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(with Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59): —

I. I invite you first to consider OUR SAVIOUR'S WORDS JUST BEFORE HIS DEATH: "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."

1. Observe how Christ lives and passes away in the atmosphere of the Word of God. Christ was a grand original thinker, and He might always have given us words of His own. He never lacked suitable language, for "never man spake like this Man." Yet the great majority of His expressions may be traced to the Old Testament. Even where they are not exact quotations, His words drop into Scriptural shape and form. You can see that the Bible has been His one Book. It was food to Him, as it is to us; and if He thus lived upon the Word of God, should not you and I do the same?

2. Notice that our Lord, in the moment of His death, recognized a personal God. We have far too much fiction in religion, and a religion of fiction will bring only fictitious comfort in the dying hour. Come to solid facts. Is God as real to thee as thou art to thyself? Come now; dost thou speak with Him "as a man speaketh unto his friend"? Canst thou trust Him, and rely upon Him as thou dost trust and rely upon the partner of thy bosom? If thy God be unreal, thy religion is unreal.

3. Observe how Jesus Christ here brings out, the Fatherhood of God. The psalm from which He quoted did not say, "Father." David did not get as far as that in words, though in spirit he often did; but Jesus had the right to alter the psalmist's words. He can improve on Scripture, though you and I cannot. He did not say, "O God, into Thine hand I commit My spirit"; but He said, "Father." Oh, how sweet, in life and in death, to feel in our soul the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father!"

4. From this passage we learn that our Lord cheerfully rendered up His soul to His Father when the time had come for Him to die. "No man taketh it from Me," said He concerning His life; "I lay it down of Myself;" and there is here a cheerful willingness to yield up His spirit into His Father's hands. It is rather remarkable that none of the evangelists describe our Lord as dying. He did die, but they all speak of Him as giving up the ghost, — surrendering to God His spirit. You and I passively die; but He actively yielded up His spirit to His Father. In His case, death was an act; and He performed that act from the glorious motive of redeeming us from death and hell; so, in this sense, Christ stands alone in His death. But, oh, if we cannot render up our spirit as He did, yet, let us be perfectly ready to give it up. When God calls us to die, it will be a sweet way of dying if we can, like our Lord, pass away with a text of Scripture upon our lips, with a personal God ready to receive us, with that God recognized distinctly as our Father, and so die joyously, resigning our will entirely to the sweet will of the ever-blessed One, and saying, "It is the Lord," "My Father," "let Him do as seemeth Him good."

II. My second text (Psalm 31:5) is evidently the passage which our Saviour had in His mind just then: "Into Thine hand I commit My spirit: Thou hast redeemed Me, O Lord God of truth." It seems to me that THESE ARE WORDS TO BE USED IN LIFE, for this psalm is not so much concerning the believer's death as concerning his life.

1. Let us cheerfully entrust our souls to God, and feel that they are quite safe in His hands. Are you always doing this?

2. Notice that our second text has these words at the end of it: "Thou hast redeemed Me, O Lord God of truth." Is not that a good reason for giving yourself up entirely to God? Christ has redeemed you, and therefore you belong to Him. So, every day, go to Him with this declaration, "Into Thine hand I commit my spirit." Nay, not only every day, but all through the day. Have you to go into a house where there is fever; I mean, is it your duty to go there? Then go saying, "Father, into Thine hand I commit my spirit." I would advise you to do this every time you walk down the street, or even while you sit in your own house.

III. My third text (Acts 7:59) is intended to explain to us THE USE OF OUR SAVIOUR'S DYING WORDS FOR OURSELVES.

1. If we can die as Stephen did, we shall die with a certainty of immortality. An infidel once said to a Christian man, "Some of you Christians have great fear in dying because you believe that there is another state to follow this one. I have not the slightest fear, for I believe that I shall be annihilated, and therefore all fear of death is gone from me." "Yes," said the Christian man, "and in that respect you seem to me to be on equal terms with that bullock grazing over there, which, like yourself, is free from any fear of death. Pray, sir, let me ask you a simple question, Have you any hope? .... Hope, sir? No, I have no hope; of course, I have no hope, sir." "Ah, then!" replied the other, "despite the fears that sometimes come over feeble believers, they have a hope which they would not and could not give up." And that hope is, that our spirit — even that spirit which we commit into Jesus Christ's hands, — shall be "for ever with the Lord."

2. To a man who can die as Stephen did, there is a certainty that Christ is near, — so near that the man speaks to Him, and says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."

3. There is a certainty that we are quite safe in His hands.

4. There is the other certainty, that He is quite willing to take us into His hands.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.

WEB: Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, Yahweh, God of truth.