“Marvel of a tribe is the white tribe,” exclaimed a dusky chieftain, “but one thing they lack—the solving of the death puzzle.”
It is an ancient Eastern Book which alone furnishes the answer. Before ever a death occurred in the world, God made it plain what its nature would be. It is the fruit of man’s disobedience, the direct inevitable result of his fall. God in His wisdom had given every tree in the Garden of Eden to our first parents, but in mercy forbade them to eat of one tree—the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God had plainly said, “Thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17).
We all know the story. Disobedience entailed death. Death was no puzzle at the first. But man threw off the knowledge of God and lost the light God had given him, and he has consequently been left groping in the dark.
But even his gropings show how conscience works. Superstition and speculation are rife in the depths of the African forest as to the meaning of death. The first of the black man’s names for death are:
The Secret.
The Puzzle.
But they have other titles. They call death “the stripper,” and so they well may. How foolish men are to seek to clothe themselves with that which in a few days death will strip off, and forget eternity!
They call death “the arrival.” Wonderful title, showing that the uneducated, degraded savage has a sense, not that death is the end of everything, but that it is a beginning. True, it is the end of a very short span of life down here, but it is the beginning of a stupendous eternity. It is indeed “the arrival,” but of what?
It is called “the perfect educator,” and who can teach like death? When it comes it puts this life in a truer perspective, and shrivels up all things that do not truly matter.
It is likewise called “the wages.” It is wonderful how conscience asserts itself. Far beyond many in these western lands of enlightenment are the dusky sons of the east and south.
What euphemistic names are given to death. We hear them all around us, “The debt of nature.” What an evasion! What a subterfuge! What a deceit! A lie of the first water! This phrase would cast death upon God as His original design for man. The phrase is a libel upon God, and a deceit calculated to lull man’s conscience into a false security.
The spiritist, pluming himself upon ideas infinitely superior to the worn-out creeds of the Christian religion, as he deems them, calls death “a new birth,” “a passing over.” A new birth, forsooth! Decay, decrepitude, death are, on the face of it, emphatically not a new birth! And yet with much sophistries men will go gaily forward to the inevitable.
The Christian Scientist will tell you that there is no such thing as death—that it is only imagination. Strange that no Christian Scientist, from Mrs. Eddy downwards, can curb his imagination sufficiently for even one to evade the great reality!
No, the poor savage thinks more truly than that. It is where the light of Christianity has shone that men apostatize and embrace errors which even the heathen have too much sense to adopt.
Yes, it is that old eastern Book that ALONE in all the literature of the world tells the truth about this great phenomenon. We read—
“The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).
The savage yet again calls death “the chastiser,” “the revealer,” “the joiner.” All these titles evoke thought. “The Joiner.” Yes, the sinner will be joined at death to his sins and their consequences. “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after” (1 Tim. 5:24).
But what is death for the Christian? “Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid” (1 Tim. 5:25). The Apostle Paul calls death “the gain.” He says, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).
Thank God, THE DEATH—the death of our Lord Jesus Christ has put a different complexion upon things. Death is ours, is the triumphant cry of the apostle (1 Cor. 3:22). “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26). One of the sublimest, most thrilling statements as to the Christian’s eternal state is, “There shall be no more death” (Rev. 21:4). The dead in Christ are going to be raised, the bodies of the living saints when He comes will be quickened.
No more does the Christian fear death as he looks into the empty tomb of the Son of God, and sees how He has conquered death. Wise are we when we look death in the face and take its true measure.
What an awful catastrophe for the unbeliever: he too will be raised, but for the second death. But for the Christian, death is indeed ours, won to be our servant at the Father’s bidding through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Still we wait, not for death but for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We can sing:
“O Lord ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal
Oh, trump of th’archangel! oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope! blessed rest of my soul!”