Above image: Spurgeon preaching at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London.
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(…continued) 4) Next, let us observe the terrors which surround Death. To the wise, dying is a solemn thing. It always gives some trembling to the flesh, some quivering to the human frame, to think of breathing out my soul, and launching out onto an unknown sea. He that can laugh at death is a fool, stark mad is he. When this clay tenement begins to creak and shake in the rough north wind of Death, it will be a terrible moment. Think, too, that when I die, I must leave behind me all that I have on earth. Farewell! to that house which I have so fondly called my home. Farewell! to the little prattlers that have climbed my knee. Farewell to all those who have shared my life. Farewell! All things. I hear no more, and I see no more. Ears and eyes are closed, and men shall carry me out and bury me out of their sight.
And now also, farewell! to all the means of grace. That passing bell is the last sound of the sanctuary that shall toll for me. No longer will the church bell summon me to the house of God. If I have neglected Christ, I shall hear of Christ or of grace no more. Fixed will be my everlasting state. Death will have closed up the window of my soul. If I am impenitent, an everlasting darkness will rest on me forever, as I cast away forever from his presence, to where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. This is to die, my friends. To the believer there are softening tints; there are lines in the picture which take out the blackness. The grim passage of Death makes heaven shine all the brighter. Oh, if you would be wise, you would understand this, and would consider your latter end.
5) Oh, that you wisely consider the results of death. Let me remind the Christian, in order that there may be a flash of light in the thick darkness of this sermon, that Death to him should never be a subject upon which he should loathe to meditate. To die! — to shake off my weakness and to be girded with the power of eternal life. To die! — to leave my pangs, and palms, and fears, and woe, my feeble heart, my unbelief, my tremblings and my griefs, and leap into the divine bosom. To die! What have I to lose by Death? The tumult of the people and the strife of tongues. A joyous loss indeed! To the believer Death is gain, unalloyed gain. Do we leave our friends by Death? We shall see more numerous friends up yonder. Do we leave our house and comforts? There is a “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Do we lose our life? Ah no, we gain a better one by far; for remember that there we will live and die no more. Without any fraction of loss, death to the believer is a glorious gain. It is wise, then, for a Christian to think about his last hours, because those last hours are the beginning of his glory. Be comforted then, you sorrowing and suffering Christians.
I desire you now to CONSIDER THE WARNINGS which death has already given to each one of us. Death has been very near to all of us; it has entered our lives many and many a time. Call to mind, first of all, how many warnings you have had in the loss of loved ones. There is not a person here who has not had to make a pilgrimage to the tomb to weep over the loss of your relatives or friends. The scene is always changing. And, my dear friends, it cannot be long with some of you, and then, as your pastor, it shall be my mournful task, unless I die before you, to go creeping along with your bodies out to the tomb. You stand here today like a man upon the shore when the tide is swelling towards his feet. There came one wave, and it took away the grandmother; another came, and a mother was swept away; another came, and the wife was taken; and now it dashes at your feet. How long shall it be before it breaks over you, and you, too, are carried away by that awful wave? The Lord has given you serious and solemn warnings. Listen to them. Hearken now, to the cry which comes up from the grave, “Prepare to meet your God, lest ye shall be without hope on that dreaded day.”
Think, again, what solemn and repeated warnings we have had of late, not in our families, but in the wide world. A few weeks ago, we were all shocked at the news of the collapse of a mill in America, in which so many hundreds were at once sent hurriedly into the presence of God. Even ourselves, across the sea, felt stunned by the blow, when so large a number of our fellow creatures were hurried from this state of being into another all at once. Immediately after that, there came another calamity. A train is whirling along, and suddenly the iron horse leaps from the tracks, and men who were talking together, as fully at ease as we are, were snatched from time into eternity amid the breaking of bones, and the crashing of timber, and whirlwinds of dust and steam. (continued…)
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