THE secret hope almost every child of God cherishes on his last sick-bed to make good much of his spiritual negligence, and to die in close nearness to God, as a rule, ends in bitter disappointment.
This hope falls away altogether with all those, who are suddenly taken away out of this life; something by no means of rare occurrence. Whether an accident cuts off our life, or a stroke overtakes us, or a sudden paralysis arrests the action of the heart and makes one stop breathing.
But even when God the Lord allows His child a gentler transition, and even though sickness slowly creeps upon us, which binds us weeks and sometimes months to the sick-bed, yet with such lingering illness you find little of spiritual freshness and succulence; and if from a slow going you hoped to carry away a rich edification for your own soul, in most instances you are deceived.
Surely, there are such soul-exalting, God glorifying sick-beds; and it has happened more than once, that on his last sick-bed a person was permitted, as a witness and prophet of the Lord in the circle of his family to finish a spiritual work. A deathbed as of Jacob has been seen also among Christians.
But he who deems this to be the rule, is mistaken. This is rather highly exceptional.
And when you think of the numbers of those who formerly companied with you spiritually and have since departed, you will mostly find that they were taken away without much spiritual light shining out from their deathbed.
At one time, because they did not expect that this sickness would be unto death. Then again, because the plague that was upon them, dulled their spirit; sometimes removing all clearness from the consciousness. And also at times, because, however baffling it may seem, shortly before their departure there come to many of God’s children, bitter darkening and temptation.
Whether in such moments we have to reproach ourselves with respect to this, is a question which every child of God has to decide in his own conscience.
It can also go on altogether outside of our guilt.
The Lord can bring upon us so violent a plague, terrifying our whole being and benumbing our mind in anxiety and pain, that it goes on altogether outside of our soul. And also the darkening and temptation, as Job’s example shows, can be a Divinely intentioned trial of our faith.
Yet let no one be overconfident about this; for the cases are not infrequent, that the powerlessness of our faith in such moments is bitter fruit of lack of faith’s operation, if not of consenting to sin against God, when we were in health.
So when the bustle of ordinary activities falls away, and diversion ceases, and our soul is thrown back upon herself, all the sinful of our past thrusts itself upon us with overwhelming force; and woe to him who then has no unshakable faith, firm as a rock in the atoning power of the blood of his Savior.
He who then does not positively know and see, that God has cast all his sins in the depth of the sea, but has them for his own account, suffers such unbearable remorse and such mortal anxiety.
For surely judgment comes, and for him who is about to die it stands so close at the door.
Then the soul bows itself down under it, and it is only divine compassion that in such dreadful moments can liberate the soul from the bands of death and hell.
BUT however every one personally may stand with his guilt before God, it is certainly wrong when on our sick-bed, that threatens to become our deathbed, the need of glorifying God before our dying, does not become a burden of prayer.
See it in the case of David.
He lay prostrate with a deadly disease; the plague of a serious, dangerous sickness had come upon him; and spiritually he felt himself languid and useless.
He could not battle it.
The force of the disease was too overwhelming, and listless as a log he lay upon his sick-bed.
But, however benumbed and clouded he felt himself to be, there rested him still this one thing, that this miserable, spiritual barrenness was an hindrance to him, and that he thirsted, before dying to have at least a few brief moments, in which the violence of the plague would abate, spiritual self-perception would return, and he could refresh himself preparatory to commending his soul into God’s hand.
So he came to pray; and as he prayed tears ran down his face, and then he cried: “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: O, my God, turn thee away from me, that I may refresh myself, before I go hence, and be no more.” (Ps. 39, 12 Dutch version).
OF course this prayer of David must not be misunderstood.
It was in no wise an exclamation of unbelief, after the manner of Job’s wife, to curse God before he died. The whole 39th psalm shows this differently. Everything in this psalm is the longing of a worn-out and desolate soul after the living God.
But David realized that God was in the plague; that this violent sickness came not upon him by chance, but of God; that in that plague God Himself distressed him; and for this reason he supplicated: Turn thee as the reproving God externally away from me, and as the spiritual Comforter come internally to me.
And neither will it do to suggest the question, whether indeed David believed in a life after this life, because he said: “before I go hence and be no more”; for see, just before this goes the testimony, that even as his fathers he had been a stranger and a sojourner, which of itself includes the confession of the heavenly fatherland.
No, what this servant of God supplicated was, not to die like a dog; but that before the end came, he might have a moment of relief, before dying to be permitted to refresh himself, and so with clear, bright consciousness of faith to go into eternity.
SO in this prayer speaks energy of faith, and in our serious sicknesses this is what we also have to learn from David.
A child of God must never give up; but, however violent the plague becomes, always struggle in against it with the elasticity of his spiritual life.
Not as though in himself he would have a certain provision of strength, to keep it up till the end. Faith never knows of anything except weaknesses, that in those weaknesses the power and the work of the Holy Spirit may become manifest.
But it makes all the difference, whether in such moments you let go of the Holy Ghost, or whether inwardly you hold yourself fast to Him.
And this difference you see so frequently.
You find those who lie down upon their sick-bed like a log, and, if they do complain, only complain of what ails their body. But for the rest they have given up. They are indeed willing that one should pray for them, but they no longer pray themselves. They simply undergo what God puts upon them. There is no more effort in their faith, to harness the sinew of faith. Of the glory of the work of the Mediator they see nothing more. Everything about them has become barren and dead. And so the days and nights go by, till finally it goes to death with them.
This is sinning upon one’s deathbed.
There is something in this of denial of Christ.
And that this is not necessary, yea, except in times of unconsciousness, is never necessary, is shown not only by David, but has equally well been evident with many a person bitterly afflicted and severely plagued, who in the face of everything, and underneath it all, never let go his Pniel, and with heroic courage of faith held on to the uttermost.
Then it was mostly observed, that this heroism of faith inworked upon the body and silenced complaint of pain, in quiet patience to endure, what had to be suffered; and, though all the waves and billows went over him, he yet raised up the head again from out those dreadful waves, until it was enough, and the Lord made an end of it, and God’s angels rejoiced, and they who loved him and at his deathbed wept because of their sorrow, yet also thanked God, that they had witnessed this power of faith again.
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