Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1773
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, March 30, 1884
“For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.” James 4:14.
A sermon suggested by the sudden death of H.R.H., the Duke of Albany.
WHEN a prince dies, they toll the great bell of the cathedral that all the city may hear it and that for miles around the tidings may spread. Swift messengers of the press bear the news through the length and breadth of the land and all men’s ears are made to tingle. A royal death is a national warning! A death in any of our families is a loud call to our own household, a call which I trust we hear. But a death in the Royal Family has a voice to the whole nation. It will be heard, it must be heard! In this great city, the crowds who care not to come to the house of God will, nevertheless, hear of this lamented death, and think of it and speak of it, each man to his fellow. Death is an orator whose solemn periods demand attention, especially when he preaches from the steps of the throne. “The Lord’s voice cries unto the city”—let Believers be quick to hear the call to humiliation, to awakening and to prayer, that the visitation may be overruled for great and lasting good.
A sudden death is an especially impressive warning. If men die of old age, we regard it as coming in the common course of things. But when a young man is suddenly snatched away, then we understand that though the old must die, the young may die and that no one among us may reckon upon any long day of life, since, in a moment, our sun may go down before it is yet noon. So falls the grass beneath the mower’s scythe! So fades the leaf from the tree! In a moment our strength is turned to weakness and our comeliness into corruption. Then, in accents as plain as they are terrible, the Lord says, “Because I will do this unto you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”
We have, this week, received fresh proof that death is impartial. As the Arab proverb has it, the black camel stops at every man’s door. Sorrow has entered in at the windows of palaces and even in the royal chamber there lies one dead. If, therefore, Death is so impartial that he smites down the captains, let not the rank and file hope to escape. Death, which forces entrance to a prince’s bedchamber, will not respect our cottage door. To us, also, in due time, shall be brought the message, “The Master is come and calls for you.” My ear hears a voice crying aloud, “Set your house in order; for you shall die and not live.” Will not you hear it? Will any one of you refuse the voice which speaks from Heaven? Death evidently pays no respect to character, age, or hopefulness. A man may addict himself to the service of his country, but his patriotism will not protect him.
He may be surrounded with a wall of affection, but this will not screen him. He may have at his command all the comforts of life and yet life may ooze out before the physician is aware. He may be tenderly loved by an affectionate mother and his name may be engraved on the heart of the fondest of wives, but death has no regard to the love of women. “It is appointed unto men once to die.” There is no discharge in this war—we shall all march into this fight—and unless the Lord, Himself, shall speedily come and end the present dispensation, we shall, each one, fall upon this battlefield, for the shafts of Death fly everywhere and there is no armor for either back or breast by which his cruel darts may be turned aside.
I would to God that all of us retained this Truth of God in our memories. “Lord, make me to know my end and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.” We have a very clear conviction that others will die, but as to ourselves, we put far from us the evil day and care not to dwell upon a subject which smells so unpleasantly of the
morgue! Yes, we admit that we shall die, but not so soon as to make it a pressing matter—we imagine that we are not within measurable distance of the tomb. Even the oldest man gives himself a little longer lease on life. And when he has passed his four-score years, we have seen him hugging life with as much tenacity as if he had just commenced it! Brothers and Sisters, in this we are not wise—Death will not spare us because we avoid him. What is there about any one of us that we should fare better than the rest of our fellow men? We are in the same army, marching upon the same field—why should we escape where all others fall? Only two of our race have gone into the better land without crossing the dark river of death—Enoch and Elijah—but no one among us will make a third.
Now, upon this matter we have nothing to say but what is commonplace, for, garnish them as you may, graves are among the most common of common things. Yet a solemn reflection upon the shortness of life and the certainty of death may prove to be important and even invaluable, if it is allowed to penetrate our hearts and influence our lives. History tells us of Peter Waldo, of Lyons, who was sitting at a banquet as thoughtless and careless as any of the revelers, when suddenly, one at the table bowed his head and died. Waldo was startled into thought and went home to seek his God. He searched the Scriptures and, according to some, became a great helper, if not the second founder of the Waldensian Church, which in the Alpine valleys kept the lamp of the Gospel burning when all around was veiled in night! The whole Church of God was thus strengthened and perpetuated by the hallowed influence of death upon a single mind!