Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1258
“Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling?” Job 7:1.
I WAS settling myself down yesterday to meditate upon the Word of God and to prepare my mind to preach the Gospel to you today, when, all of a sudden I had my subject marked out for me by a mournful messenger, for the Angel of Death pointed to it with his finger. There came into my chamber an honored elder of this Church, who in broken accents told me, “Our beloved Brother, Henry Olney, is dead.” He is my near neighbor and I was in his house so lately that I could not believe the news. It seems that when he left the City at noon he felt a severe rheumatic pain in his shoulder, and on reaching home he sent for a doctor, who prescribed a slight remedy and advised him to lie down. He did so, and with a gasp or two, he expired.
A man in the prime of life and apparently in full vigor of health, he went to his business for the last time that morning and returned to die. The blow has fallen so suddenly that I am stunned and staggered by it, nor do I think that either of his three brothers, whose familiar faces we miss this morning, have yet recovered from the amazement caused by the stroke. Many around me were with him so short a time since that it is hard to believe one’s own eyes and feel sure that there he lies, a cold corpse, motionless upon the bed. But, oh, my Brothers and Sisters, how true it is that in the midst of life we are in death! And those who often die first are they who least expected to go. If I had said to you this morning that our Brother, William Olney, was gone, you would have said, “We are grieved at our loss, but we do not wonder, for he has been long sick.”
But here, the strong and stalwart brother, who ailed nothing, has been taken away, while, thank God, the languishing invalid is still spared to us. Thus do they remain who expected to depart, and they depart who expected to remain. Who among us can reckon upon a single hour? We talk of being living men—let us correct ourselves and feel, from this moment on, that we are dying men, whose every breath brings us nearer to the grave! We are and are not. We walk in a vain show and are disquieted in vain. We are unsubstantial as the shadows of the flying clouds which on a summer’s day flit over the face of the field and are gone!
When I look at that seat where our departed friend sat for years, the Lord seems to have come very near to us. I could almost take my shoes off in awful consciousness of His terrible Presence. We can no longer think of the Lord as far away in Heaven. He has been among us—He who touches the hills and they smoke has set His eyes upon our Brother, and lo, he is not! Let me put it in a gentler manner—our Lord came into His garden to gather lilies and His hand has been filled to our sorrow. When our heavenly Father comes so near to us and in so solemn a manner, let us ask Him why He contends with us. Let us, in solemn reverence, approach Him that we may hear His answer and may be obedient to His Word.
The flower of the field stands amid the grass, unconscious that the mower’s scythe is busy, and though swath after swath has fallen beneath the pitiless stroke, the flower smiles gaily! It cares not for its associates in the same field and reckons not of its own speedy fall. Its leaves are wet with dew and its colors are bright in the sun. It mourns not for its fellows, but rejoices in unconsciousness of all that happens around it. In this respect you are not as the grass of the field, but are endowed with understanding, so that you are able to be instructed, or at least, warned, by the fall of those around you.
The sheep in their folds remark not that their fellows are taken away to the slaughter. The cattle graze in the meadows in happy ignorance that death is all around. You, however, are not “dumb, driven cattle.” To you it is given to know your own mortality—and you cannot suffer your comrades to be taken away, one after another so rapidly, without feeling emotion and gathering wisdom. You will hear the rod and Him that has appointed it, and this morning you
will ask Divine Grace that the dead may be your schoolmasters and yourselves the scholars who cry, “So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
As best I shall be able, this morning, I shall try and teach you, by the help of God’s Spirit, one lesson. It is this— Divine appointment rules human life. And when we have learned that lesson, we shall, in the second place, draw inferences from this Truth of God.
I. First, then, let us consider a Truth of God which, I trust, none of us have ever denied, but have heartily accepted ever since we have been Believers. THERE IS A DIVINE APPOINTMENT RULING ALL HUMAN LIFE. Not that I single out man’s existence as the sole object of Divine forethought, for I believe it to be but one little corner of illimitable Providence. A Divine appointment arranges every event, minute or magnificent!. As we look out on the world from our quiet room, it appears to be a mass of confusion. He who studies history and forgets God might think that he was looking out on chaos, for events seem flung together in terrible disarray, and the whole scene is as darkness itself, without any order.