Judges 6:11-24 And there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained to Joash the Abiezrite… There is no such thing as death. Change, transition, promotion — anything, everything, except an end. This is the great law of Christianity; and the word "eternity" is the logical condensation of the mighty truth. Nature changes all the time. Nations alter and seemingly disappear. We ourselves pass on, and up; but nobody, nothing whatever, inevitably disappears. But, oh, how hard it is for us all to learn this comfortable and sublime lesson! 1. The little boy or girl grows up to a man or a woman, and we say complainingly, "We have lost our child!" No! We have not lost our child. The child is there, with a fresh body and a matured soul. And the man or woman grows into old age, and all previous life seems to be wiped out and lost. Oh, no! not wiped out, not lost, but prolonged, ripened, illustrated. We have simply the boy or girl, or man or woman, further advanced, and acting on the stage of life with a new costume; but the same actors, after all, are behind the dress. Then again, these dear ones vanish from our sight, and we say, "They are gone, they are dead, they are no more: it is an irreparablee loss." But they are not gone — no more in the flesh, but alive with God and they are not lost, but transplanted, glorified, crowned, and it may be right at our side after all, although unseen by mortal eyes. No more lost than was the boy or girl who became a man or woman, than was the man or woman in full vigour of life who became worn out by old age. They have only taken one step more. "Mortals cry, A man is dead: Angels cry, A child is born." One way of looking at it, it was death; but another way of looking at the matter, the Christian way, it was birth. And so, ever and for ever, not destruction, but creation. 2. Nations alter and seemingly disappear; but are they really gone, or with us in a newer, better, and holier shape? I believe that there has been a telephonic, telegraphic, and electric influence, ever since the days of Adam to the present hour, by which all past history is present life, and every nation seemingly dead is living again in Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, so that the races of to-day are but the great-grandchildren of the races of the past, and you and I have something in our bones and blood of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Judaea, Phoenicia, India, and Persia, so that nations never really die, but are changed, transmitted, reorganised, improved, by marriage, by birth, by intermingling of races, by time, by the grace of God; so that, in a certain philosophical sense, I am not only an American, but a Roman, a Grecian, a Persian, a part of everybody and everything that ever has been, and a part, by transmission, century after century, of everybody and everything that ever will be; and thus there is an everlasting unity of flesh, and the unity of God and the unity of humanity are great and mighty and twin realities. Do not forget the prayer of Jesus — that those who were His might be one with Him, as He was one with God. 3. Once more, nature changes all the time. Yes; but nature never dies, Do those leaves that you tread on an October or November day perish? Are they annihilated? Is their work done, and is our farewell to them a finality? Oh, no! They will go into the hungry earth, and, through many changes, at last will fall into your hands in the shape of a luscious peach, or rosy apple, or juicy pear, or else as a violet or rosebud or japonica will bless your eyes, cheer your heart, and somehow spiritually say, "We do not die, we have never perished: we are blessing the world for ever and ever; and like you, O mortals, we are immortal." 4. What do our great writers and thinkers say about death? Beecher: "Dying is life." Bryant: "Death is a deliverer." Walter Scott: "Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last final awakening." Dr. Adam Clarke: "Death to a good man is but passing through a dark entry, out of one little dusky room of his Father's house into another that is fair and large, light-some and glorious, and divinely entertaining." Goethe: "In the death of a good man eternity is seen looking through time." But hear the Lord Jesus Christ: Matthew 9:24; John 11:25; John 14:2; Matthew 22:32; Luke 23:43. (C. D. Bradlee.) Parallel Verses KJV: And there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. |
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