ESPECIALLY when death tries to climb in through the windows of our home, and fear takes hold of us, that our sick is going to die, we feel sometimes so somber-seriously the question cast into our soul: Shall he be saved?
There are those, praise the Lord, whom we see pass away from our environment, without that anxious question disquieting us for one moment. Brothers and sisters, of whose person, from whose word and by whose whole appearance we received so strong an impression of an Abba Father, that it could not be strange, that their departure must have been an entrance into the blessedness.
Truly, our human judgment is always fallible, and with the best of us our spiritual insight can deceive itself; but, provided our judgment does not rest upon weak impressions but upon serious investigation, we need not detain ourselves with it. Not we are seated on the tribunal, God is judge; and standing at the dyingbed of our loved ones, it is already so glorious, if we have no anxiety of soul regarding their eternal salvation; when, weeping at their grave, we feel no concern about their blessedness of soul cutting in the deeply-moved heart.
Be not anxious therefore nor melancholy, and when from your association in earlier and healthier days you received a happy impression, that the features of childship shone through brightly, do not then burden your soul with sombernesses, which have no ground, but rather thank your God, that He included your sick in the bundle of the living.
Not the spiritual condition under depressing pain decides; it depends alone upon the spiritual state.
And though in distress and death’s extremity there is still much struggle, yea, though everything seems to be gone, never may the lot for eternity be measured off thereby.
For, surely, there is something, O, so glorious, when there may be a rich, a witnessing, a jubilant, an almost prophetical dyingbed.
But also such a triumphant and comforting dyingbed is pure grace, and also in the imparting of this grace the God of all compassion remains free.
MAKING up on the dyingbed what in days of strength and prosperity was so recklessly neglected, almost never succeeds.
Appearance here deceives.
Indeed there are not a few, who in the shadows of death break through into freedom, into largeness of space and to spiritual melting; but in most instances this touches only faith-assurance.
They had long since exchanged play for seriousness. Thirst after righteousness burned, O, so long already upon their lips. Without the Savior they would not do. Only, they remained uncertain about appropriation, and they lacked the joy of personal faith. They sought assurance along a way, which does not lead thereto, and they overlooked the fact, that assurance belongs to the nature itself of faith, and therefore germinates alone from faith itself in the broken heart.
If one is once carried along in these streams of doubts and anxieties, and lives in an environment, which encourages these tossings, and one hears preaching, that gives no direction regarding it, yea, then with these children of God it remains to their latest days anxious questioning, and not infrequently it is only shortly before their dying that full light breaks through in their soul.
Not as though only at that late moment the first grace was spent on them. That grace operated already long years.
But only now the scales fall from the eyes and they see the light.
FOR the rest on the other hand, there prevails at all too many dyingbeds a dull, spiritless tone, and upon, O, so many a grave there stands a soul-gripping interrogation-mark.
What was this dying? An entrance upon eternal life, or a forever sinking away into the bands of hell and death?
This renders it indeed so intelligible, especially when the doctor says that there is no more hope, that so often a last effort is made, to call the dying to the Savior.
And this is needful. And provided it takes place from the urge of holy love, and not from hard haughtiness, this is always praiseworthy.
Sometimes it also bore fruit.
Only, such admonition to the dying so frequently bore the character of making up of neglect.
A mother, who in days of health had let her husband, her child spiritually grow in the wild; who even in the first days of sickness, when as yet there was no danger, had merely engaged in small talk; and now, in the extreme moment, sobered by the approaching death-struggle, suddenly reminds herself, that also her husband, her child has a soul to lose forever, and now deems to be able by a pressing word to make up what was left undone.
And in most cases this avails nothing.
Because she does not understand the art of it; because the poor sufferer is already too far gone and too confused; and also because God has promised no blessing upon such doings.
But from such effort of despair there truly goes out a cry from the conscience to all living: Even now, in the acceptable time, now in the day of grace, consider for yourself, and consider for your loved ones, what pertains to your eternal peace.
AND do you ask, whether, when one of our dear ones passed away, without giving us before dying any sign of spiritual life, we should pass judgment, that he who died is lost—then the answer runs: You are not to judge. He Who judges the living and the dead, is the Lord.
Thus you should not say: “He may indeed be saved.” Where no ground was evident, you have no ground. And at least in this holy matter of such dreadful seriousness you shall not lie.
If nothing of childship in the dead was discovered by you, you miss every right, to say, that God will yet be gracious unto him.
Neither are you permitted to pray for the deceased any more, that God will yet be gracious unto him; for though the word of the Preacher “as the tree falleth, so shall it lie” has a somewhat different sense, yet the thought expressed therein by God’s people, is altogether true.
On this side of the grave there must be life in the soul and light in the eye of the soul, or else it does not come.
On the other side of the grave there is no more place for conversion.
Only think of the rich man in the parable.
“Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot” (S. Luke 16, 26).
BUT, and this needs to be emphasized, you should just as little say: “He is lost,” for also that you do not know.
When Calvin was told of the fanatic assassin, who had stabbed the Duke de Guise, he said: “No one knows whether in his deathcry God has not shown mercy to the duke.”
God’s absolute power you shall not limit.
To infuse grace unto life is the work of an indivisible moment, and you can never say, what it may please God, even yet in such a latest moment, even yet in the last gasp to do to the dying.
You may not say, that it is so. You miss even every ground of hope, on which to rest. But the possibility remains, and already this stops despair.
With all the children of God dying is a dying away of sin; and who observes anything of it, that in dying God brings to effect this cutting off of all sin and this perfecting of sanctification?
Of God’s hidden working in the soul we take notice later on, when the fruit of it becomes evident; but when the Holy Spirit finishes the internal hidden work, is a secret to us.
Thus you are to pass no judgment. Not to glory in a salvation, of which you have no knowledge. Not to soothe yourself with general talk without seriousness. Neither yet to make mention of a hope, for which you have no ground.
You have to leave it with God, and gratefully to acknowledge the possibility, that grace can still have been quickened.
THE “This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise” also came so altogether unexpectedly.
Jesus’ disciples have taken to flight. Judas has betrayed Him. Peter has denied Him. Only John is seen at the cross. Only a few women persevere in their love. And while all these children of God shudder and tremble and sin, it is that murderer on the cross, to whom Jesus unlocks the gate of Paradise.
So has Jesus in dying on the shamewood thought of our dying ones, and by that striking word to the crossling in his death agonies, has restored to innumerable thousands of souls, who in their dying despaired, yet in that dying itself courage and the hope of salvation.
O, in dying even best piety falls away, and so naked and in her shame does our soul come to stand before her God. The distance between the murderer and a dear child of God like John dwindles so greatly in the hour of death.
It is then purely grace. Nothing indeed save a “Lord Jesus, receive my soul!”
And therefore in days of somber seriousness look not upon your dying, look not upon your dead, gaze not upon his tombstone, but gaze solely upon the grace of your Lord, so absolutely powerful, so divinely compassionate and so rich.
← 39. The End of That Man Is Peace (The End of That Man Was Peace) · Contents · 41. As a Flower of the Field (A Flower of the Field) →