An Inscription for the Mausoleum of the Saints

An Inscription for the Mausoleum of the Saints

(No. 1825)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MARCH 1, 1885,

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON MAY 8, 1884.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having
seen them afar off, were persuaded of them, embraced them and confessed
that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say
such things declare plainly that they seek a country." Hebrews
11:13,14.

"THESE all died in faith." Believers constitute a class by
themselves–"These." They are the people that dwell alone and shall not
be numbered among the nations. We see a great many distinctions in the
world which God takes no notice of–there is neither Jew nor Gentile,
bond nor free in His sight. But there is a distinction which men think
little of, which is greatly observed of God, and that is the
distinction between them that believe and those that believe not. Faith
puts you across the border most effectually, for it brings you out of
darkness into marvelous light, from death to life and from the dominion
of Satan into the Kingdom of God's dear Son. It is the most important
thing under Heaven that we should know that we believe in God. The Holy
Spirit puts Believers by themselves and speaks of them as, "These."

Believers are a class by themselves, even when they die. It is idle to
think that we can mark out a spot in the cemetery where none but saints
shall sleep, but yet there is a truth at the bottom of that folly.
There is a separation even in death between the righteous and the
wicked. The Lord seems to erect a mausoleum in which lie asleep the
bodies of His people and He writes this epitaph across the front,
"THESE ALL DIED IN FAITH." As for those who died without faith, they
indeed, died. But as for His people, a glorious resurrection awaits
them–

"They sleep in Jesus and are blest, How kind their slumbers are."

The characteristics of God's people are peculiar to themselves. They
are all alike in that they all lived and all died in faith. They were
not all equally believers, for some were strong in faith, and others
were weak–but they all had faith and it continued in them even to the
end so that, without exception–"these all died in faith." We will
speak, first, of dying in faith. Secondly, of the faith according to
which they died. Thirdly, of living by faith, for that is mentioned in
the text, "They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the
earth." And then, fourthly, of the faith by which they lived–"For
those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a country."

I. First, then, here is DYING IN FAITH. What does it mean? Does it not
mean that when they came to die they had not faith to seek, but having
had faith in life, they had faith in death? I will pronounce no opinion
upon deathbed repentance. I have heard judgments far too sanguine. I
have heard verdicts far too severe. Where we know little, we had better
say little, but this much I may say–I would not like to lie upon a
sickbed, much less upon my deathbed and have a Savior to seek there!
The pains and dying strife are usually enough to occupy a man's
thoughts. It frequently happens that the brain is disordered by disease
and he that was clear of judgment, before, is then scarcely able to
think. You must, yourself, have often seen men departing out of this
life to whom it was useless to speak. If conscious at all, they were
barely conscious. Have I not pressed the hand and received no token of
recognition from a familiar friend? Have I not spoken into the ear and
yet there has been neither hearing nor answering?

Sometimes friends have said, "He seems to know you, Sir, though he
knows nobody else." And certainly there has been a lifting of the
eyelids and a movement of the hand which made me feel that my voice had
penetrated into those dark recesses into which the mind had retired.
But what could I say of deep mysteries, or even of simple faith, when
the person has been in such a case? It has been a great joy to feel
that we could sing, in many instances–

"'Tis done, the great transaction's done," for there was little hope
that it could have been done at that hour. Dear Friends, if any of you
are delaying, permit me to warn you not to do so! How can it be said of
you that you die in faith if it cannot be said of you that you are
living in faith? Not long ago, a friend of mine, who was apparently in
robust health, fell dead in the busy streets of the city. Another came
up to our religious meetings and on his return died in the waiting room
of the railway station. Suppose that this had happened to any of you.
It might have done so! Where would you now have been? I bless the name
of the Lord that you are spared, or else you would have been where no
voice of warning or of invitation could have reached you, but where
darkness, death and despair would have enveloped you forever!

The saints mentioned in the text had not faith to seek. They had it
when they came to die! They did die, however, although they had faith,
for faith is not given to us that we should escape death, but that we
may die in faith! I have met with one or two friends who have believed
that they would never die, but they have died, for all that. One
Brother has often favored me with a kind letter of protest when I have
spoken about Believers dying, for he affirms that he shall never die
and that if a Believer does die, it is his own fault, for he must have
fallen into sin. It is rather awkward for his theory that all these
saints "died in faith." We believe that hundreds, thousands and
millions of true and strong Believers have died–and we expect to
follow through the same dark stream of death unless the Lord shall
come.

This proves that God will not, in every case, hear our prayers for
restoration to health. It is not true that if we gather together and
pray for a sick man he will always be restored. No Believer would die
if that were the case, for every Christian man would find some friends
in Christ to pray for his recovery! If, therefore, God had thus
divested Himself of His Omnipotence and put it upon us, we would keep
our dear friends here as long as Methuselah and no one would die! It
would be a kind of semi-murder to allow our Brother or Sister in Christ
to depart! It would be destroying life, by omission to pray, and that
would be murder in a degree! I thank God that He has not endowed us
with any such power, for it would be a very dangerous privilege for any
of us to carry about us. Would you have it said that you were the means
of the death of your child, or wife, or friend, because you did not
pray sufficiently for them? Is a kind of constructive murder to be laid
at every man's door when he loses a friend? Is every woman whose child
is taken away from her to be charged with lack of faith because her
child died? This would make her guilty of her child's death. It is
atrocious–it is a piece of fanaticism that will not bear thinking of,
for, pushed to its legitimate issue, it would be cruel in the extreme,
for it would condemn men and women who are perfectly innocent and who
feel that they would have spared the lives of the departed by losing
their own, had such a thing been possible.

"These all died in faith." Saints die as well as sinners. David dies as
well as Saul. He that leaned on the bosom of Jesus lived long, but
died, at last–died as surely as Judas did, though in a better style.
"It is appointed unto men once to die." Two have entered into Glory by
another way, but only two! There shall come a day when we that are
alive and remain shall not see death, but that day is not yet.

"These all died in faith." I suppose that it means, again, that these
all persevered to this end. I have often been told that you may be a
child of God one day and a child of the devil the next. I do not know
upon what Scripture that statement is based. I do not believe a word of
it! "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." But suppose he
apostatizes? You have no business to suppose what God has promised
shall not be, for He has promised, "I will put my fear in their heart,
that they shall not depart from Me." If a man truly believes, He shall
be saved! "The righteous shall hold on his way and he that has clean
hands shall be stronger and stronger." It has been said that we assert
that if a man is once a Believer, he may live as he likes, and yet he
will never be lost. We never asserted any such thing! It is a
caricature of the doctrine that we preach. We believe that God has
given to His people eternal life–and that must be true, for He has
said–"I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish;
neither shall any pluck them out of My hand."

This means that they shall be kept from sin and especially shall be
preserved from the sin which is unto death. Though they sin through
infirmity, they shall not sin fatally, nor sin finally, but they shall
persevere in holiness and in the love of God. If they wander, they
shall be restored. They shall be kept by the power of God, through
faith, unto salvation. The seed which God puts into the believing soul
is a "living and incorruptible seed, which lives and abides forever."
"The water that I shall give him," said Christ to the woman of Samaria,
"shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life."
He gives no transient salvation, but He gives one which will hold the
Believer's soul from the

first even to the last. "These all died in faith"–in every one of
these instances Grace lived to the last and triumphed at the close!

Does it not mean, also, that they never go beyond faith? These good
people–Abel, Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, Sarah–did they ever get
beyond faith? We have heard of some who think they have done so. Having
begun in the Spirit, they are afterwards made perfect by the flesh.
First, it is the sinner's simple trust–but they get beyond that and
reach "the second blessing." I wish that they would get beyond that,
also, and reach the third blessing–and then they would feel more
deeply than ever the deep depravity of the old nature and cling still
more closely to Christ. To go on from a second to a third, and a
fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh, and an eighth, and a
ninth, and a tenth blessing is the thing for a child of God to do–but
to get into a state of pride and cry that he has got a second blessing,
is a poor way of growing!

There are 10,000 times 10,000 blessings after which Believers are
constantly ready to reach, but, reach what they may, "the just shall
live by faith." He shall never get beyond trusting in the faithful
promise of a gracious God, living out of himself upon Christ who must
be our All in All. "These all died in faith," the very best of them.
They never got beyond that. How could they? Those who get above faith
are like the man who went up so high on the ladder that he came down on
the other side! They get to be so good that they trust in themselves
instead of resting in Him who is the Lord our Righteousness! The Lord
save us from self-conceit!

But then, while they did not get beyond faith, the mercy is that they
never got below it. They still had faith. They were sometimes troubled
with suspicions of themselves and doubts as to whether the Lord had
really worked a work in their souls, but they never quite gave up
faith. They had many pains in death, but they did not die in despair.
Some of you cry, "What shall I do when I come to die?" I will tell you
a more important question, and that is, What will you do now? Take life
and death just as they come, bit by bit. You know how the Spartans
endeavored to keep back the Persians. They took possession of the pass
of Thermopylae and there the brave 200 stood and held the way against
myriads! The enemy could only advance one by one. Now, do not think of
all the armies of your troubles that are coming in the future, but meet
them one by one! "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
Pray–"Give us this day our daily bread."

When you come to die, you shall have dying Grace in aging moments. And
if you have lived in faith, do not doubt that you will die in faith!
Joyfully, with all the strength I have, my quivering lips shall sing,
instead of doubting or groaning! Faith shall grow stronger when it is
about to be changed to full fruition. Go on, dear child of God, though
the road is dark before you, you can see the next step and that is all
you need to see, for you cannot take two steps at a time! When you
reach the next step, you will see the next–and so on to the end. He
that has helped you up till now will help you even to the end! And when
you are laid in the grave, it shall be said of you, as of all Believers
that went before you, "these all died in faith." Thus much upon dying
in faith. ' II. Now, what was THE FAITH THAT THEY DIED WITH?

Turn to the text and you get it. "Not having received the promises."
They had received a great deal, but they had not received the fullness
of the promises. Abraham had not beheld his seed so many as the sands
upon the seashore. Neither Isaac nor Jacob had ever seen the Shiloh, in
whom all the nations of the earth are blessed. No, they had not
received the promises. And you and I have not received all the
promises. We have received a great deal, but there are certain promises
which we have not received yet. The coming, the glorious coming, which
is the brightest hope of the Church, when the Lord "shall descend from
Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the
trumpet of God"–we have not received that as yet. And Heaven, itself,
with all its splendor, its white robes and palms of victory we have not
yet received. We are looking for these. We do not die in the fruition
of these. We die in faith, expecting that we shall enter upon the
fulfillment of these promises.

But, while they did not receive the promises, notice what they did.
They saw them–saw them afar off. Faith touched their eyes with eye
salve so that Abraham could see his seed in Egypt–his seed coming out
of the land of Zoan. He could see the people traveling through the
wilderness. He could see them entering upon Canaan and taking
possession of the land. Yes, our Lord said, "Abraham saw My day." He
saw the Baby in Bethlehem. He saw the Son of God, who was the Son of
Man, the son of Abraham, too! And you and I, if we have faith of the
kind we ought to have, already see the coming of the Kingdom, the
gathering together of the saints, the glory of the better land, "the
general assembly and Church of the Firstborn, whose names are written
in Heaven." By faith we see it! Our faith has such a realizing power
that it is as

if we beheld it all! It is better to see it thus than with the bodily
eyes, for if we looked upon it carnally, we would begin to doubt our
eyes. But faith is the opposite of doubt, the evidence of things not
seen!

They did more than that. We read that they "were persuaded of them."
"What is your persuasion?" asked one of a Christian man. He answered,
"Well, this is my persuasion–I am persuaded that neither things
present nor things to come shall ever separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." He was persuaded of the truth of
that promise–and so is every Believer when he is in a right state. He
is of that blessed persuasion–he is quite sure about the promises of
God. "Airy nothings," mutters one. "Mere fictions," cries another.
"Absolute certainties," says the saint! He has been persuaded by an
inward persuasion which others know nothing of. The Spirit of the
living God has given him a faith which amounts to full assurance and he
will not permit a question, or tolerate a suspicion.

It is more than that–the saints "embraced" the promises. The Greek
word signifies, "salutes," as when we see a friend at a distance. In
the clear atmosphere of Mentone, I have sometimes stood on quite a
lofty mountain and seen a friend down in the valley and I have spoken
his name. And, at first, it was greatly to my astonishment when he
replied, "Where are you?" I held a conversation with him readily. I
could not have actually reached him for a long time, but I saluted him
from afar! At times, dear Friends, we can see God's promises afar off
and we salute them. We are within hail of the Glory land, and we send
up rockets in the dark, or, if it is daylight, we signal to the shore.
Do you ever do that? Do you ever salute the mercies that are to come?
Do you ever talk to the Glory that is to be revealed, yes, and commune
with the glorified? This is the faith to live with and to die with–the
faith that sees and is persuaded–and salutes the promised blessings of
a faithful God! The Lord grant us more of that faith from this time
forth!

III. Now, with extreme brevity, I want to speak upon THE FAITH TO LIVE
WITH–the life of faith. How do we live if we live by faith? The answer
is, they "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the
earth." So are we.

We are strangers by nature. Born from above, our life differs from
those about us. "The world knows us not." We do not belong to this
world at all. We are in it, but not of it.

We are strangers as to citizenship. Here we are aliens and foreigners,
whose privileges are connected with another city and not with earth.

We are strangers as to pursuits. We are wayfaring men hurrying through
this Vanity Fair. The men of the fair cry, "Buy! Buy!" but they have no
wares that we care to purchase. We buy the Truth of God and they do not
trade in that commodity. We have nothing to do with the business of the
fair but to get through it as quickly as we can. There are certain
things every traveler has to do when he stops in a town–he must seek
an inn and He must take due refreshment– but if he is traveling home
from a far country, he moves along as fast as he can.

We are pilgrims in objective. We have not come here for a pleasure
excursion–we are journeying to the Temple to behold the face of our
Lord. Our faces are set towards Jerusalem and we are asking the way
there. Our cry is, "Onward! Hinder me not. I must be away to the Glory
land, where my home is, where my God is!"

We are pilgrims as to continuance. We do not expect to be here long. Do
any of you? Ah, then you are under a great mistake! We shall soon be
gone. Each time we bid each other, "good night," we may do it with the
suspicion that we shall not all meet again. There never was the same
congregation here twice and there never will be. Almost every week two
members of this Church depart for the upland country and leave us in
these lowlands. Of late our death rate has largely increased and the
conscription for the armies of Heaven has fallen heavily upon us. How
quickly are we gone! Say to yourself, then, next time you are fretting
about worldly trouble, "I will not fret about it. It will not last
long." Next time you are tempted to rejoice in earthly treasure, say to
yourself, "No, I shall not rejoice in this. It is only a shadow. I will
rejoice in something more enduring."

Do not wonder if you are found to be strangers as to usage, for the
world uses foreigners roughly and they that are really of Christ must
expect to be misunderstood and misrepresented. They burned many
pilgrims in former days. They cannot do it, now, but there are still
trials of cruel mockings and the seed of the serpent still hates the
seed of the woman.

This, then, is the way of Believers–they live in this world as
strangers and foreigners who are hastening as fast as they can towards
their own country where they shall hear their own language spoken, and
shall abide with their own Father forever. This is the life of faith.

IV. And what is THE FAITH BY WHICH WE ARE ABLE TO ENDURE SUCH A LIFE AS
THIS? Why, it is this faith–"They that say such things declare plainly
that they seek a country."

Our faith is one which we dare to declare. We declare plainly that we
seek a country! We are not ashamed to say that this is not our rest,
that we do not expect to find pleasure here. We are speeding over this
stormy sea to the Fair Havens, where we shall cast anchor forever. We
are not ashamed to say this, however others may ridicule our hope!

And we say it because we believe it! In that day in which Christ washed
away our sins, He gave us the token that we should be with Him where He
is, for this is the mark of the blessed–"They have washed their robes
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." That day in which we
gave ourselves up to Christ, to be His forever, He gave us a
certificate that we should be with Him in Glory, for this is His
prayer, "Father, I will that they also whom you have given Me be with
Me where I am, that they may behold My Glory." I trust, Beloved, no
doubt ever crosses your mind as to the fact that every Believer in
Christ will certainly be in Glory with Christ forever and ever. But if
you so believe, I pray you to believe it strongly, so that you realize
it–and if you do, you will sometimes sit yourself down and laugh–and
if a neighbor asks you, "Why do you laugh?" you will say, "I laugh with
very delirium of delight to think that this poor aching brow shall one
day wear a crown–that I shall exchange these dusty garments for the
snow-white robes of perfec-tion–that I, whose voice on earth is so
poor and cracked, shall one day sing with seraphim and cherubim."

Oh, what joy to the invalid to know that he shall leave his bed on
which he has suffered so much and go where the inhabitant shall no more
say, "I am sick." There the poor man shall no longer fight with poverty
and earn his daily bread with toil, for the Lamb that is in the midst
of the Throne of God shall feed them and none shall know a need. How
glad I am that this shall be in so short a time! Some here present may
be in Heaven before this year is out–ah, perhaps he who speaks to you,
now, may have gone very soon away to his own country! Shall it cost us
any regret? It does for others, for we would gladly remain to do them
good, but for ourselves, the contemplation is one of unmingled delight!
The change has no loss about it–it is unspeakable gain! We lose
nothing by departing to be with Christ, for it is not only better, but,
as Paul puts it, it is, "far better."

So now let us refresh ourselves with the thoughts of what we have and
forget what we have lost. Let us just think of what is laid up for us
and forget the penury of our estate below. Come, let us revel in the
prospect of our ultimate perfection and thus gather strength with which
to struggle with our present corruption. Come, let us now rejoice and
ring the joy-bells at the prospect of beholding the Well-Beloved's face
without a mist or a veil between! And so let us be content, awhile, to
pass through the darkness, even though we see no light. We will meet!
We will meet! We will meet in Glory!

A dear Sister, the other day, wanted to have a long talk with me and I
did not want she should, for I had 20 more waiting, and she said,
"Well, dear Pastor, I will have a long talk with you when we both get
to Heaven." And I said, "Ah, that I will, and I will find you if I can,
or you will find me–and we will converse without hurry." When we begin
to speak up there, she will say to me, "How sweet is your voice." And I
shall look at her, and answer, "How beautiful you have become!" We
shall be amazed at one another in the perfect country." It does not yet
appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear, we
shall be like He, for we shall see Him as He is."

My dear aged friend will forget all her rheumatism and so shall I! You
may be bent half double while you are here below, but you will be
straight enough up there! Those dim eyes need glasses, but you will
need no spectacles before the Throne of God! Limping, lame and halt you
may be at this hour, but up there you will be able to join with all the
happy ones in that music and dancing which shall celebrate the triumph
of Christ! Arise, then, and be glad! Lift up your eyes from the dust
and the darkness and gaze upon the eternal Light of God!

The gate of Heaven is open! If we may not enter yet, we shall enter
before it shuts–let us rest assured of that! The day dawns and until
its full light has come, let us rejoice in the anticipation of it.
Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, let us cry, "Turn, O
our Beloved, and abide with us!" He will not deny us our fond request!
The Lord bless you, for Christ's sake. Amen.
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The Horns of the Altar