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TOPIC: Spurgeon - C.H. - Sermons from Zechariah (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 04 ZEC 8:19 Sad Fasts Changed to Glad Feasts
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Sad Fasts Changed to Glad Feasts
Delivered on September 7th, 1890
by
C. H. Spurgeon
"Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast
of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall
be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore
love the truth and peace."-- Zec_8:19
My time for discourse upon this subject will be limited, as we shall gather
around the communion-table immediately afterwards. So in the former part
of my sermon I shall give you an outline of what might be said upon the
text if we had time to examine it fully. It will be just a crayon sketch
without much light and shade. You will be able to think over the subject at
your leisure, and fill up the picture for yourselves!
We have, in the chapters we have read, a blessed message of peace to God's
people in the day of their trouble. In the land of their captivity the Jews
were in great perplexity. Their sad lament is on record; "By the rivers of
Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We
hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof." But their trouble
led many of them to seek the Lord and he was found of them. Welcome is
such misery which leads to such mercy. In the seventh chapter we are told
that, when they sent unto the house of God, to pray before the Lord, and to
say, "Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done
these so many years? Then came the word of the Lord." Jehovah has put
their tears into his bottle, and in answer to their sighing sent them a
message of hope. That message has in it much that is very practical. It is a
letter full of mercy, but it is directed to certain characters. God does not
send indiscriminate mercy. If men go on in their sin, he sends them words
of judgment; but when they turn from their wickedness, and are renewed
by his grace in the spirit of their minds, then it is that words of comfort
are spoken to them.
Reviewing the whole message which Zechariah was commissioned to deliver,
and which is summed up in our text, there are three things which stand out
in clear prominence. The first is, that God calls for transformation of
character in the people he is going to bless. The second is, that he
promises translation of condition to those whose characters are thus
changed and beautiful. And, lastly, he ordains transfiguration of
ordinances as the result of the new character and condition. The whole
subject is exceedingly suggestive, and well worthy of careful study when
you reach your homes.
We must not lose sight of the fact that, primarily, this message is for Israel
according to the flesh, and contains a prophesy of their latter-day glory.
God hath not cast off his people whom he did foreknow, and there are
majestic words here which still await their fulfillment when the set time
shall have come. The Lord "will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem", and
make the place of his feet glorious in that day. But as "no prophesy of
Scripture is of any private interpretation," so the message to the Jews also
bears a message for us. Let us seek to learn its lessons well.
I. My text reminds me--and the chapter before us emphasizes the fact--that,
when God means to bless his people, HE CALLS FOR TRANSFORMATION OF
CHARACTER.
The promise of the abiding presence of the Lord God Almighty is ever
proceeded by the call to separation and holiness. "The words which the Lord
had cried by the former prophets" made it very clear that only with the
righteous nation would God dwell; and Zechariah delivers a similar message.
Very remarkable will be the transformation of character which God shall
work. According to the text, love of truth is to be one of the main effects of
the change. These people certainly did not set much value on the truth
before; they were in love with every lie, with every false god, and with
every false prophet. But God would have them taste of his covenant
blessings, and be set free from every false way. It is the only truth that can
set men free; yet many there are even to-day who delight to be in bondage
to error. How is it with you? Do you love the truth, or can you put up with
that which is not true, if it is only pleasant? Say, dear heart, are you
anxious after truth--truth in your head, truth in your heart, truth on your
tongue, truth in your life? If you are false, and love falsehood, you are
taken with a sore disease; and unless you are healed of the plague, you can
never enter heaven. You must be transformed and made true, and only the
Spirit of truth can effect the mighty change.
Another sign must follow: love of peace. The text also says: "Therefore
love peace." In some men it is a plain proof of conversion when they desire
peace. Some are naturally very hot-tempered, and soon boil over. These are
the men of great force of character, or else of great shallowness: it is the
small pot which is soon hot. Some are malicious; they can take enmity
quietly, and keep it in the refrigerator of their cold hearts, even for years.
Such love is not peace; they are at war with all who have in any degree
disappointed or displeased them. When the grace of God takes away an
angry, passionate, malicious disposition, it achieves a great wonder. But
then grace itself is a great wonder; and unless this change is wrought in
you who need it, you shall not see God, for you cannot enter heaven to go
into a passion there. Depend upon it, unless you lose your bad temper, you
will never be amongst the ranks of the glorified. It must be conquered and
removed, if you are to join the happy hosts on high. "They are without fault
before the throne of God;" and so must you be if you are to be numbered
amongst that company.
Moreover, those whom God blesses have undergone a transformation as to
their conduct with each other. Righteous dealing is another effect of the
change. Notice the ninth verse of the seventh chapter: "Thus speaketh the
Lord of Hosts, saying, Execute true judgment." This is at all times a
necessary admonition, but never more necessary than new, when so many
never dream of justice and goodness: in business and in private life many
seem to have no care for righteousness. If the thing will pay, they will rob
right and left; and they will only be honest because there is an old saw that
saith, "Honesty is the best policy." But he that us honest out of policy is
the most dishonest man in the world. May God grant us grace to do what is
right at all costs! Christian men, when the grace of God reigns in their
souls, would rather be the poorest of the poor than get rich by a single act
contrary to uprightness. O beloved members of this church, be upright in
all your transactions, clear and straight in your dealings; for how shall you
call yourselves the children of the righteous God if you make gain by
unholy transactions?
Another point of transformation lies in the exercise of compassion. This
comes out in that same ninth verse of the seventh chapter: "Shew mercy
and compassions every man to his brother." A great mark of a changed
heart is when we become tender, pitiful, and kind. Some men have very
little of the milk of human kindness about them. You may lay a case before
them, and they will wonder why you should come to them; and when you
see how little they do, you yourself wonder why you ever came to them.
Many there are whose hearts are locked up in an iron safe, and we cannot
find the key! They have hidden the key themselves; there is no getting at
their hearts. One such said to a minister who preached a sermon, after
which there was to be a collection, "You should preach to our hearts, and
then you would get some money." The minister replied, "Yes, I think that
is very likely, for that is where you keep your money." The answer was a
very good one. That is just where a great many persons carry their treasure;
but when the grace of God comes, and renews the miser's heart, he begins
to be generous, he has pity upon the poor, and compassion for the fallen:
he loves to bless those who are round about him, and make them happy. It
is a mark of wonderful transformation in the character of some men, when
their heart begins to go a little outside their own ribs, and they can feel
for the sorrows of other men.
Notice, next, in the tenth verse of that same seventh chapter, that another
mark of God's people is consideration for others: "Oppress not the widow,
nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor." How can he be a child of the
all-bountiful Father who would make men work for wages that scarcely
keep body and soul together? How can he be a son of the God of love, who
will defraud the poor woman whose fingers must go stitch, stitch, stitch,
half through the night, before she can even get enough to give her even
relief from her hunger? God's children will have nothing to do with this
kind of thing. Those who take delight in oppressing the poor, and who
make their gain thereby, will be themselves pinched in eternal poverty;
they are little likely to enter the golden gates of paradise. There is many a
child of God who has lived here in the depths of poverty; and when he gets
to heaven, away from all the struggle and bitterness, is he to see the man
who was his oppressor here below, coming into glory to sit side by side
with him? I trow not.
Once more, where there is a work of grace, it leads men to brotherliness of
character. "And let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your
heart," saith the Lord in the tenth verse of this seventh chapter; and the
same thing is repeated in the seventeenth verse of the eighth chapter. I
should be sure that some women were converted if they left off imagining
evil against others in their hearts. For there are some women--and there are
some men, too, I am sorry to say--who cannot think of anybody without
thinking evil of them. There are such dreadful persons about, and
sometimes we come across them to our dismay. They paint the very saints
of God black, and there is no getting away from their slander; nay, let a
man live the life of Enoch, yet would some of these people report evil
against him. Slander is no sign of a saint; it is the brand of one who is
under the dominion of the devil. "For all these are things that I hate, saith
the Lord." God save us from them all!
Thus I have given you a brief outline of the transformation of grace. They
are great changes because God works them. When men come to him, and
yield themselves up to his divine power, he takes away the heart of stone,
and give them a heart of flesh. He turns their nature to the very reverse of
what it was before; then they follow after truth and peace, they love
righteousness, and learn kindness, through his good Spirit.
II. The second point to which I would draw your attention, with reference
to the methods of God with his people, is that HE PROMISES TRANSMUTATIONS
OF CONDITION to those men in whom are found the transformation of
character.
I have already read the eighth chapter through to you; let us go through it
again, and pick out just a note or two of the joy and gladness which are
here written in full score.
First, jealousy is a tunnel into communing love. God represents himself, in
the second verse, as being very jealous about his people; because he loved
them so much, he was jealous for them with great fury. The people set up
false gods in his own city, even in his own temple, and God was angry with
them, and would not dwell with them; but when they repented, and he had
cleansed them by his mercy, he says, "I am returned unto Zion, and will
dwell in the midst of Jerusalem." What a change! God waits not until, by
long obedience, his people win him back. He does not say that he will
return when they merit his presence. No, the word comes to us full of
surprise and power, "I am returned." Instantly on the repentance, God
comes back. A jealous God fights against me. I fly to Christ. He is content.
He comes and dwells with me, no longer full of fury, but full of tenderness
and love. If any of you have had God fighting against you, in holy jealousy
chasing out your sin, happy will you be if you yield yourselves to Christ at
once; if you do so, God will come quickly, and make your hearts to be his
abode. May many get that transformation at this good hour!
Next, desolation is turned into population. On account of sin, Jerusalem
became desolate. "I scattered them with a whirlwind," saith the Lord,
"among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate
after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the
pleasant land desolate." Zion sat like a widow, nobody came up to her
solemn feasts; but God returned to her and he says, in the fourth verse,
"There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem,
and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the
city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." So that
when God comes to bless his people, where there was nobody, there seems
to be everybody. When churches and congregations sin, God often
minishes them, and brings them low; but when they return to their God,
the old saints are seen there again, and there are new-born believers in
plenty. God can soon change the estate of his people. It is the same with
individual souls who have gone away from God, but afterwards repent and
return to him. Then the desolation of heart is forgotten in the joy of the
multitude of sweet and holy thoughts and interests, that crowd the heart
and life. Old experiences revive, and new life and joy are born, where God
comes near to us in grace and power. What a wonderful change this is!
May we all taste its bliss!
Another change of condition follows: scattering is turned into gathering.
God goes on to say that, as he scattered his people, so he will bring them
together again from the east and from the west. This, as I have already
said, has a first reference to the scattered Israel, but how true it also
is of us! When the Lord leaves us, we are scattered like sheep without a
shepherd in a cloudy and dark day; but when we turn to him, his word is
sure. "I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem:
and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in
righteousness." May we know, in our new experience, the truth of that
promise, "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies
will I gather thee," and may it be to us according to his word!
The next change is, that poverty is turned into plenty. Whereas they
become poor, and were half-starved with famine, God tells them that the
city shall be prosperous: "The vine shall give her fruit, and the ground
shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew." God often
changes men's circumstances when he changes their hearts. When he has
been beating and bruising, if men will but yield to him, he turns to them in
love and plenty. May the Lord do this with any of us who have grieved
him, and brought his rod upon us! There is no truer word in the Book of
God than this, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you." With the covenant blessings
of grace, God often bestows the common blessings of this life, even as it is
written in the chapter before us, "I will cause the remnant of this people to
possess all these things."
Farther on in the chapter we are told of another change: ill-will is turned
into good-will. Before the Lord graciously visited them, no man loved his
neighbor. So we read in the tenth verse. But when God's grace came, and
changed their character, then one city went to another, and said, "Let us go
speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts: I will go
also;" and they went up to the house of the Lord together. Oh, where the
grace of God comes, it makes men friends! Enemies they may have been
before, but then they go and seek one another out, and they say, "Come, old
friend, let us end all this; give me your hand, and let bygones be bygones."
There is nothing like love and unity among the people until the grace of
God comes and conquers the natural ill-will which else would have had
dominion. May such a transmutation take place between any here who may
be at variance, and may all bitterness and hatred, if such things exist, be
put away!
Did you not notice also, in the reading of this chapter, how these people
had been a curse, and how by the presence of God the curse is turned into
a blessing? "And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the
heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye
shall be a blessing: fear not, but let your hands be strong." When a believer
dishonours God, one of the worst results of it is, that he becomes a snare to
the people round about him. The very heathen look upon him as a curse.
Inconsistent professors are the greatest stumbling blocks to the spread of
the cause of Christ. But when their character is changed by the abounding
grace of God, they become like overflowing springs, sending streams of
blessing far and wide.
Moreover, in the day of blessing, their reproach is turned into honour. The
nation had been despised; nobody would honour a Jew; but when they
honoured God, then God would honour them, and ten men would take hold
of the skirts of a man that was a Jew, saying, "We will go with you: for we
have heard that God is with you." A man of God would then become more
precious than the gold of Ophir. Well, my friends, when we return to God,
God very soon has ways of making us honourable, so that we are of value
among men. He makes use of us, and men begin to perceive that we are not
to be despised if God is with us, and his blessing rests upon us.
Thus have I hurried over these two points, because I want to dwell a little
longer on the text itself; it was necessary, however, to introduce it in this
way.
III. Now we come to this fact, which always accompanies God's presence. HE
ORDAINS TRANSFIGURATIONS OF ORDINANCES.
Four fasts, which had been kept by the Jews, were to be turned into feasts,
when the character of the men who observed them had changed, and God had
dealt graciously with them. Before this, their feasts had been farces,
occasions of self-glorification, and all manner of pride. Now, these days
were to be festivals of gladness, and times of drawing near to God,
rejoicing in his good gift. In like manner, when a man becomes a believer
in Christ, and is renewed, this principle operates; many a fast is turned
into a feast, and many a sorrow and sadness into joy and gladness.
When the communion-table shall be uncovered, you will see before you, in
the emblems of the death of our Lord, what might have been the memory
of a fast. The Lord of life and glory was nailed to the accursed tree. He died
by the act of guilty men. We, by our sins, crucified the Son of God. We
might have expected that, in remembrance of his death, we should have
been called to a long, sad, rigorous fast. Do not many men think so even
to-day? See how they observe Good Friday, a sad, sad day to many; yet our
Lord has never enjoined our keeping such a day, or bidden us to look back
upon his death under such a melancholy aspect. Instead of that, having
passed out from under the old covenant into the new, and resting in our
risen Lord, who once was slain, we commemorate his death by a festival
most joyous. It came over the passover, which was a feast of the Jews; but
unlike that feast, which was kept by unleavened bread, this feast is brimful
of joy and gladness. It is composed of bread and of wine, without a trace of
bitter herbs, or anything that suggests sorrow and grief. The bread and the
cup most fitly set forth the death of our Lord and Saviour, and the mode of
that death, even by the shedding of his blood; but as they stand before us
now, they evoke no tears, they suggest no sighs. The memorial of Christ's
death is a festival, not a funeral; and we are to come to the table with
gladsome hearts, ay, and go away from it with praises, for "after supper
they sang a hymn." At both ends it was psalm-singing. The great Hallel of
the Jews commenced it, and another psalm, full of joy and gladness out of
the hallelujahs of the psalms finished it. Oh, what hath God wrought! We
crucified the Christ of God; but in that crucifixion we have found our
ransom. With wicked hands he was slain by us; but his blessed sacrifice
hath put all our sin away for ever. Our hymn rightly asks--
"'It is finished;' shall we raise
Songs of sorrow, or of praise?
Mourn to see the Saviour die,
Or proclaim his victory?"
But it justly answers--
"Lamb of God! Thy death hath given
Pardon peace, and hope of heaven:
'It is finish'd;' let us raise
Songs of thankfulness and praise!"
As the Lord's Supper leads the way in that direction, I may say that every
other fast of the Christian has been transfigured in the same manner. The
Sabbath is to many people a very dreary day; but to many of us it is a fast
which has been turned into a feast. I am often amused when I read the
accounts that are given by some people of an English Sabbath-day. In all
soberness it is set forth what we Puritans do on this first day of the week.
We wake up in the morning, and say to ourselves, "Another dreadfully
miserable day come around," and then we go off to our places of worship,
where we sit with frightfully long faces, and listen to terribly dismal
sermons; we do not sing, or even smile; but we howl out some ugly psalm,
and make ourselves as unhappy as ever we can be. When we come home,
we draw down the blinds to keep the sun out. We never go into the garden
to admire the flowers. Well, you know the rest of the story. I think we are
descendants of the people who killed the cat on Monday because it cause
mice on Sunday--at least, so I have heard. But if I had not read all this, I
should not have known it. Often, when I see in the paper some description
of myself, I say, "Well, people somehow seem to know me better than I
know myself; I never thought anything of the kind; it has never entered my
head. Yet here is it in black and white." O beloved friends! Our idea of the
Lord's-day is altogether different from this hideous caricature of it. If I
had to describe our Sabbaths, I should say that they are full of
brightness, and joy, and delight. I should tell of our singing, with full
hearts, of the happy prospect before us in that land--
"Where congregations ne'er break up,
And Sabbaths have no end."
I am sure we should not be likely to go to that heavenly country if our
Sabbaths here were as dreary as some say they are. Why, here in this
house, we have had our merriest times! Of old, when the prodigal came
back, "they began to be merry," and I have never heard that they have left
off; at any rate, I do not think that we have. We have rejoiced with the joy
of harvest as we have heard of sinners saved, and have known that we are
saved ourselves. I grant you that, before we knew the Lord, it did
sometimes seem to our young minds rather a dull thing to read the Bible,
and hear sermons, and to keep the Sabbaths; but now that we have come to
Christ, and he has saved us, now that we are his; the first day of the week,
which was a fast, has become a feast, and we look with eager delight for
the Sundays to come round one after another. In fact, these Lord's-days are
the beds of flowers in our gardens. The week-days are only the gravel paths
that yield us little but weariness as we walk along them. Happy Sabbath!
We hail thy coming with delight, and sing--
"Welcome sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise;
Welcome to this reviving breast,
And these rejoicing eyes!
"The King himself comes near,
And feasts his saints to-day;
He we may sit, and see him here,
And love, and praise, and pray."
So, you see, this is a second instance in which what might have been a fast
is turned into a feast.
There is another thing that is to some of us now a great feast, though
formerly it was as full of weariness as a fast. It is the hearing of the
doctrine of grace. I know some brethren who always sit very uneasily when
I begin to preach the doctrines of grace. I am sorry that it is so, and I hope
that they will grow wiser. Still, all of us did not always like to hear about
God's electing love and absolute sovereignty; about the special redemption
of Christ for his people; and about the union to Christ being an everlasting
union, never to be broken. There was a time when we did not join very
heartily in the lines--
"Once in Christ, in Christ forever,
Nothing from his love can sever."
But, oh, when your heart gets into full fellowship with God, if it is with
you as it is with me, you will be glad to get on that string! Is there
anything that gives us greater joy than to know our calling and election,
and to make it sure; to know that the Father loved us as he loved Christ
from before the foundation of the world, and that he loves us with such a
love that can never end, and can never change, but will continue when the
sun burns black as a coal? It was because they heard these grand doctrines
that such crowds used to gather in the Desert in France to hear the old
Calvinistic preachers. It was the hold these truths of grace had upon the
minds and hearts of men that explains how it was that, under the gospel
oaks in England, vast numbers used to come hear plain, and often illiterate
men, preach the gospel. They preached a gospel that had something in it;
and the people soon discover the real article when it is set before them.
There is much that goes for gospel now, and if you could have a mile of it,
you would not get an inch of consolation out of it, for there is nothing in
it. But when your soul is heavy, and when your heart is sad, there is
nothing like the old faith to put cheer and life into you. How often have I
read Elisha Coles on Divine Sovereignty through and through when I have
been ill!
When the heart begins to sink, if one gets a grip of the sovereignty of God,
and the way of his grace, whereby he saveth the unworthy, and getteth unto
himself glory by his faithfulness to his promises, what had been a fast
becomes to the child of God a feast of fat things, and royal cheer of a
goodly sort.
You will all go with me in the next point. Sometimes the day of affliction
becomes as a fast which has been turned into a feast. It is a trying thing to
lose one's health, and to be near to death; to lose one's wealth, and to
wonder how the children will be fed; to have heavy tidings of disaster come
to you day after day in doleful succession. But if you can grasp the promise,
and know that "All things work together for good to them that love God;"
if you can see a covenant God in all, then the fast turns into a feast, and
you say, "God is going to favour me again. He is only pruning the vine to
make it bring forth better grapes. He is going to deal with me again after
his own wise, loving, and fatherly way of discipline." You then hear the
Lord saying to you--
"Then trust me, and fear not: thy life is secure;
My wisdom is perfect, supreme is my power;
In love I correct thee, thy soul to refine,
To make thee at length in my likeness to shine."
I have met with some saints who have been happier in their sickness and in
their poverty than ever they were in health and in wealth. I remember how
one, who had been long afflicted, and had got well, but had lost some of
the brightness of the Lord's presence, which he had enjoyed during his
sickness, said, "Take me back to my bed again. Let me be ill again, for I
was well when I was ill. I am afraid that I am getting ill now that I am
well." It is often worth while being afflicted in order to experience the
great lovingkindness of God, which he bestows so abundantly on us in the
hour of trouble and perplexity. Yes, God turns our fasts into feasts, and we
are glad in the midst of our sorrow; we can praise and bless his name for
all that he does.
Once more: the solemn truth of the coming of the Lord is a feast to us,
though at first it was a fast. With very great delight we believe that the
Lord Jesus Christ will shortly come. He is even now in the act of coming.
The passage that we read, "Surely, I come quickly," would be better
translated, "Surely, I am coming quickly." He is on the road, and will
certainly appear, to the joy of his people, and for the emancipation of the
world. There are certain writers who say they know when he is coming; do
not you be plagued with them; they know no more about it than you do.
"Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but
my Father only;" said the Lord Jesus. Perhaps the Lord may come sooner
than any of us expect; before this "diet of worship" shall break up, he may
be here. On the other hand, he may not come for a thousand years, or twice
ten thousand years. The times and the seasons are with him, and it is not
for us to pry behind the curtain. Those of our number who are unsaved may
well dread his coming, for he will come to destroy them that obey not the
gospel. "Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord
cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness, and of gloominess, a day
of clouds and thick darkness." That day will be terror, and not light to you.
When he cometh, he shall judge the earth in righteousness, and woe unto
his adversaries; for "He shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of
a potter shall they be broken into shivers." You have grave need to keep the
fast of the Second Advent, for to you it is dies irae, day of wrath and day of
vengeance, day of dread and day of woe. But if you become a believer, and
by grace are transformed, as I described in the earlier part of this
discourse, then it shall be a feast to you. Then you will look out for his
appearing as the day of your hope, and will gladly say, "Ay, let him come!
Come Lord, nor let thy chariots wait! Come, Lord! Thy church entreats thee
to tarry no longer! Come, thou absent love, thou dear unknown, thou fairest
of ten thousand! Come to thy church, and make her glad!" To us the thought
of the glorious Advent of Christ is no fast; it is a blessed feast. Our
songs never rise higher than when we get on this strain. With what fervor
we lift up our voices, and sing--
"Brothers, this Lord Jesus
Shall return again,
With his Father's glory,
With his angel train;
For all wreaths of empire
Meet upon his brow,
And our hearts confess him
King of glory now"!
Last of all, to come still more closely home, the approach of death is to
most men a dreadful fast. Not the Mohammedan Ramadan can be more full
of piteous grief than some men when they are obliged to think of death. If
some of you were put into a room to-morrow and were compelled to stay
there all day, and to think of death, it would certainly be a very gloomy
time to you. You will die, however, perhaps suddenly, perhaps by slow
degrees. There will come a time when people will walk very gently round
you bed, when they will wipe the death-sweat from your brow, when they
will bow over you to see whether you still breathe, or whether you have
gone. Out of the six thousand persons here to-night, there are some,
certainly, who will never see New Year's Day. Usually this is some one
who does not see even another Sabbath-day. Almost every week we get an
intimation that a hearer of the previous week has died before the next
Lord's-day.
Who among us will first be gone? Dare you think of it? O beloved, when
once you have peace with God, and you know that you are going to behold
his face, whom though you have not seen, yet you love, then you can think
of death without trembling. I think that there is nothing more delightful to
the man who has the full assurance of faith, than to be familiar with the
grace, and with the resurrection morning, and with the white robe, and
with the harp of gold, and with the palm, and with the endless song. The
thought of death is more a feast to us than a fast; for as Watts sings--
"Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are,
While on his breast I lean my head,
And breathe my life out sweetly there."
"Well, I shall soon be home," says one old saint; and she spoke of it as she
used to speak, when a girl, of the holidays, and of her going away from
school. "I shall soon behold the King in his beauty," says another; he
speaks of it as he might have spoken, when a young man, of his marriage-
day. Children of God can not only read Young's Night Thoughts without
feeling any chill of solemnities there written out; but they can write in
their diaries notes of expectation, at the thought of being with Christ,
and almost notes of regret that they have not passed away to the glory, but
are lingering here in the land of shadows. "What?" said one, who had been
long lying senseless, when he came back again to consciousness, "And am
I here still? I had half hoped to have been in my heavenly Father's home
and palace above, long before this; and I am still here." Truly, beloved, the
fast is turned into a feast, when we reach this experience. We will not
hesitate to say, "Come, Lord, take us to thyself." Oh for a sight of the King
in his beauty!
"Father, I long, I faint to see
The place of thine abode;
I'd leave thy earthly courts, and flee
Up to thy seat, my God."
I knew right well a beloved brother in Christ with whom I was very
familiar, who stood up one Sabbath morning, and announced just that
verse. I thought of him when I repeated it, and I wondered whether it was
quite as true to me as it was to him. He gave it out, and said--
"Father, I long, I faint to see
The place of thine abode;
I'd leave thy earthly courts, and flee
Up to thy seat, my God!"
Then he stopped, there was a silence; and at last, one of the congregation
ventured upstairs into the pulpit, and found that the preacher was gone. His
prayer was heard. He was gone to the place of God'' abode. Oh, happy they
who die thus! The Lord grant that we may never pray against a sudden
death! We may almost pray for it when once our soul is right with God. I
can join John Newton, and instead of dreading the change, say--
"Rather, my spirit would rejoice,
And long, and wish, to hear thy voice;
Glad when it bids me earth resign,
Secure of heaven, if thou art mine."
But is Christ yours? Has the fast been changed into a feast for you, by faith
in the crucified Saviour? God help you to answer that question with a glad,
hearty "Yes"! Then may he make all your life "joy and gladness", changing
your fearful fasts into "cheerful feasts", until at length all of us, who
believe in Christ, and who love his appearing, shall sit down at the
marriage-supper of the Lamb! Amen.
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