DEATH IS HERE. There is no disguising the unmistakable fact. All would like to get rid of it, if they could, but that is impossible. Death is here, and makes no distinctions. Peasants, farmers, mechanics, townspeople, commercial men, professionals, nobles, kings, emperors, all classes in short, die. Face the truth of it you must, whoever you are.
Moreover, you may have to die today; you might die as you read these lines. There is nothing more uncertain than this life. You may make a fortune as large as Rothschild’s; you may climb to the top of the tree of literary renown; you may be a world-wide celebrity for scientific research; you may gain the highest military distinction; you may be the envy of the mass as to parliamentary honors, but you cannot get rid of death. And although the world might ring with your name and fame for centuries to come, you yourself will leave all behind when you die. Once you are born into this world, whoever you may be, whatever you may do, death is before you. You may escape it in childhood; you may escape it at manhood; you may escape it in middle age; but old age will come, and the end of man here is death. You may live fifty years after reading this, or you may only live fifty seconds, nothing is more uncertain. Death is before you, right before you, every moment brings it nearer to you, and you to it. You may close your eyes, distract your thoughts, salve or sear your conscience, but it does not alter it. Death is right before you, the dire foe you cannot escape.
Infidels deny truth on all hands, but one thing that they never attempt to deny is death. Go where you will, cities, towns, villages witness to the fact; for cemeteries, churchyards, graveyards, tombs abound almost everywhere. Every family has experienced the truth of it. Yes, death is here.
We recently came across a book with the title at the head of this paper, “Death―and afterward,” the production of a man of known brilliant parts in the literary world. Alive to the above fact, the writer appears to have looked it in the face, and to have brought all his great powers of mind to bear upon it. Evidently it is a very unpleasant one. What is to be done in view of it? The heart suggests, get rid of it. But this being impossible, the next best thing is, take away its ugly appearance to the very best of man’s ability, and clothe it with a halo of sweetness and glory. Convinced by creation of another fact, that death has an afterwards, and surprised at the incredulity of many as to this, some awkward text such as, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27), floating perhaps in the mind, since it was first imbibed at a mother’s knee, something must be done.
To go through life, with death and judgment ahead accepted as facts, with their generally received meaning, would be misery. The remedy is simple; throw judgment overboard altogether, and as to death, which is a thing visible, and cannot be shelved quite so easily, gild it with light, and turn it into a lovely dream.
But still the fact remains, death is here. You may put a halo of glory about it, and surround it with poetical phrases, but still death is death. The spirit leaves the tenement, and the end of the poor body here, whether beautiful or ugly, graceful or hideous, is a coffin, corruption, dust, and worms; or cremation, and an urnful of ashes, ―a custom which Christendom has borrowed from heathendom.
And afterward, what then? Here man with highest natural powers is utterly at fault. A thoughtful and poetical mind, with borrowed Buddhism, and sundry suggestive Scripture thoughts (even though Scripture is treated as a mere human composition like any other book, and much of its contents entirely ignored), can imagine anything. It is easy for such a one to picture ages of bliss and joy beyond. And with judgment as a fable, invented to frighten naughty children, or as a weapon for covetous religionists to extort gold from frightened fools, it is almost charming to look at this world as the ante-room, and death as the glorious door to Elysian fields of transcendent and unimagined delights.
Lovely dream, charming fantasy, glorious ideal! But alas, alas! this cup of nectar contains one bitter drop. That is, Is it true? One great authority will tell you so. Believe him, and all will be well. You may lie on your bed of down, and sleep life’s weary years away dreaming of your glorious future. You have solved life’s mystery. Things are not as they appear. The old-fashioned notions are quite obsolete. The world is all beauty; man, the model of perfection and purity; sin, a chimera, or natural infirmity, or slight frailty at most, and most excusable; death, the door to eternal bliss. Yes, with all the qualms of conscience notwithstanding, there is nothing the matter after all. Life’s mystery is most happily solved and... But, one moment, this is delightful, but... Well, but what?... the great authority you speak about, who is he? Oh! he’s the father of lies. But you need not trouble believe him; take unquestioning all he says, and you have found the end of the tangled skein, and all is well. The cup of nectar is at your lips; drink it, and be happy now and evermore. Take no notice of the drop of bitter; drink it down; sleep comfortably, dream on; you will soon pass the glorious portal; and then unspeakable joy.
Yet still the fact remains, death is here; and as the highly cultured poet says, there is death—and afterwards; and some foolish people are not yet quite convinced that the above is wisdom’s solution of it all. They are not poetical, it is true. But some have common (if not uncommon) sense. (‘Tis thought that of the former some poets have a lack.) Can the renowned discoverer of this right royal road to happiness furnish unimpeachable authority that it leads to the desired goal? Some have read in an old book, which has no pretension to modern authority, having been written several centuries before the advanced minds of the nineteenth introduced their novel creed, that a certain rich man, clad in purple and fine linen, who fared sumptuously every day, who appears to have trusted the great authority above mentioned, passed out of the ante-room by the well-known door, and was buried, and “in hell he lift up his eyes, being in...” (Luke 16:23). What nonsense, why, it lacks all poetical sentiment! Excuse, friend but do not interrupt; let us read the following verse, “And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” You may exclaim―The idea of believing that, why, it is in the Bible!
Yes, reader, that’s in the Bible, ―THE WORD OF GOD. The Word of God indeed! says the father of lies. The Word of God! echoes modern poetry and sentiment. The Word of God! re-echoes modern infidelity all around. Yes, the Word of God, the Word of Him who cannot lie (Titus 1:2) the Word that shall never pass away (Matt. 24:35); the Word that endureth forever (1 Peter 1:25); the Word that is forever settled in heaven (Psa. 119:89); the Scripture which cannot be broken, (John 10:35)
“I do not believe it is the Word of God,” says barefaced unbelief.
“He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him; the word that; I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last; day,” says the Son of God in that Word (John 12:48).
“I do not believe that He is the Son of God.”
“If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in, your sins” (John 8:24). “He that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16).
“And I do not believe in God.”
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no, God” (Psa. 14:1, 53:1). And “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:7, 8).
Read 2 Peter 2:1, 2, ye infidel reasoners without God, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.”
What more damnable heresy than to banish judgment, make death a beautiful dream, shut out God, His Son, His Word, and Calvary’s great atoning work deny, for of what avail is it if death and judgment are no more?
Ah, ye blind guides, say, do, write what ye will, but still the fact remains, Death is here. Death—and afterward. And God has said, “Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:4). “It is appointed unto men once to die, but AFTER THIS THE JUDGMENT” (Heb. 9:27). “Oh, that men were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their lager end!” (Deut. 32:29.) Yes, O man, death and judgment are before you, and the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8). God has said it. You may shut your eyes to the dread reality, slumber on hell’s brink, until you are hushed fast asleep by the devil’s lullaby. “Peace, peace,” but God has said there is no peace to the wicked (Isa. 57:21), and those who believe not the truth shall be damned (2 Thess. 2:12).
Oh! self-deluded, sin-deluded, Satan-deluded sinner, when will you wake up to the awful snare in which the wicked one has entangled you; when, when will you listen to the blessed voice of Jesus, the Son of God? When will you listen to the Word of Him who made you, and whose loving heart yearns over you in your folly, and madness, and sin? “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken. Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it” (Jer. 6:16-19).
Reader, we beg, we implore, we entreat you to listen ere it be too late. Death, death in all its dread reality, is before you, yes, death and afterwards―judgment, ― the solemn, awful, eternal judgment of a holy, holy, holy God, ―whosoever was not found written in the book of life was CAST INTO THE LAKE OF FIRE (Rev. 20:15).
One way, and one way only, is open to you to escape. God presents to you Christ. Away once and forever with your poetical dreams and sentimental delusions. It is wisely said, facts are stubborn things. Death, judgment, and the lake of fire are stubborn things indeed; come then to Jesus. Will you, dare you, pass Him by? Will you, dare you, still treat as a thing of naught the wondrous love of God in the gift of Christ? Oh! ponder the wondrous story once again, ponder it now! Think, think of those precious words, “God so loved.” Think of that Blessed Babe of Bethlehem, the lowly Saviour, the Man of sorrows, the Man of Sychar’s well, the Man of Gethsemane’s garden, the Man of Pilate’s judgment hall, the Man of Calvary’s tree. Think, O think of those hours of darkness, the bitter cup. Think of that holy Lamb of God, forsaken of men, forsaken of God. Is your heart already so hard, your conscience so seared, your immortal souk so callous that that awful cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” finds no response in you? Can you, dare you, go on―on to death, and afterwards the worm that never dies, the fire that never shall be quenched (Mark 9:43-48), ―trampling under your feet that precious, precious blood (the blessed answer to the soldier’s wicked thrust) that alone can cleanse you from all sin (1 John 1:7).
All this was for sinners; all this is for you, and yet infatuated, blinded, deluded, you prefer to rush upon your awful doom, though a risen and ascended Saviour on the throne of God, in glory stretches forth His arms of love and mercy, and bids your come to Him. Bliss, eternal bliss, joys unfading, glory unutterable, pleasures for evermore, the Father’s house, the place prepared, the presence of God, the company of Christ, are free as the air you breathe—and yet you will close your eyes, your ears, your heart, your conscience, your soul, prefer the embrace of Satan, satiate your sentimental soul with his gilded baits and shams, to wake up in his company in endless woe, where you will weep and wail and gnash your teeth in vain, and find with all there, when it is too late forever, the awful reality of death and afterwards.
Which is it to be? “If Thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt BE SAVED.”
(Rom. 10:9). E. H. C.