Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 635
“How will you do in the swelling of Jordan?” Jeremiah 12:5.
CANAAN may be considered as a type of two states or conditions in the Christian’s life. It was the land of rest to the children of Israel after a weary pilgrimage in the wilderness. Now it is written that “we who believe do enter into rest.” A true Christian possessed of strong faith will not have a wilderness state on earth so much as a land flowing with milk and honey because his faith will give him the substance of things hoped for and be the evidence of things not seen. Many disciples live a life of depression, wretchedness, and discomfort which would be completely changed if they had faith in God and lived a higher life of devotedness and love.
Canaan may be fairly considered as a type of that better state of Christianity which some enjoy. It is not altogether free from ills. The Canaanite dwells in the land and there are still wars and fights, but there is rest and there is the spirit of service developing itself in the cultivation of the promised land. But Canaan is generally used to shadow forth “the rest which remains for the people of God” beyond the skies. Heaven is thus frequently described as corresponding to the earthly inheritance of the Jews.
It is our hope—the end of our pilgrimage. It contains our Jerusalem and the temple “not made with hands.” When this is the view taken of the type, then Jordan is not unnaturally likened unto death. Its dark waters are made to picture forth to our minds the chill stream through which we wade in our dying hour. It is a beautiful emblem and we have all doubtless often sung Dr. Watt’s hymn with much feeling—
“There is land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign. Infinite day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain. There everlasting spring abides, And never-withering flowers. Death, like a narrow sea, divides This hea venly land from ours.”
Taking “the swelling of Jordan” to represent the precise time of death, the question really is what shall we do when we come to die? “How will you do in the swelling of Jordan?”
I. We notice, in the first place, that this is an EXCEEDINGLY PRACTICAL QUESTION. “How will you do?” is the enquiry. There are some subjects which are more or less matters of pure faith and personal feeling. And though all Christian doctrines bear more or less directly upon the Christian life, yet they are not what is commonly meant by practical subjects. Our text, however, brings us face to face with a matter which is essentially a matter of doing and of acting— it asks how we mean to conduct ourselves in the hour of death.
We sometimes hear the remark made by those who object to doctrinal preaching that we are too speculative and utter our own opinions which feed men’s fancies but do not regulate their life. Now we believe that every promise leads to a precept and every doctrine has its duty—so we will not admit the justice of the insinuation even if we did preach doctrine entirely to the exclusion of the Commandments—which we emphatically deny. But here we have, at any rate, a topic practical enough. I am only afraid it will be a little too much so for some! They will turn it into a sentiment and a feeling and not act upon it so as to put it into practice and exemplify its power in after days.
Christians may differ with me on some points, but I am sure that here we are united in belief—we must die and ought not to die unprepared. There is a divergence of opinion as to what we ought to do at the commencement of our
Christian life—I maintain that we ought to follow Christ and be immersed in water, “for thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness.” Others oppose that as being unnecessary, inexpedient, or what not. We differ at the beginning of life, but we agree in the end—we must die. And we all want to die the death of the righteous and to have our last end like his.
II. We notice, in the second place, that it is UNDOUBTEDLY A PERSONAL QUESTION. How will you do? It individualizes us and makes us, each one, to come face to face with a dying hour. Now we all need this and it will be well for each one of us to look for a minute into the grave. We are too apt to regard all men as mortal but ourselves. Somehow we can see frailty of life as well as all the other frailties which we possess in common much more clearly in other people than we can in ourselves.
We are far too much blind to our own weakness and shall do well to ask ourselves, each of us, “My Soul, how will you do in the swelling of Jordan?” The ancient warrior who wept because before a hundred years were passed he knew his immense army would be gone and not a man remain behind to tell the tale, would have been wiser if he had wept also for himself and left his bloody wars alone and lived as a man who must one day die and find after death a day of judgment! Each one of you must die. If I were addressing an assembly of the sages of the world, I should say, “All your combined wisdom cannot lengthen the days of one of you even a single minute. You may reckon the distance of the stars and weigh worlds, but you cannot tell me when one of you will die, nor how many grains of sand are left behind in the hourglass of time which shows the exit of each spirit from the world.”