New Park Street Pulpit · Sermon No. 274
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, September 11th, 1859.
“Having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.”—Philippians 1:23.
WE KNOW THAT DEATH is not the end of our being. By a confident faith we are persuaded that better things await us in another state. We are speeding onwards through our brief life like an arrow shot from a bow, and we feel that we shall not drop down at the end of our flight into the dreariness of annihilation, but we shall find a heavenly target far across the flood of death. The force which impels us onwards is too mighty to be restrained by death. We have that within us which is not to be accounted for, if there be not a world to come, and especially, as believers, we have hopes, and desires, and aspirations, which cannot be fulfilled, and which must have been given us purposely to make us miserable, and to tantalize us, if there be not a state in which every one of these shall be satisfied and filled to the brim with Joy. We know, too, that the world into which we shall soon be ushered is one which shall never pass away. We have learned full well by experience that all things here are but for a season. They are things which shall be shaken, and, therefore, will not remain in the day when God shall shake both heaven and earth. But equally certain are we that the inheritance which awaits us in the world to come is eternal and unfailing, that the cycles of ages shall never move it; that the onflowing of eternity itself shall not diminish its duration. We know that the world to which we go is not to be measured by leagues, nor is the life thereof to be calculated by centuries. Well does it become every one of us, then, professing the Christian name, to be questioning ourselves as to the view which we take of the world to come. lt may be there are some of you now present who call yourselves believers, who look into a future state with shuddering and awe. Possibly there may be but few here who have attained to the position of the apostle, when he could say, that he had a desire to depart and to be with Christ. I take it that our view of our own death is one of the readiest tokens by which we may judge of our own spiritual condition. When men fear death it is not certain that they are wicked, but it is quite certain that if they have faith it is in a very weak and sickly condition. When men desire death we may not rest assured that they are therefore righteous, for they may desire it for wrong reasons; but if for right reasons they are panting to enter into another state, we may gather from this, not only that their minds are right with God, but that their faith is sanctified and that their love is fervent.
I hope that the service of this morning may have the effect of leading every one of us to self-examination. I shall endeavor while preaching to search myself, and I pray that each one of you may be led to hear for himself, and I beseech you to put home each pertinent and personal question to your own souls, while in a quiet, but I hope in a forcible manner, I shall endeavor to describe the apostle’s feelings in prospect of departure.
Three things I shall observe this morning. First of all, the apostle’s description of death; secondly, his desire for it, and thirdly, the reasons which justified such a desire.
I. THE APOSTLE’S DESCRIPTION OF DEATH. We are to understand this of course as being a description not of the death of the wicked, but of the death of the righteous. And you will remark the apostle does not call it an arrest. In the death of the wicked, the sheriff’s officer of justice doth lay his clay-cold hand upon the man’s shoulder, and he is his prisoner for ever. The sergeant-at-arms in the name of the justice which has been incensed, puts the fetters about his wrists, and conducts him to the prison-house of despair and everlasting torment. In the Christian’s case, however, there is no such thing as an arrest, for there is no one that can arrest him. We sometimes talk of death arresting the believer in the midst of his career, but we misuse terms. Who shall arrest a man against whom there is neither conviction nor accusation? Who is he that condemneth the man for whom Christ has died? Nay, further, who shall so much as lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? How then can the Christian be arrested? It is no such thing; it is an arrest of the ungodly, but not of the believer.
Nor does Paul speak of the believer’s death as being a sudden plunge. This is a proper description of the death of the ungodly. He stands upon the brink of a precipice, and beneath him there is a yawning and bottomless gulf. Through thick darkness he must descend, and into it his unwilling spirit must take a desperate leap. Not so the believer. His is no leap downwards: it is a climbing upwards. He has his foot upon the first round of the ladder, and joyful is the hour when his Master saith unto him, “Come up higher; ascend to another guest-chamber, and here feast upon richer dainties than those I have given thee below.” Aye! ‘tis no leap in the dark. ‘Tis no plunge into a cold sea; ‘tis simply a departure.