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TOPIC: Spurgeon - C.H. - The Death of the Christian (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Topic 4
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The Death of the Christian
Again, the Christian never dies TOO LATE. That old lady is eighty years old. She sits in a miserable room, shivering by a handful of fire. She is kept by charity. She is poor and miserable. "What’s the good of her?" says everybody: "she has lived too long. A few years ago she might have been of some use; but now look at her! She can scarcely eat unless her food is put in her mouth. She cannot move; and what good can she be? Do not you find fault with your Master’s work. He is too good a husbandman to leave his wheat in the field too long and let it shale out. Go and see her; and you will be reproved. Let her speak: she can tell you things you never knew in all your life. Or, if she does not speak at all, her silent unmurmuring serenity, her constant submission, teaches you how to bear suffering. So that there is something you can learn from her yet. Say not the old leaf hangeth too long on the tree. An insect may yet twist itself therein, and fashion it into its habitation. O say not the old sear leaf ought to have been blown off long ago. The time is coming when it shall fall gently on the soil; but it remaineth to preach to unthinking men the frailty of their lives. Hear what God says to each of us:—" Thou shalt come to they grave in full age." Cholera! thou mayest fly across the land and taint the air: I shall die in "full age." I may preach to-day, and as many days as I please in the week, but I shall die at a full age. However ardently I may labor, I shall die at a full age. Affliction may come to drain my very life’s blood, and dry up the very sap and marrow of my being. Ah! but affliction thou shalt not come too soon— I shall die at a full age. And thou waiting-man! and thou tarrying woman! thou art saying, "O Lord, how long? how long? Let me come home." Thou shalt not be kept from thy beloved Jesus one hour more than is necessary; thou shalt have heaven as soon as thou art ready for it. Heaven is ready enough for thee, and they Lord will say, "Come up higher!" when thou hast arrived at a full age—but never before nor after.
4. Now the last thing is, that a Christian will die with HONOR; "Thou shalt come to thy grave like a shock of corn cometh in his season." You hear men speak against funeral honors, and I certainly do enter my protest against the awful extravagance with which many funerals are conducted, and the absurdly stupid fashions that are often introduced. It would be a happy thing if some persons could break through them, and if widows were not obliged to spend the money which they need so much themselves, upon a needless ceremony, which makes death not honorable, but rather despicable. But, methinks that while death should not be flaunted out with gaudy plume, there is such a thing as an honorable funeral which every one of us may desire to have. We do not wish to be carried away just as a bundle of tares, we would prefer that devout men should carry us to the grave and make much lamentation over us. Some of us have seen funerals that were very like a "harvest home." I can remember the funeral of a sainted minister under whom I once sat. The pulpit was hung in black, and crowds of people came together; and when an aged veteran in the army of Christ rose up to deliver the funeral oration over his remains, there stood a weeping people lamenting that a prince had fallen that day in Israel. Then, verily, I felt what Mr. Hay must have experienced when he preached the funeral sermon for Rowland Hill, "Howl fir tree, the cedar is fallen," there was such a melancholy grandeur there. And yet my soul seemed lit up with joy, to think it possible that some of us might share in the same affection, and that the same tears might be wept over us when we come to die. Ah! my brethren here, my brethren in office, my brethren in this church, it may somewhat cheer your hearts to know that when you depart, your death will be to us a source of the deepest grief and most piercing sorrow. Your burial shall not be that prophesied for Jehoiakim—the burial of an ass, with none to weep over him; but devout men will assemble and say, "Here lies the deacon who for years served his Master so faithfully." "Here lies the Sunday-School teacher" will the child say "who early taught me the Saviour’s name;" and if the minister should fall, methinks a crowd of people following him to the tomb would well give him such a funeral as a shock of corn hath when "it cometh in his season." I believe we ought to pay great respect to the departed saints’ bodies. "The memory of the just is blessed." And even ye little saints in the church, don’t think you will be forgotten when you die. You may have no grave-stone; but the angels will know where you are as well without a grave-stone as with it. There will be some who will weep over you; you will not be hurried away, but will be carried with tears to your grave.
But, methinks, there are two funerals for every Christian: one a funeral of the BODY; and the other, the SOUL. Funeral, did I say, of the soul? No, I meant not so; I meant not so; it is a marriage of the soul; for as soon as it leaves the body the angel reapers stand ready to carry it away. They may not bring a fiery chariot as erst they had for Elijah; but they have their broad spreading wings. I rejoice to believe that angels will come as convoys to the soul across the ethereal plains. Lo! angels at the head support the ascending saint, and lovingly they look upon his face as they bear him upwards; and angels at the feet, assist in wafting him up yonder through the skies, And as the husbandman come out from their houses and cry, "A joyous harvest home," so will the angels come forth from the gates of heaven, and say, "Harvest home! harvest home! Here is another shock of corn fully ripe gathered into the garner." I think the most honorable and glorious thing we shall ever behold, next to Christ’s entrance into heaven, and his glory there, is the entrance of one of God’s people into heaven. I can suppose it is made a holiday whenever a saint enters, and that is continually, so that they keep perpetual holiday. Oh! me thinks there is a shout that cometh from heaven whenever a Christian enters it, louder than the noise of many waters. The thundering acclamations of a universe are drowned, as if they were but a whisper, in that great shout which all the ransomed raise, when they cry, "Another, and yet another comes;" and the song is still swelled by increasing voices, as they chant, "Blessed husbandman, blessed husbandman, thy wheat is coming home; shocks of corn fully ripe are gathering into they garner."
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