Departed Saints Yet Living

Departed Saints Yet Living

(No. 1863)

SUGGESTED BY THE DECEASE OF THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY.

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 4, 1885, BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are
raised, when he called the Lord, 'the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob.' For He is not the God of the dead but of the
living, for all live to Him." Luke 20:37,38.

DURING the past week, the Church of God and the world at large have
sustained a very serious loss. In the taking home to Himself by our
gracious lord, the Earl of Shaftesbury, we have, in my judgement, lost
the best man of the age. I do not know whom I should place second, but
I certainly should put him first–far beyond all other servants of God
within my knowledge–for usefulness and influence. He was a man most
true in his personal piety, as I know from having enjoyed his private
friendship. He was a man most firm in his faith in the Gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ; a man intensely active in the cause of God and the
Truth of God. Take him whichever way you please, he was admirable. He
was faithful to God in all His house, fulfilling both the first and
second commands of the Law in fervent love to God and hearty love to
man. He occupied his high position with singleness of purpose and
immovable steadfastness–where shall we find his equal? If it is not
possible that he was absolutely perfect, it is equally impossible for
me to mention a single fault, for I saw none. He exhibited Scriptural
perfection, inasmuch as he was sincere, true and consecrated.

Those things which have been regarded as faults in him by the loose
thinkers of this age are prime virtues in my esteem. They called him
narrow–and in this they bear unconscious testimony to his loyalty to
the Truth of God. I rejoiced greatly in his integrity, his
fearlessness, his adherence to principle in a day when the Revelation
of God is questioned, the Gospel explained away and human thought set
up as the idol of the hour. He felt that there was a vital and eternal
difference between the Truth of God and error and, consequently, he did
not act or talk as if there was much to be said on either side and,
therefore, no one could be quite sure. We shall not know for many a
year how much we miss in missing him; how great an anchor he was to
this drifting generation and how great a stimulus he was to every
movement for the benefit of the poor!

Both man and beast may unite in mourning him! He was the friend of
every living thing. He lived for the oppressed; he lived for London; he
lived for the nation and he lived, still more, for God! He has finished
his course and though we do not lay him to sleep in the grave with the
sorrow of those that have no hope, yet we cannot but mourn that a great
man and a prince has fallen this day in Israel! Surely the righteous
are taken away from the evil to come and we are left to struggle on
under increasing difficulties.

It must always be so. The godly must die, even as others. Though our
life is perfectly consecrated, yet it cannot forever be continued in
this world. It is appointed unto men once, to die, and that appointment
stands. We expect the present rule to last till He shall come who shall
destroy the last enemy. We are not troubled with Sadducean doubts. To
us, seeing that Christ rose from the dead, it is a matter of certainty
that all His followers must rise, also. And seeing that Jesus always
lived, it is equally a matter of certainty to us that all the saints
are still living, for He has said, "Because I live, you shall live,
also." Yet, if no infidelity is permitted to creep into our brain and
disturb our belief, it may penetrate into our heart and cause us great
sadness. We who believe in Jesus should rise into an atmosphere more
clear and warm than

that of the sepulcher, for the Lord Jesus has "abolished death and
brought life and incorruption to light through the

Gospel."

We are not now sitting in the shadow of death, for eternal light has
sprung up! Children of God, it is in the highest degree proper that you
should think of things as your Father thinks of them–and He says that
"all live unto God." Let us correct our phraseology by that of
Scripture, and speak of departed saints as Divine Inspiration speaks of
them! Then shall we come back to the simple child's talk which
Wordsworth so sweetly turned into rhyme–"Master, we are seven," and in
our family we shall number brothers, sisters and friends, whose bodies
lie in the churchyard and shall speak of those who have crossed the
border and passed within the veil as still our own! Like Jesus, we
shall say, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps." Like Paul, we shall speak of
them as absent from the body but present with the Lord and regard them
as part and parcel of the one family in Heaven and earth!

Our text was fashioned in a place which has the air of death, burial
and resurrection about it. The voice came to Moses in the desert. This
was a strange place for Moses–the living, active, well-instructed mind
of Moses, mighty in all the wisdom of Egypt and full of noble thoughts
concerning the living God–was buried in a desert. It is singular to
see the foremost mind of the age in the remotest part of the desert
hidden away among sheep! He who was a born king is, here, feeding a
flock. It is death to Moses. Rest assured that Moses cannot be kept in
this living tomb–he must rise to life and leadership. While there is a
God and a Providence, Moses cannot continue in obscurity. There are
certainties wrapped up in him which cannot fail. A man need not be a
Prophet to stand at Horeb and prognosticate that Moses will emerge from
the desert and shake Egypt by his resurrection!

While Moses is in the desert, he is thinking about another case of
death, burial and resurrection, namely, Israel in Egypt. The people of
God, the favored nation of Jehovah with whom He had entered into
Covenant, saying, "I will be their God and they shall be My
people"–these were in Egypt, ground down by relentless oppression,
begrimed with brick dust and black and blue with the blows of
taskmasters. It has come to this, that they are compelled to cast their
male children into the river and so to be the destroyers of their own
race! The children of Israel have become a herd of slaves, yet they are
God's elect people, God's favored family! It does not require a Prophet
to declare that this death in Egypt cannot last–the elect nation must
live and rise and go forth free to serve the Lord! No, Israel, you
shall never perish! The voice must yet be heard–"Thus says the Lord,
Let My people go, that they may serve Me!"

And so, while Moses in the desert is thinking of Israel in Egypt, he
sees a bush, and that bush is all ablaze. An ordinary bush upon the
heath needs only to be touched with a match and, in one moment, there
is a puff of flame and then all is over–nothing is left but a trace of
ashes. Yet here was an extraordinary thing–a bush that continued to
burn and was not consumed! Here was life in the midst of death,
continuance in the midst of destruction! This was an emblem of God
abiding with a people and yet suffering them to live–or of the fires
of affliction being rendered harmless to the children of God. He who
then spoke to Moses was the God of Life, the God who could sustain in
the midst of destruction! He was the God who could preserve even a bush
from being devoured by the intense fury of flame! Said I not truly that
the surroundings of Moses and the bush all favor a display of life in
death and resurrection out of death?

Now we come to the central matter. Out of the midst of the bush there
came a Voice, a mysterious and Divine Voice which said, "I am the God
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." From this
Voice our Divine Lord teaches us to gather this fact–that God's people
live when they appear to have been long dead–for He who cannot be the
God of the dead, or non-existent, still avows Himself to be the God of
the long-buried Patriarchs! Our Lord proved from that utterance at the
bush, the continued life of the Lord's chosen and also their
resurrection–how did He do this?

I. We will not go straight to the answer, but we will beat about the
bush a little, that the reasoning may the more

gently enter our minds. I would say, first, that in these words we have
A GLORIOUS RELATIONSHIP DECLARED.

Moses called the Lord, "The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob."

The glorious Lord did, at the bush, as good as say, "These three men
have chosen Me to be their God." So they had– through the Grace of God
they had deliberately chosen to part with their natural kindred in the
country of the Chaldees and to journey to a land of which they knew
nothing except that God had promised that they should afterwards
receive it for an inheritance. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were three very
different characters, yet this was common to the three– that they
believed God and took Him to be their God, alone. They nestled in the
bosom of Jehovah while the rest of the world went after their idols. In
all their troubles, they flew to Jehovah; for the supply of all their
needs they resorted to

Him, alone. They were men who had, through Divine Grace, deliberately
attached themselves unto Jehovah, the Most High, throughout the whole
of their lives.

It is a sublime sight to see a man trust in God as Abraham did–and
obey the Lord fully as he did in the matter of Isaac, when he accounted
God to be able to raise him up, even from the dead. Surely there must
be everlasting life in a being who could thus confide in Jehovah! I
call you to admire the fact that God called the Patriarchs into the
noble position of following the Lord fully, of fixed and settled
choice. Being men of like passions with ourselves, they nevertheless
cast in their lot with the Lord and for His sake preferred the life of
strangers and pilgrims on the earth to the comforts of settled
residence in Ur of the Chaldees and to the sinful pleasures of Canaan.
We, also, take this God to be our God, even the God of Abraham, of
Isaac and of Jacob. There is a nobility about the choosers of the true
God which will surely secure them from annihilation.

Next, these three men had learned to commune with God. How wondrously
had Abraham spoken with God! Full many a spot was consecrated as "the
place where he stood before the Lord." Isaac also walked in the fields
at eventide and, doubtless, there entered into secret fellowship with
God. The Lord also appeared unto him at night and led him to build an
altar and call upon the name of Jehovah. The good old man, even in his
blindness, found solace in communion with the Lord God Almighty. Jacob,
also, was favored with heavenly visitations. We can never forget that
mystic dream at Bethel, nor the wrestling at Jabbok, nor the many times
when he turned to the God of his father Abraham and his father
Isaac–and God spoke with him as a man speaks with his friend! It is a
wonderful thing that the Lord should thus commune with men. He does not
thus show Himself to the beasts which perish. He does not thus reveal
Himself to the lifeless stones of the field. Those are strangely
honored beings with whom God enters into close communion as He did with
these three men! I argue from it that these beings cannot dissolve into
a handful of dust and cease to be. Can those eyes cease to be which
have seen the Lord? Can these souls perish which have conversed with
the Eternal? We think not! And, just now, I ask you only to meditate
upon the glories to which the Patriarchs were lifted up when they were
permitted to be the Friends of God.

What was still more notable, the Lord entered into Covenant with them.
He made a Covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob which He remembered,
saying, "Surely, blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will
multiply you." You know how the Lord swore to give unto the seed of
Abraham a goodly heritage, a land that flowed with milk and honey. Now,
it is a wonderful thing that God should enter into compact with man.
Does He make an everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure,
with mere insects of an hour? Especially, would He give His Son Jesus
to die to seal the everlasting Covenant by His heart's blood with mere
shadows who are but for a little time and then cease to be? I am sure
it is not so. If God makes men capable of entering into an everlasting
Covenant with Himself, there lies within that fact the clear suggestion
that He imparts to them an existence which is not for today and
tomorrow, but for eternity! Still, I wish you mainly to regard the
Glory into which manhood is lifted up when God enters into gracious
Covenant with it.

Moreover, to go further, these men were not only in Covenant with God,
but they had lived in accordance with that Covenant. I do not mean that
they had lived perfectly in accord with it, but that the main strain of
their lives was in conformity with their Covenant relationship to God.
For the sake of that Covenant, Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees and
dwelt no longer in the land of Haran, but became a sojourner with God
in the land of Canaan. For the sake of this, he sent away his firstborn
after the flesh, seeing it was said, "In Isaac shall your seed be
called." "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange
country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with
him of the same promise." These faithful men had respect to the
recompense of the reward and, therefore, they were not mindful of the
country from where they came out, neither sought opportunity to return.

Jacob, the most faulty of the three, greatly as he erred in his conduct
to his brother Esau, was evidently actuated by an intense faith in the
Covenant birthright so that he ventured all things to obtain it. In his
old age and death, he was anxious not to be confused with the
Egyptians, or separated from the chosen household and, therefore, he
said unto Joseph, "But I will lie with my fathers, and you shall carry
me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying place." This he made
Joseph swear, for he must make sure of it. He was aiming at the
promise, despite the errors that he committed in so doing. Now, does
God enter into Covenant with men and help men to live in accordance
with that Covenant and, after all, shall they miss the blessing? Shall
it end in nothing? Hiding beneath the shadow of God's wings, shall
they, after all, perish? It cannot be! They must live to whom God is
God.

For this was the Covenant, that they should have God to be their God
and that they should be God's people. O Brothers and Sisters, I do not
know how to speak on such a blessing as this, though I live in the
daily enjoyment of it! This God is our God. All that the Lord is and
all that He can do, He has given over to us, to be used on our
behalf–the fullness of His Grace and Truth, the infinity of His Love,
the Omnipotence of His Power, the Infallibility of His Wisdom–all, all
shall be used on our behalf! The Lord has given Himself over to His
people to be their inheritance and, on the other hand, we, poor weak
feeble creatures as we are, are taken to be the peculiar treasure of
the living God! "They shall be Mine, says the Lord of Hosts, in that
day when I make up My jewels." "The Lord's portion is His people: Jacob
is the lot of His inheritance." We are God's heritage, we are God's
jewels, we are God's children, we are dear to Him as the apple of His
eye! We are to Him as the signet upon His hand and the crown upon His
head! He cannot have chosen for His portion a mass of corruption, or a
handful of brown dust–yet that is what the body comes to in death. He
cannot have chosen for His heritage that which will melt back into
mother earth and be no more found–this cannot be!

The Covenant has within it the sure guarantee of eternal life. Oh what
an honor it is that God should even say to you and to me–"I will be
your God and you shall be My people. Beyond the angels, beyond Heaven,
beyond all My other creatures, I reserve you unto Myself. I have loved
you with an everlasting love. I will rest in My love to you. I will
rejoice over you with singing." In this the Lord has highly exalted His
covenanted ones and raised them to great nearness to Himself–and thus
to glory and honor. What has God worked? What is man that God is thus
mindful of him, or the son of man that He thus visits him? Angels are
nowhere as compared with men, yes, cherubim with all their burning
bliss and consecrated ardor cannot match with men who are in Covenant
with God! Blessed above all other beings are those who have Jehovah to
be their God and who are, themselves, the Lord's choice, care and
delight! Each one of these points, if well thought out, will go to
strengthen our belief that the saints must live, must live forever and
are, at this moment, living unto God.

II. We now come to that matter more distinctly under our second
head–here is ETERNAL LIFE IMPLIED, for "God is not the God of the
dead, but of the living."

It is implied, first, in the very fact of the Covenant of Grace. As I
have asked before–Does the eternal God covenant with creatures that
shall live only to threescore years and 10 and then shall go out like a
candle-snuff? How can He be a God to them? I understand how He can be a
helper and a friend to men of brief existence, but I see not how He can
be a God. Must they not partake in His eternity if it is truly said, "I
will be your God"? How can the Lord be an eternal blessing to an ending
being? He has power and He will give me sufficient strength; He has
wisdom and He will give me as much of His wisdom as I am capable of
receiving. Must He not, also, cause me to partake of His immortality?
How is He a God to me if He suffers me to be blotted out of existence?
When David said in dying, "Yet has He made with me an everlasting
Covenant," his comfort lay in his belief that he should live in the
everlasting age to enjoy the fruit of that Covenant. How could there be
an everlasting Covenant with a creature who would cease to exist?

But next, this Covenant was made up of promises of a very peculiar
order for, in very deed, the Covenant that God made with Abraham was
not altogether, or even mainly, concerning things temporal. It was not
only the land of Canaan of which the Lord spoke to Abraham, but the
Patriarchs declared plainly that they desired "a better, that is, an
heavenly country" (Heb. 11:16). Even when they were in Canaan, they
were still looking for a country–and the city promised to them was not
Jerusalem for, according to Paul in the 11th of the Hebrews, they still
were looking for "a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker
is God." They did not find, in their earthly lives, the complete
fulfillment of the Covenant, for they received not the promises, but
saw them afar off and were persuaded of them. The temporal blessings
which God gave to them were not their expected portion–they took hold
upon invisible realities and lived in expectation of them!

They were evidently actuated by faith in something spiritual, something
everlasting and they believed that the Covenant which God had made with
them concerned such things. I have not the time to go into this
subject. You get it more fully explained to you in the Epistle to the
Hebrews–but so it was, that the Covenant blessings were of an order
and a class that could not be compassed within the space of this
present mortal life–the outlook of Covenant promises was towards the
boundless sea of eternity. Now, if the Lord made a Covenant with them
concerning eternal blessings, these saints must live to enjoy those
blessings. God did not promise endless blessings to the creatures of a
day.

More especially, Beloved, it is to be remembered that for the sake of
these eternal things, the Patriarchs had given up transient enjoyments.
Abraham might have been a quiet prince in his own country, living in
comfort, but, for the sake of the spiritual blessing, he left Chaldea
and came to wander in the pastures of Canaan–in the midst of
enemies–and to dwell in tents in the midst of discomforts. Isaac and
Jacob were "heirs with him, also, of the same promises," but they
entered not into the pursuits of the people–they dwelt alone and were
not numbered among the nations. Like Moses, to whom God spoke, they,
"counted the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of
Egypt."

They left kith and kin and all the advantages of settled civilized life
to be rangers of the desert, exiles from their fatherland. They were
the very types and models of those who have no abiding city here and,
therefore, for certain, though they died in hope, not having received
the promise, we cannot believe that God deceived them! Their God was no
mocker of them and, therefore, they must live after death! They had
lived in this poor life for something not seen as yet and, if there is
no such thing and no future life, they had been duped and mislead into
a mistaken self-denial. If there is no life to come, the best
philosophy is that which says, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we
die." Since these men put this life in pawn for the next, they were
sadly mistaken if there is no such life. Do you not see the force of
our Savior's reasoning?– God, who has led His people to abandon the
present for the future–must justify their choice.

Besides, the Lord had staked His honor and His reputation upon these
men's lives. "Do you want to know," says He, "who I am? I am the God of
Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. If you want to know how I deal with My
servants, go and look at the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." My
Brothers and Sisters, as far as the earthly lives of the Patriarchs can
be written in human records, they are certainly full of God's loving
kindness–but still, there is nothing so remarkably joyous and majestic
about them from a natural point of view as to make the Lord's dealings
with them appear to be especially wonderful. Others who did not fear
God have been as rich, powerful and honorable as they. Especially is
the life of Jacob plowed and cross-plowed with affliction and trial! He
spoke the truth when he summed up his life in the words, "Few and evil
have the days of the years of my life been."

Does the Lord intend us to judge of His goodness to His servants from
the written life of Jacob? Or from the career of any one of His
servants? The judgement must include the ages of an endless
blessedness! This life is but the brief preface to the volume of our
history! It is but the rough border, the selvage of the rich cloth of
our being! These rippling streams of life come not to an end, but flow
into the endless, shoreless ocean of bliss! Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
have long been enjoying happiness and shall enjoy it throughout
eternity! God is not ashamed to be called their God if you judge of the
whole of their being–He would not have spoken thus if the visible were
all and there were no future to counterbalance the tribulations of this
mortal life! God is not the God of the short-lived who are so speedily
dead–He is the living God of an immortal race whose present is but a
dark passage into a bright future which can never end!

Yet further, to bring out the meaning here, God cannot be the God of
the non-existent. The supposition is too absurd! Our Savior does not
argue about it, but He says so most peremptorily! God is not the God of
the dead–that cannot be! If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are reduced to a
handful of ashes, God cannot be, at this moment, their God. We cannot
take a dead object to be our God, neither can Jehovah be a God to
lifeless clay. God is not the God of putrefaction and annihilation! God
is not the God of that which has ceased to be! We have but to put the
idea into words to make it dissolve before the glance of reason. A
living God is the God of living men–and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are
still alive!

This even goes far to show that the bodies of these saints shall yet
live. God reckons His covenanted ones to be alive. He says, "The dead
are raised." He reckons them to be raised and, as He reckons nothing
falsely, it is said by way of anticipation, "Your dead men shall live."
Inasmuch as a portion of these chosen ones is still in the earth, God,
who reckons things that are not, as though they were, looks upon their
bodies as possessing life because they are to possess life so soon. God
is not only the God of Abraham's soul, but of Abraham as a whole–his
body, soul and spirit! God is the God of Abraham's body–we are sure of
that because the Covenant seal was set upon the flesh of Abraham. Where
the doubt might be, there is the confirming seal, namely, in his mortal
body. There was no seal set upon his soul, for the soul had life and
could not see death–no, it was set upon his body which would die–to
make sure that even it would live!

At this day we have Baptism and the Holy Supper to be seals as to the
body. I have sometimes thought to myself that it were better if there
were no water Baptism, seeing it has become the nest of so much
superstition. And the Lord's Supper, with all its blessed uses, has
been so abused that one is apt to think that without outward ordinances
there might be more spiritual religion–but the Lord intends that the
materialism of man and of creation shall be lifted up–and that

the body shall be raised incorruptible and, therefore, has He given
seals which touch the outward and material. The water where the body is
washed and the bread and wine whereby the body is nourished, are tokens
that there comes to us not only spiritual and invisible blessings, but
even such as shall redeem and purify our mortal body! The grave cannot
hold any portion of the covenanted ones! Eternal life is the portion of
the whole man. God is the God of our entire manhood–spirit, soul and
body–and all live unto Him in their entirety. The whole of the
Covenant shall be fulfilled to the whole of those with whom that
Covenant was made!

This is good reasoning to those who have gone beyond mere reason and
have ascended into the realm of faith. May the Holy Spirit grant unto
us to be among them!

III. Thirdly, and very briefly, beloved Friends, my text not only
declares glorious relationship and implies eternal life, but it also
unveils somewhat scantily, but still sufficiently, what the glorious
life must be! Look, then, and see the

GLORIOUS LIFE UNVEILED!

It is clear that they live personally. It is not said, "I am the God of
the whole body of the saints in one mass." But, "I am the God of
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob." God will make His people to live individually.
My mother, my father, my child– each will personally exist. God is the
God of saints, as living distinct lives–Abraham is Abraham, Isaac is
Isaac, Jacob is Jacob! The three Patriarchs were not all melted into
one common Abraham, nor Isaac into one imaginary Isaac. Neither was
anyone so altered as to cease to be himself. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
are all literally living as actual men–and the same men as they used
to be. Jacob is Jacob and not an echo of Abraham! Isaac is Isaac and
not a rehearsal of Jacob. All the saints are existent in their
personality, identity, distinction and idiosyncrasy.

What is more, the Patriarchs are mentioned by their names and so it is
clear they are known–they are not three anonymous bodies–but Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. Many inquire, "Shall we know our friends in Heaven?"
Why should we not? The saints in Heaven are never spoken of in
Scripture as moving about anonymously–their names are spoken of as
written in the Book of Life. Why is this? The Apostles knew Moses and
Elijah on the Mount, though they had never seen them before. I cannot
forget old John Ryland's answer to his wife–"John," she said, "will
you know me in Heaven?" "Betty," he replied, "I have known you well,
here, and I shall not be a bigger fool in Heaven than I am now–
therefore I shall certainly know you there." That seems to be clear
enough! We read in the New Testament, "They shall sit down with
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven"–not sit down with
three unknown individuals in iron masks, or three impersonalities who
make a part of the great pan, nor three spirits who are as exactly
alike as pins made in a factory–but Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That is
clear enough in the text.

That glorious life, while it is a personal and a known life, is also
free from all sorrow, misery and earthly grossness. They are neither
married nor given in marriage; neither shall they die any more. But
they are as the angels of God. It is a life of perfect blessedness, a
life of hallowed worship, a life of undivided Glory! Oh, that we were
in it! Oh that we may soon reach it! Let us think of the many who are
enjoying it now and of those who have attained to it during the last
few days. I am sure they are at home in every golden street and fully
engaged in the adoration and worship of their Lord. Those saints who
have been in Glory, now, these thousands of years cannot be more
blessed than the latest arrivals. Within a very short space you and I
shall be among the shining ones! Some of us may spend our next Sabbath
with the angels! Let us rejoice and be glad at the bare thought of it.
Some of as are not doomed to live here through another win-ter–we
shall pass beyond these autumn fogs into the golden light of the
eternal summer before another Christmas day has come! Oh the joy which
ought to thrill our souls at the thought of such amazing bliss!

And now, taking the whole subject together, I want to say a few
familiar things about the influence which all this ought to have upon
us. Concerning those that have gone before us, we gather from this
whole text that they are not lost. We know where they are. Neither have
they lost anything, for they are what they were and more. Abraham has
about him still everything that is Abrahamic. He is still Abraham. And
Isaac has everything about him that properly belongs to Isaac. And
Jacob has all about him that makes him God's Israel. These good men
have lost nothing that really appertained to their individuality,
nothing that made them precious in the sight of the Lord. They have
infinitely gained– they have gloriously developed! They are Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob now at their best–or rather they are waiting till the
trumpet of the Resurrection shall sound–when their bodies also shall
be united to their spirits–and then Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be
completely Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, world without end!

We are, by no means, deprived of our dear ones by their death–they
are–they are themselves and they are still ours. As Abraham is not
lost to Isaac, nor to Jacob, nor to God, nor to himself, so are our
beloved ones, by no means, lost to us. Do not let us think of them,
then, as if they were lost. I know your sorrows make an excursion to
the grave, to look for the deceased ones. You want to lift that coffin
lid and to unwrap the shroud. Oh, do not, do not! He is not here; the
real man has gone. He may be dead to you, for a while, but he lives
unto God. Yes, the dead one lives! He lives unto God! Do but anticipate
the passage of that little time, which is almost gone while I am
speaking of it, and then your Savior's angels shall sound their golden
trumpets and at the welcome noise, the grave shall open its portals and
resign its captives. "Your brother shall rise again." Comfort one
another with these words! Shaftesbury is as much Shaftesbury as ever
and even more so! We have parted with the Earl, but the saint lives! He
has gone past yonder veil into the next room and there he is, before
the Lord of Hosts! He has gone out of this dim, dusky, cloudy chamber
into the bright, pearly light that streams from the Throne of God and
of the Lamb! We have nothing to sorrow about in reference to what he is
or where he is. So, too, your valued parents and beloved children and
choice friends–they are still yours!

Herein is great cause for thankfulness. Put aside your sackcloth and
wear the garments of hope! Lay down the sack-but and take up the
trumpet! Draw not the beloved bodies to the cemetery with dreary pomp
and with black horses, but cover the coffin with sweet flowers and
drape the horses with emblems of hope! It is the better birthday of the
saint, yes, his truer wedding day! Is it sad to have done with sadness?
Is it sorrowful to part with sorrow? No, rather, when joy begins to our
friends, where Glory dwells in Immanuel's land, we may in sympathy
sing, as it were, a new song, and tune our harps to the melodies of the
glorified!

I want you, also, to remember that the departed have not become members
of another race–they have not been transferred into another
family–they are still men, still women, still of our dear kindred.
Their names are in the same family register on earth and in Heaven. Oh,
no, no! Do not dream that they are separated and exiled! They have gone
to the Home country–we are the exiles–they are Home! We are en route
to the Fatherland–they are not so far from us as we think. Sin worked
to divide them from us and us from them while we were here, together,
but since sin is now taken away from them, one dividing element is
gone! When it is also removed from us, we shall be nearer to each other
than we could have been while we were both sinful! Do not let us think
of them as gone far, for we are one in Christ.

And they are not gone over to the other side in the battle. Oh, do not
speak of them as dead and lying on the battlefield! They live, they
live in sympathy with our Divine conflict. They have marched through
the enemy's country. They have fought their fight and taken possession
of their inheritance. They are still on our side, though we miss them
from the daily service. When you number up the hosts of God, you must
not forget the godlike bands that have fought the good fight, kept the
faith, and finished their course. They are in the armies of the Lord,
though not at this moment resisting unto blood. The 144,000 sealed unto
the Lord include in their ranks all who are with God, whether here or
in Heaven–

"One family we dwell in Him, One Church, above, beneath, Though now
divided by the stream, The narrow stream of Death."

Our sacramental host marches onward to the New Jerusalem. Certain of
the legionaries have forded the dividing flood. I see them ascending
the other side! The bank of the river is white with their rising
companies. Lo! I hear the splash of the ranks before us as they
steadily pass down into the chill stream! In deep silence we see them
solemnly wading through the billows. The host is ever marching on,
marching on. The much dreaded stream lies a little before us–it is but
a silver streak. We have come to the bank. We shudder not at the
prospect! We follow the blessed footsteps of our Lord and His redeemed.
We are still all one army–we are not losing our men–they are simply
ascending from the long campaign to take their endless rewards at the
Lord's right hand!

What then? Why, then we will take up their work. If they have gone into
the upper chamber to rest, we will make up their lack of service in
this lower room! The work they did was so human that we will not allow
a stitch to drop, but take it up where they left it and persevere in
earnest. They are in Glory, but they were not glorified when they were
here. The work they did was done by men of such infirmities as ours, so
let us not fear to go on where they left off and perpetuate the work
which they rejoiced in! There lies the plow in the furrow and the oxen
are standing still, for Shamgar, the champion, is gone. Will no one lay
hold of the plow handles? Will nobody urge the oxen with the goad?
Young men, are

you idling? Here is work for you! Are you hiding yourselves? Come
forward, I pray you, in the name of the great Husbandman, and let the
fields be tilled and sown with the good seed! Who will fill the gap
made by death? Who will be baptized for the dead? Who will bear the
banner, now that a standard bearer has fallen? I hope some consecrated
voice will answer, "Here am I; send me!"

Now, last of all, Brothers and Sisters, we may expect the same
assistance as they received who have gone before. Jehovah says that He
is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. But He
also says, "I am the God of your father." The father of Moses had the
Lord to be his God! That God is the God of my father, blessed be His
name! As I took the old man by his hand, yesterday, at the age of 76, I
could not but rejoice in all the faithfulness of the Lord to him and to
his house. He was the God of my father's father, also–I cannot forget
how the venerable man laid his hands upon his grandchild and blessed
him–and the blessing is with him still. Yes, and He is the God of my
children and He shall be the God of my children's children, for He
keeps Covenant to thousands of them that love Him! Therefore take
courage, Brothers and Sisters! This God is your God! He is a God to you
and you are a people to Him!

Act as His true servants. Live as those who are elect. If you are His
choice, be choice characters! The chosen should be the best, should
they not? The elect should be especially distinguished above all others
by their conversation and their fervent zeal for Him that chose them.
As you shall rise from among the dead because the Lord Jesus has
redeemed you from among men, so stand up from among the dead and
corrupt mass of this world–and be alive unto God–through Jesus Christ
your Lord! What manner of people ought you to be who serve the living
God? Since the living God has manifested Himself so wonderfully to you,
ought you not to live unto Him to the utmost? God bless you for Jesus'
sake. Amen.
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