Sad Fasts Changed To Glad Feasts

Sad Fasts Changed To Glad Feasts

(No. 2248)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MARCH 20, 1892.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 7, 1890.

"Thus says the Lord of Hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the
fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the
tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful
feasts; therefore love the truth and peace." Zechariah 8:19.

MY time for discourse upon this subject will be limited, as we shall
gather around the Communion Table immediately afterwards. So in the
former part of my sermon I shall give you an outline of what might be
said upon the text if we had time to examine it fully. It will be just
a crayon sketch without much light and shade. You will be able to think
over the subject at your leisure and fill up the picture for
yourselves!

We have, in the chapters we have read, a blessed message of peace to
God's people in the day of their trouble. In the land of their
captivity the Jews were in great perplexity. Their sad lament is on
record–"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yes, we wept,
when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the
midst thereof." But their trouble led many of them to seek the Lord and
He was found of them. Welcome is such misery which leads to such mercy!
In the seventh chapter we are told that when they sent unto the house
of God, to pray before the Lord and to say, "Should I weep in the fifth
month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years? Then came
the Word of the Lord." Jehovah has put their tears into His bottle and,
in answer to their sighing, sent them a message of hope! That message
has in it much that is very practical. It is a letter full of mercy,
but it is directed to certain characters. God does not send
indiscriminate mercy. If men go on in their sin, He sends them words of
judgement. But when they turn from their wickedness and are renewed, by
His Grace, in the spirit of their minds, then it is that words of
comfort are spoken to them.

Reviewing the whole message which Zechariah was commissioned to deliver
and which is summed up in our text, there are three things which stand
out in clear prominence. The first is that God calls for transformation
of character in the people He is going to bless. The second is that He
promises translation of condition to those whose characters are thus
changed and beautiful. And, lastly, He ordains transfiguration of
ordinances as the result of the new character and condition. The whole
subject is exceedingly suggestive and well worthy of careful study when
you reach your homes.

We must not lose sight of the fact that, primarily, this message is for
Israel according to the flesh and contains a prophesy of their
latter-day glory. God has not cast off His people whom He did foreknow
and there are majestic words here which still await their fulfillment
when the set time shall have come. The Lord "will dwell in the midst of
Jerusalem" and make the place of His feet glorious in that day. But as
"no prophesy of Scripture is of any private interpretation," so the
message to the Jews also bears a message for us! Let us seek to learn
its lesson well.

I. My text reminds me–and the chapter before us emphasizes the
fact–that when God means to bless His people, HE CALLS FOR
TRANSFORMATION OF CHARACTER. The promise of the abiding Presence of the
Lord God Almighty is always proceeded by the call to separation and
holiness. "The words which the Lord had cried by the former Prophets"
made it very clear that only with the righteous nation would God
dwell–and Zechariah delivers a similar message.

Very remarkable will be the transformation of character which God shall
work. According to the text, love of the Truth of God is to be one of
the main effects of the change. These people certainly did not set much
value on the truth be-fore–they were in love with every lie, with
every false God and with every false prophet. But God would have them
taste

of His Covenant blessings and be set free from every false way. It is
the only truth that can set men free, yet many there are, even today,
who delight to be in bondage to error! How is it with you? Do you love
the Truth of God, or can you put up with that which is not true, if it
is only pleasant? Say, dear Heart, are you anxious after Truth–Truth
in your head, Truth in your heart, Truth on your tongue, Truth in your
life? If you are false and love falsehood, you are taken with a sore
disease–and unless you are healed of the plague, you can never enter
Heaven! You must be transformed and made true–and only the Spirit of
Truth can effect the mighty change.

Another sign must follow–love of peace. The text also says, "Therefore
love peace." In some men it is a plain proof of conversion when they
desire peace. Some are naturally very hot-tempered and soon boil over.
These are the men of great force of character, or else of great
shallowness–it is the small pot which is soon hot. Some are malicious.
They can take enmity quietly and keep it in the refrigerator of their
cold hearts for years! Such love is not peace–they are at war with all
who have, in any degree, disappointed or displeased them. When the
Grace of God takes away an angry, passionate, malicious disposition, it
achieves a great wonder. But then Grace, itself, is a great wonder–and
unless this change is worked in you who need it, you shall not see God,
for you cannot enter Heaven to go into a passion there. Depend upon it,
unless you lose your bad temper, you will never be among the ranks of
the glorified! It must be conquered and removed if you are to join the
happy hosts on high. "They are without fault before the Throne of
God"–and so must you be if you are to be numbered among that company.

Moreover, those whom God blesses have undergone a transformation as to
their conduct with each other. Righteous dealing is another effect of
the change. Notice the ninth verse of the seventh chapter–"Thus speaks
the Lord of Hosts, saying, Execute true judgment." This is, at all
times, a necessary admonition, but never more necessary than now, when
so many never dream of justice and goodness–in business and in private
life many seem to have no care for righteousness. If the thing will
pay, they will rob right and left–they will only be honest because
there is an old saw that says, "Honesty is the best policy." But he
that is honest out of policy is the most dishonest man in the world!
May God grant us Grace to do what is right at all costs! Christians,
when the Grace of God reigns in their souls, would rather be the
poorest of the poor than get rich by a single act contrary to
uprightness. O beloved members of this Church, be upright in all your
transactions, clear and straight in your dealings–for how shall you
call yourselves the children of the righteous God if you make gain by
unholy transactions?

Another point of transformation lies in the exercise of compassion.
This comes out in that same ninth verse of the seventh chapter–"Show
mercy and compassions, every man, to his brother." A great mark of a
changed heart is when we become tender, full of pity and kind. Some men
have very little of the milk of human kindness about them. You may lay
a case before them and they will wonder why you should come to them.
And when you see how little they do, you wonder why you ever came to
them! Many there are whose hearts are locked up in an iron safe and we
cannot find the key! They have hidden the key–there is no getting at
their hearts. One such said to a minister who preached a sermon, after
which there was to be a collection, "You should preach to our hearts
and then you would get some money." The minister replied, "Yes, I think
that is very likely, for that is where you keep your money." The answer
was a very good one. That is just where a great many persons carry
their treasure–but when the Grace of God comes and renews the miser's
heart–he begins to be generous! He has pity on the poor and compassion
for the fallen–he loves to bless those who are round about Him, and
make them happy. It is a mark of wonderful transformation in the
character of some men, when their heart begins to go a little outside
their own ribs and they can feel for the sorrow of other men!

Notice, next, in the 10th verse of that same seventh chapter, that
another mark of God's people is consideration for others–"Oppress not
the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor." How can he
be a child of the all-bountiful Father who would make men work for
wages that scarcely keep body and soul together? How can he be a son of
the God of Love who will defraud the poor woman whose fingers must go
stitch, stitch, stitch, half through the night, before she can even get
enough to give her relief from her hunger? God's children will have
nothing to do with this kind of thing! Those who take delight in
oppressing the poor and who make their gain thereby, will be,
themselves, pinched in eternal poverty–they are little likely to enter
the golden gates of Paradise! There is many a child of God who has
lived here in the depths of poverty–and when he gets to Heaven, away
from all the struggle and bitterness, is he to see the man who was his
oppressor here below, coming into Glory to sit side by side with him? I
think not!

Once more, where there is a work of Grace, it leads men to
brotherliness of character. "And let none of you imagine evil against
his brother in your heart," says the Lord in the 10th verse of this
seventh chapter. And the same thing is repeated in the 17th verse of
the eighth chapter. I would be sure that some women were converted if
they left off imagining evil against others in their hearts. For there
are some women–and there are some men, too, I am sorry to say–who
cannot think of anybody without thinking evil of them. There are such
dreadful persons about and, sometimes, we come across them to our
dismay. They paint the very saints of God black and there is no getting
away from their slander–no, let a man live the life of Enoch, yet
would some of these people report evil against him! Slander is no sign
of a saint–it is the brand of one who is under the dominion of the
devil! "For all these are things that I hate, says the Lord." God save
us from them all!

Thus I have given you a brief outline of the transformation of Grace.
They are great changes because God works them. When men come to Him and
yield themselves up to His Divine Power, He takes away the heart of
stone and gives them a heart of flesh. He turns their nature to the
very reverse of what it was before–then they follow after the Truth of
God and peace–then they love righteousness and learn kindness through
His good Spirit.

II. The second point to which I would draw your attention, with
reference to the methods of God with His people, is that HE PROMISES
TRANSMUTATIONS OF CONDITION to those men in whom are found the
transformation of character. I have already read the eighth chapter to
you–let us go through it, again, and pick out just a note or two of
the joy and gladness which are here written in full score.

First, jealousy is turned into communing love. God represents Himself,
in the second verse, as being very jealous about His people because He
loved them so much. He was jealous for them with great fury. The people
set up false gods in His own city, even in His own Temple, and God was
angry with them and would not dwell with them. But when they repented
and He had cleansed them by His mercy, He says, "I am returned unto
Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem." What a change! God
waits not until, by long obedience, His people win Him back. He does
not say that He will return when they merit His Presence. No, the word
comes to us full of surprise and power, "I am returned." Instantly, on
the repentance, God comes back! A jealous God fights against me. I fly
to Christ. He is content. He comes and dwells with me, no longer full
of fury, but full of tenderness and love! If any of you have had God
fighting against you, in holy jealousy chasing out your sin, happy will
you be if you yield yourselves to Christ at once! If you do, God will
come quickly and make your hearts to be His abode. May many get that
transformation at this good hour!

Next, desolation is turned into population. On account of sin,
Jerusalem became desolate. "I scattered them with a whirlwind," says
the Lord, "among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was
desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they
laid the pleasant land desolate." Zion sat like a widow. Nobody came up
to her solemn feasts. But God returned to her and He says, in the
fourth verse, "There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the
streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very
age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls
playing in the streets thereof." So that when God comes to bless His
people, where there was nobody, there seems to be everybody! When
Churches and congregations sin, God often admonishes them and brings
them low. But when they return to their God, the old saints are seen
there, again, and there are new-born Believers in plenty. God can soon
change the estate of His people. It is the same with individual souls
who have gone away from God, but afterwards repent and return to Him.
Then the desolation of heart is forgotten in the joy of the multitude
of sweet and holy thoughts and interests that crowd the heart and life!
Old experiences revive and new life and joy are born where God comes
near to us in Grace and power! What a wonderful change this is! May we
all taste its bliss!

Another change of condition follows–scattering is turned into
gathering. God goes on to say that as He scattered His people, so He
will bring them together again from the east and from the west. This,
as I have already said, has a first reference to the scattered Israel,
but how true it also is of us! When the Lord leaves us, we are
scattered like sheep without a shepherd in a cloudy and dark day. But
when we turn to Him, His Word is sure. "I will bring them, and they
shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be My people, and
I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness." May we know, in
our new experience, the truth of that promise, "For a small moment have
I forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you," and may it
be to us according to His Word!

The next change is, that poverty is turned into plenty. Whereas they
become poor and were half-starved with famine, God tells them that the
city shall be prosperous–"The vine shall give her fruit, and the
ground shall give her increase,

and the heavens shall give their dew." God often changes men's
circumstances when He changes their hearts. When He has been beating
and bruising, if men will but yield to Him, He turns to them in love
and plenty. May the Lord do this with any of us who have grieved Him
and brought His rod upon us! There is no truer Word in the Book of God
than this, "Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you." With the Covenant
blessings of Grace, God often bestows the common blessings of this
life, even as it is written in the chapter before us, "I will cause the
remnant of this people to possess all these things."

Farther on in the chapter, we are told of another change–ill-will is
turned into good-will. Before the Lord graciously visited them, no man
loved his neighbor. So we read in the 10th verse. But when God's Grace
came and changed their character, then one city went to another and
said, "Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord
of Hosts: I will go also," and they went up to the House of the Lord,
together. Oh, where the Grace of God comes, it makes men friends!
Enemies they may have been before, but then they go and seek one
another out and they say, "Come, old Friend, let us end all this. Give
me your hand and let bygones be bygones." There is nothing like love
and unity among the people until the Grace of God comes and conquers
the natural ill-will which otherwise would have had dominion! May such
a transmutation take place between any here who may be at variance–and
may all bitterness and hatred, if such things exist–be put away!

Did you not notice, also, in the reading of this chapter, how these
people had been a curse and how, by the Presence of God, the curse is
turned into a blessing? "And it shall come to pass, that as you were a
curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will
I save you, and you shall be a blessing: fear not, but let your hands
be strong." When a Believer dishonors God, one of the worst results of
it is that he becomes a snare to the people round about him. The very
heathen look upon him as a curse. Inconsistent professors are the
greatest stumbling blocks to the spread of the cause of Christ! But
when their character is changed by the abounding Grace of God, they
become like overflowing springs, sending streams of blessing far and
wide!

Moreover, in the day of blessing, their reproach is turned into honor.
The nation had been despised. Nobody would honor a Jew, but when they
honored God, then God would honor them and 10 men would take hold of
the garments of a man that was a Jew, saying, "We will go with you: for
we have heard that God is with you." A man of God would, then, become
more precious than the gold of Ophir! Well, my Friends, when we return
to God, God very soon has ways of making us honorable, so that we are
of value among men! He makes use of us and men begin to perceive that
we are not to be despised if God is with us and His blessing rests upon
us.

Thus have I hurried over these two points because I want to dwell a
little longer on the text, itself. It was necessary, however, to
introduce it in this way.

III. Now we come to this fact which always accompanies God's Presence.
HE ORDAINS TRANSFIGURATIONS

OF ORDINANCES. Four fasts, which had been kept by the Jews, were to be
turned into feasts when the character of the men who observed them had
changed and God had dealt graciously with them. Before this, their
feasts had been farces– occasions of self-glorification and all manner
of pride. Now, these days were to be festivals of gladness and times of
drawing near to God, rejoicing in His good gift. In like manner, when a
man becomes a Believer in Christ and is renewed, this principle
operates–many a fast is turned into a feast–and many a sorrow and
sadness into joy and gladness!

When the Communion Table shall be uncovered, you will see before you,
in the emblems of the death of our Lord, what might have been the
memory of a fast. The Lord of Life and Glory was nailed to the accursed
tree. He died by the act of guilty men. We, by our sins, crucified the
Son of God! We might have expected that, in remembrance of His death,
we should have been called to a long, sad, rigorous fast. Do not many
men think so even today? See how they observe Good Friday, a sad, sad
day to many–yet our Lord has never enjoined our keeping such a day, or
bid us to look back upon His death under such a melancholy aspect!
Instead of that, having passed out from under the Old Covenant into the
New, and resting in our risen Lord, who once was slain, we commemorate
His death by a most joyous festival!

It came after the Passover, which was a feast of the Jews. But unlike
that feast, which was kept by unleavened bread, this feast is brimful
of joy and gladness! It is composed of bread and of wine, without a
trace of bitter herbs, or anything that suggests sorrow and grief. The
bread and the cup most fitly set forth the death of our Lord and
Savior–and the mode of that death–even by the shedding of His blood.
But as they stand before us, now, they evoke no tears! They suggest no
sighs! The memorial of Christ's death is a festival, not a funeral! And
we are to come to the table with gladsome

hearts, yes, and go away from it with praises, for, "after supper they
sang a hymn." At both ends it was Psalm singing. The great Hallel of
the Jews commenced it and another Psalm, full of joy and gladness, out
of the hallelujahs of the Palms, finished it. Oh, what has God worked!
We crucified the Christ of God, but in that Crucifixion we have found
our Ransom! With wicked hands He was slain by us, but His blessed
Sacrifice has put all our sin away forever! Our hymn rightly asks–

"'It is finished.' Shall we raise Songs of sorrow, or of praise? Mourn
to see the Savior die,

Or proclaim His victory?"

But it justly answers–

"Lamb of God! Your death has given

Pardon, peace and hope of Heaven–

'It is finished!' Let us raise

Songs of thankfulness and praise!" As the Lord's Supper leads the way
in that direction, I may say that every other fast of the Christian has
been transfigured in the same manner. The Sabbath is, to many people, a
very dreary day, but, to many of us, it is a fast which has been turned
into a feast! I am often amused when I read the accounts that are given
by some people of an English Sabbath. In all soberness it is set forth
what we Puritans do on this first day of the week. We wake up in the
morning and say to ourselves, "Another dreadfully miserable day has
come around," and then we go off to our places of worship where we sit
with frightfully long faces and listen to terribly dismal sermons! We
do not sing, or even smile! We howl out some ugly Psalm and make
ourselves as unhappy as ever we can be! When we come home, we draw down
the blinds to keep the sun out. We never go into the garden to admire
the flowers!

Well, you know the rest of the story. I think we are descendants of the
people who killed the cat on Monday because it caught mice on
Sunday–at least, so I have heard! But if I had not read all this, I
would not have known it! Often, when I see in the paper some
description of myself, I say, "Well, people somehow seem to know me
better than I know myself–I never thought anything of the kind–it has
never entered my head. Yet here is it in black and white!" O beloved
Friends! Our idea of the Lord's-Day is altogether different from this
hideous caricature of it! If I had to describe our Sabbaths, I would
say that they are full of brightness, joy and delight! I Would tell of
our singing with full hearts, of the happy prospect before us in that
land–

"Where congregations never break up,

And Sabbaths have no end."

I am sure we would not be likely to go to that heavenly country if our
Sabbaths here were as dreary as some say they are! Why, here in this
house, we have had our merriest times! Of old, when the prodigal came
back, "they began to be merry," and I have never heard that they have
stopped! At any rate, I do not think that we have! We have rejoiced
with the joy of harvest as we have heard of sinners saved and have
known that we are saved, ourselves. I grant you that, before we knew
the Lord, it did, sometimes, seem to our young minds rather a dull
thing to read the Bible, hear sermons and to keep the Sabbaths. But now
that we have come to Christ and He has saved us–now that we are
His–the first day of the week, which was a fast, has become a feast,
and we look with eager delight for the Sundays to come round, one after
another! In fact, these Lord's-Days are the beds of flowers in our
gardens. The week-days are only the gravel paths that yield us little
but weariness as we walk along them. Happy Sabbath! We hail your coming
with delight, and sing–

"Welcome sweet day of rest,

That saw the Lord arise!

Welcome to this reviving breast

And these rejoicing eyes!

The King Himself comes near

And feasts His saints today!

Here we may sit and see Him here,

And love, and praise, and pray!" So, you see, this is a second instance
in which what might have been a fast is turned into a feast!

There is another thing that is, to some of us, a great feast, though
formerly it was as full of weariness as a fast. It is the hearing of
the Doctrines of Grace. I know some Brothers and Sisters who always sit
very uneasily when I begin to preach the Doctrines of Grace. I am sorry
that it is so and I hope that they will grow wiser. Still, all of us
did not always like to hear about God's electing love and absolute
Sovereignty–about the special redemption of Christ for His
peo-ple–and about the union to Christ being an everlasting union,
never to be broken. There was a time when we did not join very heartily
in the lines–

"Once in Christ, in Christ forever,

Nothing from His love can sever." But, oh, when your heart gets into
full fellowship with God, if it is with you as it is with me, you will
be glad to get on that string! Is there anything that gives us greater
joy than to know our calling and election–and to make it sure–to know
that the Father loved us as He loved Christ from before the foundation
of the world and that He loves us with such a love that it can never
end and can never change, but will continue when the sun burns black as
a coal? It was because they heard these grand Doctrines that such
crowds used to gather in the desert in France to hear the old
Calvinistic preachers!

It was the hold these Truths of Grace had upon the minds and hearts of
men that explains how it was that, under the Gospel oaks in England,
vast numbers used to come hear plain and often illiterate men, preach
the Gospel! They preached a Gospel that had something in it–and the
people soon discover the real article when it is set before them. There
is much that goes for Gospel, now, and if you could have a mile of it,
you would not get an inch of consolation out of it, for there is
nothing in it! But when your soul is heavy and when your heart is sad,
there is nothing like the old faith to put cheer and life into you. How
often have I read Elisha Coles on Divine Sovereignty through and
through when I have been ill! When the heart begins to sink, if one
gets a grip of the Sovereignty of God and the way of His Grace whereby
He saves the unworthy and gets unto Himself glory by His faithfulness
to His promises–what had been a fast becomes, to the child of God, a
feast of fat things and royal cheer of a godly sort!

You will all agree with me in the next point. Sometimes the day of
affliction becomes as a fast which has been turned into a feast. It is
a trying thing to lose one's health and to be near to death or to lose
one's wealth and wonder how the children will be fed. Or to have heavy
tidings of disaster come to you, day after day, in doleful succession.
But if you can grasp the promise and know that, "All things work
together for good to them that love God"–if you can see a Covenant God
in all, then the fast turns into a feast–and you can say, "God is
going to favor me again. He is only pruning the vine to make it bring
forth better grapes. He is going to deal with me again after His own
wise, loving and fatherly way of discipline." You then hear the Lord
saying to you–

"Then trust Me and fear not: your life is secure. My wisdom is perfect,
supreme is My power. In love I correct you, your soul to refine, To
make you, at length, in My likeness to shine."

I have met with some saints who have been happier in their sickness and
in their poverty than ever they were in health and in wealth! I
remember how one, who had been long afflicted and had got well, but had
lost some of the brightness of the Lord's Presence which he had enjoyed
during his sickness, said, "Take me back to my bed! Let me be ill,
again, for I was well when I was sick! I am afraid that I am getting
sick, now that I am well." It is often worth while being afflicted in
order to experience the great loving kindness of God which He bestows
so abundantly on us in the hour of trouble and perplexity. Yes, God
turns our fasts into feasts, and we are glad in the midst of our
sorrow! We can praise and bless His name for all that He does.

Once more–the solemn Truth of God of the coming of the Lord is a feast
to us, though at first it was a fast. With very great delight we
believe that the Lord Jesus Christ will shortly come. He is even now in
the act of coming. The passage that we read, "Surely, I come quickly,"
would be better translated, "Surely, I am coming quickly." He is on the
road and will certainly appear, to the joy of His people and for the
emancipation of the world! There are certain writers who say they know
when He is coming–do not be plagued with them–they know no more about
it than you do! "Of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels
of Heaven, but My Father, only," said the Lord Jesus. Perhaps the Lord
may come sooner than any of us expect–before this "diet of worship"
shall break up He may be here! On the other hand, He may not come for a
thousand years, or 20,000 years!

The times and the seasons are with Him and it is not for us to pry
behind the curtain. Those of our number who are unsaved may well dread
His coming, for He will come to destroy them that obey not the Gospel.
"Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord
comes, for it is near at hand; a day of darkness, and of gloominess, a
day of clouds and thick darkness." That day will be terror, not light,
to you. When He comes, He shall judge the earth in right-eousness–and
woe unto His adversaries, for, "He shall rule them with a rod of iron;
as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken into shivers." You have
grave need to keep the fast of the Second Advent, for to you it is dies
irae, day of wrath and day of vengeance, day of dread and day of woe!

But if you become a Believer and, by Grace, are transformed as I
described in the earlier part of this discourse, then it shall be a
feast to you! Then you will look for His appearing as the day of your
hope and will gladly say, "Yes, let Him come! Come Lord, nor let Your
chariots wait! Come, Lord! Your Church entreats You to tarry no longer!
Come, You absent love, You dear unknown, You fairest of ten thousand!
Come to Your Church and make her glad!" To us the thought of the
glorious Advent of Christ is no fast–it is a blessed feast! Our songs
never rise higher than when we get on this strain. With what fervor we
lift up our voices and sing–

"Brothers, this Lord Jesus Shall return again, With His Father's glory
With His angel train! For all wreaths of empire Meet upon His brow, And
our hearts confess Him King of glory now"!

Last of all, to come still more closely home, the approach of death is,
to most men, a dreadful fast. Not the Moham-madan Ramadan can be more
full of piteous grief than some men when they are obliged to think of
death. If some of you were put into a room, tomorrow, and were
compelled to stay there all day and think of your death, it would
certainly be a very gloomy time to you. You will die, however–perhaps
suddenly, perhaps by slow degrees. There will come a time when people
will walk very gently round your bed–when they will wipe the death
sweat from your brow–when they will lean over you to see whether you
still breathe, or whether you have gone. Out of the 6,000 persons here,
tonight, there are some, certainly, who will never see New Year's Day.
Usually there is someone who does not even see another Lord's-Day!
Almost every week we get an intimation that a hearer of the previous
week has died before the next Sabbath.

Who among us will first be gone? Dare you think of it? O Beloved, when
once you have peace with God and you know that you are going to behold
His face, whom, though you have not seen, yet you love, then you can
think of death without trembling! I think that there is nothing more
delightful to the man who has full assurance of faith, than to be
familiar with the grave, the resurrection morning, the white robe, the
harp of gold, the palm and the endless song. The thought of death is
more a feast to us than a fast, for, as Watts sings–

"Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are, While on
His breast I lean my head, And breathe my life out sweetly there."
"Well, I shall soon be Home," says one old saint. And she spoke of it
as she used to speak, when a girl, of the holidays and of her going
away from school! "I shall soon behold the King in His beauty," says
another. He speaks of it as he might have spoken, when a young man, of
his wedding day! Children of God cannot only read Young's Night
Thoughts without feeling any chill of solemnities written there, but
they can write in their diaries notes of expectation at the thought of
being with Christ–and almost notes of regret that they have not passed
away to Glory, but are lingering here in the land of shadows. "What?"
said one, who had been long lying senseless, when he came back, again,
to consciousness, "And am I still here? I had half hoped to have been
in my heavenly Father's home and palace above long before this and I am
still here." Truly, Beloved, the fast is turned into a feast when we
reach this experience! We will not hesitate to say, "Come, Lord, take
us to Yourself." Oh for a sight of the King in His beauty!–

"Father, I long, I faint to see The place of Your abode!

I'd leave Your earthly courts and flee Up to Your seat, my God."

I knew right well a beloved Brother in Christ with whom I was very
familiar, who stood up, one Sabbath morning, and announced just that
verse. I thought of him when I repeated it and I wondered whether it
was quite as true to me as it was to him. He gave it out, and said–

"Father, I long, I faint to see

The place of Your abode!

I'd leave Your earthly courts and flee

Up to Your seat, my God!"

Then he stopped, there was a silence and, at last, one of the
congregation ventured upstairs into the pulpit and found that the
preacher was dead. His prayer was heard! He was gone to the place of
God's abode. Oh, happy they who die thus! The Lord grant that we may
never pray against a sudden death! We may almost pray for it when once
our soul is right with God. I can join John Newton and, instead of
dreading the change, say–

"Rather, my spirit would rejoice,

And long, and wish, to hear Your voice!

Glad when it bids me earth resign,

Secure of Heaven, if You are mine." But is Christ yours? Has the fast
been changed into a feast for you by faith in the crucified Savior? God
help you to answer that question with a glad, hearty, "Yes!" Then may
He make all your life "joy and gladness," changing your fearful fasts
into "cheerful feasts," until, at last, all of us who believe in Christ
and who love His appearing, shall sit down at the marriage supper of
the Lamb! Amen.

Portions of Scripture Read before Sermon–Zechariah 7 and 8.