New Park Street Pulpit · Sermon No. 166
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 6, 1857.
“That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil”—Hebrews 2:14.
IN GOD’S ORIGINAL empire everything was happiness, and joy, and peace. If there be any evil, any suffering and pain, that is not God’s work. God may permit it, overrule it, and out of it educe much good; but the evil cometh not of God. He himself standeth pure and perfect, the clean fountain out of which gusheth forth ever more sweet and pure waters. The devil’s reign, on the contrary, containeth nought of good, “the devil sinneth from the beginning,” and his dominion has been one uniform course of temptation to evil and infliction of misery. Death is a part of Satan’s dominion, he brought sin into the world when he tempted our mother Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit, and with sin he brought also death into the world, with all its train of woes. There had been likely no death, if there had been no devil. If Satan had not tempted, mayhap man had not revolted, and if he had not revolted he would have lived for ever, without having to undergo the painful change which is caused by death. I think death is the devil’s masterpiece. With the solitary exception of hell, death is certainly the most Satanic mischief that sin hath accomplished. Nothing ever delighted the heart of the devil so much as when he found that the threatening would be fulfilled, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” and never was his malicious heart so full of hellish joy as when he saw Abel stretched upon the earth, slain by the club of his brother. “Aha!” said Satan, “this is the first of all intelligent creatures that has died. Oh how I rejoice! This is the crowning hour of my dominion. It is true that I have marred the glory of this earth by my guileful temptation; it is true the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain by reason of the evil that I have brought into it; but this, this is my masterpiece; I have killed man; I have brought death into him, and here lieth the first—the first dead man.” Since that time Satan hath ever gloated over the death of the human race, and he hath had some cause of glory, for that death has been universal. All have died. Though they had been wise as Solomon, their wisdom could not spare their head; though they had been virtuous as Moses, yet their virtue could not avert the axe, All have died; and therefore the devil hath boasted in his triumph. But twice hath he been defeated; but two have entered heaven without dying, but the mass of mankind have had to feel the scythe of death; and he has rejoiced because this, his mightiest work, has had foundations broad as earth, and a summit that reached as high as the virtues of mankind could climb.
There is something fearful in death. It is frightful even to him that hath the most of faith. It is only the gildings of death, the afterwards, the heaven, the harp, the glory, that maketh death bearable even to the Christian. Death in itself must ever be an unutterably fearful thing to the sons of men. And oh! what ruin doth it work! It darkens the windows of the eyes; it pulls down the polished pillars of the divine architecture of the body; it turns the inhabitant the soul, out of its door, and bids it fly to worlds unknown; and it leaves in place of a living man a corpse whose appearance is so wretched that none can look upon it without emotions of horror. Now, this is Satan’s delight. He conceives death to be his masterpiece, because of its terror, and because of the ruin which it works. The greater the evil, the better doth he delight in it. No doubt he gloats over our sicknesses; he rejoices himself in our sin; but death is to him a theme of as much delight as he can be capable of in his eternal misery. He, as far as he can, shouteth for joy when he witnesseth how, by one fell deed of his, one piece of treachery, he hath swept the world with the besom of destruction, and hurried all men to the tomb.
And death is very lovely to the devil for another reason—not only because it is his chief work on earth, but because it gives him the finest opportunity in the world for the display of his malice and his craft. The devil is a coward, the greatest of cowards, as most wicked beings are. A Christian in health he will seldom attack; a Christian who has been living near his Master, and is strong in grace, the devil will leave alone, because he knows he will meet his match then; but if he can find a Christian either weak in faith, or weak in body, then he thinks it a fair opportunity for attack.
Now when death comes with all its terrors, it is usual for Satan to make a fierce inroad into the soul. Usually with many of the saints, if not in the last article of death, yet some little time before it, there is a ferocious onslaught made by the great enemy of souls. And then he loves death, because death weakens the mind. The approach of death destroys some of the mental power, and takes away from us for a season some of those spirits by which we have been cheered in better days. It makes us lie there, languid, and faint, and weary. “Now is my opportunity,” says the evil one; and he steals in upon us. Hence I believe for this reason he is said to have the power of death, for I cannot conceive that the devil hath the power of death in any other sense but this, that it was originated by him, and that he at such time generally displays the most of his malice and of his power. For it is certain my brethren the devil has not the power over death so as to cause death. All the devils in hell could not take away the life of the smallest infant in the world, and though we lie gasping and sick, so that the physician despairs of us, it is nothing but the fiat of the Almighty that can cause us to die, even in the extremity of our weakness As far as the cause is concerned, the devil is not the cause of death. We rejoice to believe with Dr. Young, that an angel’s arm cannot hurl us to the grave, even though it be the arm of that fallen archangel Lucifer; and we rejoice to know that afterwards a myriad angels cannot confine us there. So that neither for the unlocking of the door, nor for the securing of it afterwards, hath the devil any power whatever over the Christian in death.