Death Improved To Our Advantage. Part II

Adapted from a Sermon By

Isaac Watts

Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours. 1 Cor 3:22

In the previous sermon by Isaac Watts on 1 Corinthians 3:22, Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, we were lead to meditate on how even death is improved to the believers advantage.

We considered how death is made useful to a saint,

I. As reigning over all mankind in general.

II. As seizing on impenitent and unpardoned sinners.

This morning we go on to the next general heading which was, that,

III. Thirdly. If the death of hardened sinners turns to the advantage of the saint, the death of fellow-Christians shall certainly work for his benefit too.

You will be ready to say, "What? Can the loss of good men from the earth ever be turned into a benefit? Can the death of saints bring any advantage to the survivors?" Yes, surely, if they die like Christians indeed, in the lively exercises of faith and hope; and this will appear in these four particular instances:

1. It confirms our faith in the gospel of Christ, and supports our holy profession. It gives us an assurance of the truth and power of our religion, above all other religions in the world, when it enables a poor feeble dying creature to face death with courage, to look beyond the limits of life and time, and venture into an unseen world with holy joy and triumph. It gives us a glorious evidence, that the principles of Christianity are such, as will justify all the labours of a holy life, and will bear us out in the profession of it, in the midst of ridicule and mockery, of persecution and martyrdom.

This surely must be a religion coming down from God, that can give the weak and the unlearned such a courage, as to encounter death itself without fear; and that not from a unreasoned weakness of spirit, not from a brutal hardiness, such as carries the horse and the hero into the battle, but with a clear and full realization of God and his holiness, of our own sins and his forgiving grace, this religion can enable us to venture into his immediate presence. How glorious is our gospel, how divine a doctrine is this! It has brought about such wonders by faith in the blood of Christ, as the great atonement for sin, and the only way to the Father.

A saint leaving this world, and putting off mortality, with the light of heaven breaking in upon his soul, and the beams of glory shining round about him, with divine joy and happiness in his appearance, and the language of heaven upon his lips, brings the invisible world into present view: The pious spectators grow up to a sensible assurance of the glories and joy of that invisible world: each of them sits on the borders of paradise, each of them gets a glimpse of the New Jerusalem, and all the heavenly country, and this adds new strength to his faith and hope.

2. The glorious death of our fellow-Christians greatly encourages the imitation of their holy life. To see a child of God die from amongst men, leave this world with a holy contempt and sincere pleasure, and enter into the presence of his heavenly Father with a childlike confidence; to see him finish his race with joy, and, as it were, lay hold on salvation, and put on his heavenly crown: This is a loud call to us to walk in the same steps, to pursue the blessed prize, and to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises; Heb. 6. 12. When we mark the blameless and behold the upright, and see that there is a future for the man of peace; Psalm 37. 37. we are moved to walk with God in the same uprightness, and to press after the same perfection. Having such a cloud of witnesses that have gone before us, and Christ our Lord at the head of them, we run with endurance the race that is set before us, until we arrive at the promised glory; Heb. 12. 1

To stand near the bed of a dying saint, and observe the sweet serenity of his soul under the agonies of his flesh, would force Balaam himself to say, Let me die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his; Num. 23. 10. But the Christian goes further, and with holy zeal, and humble dependence upon divine grace, establishes himself in the ways of holiness: He resolves that he will live the life of the righteous too, and walk in the paths of piety with utmost watchfulness and care that he may lay a foundation for the same peaceful reflections on his death-bed, and the same joyful prospect.

3. The death of fellow-saints is for our benefit, as it weans us from this world, as it makes earth and this life less pleasant to us, and heaven more desirable. Every holy soul that leaves the world, carries away so much more grace and goodness from it. What would this world be if all the saints had left it, but a cage of unclean birds, a nest of serpents, a wilderness of savage beasts, a habitation of Satan, and his sons and daughters; a dwelling of devils, and a region of hell-like darkness? If converting grace did not turn sinners into saints, and make a constant succession of Christians, this would be the dismal character of this world in the space of one generation. But, blessed be God, as bad as this world is, divine grace is still at work, and makes it a sort of nursery for heaven by new conversions.

Yet still the death of the saints is the loss of so much of heaven out of our sinful world; and the fewer friends God has here, there will be the fewer communications between heaven and earth. The absence of Christ and his saints, spreads a sort of dim shadow over all the prettiest colours of this lower creation; the beauties of it fade, and the flowers of it, in our esteem, languish and hang their head, because Jesus, and so many of his holy ones, have left it. When we see one pious friend after another, taking their leave of us, and ascending to the upper world, we are ready to say, "What should we stay here for? Our God is on high, our Saviour is on high, multitudes of our friends are departed from us, and dwell on high. Farewell earth, and time, and visible things: We long to be with our best friends, and with our God; we are ready, O Jesus, for your first summons; take us when you please into heaven and eternity."

4. The serene death of a saint instructs us how to die, and makes death easy. When we see and hear a fellow-Christian examining his heart, searching his soul to the bottom, turning all his secret thoughts outward, and looking over the past conduct of his life; when we behold him reviewing his own follies and iniquities, and recalling to mind also all his sacred transactions with God; when we see him surveying all these most important concerns in the light of the last judgment, and, as it were, under the piercing rays of the great tribunal; when we hear him abasing himself to the dust in the most vilifying expressions, because of his sins, and yet rejoicing in the evidences of his graces, and repeating the promises of the gospel with a pleasant hope; this teaches us to converse with our own souls in a more lively manner, about sin and forgiveness, about death and eternity; for it brings these awful themes into open view, and sets them before us in their infinite importance. This presents us with a glorious lecture on the gospel of Christ, and pardoning grace, and the sanctifying Spirit, and the hope of glory, beyond what we ever found before in the best of sermons, and under the warmest preachers.

Here Isaac Watts relates the words of a dying Christian which was to leave this world two days after he had visited him: "I am going up to heaven,” he said “and I long to be gone, to be where my Saviour is. Why are his chariot-wheels so long a coming? Then with both arms stretched up to heaven, I desire to be with God. I hope I am a sincere Christian, but the meanest, and the most unworthy: I know I am a great sinner; but did not Christ come to save the foremost of sinners? I hope I shall find acceptance in Christ Jesus. I have trusted in him, and I have strong consolation. I have been looking into my own heart, what are my evidences for heaven? Has not the scripture said, whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life; John 3. 16. Now, according to the best knowledge I have of what faith is, I do believe in Christ, and I shall have life everlasting. Does not the scripture say, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… shall be satisfied; Matt. 5. 6. Surely I hunger and thirst after it, I desire to be holy, I long to be conformable to God, and to be made more like him; shall I not then be satisfied! I love God, I love Christ, I desire to love him more, to be more like him, and to serve him in heaven without sin. I have faith, I have love, I have repentance, yet I boast not, for I have nothing of myself, I speak it all to the honour of the grace of God, it is all grace: I say then, I have faith, and repentance, and love; but faith and repentance are all nothing without Christ; it is he that makes all acceptable to the Father, and I trust in him. My friends, I have built on this foundation Jesus Christ, he is indeed the only foundation: Have you not built on the same foundation too? This is my hope. Is it not your hope also? Dear brother, I shall see you at the right-hand of Christ: There I shall see our friends that are gone a little before: I shall be with them first before you. I thank you, my friends, for all your offices of love; you have prayed with me, you have refreshed me, I love and honour you now, but I shall meet you in heaven, I go to my God and your God, to my Saviour and your Saviour."

Would one think there could be so much pleasure in the dying bedroom of a beloved friend? Surely this proves the words of our text, if we are Christians, death is ours. What a divine encouragement that refreshes our spirits! And while we feel sorrow for the loss of a departing Christian friend; there is a current of joy that works powerfully at the heart, and the heaven within us breaks out and shines through our sorrow. Then, with a wondrous mixture of the painful and the pleasant, with a sweet confusion of pious emotions, we bid our dying brother, "Farewel."

At such a time as this, our thoughts are led upward to heaven, and forward to the great resurrection. We open the eye of faith, and see the holy soul ascending to God; we behold the weak and languishing body rising glorious out of the grave, shaking off the dust, and putting on its immortality: While our faith accompanies the spirit of our departing friend to heaven, we grow willing and aspiring to be gone too; and being brought so near to the gates of glory, we would gladly take our leave of mortal things, and accompany the expiring saint to the joyful world of spirits. The memory of such a scene, and such a hour, will long dwell in our thoughts, and support our own hope of victory, when we will be called to battle with the same enemy. Having such a witness gone before us, we will not only run our race with patience, through all the stages of it, but finish our course with joy.

A divine courage is often brought about in a weak believer, by witnessing the last moments of a dying saint ascending to the upper world. "I was afraid of death,” says a feeble Christian, “until I saw my neighbour die: He was once a sinner as well as I, and he had his imperfections and failings in this life, as I have mine; I humbly hope I have practised the same repentance as he has done, I have trusted in the same Saviour, I have ventured my all upon the same gospel, and travelled on in the same path: surely there is forgiveness for me also; surely the sting of my death will be taken away also; and, through grace, I will join in his triumph; O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? 1 Cor. 15. 55.

A multitude of fearful Christians may be animated and encouraged to travel through the dark valley, and to cross the cold flood of death, by the example of a single saint, who has passed that important hour with success and honour. So you have seen a flock of sheep stand doubtful and delaying on the bank of some little brook; but when the first and second have made their way through it, the rest venture over in multitudes, and leap the ditch with the greatest ease: the difficulty and the danger vanish at once, when they have seen a forerunner leading the way.

And so, it has been made evident in several instances, that the death of fellow-Christians is ours. It will turn to our great advantage, through the influences of the gospel, and the Spirit of grace. Where Christians die like themselves, in the exercise of a joyful hope, it confirms our faith in the gospel of Christ, it encourages our imitation of their holy life, it makes earth and this life less pleasant to us, and heaven more desirable, and it instructs us how to die.

But if a saint leaves this world under much darkness and terror, this is commonly to be supposed a divine chastisement for the criminal indulgence of some temptation, or some unwatchful steps he has taken in the course of his life; for God will make his own people know, many times by painful experience, that it is an evil and bitter thing to backslide and depart from him. A wise and pious spectator, on this occasion, will be warned by the terrors of the Lord, and by the punishment of his fellow-Christian, to avoid that guilt and those criminal indulgences, which have provoked God to leave his brother to darkness, even in the hour of death: And this may be a means to awaken him to a most watchful course of holiness, lest he fall under the same strokes of anger from his heavenly Father, and suffer his displeasure in that awful moment, when he would most earnestly wish for the liveliest sense of his love.

And so we have come to the end of the third general heading, and showed that the death of the saints may richly contribute to the advantage of the living.

The Recollection.

And as we close, we who are daily occupied with the affairs and concerns of life, let us pause and meditate on the name of death: It is a name that naturally carries much terror; come, and see whether you cannot derive a blessing from it, by the instructions of the gospel, and the aids of grace. You have heard the lessons that the death of mankind in general should teach you: Ask yourself now what you have learned of them: Have you seen the vanity of man as a mortal dying creature? It is an easy matter to say, 'Sadly, we must all die!' But have you felt the penetrating force of this truth? And does it influence your whole conduct? Are you not still, at every turn, putting your confidence in one creature or another, whose breath is transient, and whose death disappoints your hope? Or have you transferred your dependence from all creatures to God, and fixed your hope in him that lives for ever? This ought to be the blessed effect of the meditation on death!

Again, have you seen the awful evil of sin in the spreading desolation that death has made over this lower world? Remember that it received its commission from the justice of God, more than six thousand years ago, and from his law which sin had broken, the dreadful execution is carried out to this day, and it will continue to be carried out until there is no sinner left on earth. Sin is the source of all this desolation in the lives of men. It is sin that has deserved all these tremendous executions of wrath: And yet, consider, how often have you indulged this mischief to play around you, like a harmless thing? Carefully consider the dismal effects of it, in the death of millions, and learn to hate and renounce it forever. It is no small evil that could awaken the indignation of God to this extent, and spread it so widely, over so large and so glorious a part of his creation, as the whole nature and race of man.

Again, inquire within yourself, has the death of mankind taught you effectually, that you must shortly die? And have you been excited to make a suitable provision for this awful and important hour, since you must not, you cannot escape it? Not only the death of mankind in general, but the death of wicked men, may instruct you in some useful lessons too. Here we learn how God rescues his children from the rage of oppressors, when he smites them down to death, and lays all their fury silent in the dust. Thus death itself becomes a deliverer to the saints, by destroying their cruel persecutors. We learn also, that when early or sudden death has seized a bold sinner, it is a loud warning-word to all his companions. When we see such terrible examples in the unfolding of providence, let our souls stand in awe and fear.

And if God has distinguished you by his mercy, if he has pardoned your guilt, and sanctified your corrupt nature; if he has made you one of his own children, and prepared you for dying, when he summons others away unpardoned, unsanctified, unprepared, let all your powers be excited to bless the name of the Lord for his saving love. You were also a child of sin and wrath, but divine grace has made the difference. It is grace that has snatched you from the very brink of the pit of hell, and is training you up for heaven.

And while you give thanks for his distinguishing mercy to you, pity and pray for poor senseless and careless sinners, that are following one another in a tragic succession down to the gates of death. May their eyes and souls be awakened while it is still the day of grace, before death seizes them, and sends them farther down to everlasting darkness and despair! But if such lessons as these may be derived from the death of sinners, how much more benefit may be drawn from the dying hours of a sincere Christian, especially if his heart is strong, and his faith lively!

Here I see the gospel of Christ in some of its power and glory, when I see a Christian under all the weaknesses and languishings of nature, meeting death without terror, and overcoming his last enemy by the blood of the Lamb. I see the saint all serene and peaceful, even in the agonies of dying nature, and amidst the sorrows of lamenting friends. He has heaven in view, and he says farewell to earth with holy joy: Shall I not imitate the faith and holiness of his life, which laid a foundation for so peaceful and glorious a death? Do I not feel my soul a little more weaned from the world, since such a pious friend has left it? Has not death lost some of its frightfulness, since I have actually seen it conquered? Do I not feel my heart panting and breathing toward the society above, since I have another friend who has left to go there? Does it not seem a more easy thing to me to lay down this earthly body, to part with flesh and blood, and to venture into those unseen regions, since I have beheld my fellow-Christian go before me? He has made the great and solemn experiment, and surely I should have courage to follow: He has given evident proof, that there is a sacred power in the gospel, the promises and the grace of Christ, to carry the soul safely through the dark shadow of death, without surprise and consternation: And has not my soul the same rich encouragements, the same promises of grace, and the same gospel of hope?

And so may the Lord influence your soul by his rich grace, to keep your faith awake, your conscience undefiled, and your evidences for heaven ever bright and clear: And when your appointed hour comes, that solemn and final hour, may you die the death of the upright, and may your end be like his; Num. 23. 10. Is death an enemy to nature, and does it carry terror in the name? Yet since the Lord has subdued this enemy, and taken it captive, to serve the purposes of his love; since he has numbered it, and written it down among the possessions of his people; since he has taught so many of his followers to triumph over it; may he also enable you to meet it with holy courage, and a lively hope. And so to follow the footsteps of the flock into the world of spirits, with a sacred pleasure, though it be through a dark passage.

And as those who went before us have taught us to dare to die, so let our dying moments encourage those who come after us, to venture into death at the Lord’s call, without terror, and without reluctance.