough border, the selvage of the rich cloth of our being. These
rippling
streams of life come not to an end, but flow into the endless, shoreless
ocean of bliss. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have long been
enjoying felicity,
and
shall enjoy it throughout eternity. God is not ashamed to be called their
God if you judge of the whole of their being; he would not
have spoken
thus if the visible were all, and there were no future to counterbalance the
tribulations of this mortal life. God is not the God of the shortlived, who
are
so speedily dead; but he is the living God of an immortal race, whose
present is but a dark passage into a bright future which can never
end.
Yet further, to bring out the meaning here, God cannot
be the God of the
non-existent. The supposition is too absurd. Our Savior does not argue
about it, but he says so most peremptorily! God is not the God
of the dead
— that cannot be! If Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob are reduced to a
handful of ashes, God cannot be at this moment their God. We
cannot take
a
dead object to be our God, neither can Jehovah be a God to lifeless clay.
God is not the God of putrefaction and annihilation. God is
not the God of
that which has ceased to be. We have but to put the idea into words to
make it dissolve before the glance of reason. A living God is the God of
living men; and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive.
This even goes far to show that the bodies of these saints
shall yet live.
God reckons his covenanted ones to be alive. He saith, “The dead are
raised.” He reckons them to be raised; and as he reckons nothing
falsely, it
is
said by way of anticipation. “Thy dead men shall live.” Inasmuch as a
portion of these chosen ones is still in the earth, God, who
reckons things
that are not as though they were, looks upon their bodies as possessing
life,
because they are to possess life so soon. God is not only the God
of
Abraham’s soul, but of Abraham as a
whole, his body, soul, and spirit. God
is
the God of Abraham’s body; we are sure of that, because the covenant
seal was set upon the flesh of Abraham. Where the doubt might be, there is
the
confirming seal, namely, in his mortal body. There was no seal set upon
his
soul, for the soul had life, and could not see death; but it was set upon
his
body, which would die, to make sure that even it would live. At this day
we
have baptism and the holy supper to be seals as to the body. I have
sometimes thought to myself that it were better if there were no
water
baptism, seeing it has become the nest of so much superstition;
and the
Lord’s Supper, with all its blessed uses, has been so
abused that one is apt
to
think that without outward ordinances there might be more spiritual
religion; but the Lord intends that the materialism of man, and of
creation,
shall be uplifted; and that the body shall be raised
incorruptible, and
therefore has he given seals which touch the outward and material.
The
water wherein the body is washed, and the bread and wine whereby
the
body is nourished, are tokens that there cometh to us, not only spiritual
and
invisible blessings, but even such as shall redeem and purify our
mortal
body. The grave cannot hold any portion of the covenanted ones: eternal
life is the portion of the whole man. God is the God of our entire manhood,
spirit, soul, and body; and all live unto him in their entirety.
The whole of
the
covenant shall be fulfilled to the whole of those with whom that
covenant was made.
This is good reasoning to those who have gone beyond mere
reason, and
have ascended into the realm of faith. May the Holy Spirit grant unto us to
be
among them!
III. Thirdly,
and very briefly, beloved friends: my text not only declares
glorious relationship, and implies eternal life, but it also
unveils somewhat
scantily, but still sufficiently, what the glorious life must be.
Look then and
see
the GLORIOUS
LIFE UNVEILED.
It is clear that they live personally. It is not
said, “I am the God of the
whole body of the saints in one mass.” But “I am the God of
Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob.” God will make his people to live individually.
My mother,
my
father, my child, each will personally exist. God is the God of saints, as
living distinct lives: Abraham is Abraham, Isaac is Isaac, Jacob
is Jacob.
The three patriarchs were not all melted into one common
Abraham, nor
Isaac into one imaginary Isaac; neither was any one so
altered as to cease
to
be himself. Abraham Isaac, and Jacob are all literally
living as actual
men,
and the same men as they used to be. Jacob is Jacob, and not an echo
of
Abraham; Isaac is Isaac, and not a rehearsal of Jacob. All the saints are
existent in their personality, identity, distinction, and
idiosyncrasy.
What is more, the patriarchs are mentioned by their
names; and so it is
clear they are known: they are not three anonymous bodies, but
Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Many enquire, “Shall we know our friends in
heaven?”
Why should we not? The saints in heaven are never spoken of
in Scripture
as
moving about anonymously; but their names are spoken of as written in
the
book of life. Why is this? The apostles knew Moses and Elias on the
Mount, though they had never seen them before. I cannot
forget old John
Ryland’s answer to his wife: “John,” she said, “will you know me in
heaven?” “Betty,” he replied, “I have known you well here, and I
shall not
be
a bigger fool in heaven than I am now; therefore I shall certainly know
you
there.” That seems to be clear enough. We read in the New Testament,
“They shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the
kingdom of
heaven;” not sit down with three unknown individuals in iron
masks, or
three impersonalities who make a part
of the great pan, nor three spirits
who
are as exactly alike as pins made in a factory; but Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. That is clear enough in the text.
That glorious life, while it is a personal and a known
life, is also free from
all sorrow, and misery,
and earthly grossness. They are neither married nor
given in marriage, neither shall they die any more; but they are
as the
angels of God. It is a life of perfect blessedness, a life of
hallowed worship,
a
life of undivided glory. Oh, that we were in it! Oh that we may soon
reach it! Let us think of the many who are enjoying it now, and
of those
who
have attained to it during the last few days. I am sure they are at home
in
every golden street, and fully engaged in the adoration and worship of
their Lord. Those saints who have been in glory now these
thousands of
years cannot be more blest than the latest arrivals. Within a
very short
space you and I shall be among the shining ones. Some of us may
spend
our
next Sabbath with the angels. Let us rejoice and be glad at the bare
thought of it. Some of as are not doomed to live here through
another
winter: we shall pass beyond these autumn fogs into the golden
light of the
eternal summer before another Christmas-day has come. Oh the joy
which
ought to thrill through our souls at the thought of such amazing
bliss!
And now, taking the whole subject together, I want to say a
few familiar
things about the influence which all this ought to have upon us.
Concerning those that have gone before us, we gather from
this whole text
that they are not lost. We know where they are. Neither have they
lost
anything, for they are what they were, and more. Abraham has about
him
still everything that is Abrahamic; he
is Abraham still. And Isaac has
everything about him that properly belongs to Isaac; and Jacob has
all
about him that makes him God’s
that really appertained to their individuality, nothing that made them
precious in the sight of the Lord. They have gained infinitely;
they have
developed gloriously. They are Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob now at
their
best; or rather they are waiting till the trumpet of the resurrection shall
sound, when their bodies also shall be united to their spirits,
and then
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob will be completely Abraham,
and Isaac, and
Jacob, world without end. We are by no means deprived of our dear ones
by
their death: they are; they are themselves; and they are ours still. As
Abraham is not lost to Isaac, nor to Jacob, nor to God, nor
to himself; so
are
our beloved ones by no means lost to us. Do not let us think of them
then as if they were lost. I know your sorrows make an excursion to the
grave, to look there for the deceased ones. You want to lift
that coffin lid,
and
to unwrap the shroud. Oh, do not so, do not so! He is not here; the
real man has gone. He may be dead to you for a while, but he lives unto
God. Yes, the dead one liveth, he liveth unto God. Do but anticipate the
passage of that little time, which is almost gone while I am
speaking of it,
and
then your Savior’s angels shall sound their golden trumpets, and at the
welcome noise the grave shall open its portals, and resign its
captives. “Thy
brother shall rise again.” Wherefore, comfort one another with
these
words. Shaftesbury is as much Shaftesbury as ever, and even more so. We
have parted with the earl, but the saint liveth:
he has gone past yonder veil
into the next room, and there he is before the Lord of Hosts. He has gone
out
of this dim, dusky, cloudy chamber into the bright, pearly light that
streameth from the throne of God and of the Lamb. We have nothing to
sorrow about in reference to what he is or where he is. So, too,
your
valued parents, and beloved children, and choice friends — they
are yours
still. Herein is great cause for thankfulness. Put aside your
sackcloth, and
wear the garments of hope; lay down the sackbut, and take up the trumpet.
Draw not the beloved bodies to the cemetery with dreary
pomp, and with
black horses; but cover the coffin with sweet flowers,-and drape
the horses
with emblems of hope. It is the better birthday of the saint, yea, his truer
wedding-day. Is it sad to have done with sadness? Is it sorrowful to part
with sorrow? Nay rather, when joy beginneth to our
friends, where glory
dwelleth in Immanuel’s land, we may in sympathy sing, as it were, a
new
song, and tune our harps to the melodies of the glorified.
I want you also to recollect that the departed have not
become members of
another race; they have not
been transferred into another family; they are
still men, still women, still of our kindred deer; their names
are in the same
family register on earth, and in heaven. Oh, no, no! do not dream that they
are
separated, and exiled; they have gone to the home country: we are the
exiles; they it is who are at home. We are en route for
the fatherland; they
are
not so far from us as we think. Sin worked to divide them from us, and
us
from them while we were here together; but since sin is now taken away
from them, one dividing element is gone. When it is also removed from us,
we
shall be nearer to each other than we could have been while we were
both sinful. Do not let us think of them as sundered far, for we are one in
Christ.
And they are not gone over to the other side in the
battle. Oh, do not
speak of them as dead and lying on the battle-field: they live,
they live in
sympathy with our divine conflict. They have marched through the
enemy’s
country; they have fought their fight, and taken possession of
their
inheritance. They are still on our side, though we miss them from the
daily
service. When you number up the hosts of God, you must not forget
the
godlike bands that have fought the good fight, and kept the faith,
and
finished their course. They are in the armies of the Lord, though
not at this
moment resisting unto blood. The hundred and forty-four thousand
sealed
unto the Lord include in their ranks all who are with God, whether here or
in
heaven.
“One
family we dwell in him,
One
church, above, beneath,
Though
now divided by the stream,
The narrow stream of death.”
Our sacramental host marches onward to the New Jerusalem.
Certain of
the
legionaries have forded the dividing flood. I see them ascending the
other side! The hither bank of the river is white with their
rising companies.
Lo! I hear the splash of the ranks before us as they
steadily pass down into
the
chill stream; in deep silence we see them solemnly wading through the
billows. The host is ever marching on, marching on. The much
dreaded
stream lies a little before us: it is but a silver streak. We are
to the margin
come. We shudder not at the prospect. We follow the blessed footsteps of
our
Lord and his redeemed. We are all one army still: we are not losing our
men;
they are simply ascending from the long campaign to take their
endless rewards at the Lord’s right hand.
What then? Why, then, we will take up their work. If
they have gone into
the
upper chamber to rest, we will make up their lack of service in this
lower room. The work they did was so human that we will not
allow a
stitch to drop, but take it up where they left it, and persevere
in earnest.
They are in glory, but they were not glorified when they
were here. The
work they did was done by men of such infirmities as ours; so let us not
fear to go on where they left off, and perpetuate the work which they
rejoiced in. There lies the plough in the furrow, and the oxen are
standing
still, for Shamgar, the champion, is
gone. Will no one lay hold of the
plough handles? Will nobody urge the oxen with the goad? Young
men,
are
you idling? Here is work for you. Are you hiding yourselves: Come
forward, I pray you in the name of the great Husbandman, and let
the fields
be
tilled, and sown with the good seed. Who will fill the gap made by
death? Who will be baptized for the dead? Who will bear the
banner now
that a standard-bearer has fallen? I hope some consecrated voice will
answer, “Here am I; send me.”
For, last of all, brethren, we may expect the same succours as they received
who have gone before.
Jehovah saith that he is the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; but he also saith, “I am the God of
your father.” The father of Moses had the Lord to be his God. That God is
the
God of my father, blessed be his name. As I took the old man by his
hand yesterday, at the age of seventy-six, I could not but rejoice in all
the
faithfulness of the Lord to him and to his house. He was the God of my
father’s father also; I cannot forget how the venerable man laid
his hands
upon his grandchild, and blessed him; and the blessing is with him still.
Yes, and he is the God of my children, and he shall be the
God of my
children’s children; for he keepeth covenant
to thousands of them that lov
him.
Wherefore take courage, men and brethren! This God is your God. He
is
a God to you, and you are a people to him. Act as his true servants. Live
as
those that are elect. If you are his choice, be choice characters. The
chosen should be the best, should they not? The elect should be
especially
distinguished above all others by their conversation and their fervent
zeal
for
him that chose them. As you shall rise from among the dead, because
the
Lord Jesus hath redeemed you from among men, so stand up from
among the dead and corrupt mass of this world, and be alive unto
God,
through Jesus Christ your Lord. What manner of people ought ye to
be
who
serve the living God? Since the living God hath manifested himself so
wonderfully to you, ought you not to live unto him to the utmost? God
bless you for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ
BEFORE SERMON
—
Exodus 3:1-10; Luke 20:27-30.
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