Where are the dead?

Front matter

CHRIST MEETING TWO DISCIPLES ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS.

CHRIST'S ASCENSION Mark 16: 19, 20: Luke 24 : 50—53

WHERE ARE THE DEAD?

Introduction

THERE is no subject which demands more thought than the future state of our blessed dead. I shall set forth in this volume in the simplest and most natural manner possible what I firmly believe to be the true teaching of the scriptures on the future life, and the conditions that determine it.

I shall not attempt controversy, there is very little good obtainable in that way. My method shall be to present my own views, without regard to the views of those who may differ from me.

Ever since I stood, as a child, by the death-bed of my dear old grandfather, and heard him sing while he realized that he was dying, "I am going home to die no more," I have been interested in the future world, and have feasted my soul on every Scripture teaching bearing upon it, and also every testimony obtainable of dying saints, as they went over to try it.

May God grant that the work which this volume represents may be the means of comforting many a tried and sorrowing soul on the way to the other shore.

Fraternally yours,

Pastor of CHRIST CHURCH Westminster Bridge Road, LONDON, ENGLAND

List of Illustrations,

Rev. Len G. Broughton, D.D. ' Christ Healing the Sick

Our Father Who Art in Heaven Hallowed Be Thy Name v Thy Kingdom Come

Thy Will be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven v Give us this Day our Daily Bread

Forgive us our Trespasses ^Lead Us Not Into Temptation ^ Deliver Us From Evil ^| Christ and the Sisters of Bethany A Christ Preaching to the Multitude

The Anointing of Jesus in the House of Simon ''The Prodigal Son ^ Driving Out the Money Changers The Good Samaritan The Ascension The Annunciation The Adoration of the Wise Men

The Last Supper Agony in Gethsemane Before Pilate Christ Bearing His Cross Preparing The Body for Burial The Burial of Christ Mary at the Sepulchre v Christ Meeting Two Disciples on the Way to Emmaus.

Christ and the Woman of Samaria Raising the Son of the Widow of Nain * Raising the Daughter of Jairus Blessing Little Children

A Testimony — What Heaven is Like —

By Charles Haddon Spurgeon . . . 377

IF A MAN DIE SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN?

Job xiv: 14. — "// a man die, shall he live again

CHAPTER I. If a Man Die Shall He Live Again 1

PERHAPS the most universally interesting question is that which is. raised by the patriarch J ob in this text. It brings before us vividly the two supreme problems of life, the problem of death and immortality.

Canon Scott Holland in a sermon on death, gives a description of what he saw and felt while listening to the music given by the genius of Edward Elgar in the " Dream of Gerontius;" and then applies his experience to death, and the future life. He says :

"I looked round the crowded hall, and found it wholly incredible that this absorbing drama of a dying man, so momentous, so tragic, so solitary, which Cardinal Newman had elevated and transfigured into so stupendous an action by the power of immortal verse, was actually going to be enacted by every single soul there before me.

" There they sat, ranged row upon row, meaningless, nameless hordes, it would seem; yet each one would be singled out at last, to become the solitary actor in this lonely epic to which music was lending such overwhelming force. Each would gaze at last out at a world that would have suddenly gone strange and far away, gazing out with the look that we all know so well ; the look of one withdrawn ; on whom a mystery has fallen; who feels himself sucked away out of helping hands, and already a lorn stranger, troubled, wondering, and aware.

"I am near to death ; I know it now,

Not by token of this faltering breath, This chill at heart, this dampness on my brow,

'Tis this new feeling, never felt before. Be with me Lord, in my extremity,

When I am going, when I am no more, 'Tis this strange innermost abandonment —

Lover of souls, great God, I look to Thee — This emptying out of each constituent,

And natural force by which I come to Thee. Pray for me, O my friends, a visitant

Is knocking his dire summons at my door, The like of whom, to scare me and to daunt

Has never, never come to me before 'Tis death ; O loving friends, your prayers, 'tis he!

As though my very being had given way, As though I was no more a substance now, And could fall back on naught to be my stay.

Help, living Lord! Thou, my sole Refuge, Thou!"

6 6 Page after page the amazing music rolled out the awful meaning of the words, and the scene grew and expanded, and all earth and all heaven were drawn into the stupendous moment in which that pilgrim soul passed out of the body into the eternal abyss. And still, as the magic of art spent its powers in intensifying the dread solemnity of that lonely pilgrimage, it became increasingly, almost insanely impossible, to say 'We all shall do it, everyone of us.'

i 6 This drama will repeat itself over and over again; round every one of those rows of men there on the seats this supreme interest will suddenly concentrate itself and each one will have become the center of this historic tragedy. Nothing will matter at all, except what is going on around that bed where he lies dying. Heaven will stoop down, earth will quake and fail; good and evil will wrestle for his soul, there will be for him but one thing doing in all the world: his passing, his judgment.' '

But the question of most curious interest to us is not that of death, but of immortality and the future state. It is a significant fact, that the earliest records we have of the race of man, show him to be a believer in a future life. Take for example, the earliest records of Ancient Egypt, and there we find independent of any direct revelation, save a revelation of the inner conscience, a firm belief in a future life.

Mr. Urquhart, in his New Biblical Gruide, Vol. 4, discusses this fact at great length, and among other things he says :

"The great work of each successive king was to provide his place of burial. What we call the Funeral Ritual, but what bore in Egyptian the name of The Book of the Manifestation to Light, was the great sacred book of Egypt.' '

Ibid, speaking of the same thing says :

"A copy of this, more or less complete according to the fortune of the deceased, was deposited in the case of every mummy. . . . The whole series of the pilgrimages which the soul, separated from the body was believed to accomplish in the various divisions of the lower regions, are related in this book ; it also contains the hymns, prayers and formulae for all ceremonies relative to funerals, and to the worship of the dead. ' 1

Dr. Budge, in speaking of the belief of these ancient Egyptians in immortality says:

"The great central idea of immortality which existed unchanged for thousands of years, formed the pivot upon which the religious and social life of the ancient Egyptians actually turned. From the beginning to the end of his life the Egyptian's chief thought was of the life beyond the grave, and the hewing of his tomb in the rock, and the providing of its furniture, every detail of which was prescribed by the custom of the country, absorbed the best thoughts of his mind, and a large share of his wordly goods, and kept him ever mindful of the time when his mummified body would be borne to his 6 everlasting house' in the limestone plateau, or hill. ' '

He writes in another place :

"In perusing the literature of the ancient Egyptians, one of the first things which forces itself upon the mind of the reader, is the frequency of allusions to the future life, or to things which appertain thereto. The writers of the religious and other books, belonging to all periods of Egyptian history, which have come down to us, tacitly assume throughout that those who once have lived in this world have i renewed* their life in that which is beyond the grave, and that they still live, and will live until time shall be no more."

But this is not strange : human life demands immortality. Cant, the great moralist, bases his whole argument for immortality on the demands of the human conscience, which ever bids us to aim and strive at perfection, though we know that perfection is not reached upon the earth.

No conscience will ever be satisfied in this world : the area for its operation is entirely too circumscribed.

"The facts of life confirm the hope That in a world of larger scope — What here is faithfully begun Will be completed, not undone."

Immortality is demanded to settle the inequalities of life. The world is full of wrongs. History is largely a record of gross injustice. The cheapest thing on the market is human life. The martyr at the stake is only one phase of testimony of the world against righteousness : it simply will not have it if in any way it can prevent it.

If death ends all, what about the chance of men like Savanarola and Latimer with the men who took their lives ?

But I say, this is only one phase of the testimony of the world against righteousness. There are thousands of other ways of martyring men. There is, for example, the man or woman from whose life the chief est charm has been snatched by the hand of slander or greed. What about the chance of such martyrs, if there is nothing beyond the grave ?

But again, the very imperfection of life demands immortality. Every noble soul desires to see the day of perfection for his own heart and life ; but this can not be under the circumstances that environ us, it must be in the future world. Our ideals come to us as heavenly visions. They originate therefore in heaven and must be realized there.

Beethoven says, "My most polished symphonies are but empty echoes of the music I hear in my dreams."

Raphael was disappointed with his masterpieces. The vision he had of it was far superior to what he was able to put on canvas. No poet ever revealed the depth of the volume of the music that swelled in his soul.

No reformer ever came near the realization of his cherished ideals.

Conception has always transcended expression.

These things are commonplace, but they point to an underlying fact in the very nature of men — the necessity for a future state in which the dreams, ideals and plans of his life are to be matured.

But still again, we see immortality suggested in the indestructibility of matter. Nothing is destroyed. We may start out with ever so strong a determination to annihilate this or that thing, but we will only return from our efforts realizing that we had undertaken an impossible task. After all our efforts at annihilation there will not be one atom less than when we began. Of course, we may change the order of existing atoms, but we do not annihilate them when we change them.

Now, it is perfectly natural that we should conclude that if atoms of matter live on forever, so shall man, who is the highest touch of God's creative genius.

An excavator in Egypt obtained some grains of wheat found in the tomb of an Egyptian mummy. Five thousand years had passed and the wheat was sterile as death. The scientists decided to experiment with the wheat, and hence they sowed it in the ground and through

death, came life! The wheat of the ancient Pharaohs sent up stalks to be kissed by the sun of the Twentieth Century.

Shall grains of wheat survive thousands of years, and men and women go down to the grave with no hope of a beyond ?

But we will turn from this line of reasoning to the teaching of the Book of God. It is impossible in a single message like this, to do more than merely point out some of the most striking utterances which the Bible makes concerning immortality.

Certainly the old Patriarchs looked forward to a state of blessedness after death.

"Who can count the dust of Jacob, or number the fourth part of Israel ? Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. ' ' Numbers 23 :10.

"But as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and at last He will stand up upon the earth : and after my skin, even this body is destroyed, then without my flesh shall I see G-od ; whom I, even I shall see on my side, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger, my heart is consumed within me." Job 19:25-27.

"Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth; my flesh also shall dwell in safety. For thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol; neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life." Psa. 16:9-11.

"As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness ; I shall be satisfied when I awake, with beholding thy form." Psa. 17:15.

" Death shall be their shepherd: and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall be for Sheol to consume, that there be no habitation for it." Psa. 49:14.

6 6 Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? And there is none that I desire upon earth beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever." Psa. 73:24-26.

"He hath swallowed up death forever; and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from all faces ; and the reproach of His people will He take away from off all the earth: for Jehovah hath spoken it." Isa. 25:8.

"Thy dead shall live: my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust ... and the earth shall cast forth the dead." Isa. 26:19.

"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever. . . . But go thou thy way till the end be; for thou shalt rest and shall stand in thy lot, at the end of the days. ' ' Dan. 12:2,3,13.

"I will ransom them from the power of Sheol, I will redeem them from death . . . O Sheol where is thy destruction ?" Hosea 13:14.

Now we will call attention to some of the most striking references in the New Testament bearing directly on immortality.

"And he said unto them, Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Luke 23:43.

"And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." Luke 16:23.

"While we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord ... we are of good courage I say, for we are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord. " 2 Cor. 5 :6-8.

"But I am in a strait betwixt the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ ; for it is very far better; and yet to abide in the flesh. . . ." Phil. 1:23-24.

But the greatest argument after all to the believer, is that which he finds in Jesus Christ Himself. He is the revelation of immortality : He was dead, and behold He is alive forevermore. And because He lives, we shall live also. We can not die while He lives. The Apostle

Paul declares "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

The cross has conquered the grave; and death is dead forever.

We speak of our friends and loved ones as being dead : but we should not for they are not, they have only been transferred to another sphere of life and operation.

Last summer, I was privileged to make an address at the Stockwell Orphanage, London, on the occasion of the birthday of its Pounder, Chas. Haddon Spurgeon. As I sat on the platform waiting for my time to speak, and looked into the faces of the thousands of splendidly kept boys and girls in that institution, and saw in the background the bust of the founder, I could not help saying to myself : "They have chiseled you in marble but you are not dead: you live to-day not only in the lives of thousands of boys and girls that have been trained for life as a result of your labors ; but you live actually in the world of spirits, and the activity of your soul is as manifest where you are now as when you were at work among those needy lives."

Oh, I know this is all mysterious, but thank Grod there is enough reality in it to lay hold of our minds, and comfort our hearts. For we all have at times been called to separate from those that we loved : and what is more, we will ere long have ourselves to cease the labors of this life. How blessed it is to look forward to a continuation of it in the other world, under circumstances that will permit of its fullest development !

Truly with the poet we can say :

"Life, I know not what thou art, But know that thou and I must part ; And when or where, or how we met, I own to me's a secret yet.

But this I know, when thou art fled, Where'er they lay these limbs, this head, No clod so valueless shall be As all that remains of me.

O whither, whither dost thou fly? Where bend unseen thy trackless course? And in this strange divorce, Ah, tell me where I must seek this compound, I?

To the vast ocean of imperial flame From whence thy essence came Dost thou thy flight pursue when freed From matter's base, encumbering weed? Or dost thou hide from sight, Wait like some spell-bound knight, Through blank oblivious years th' appointed hour

To break thy trance, and reassume thy power % Yet can'st thou without thought or feeling be? O say, what art thou, when no more thou'rt me?

Life ! we have been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear ; Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear ; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not G-ood-night, but in some brighter clime

Bid me Good-morning!"

RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN.

II Samuel xii:23. — "But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him but he will not return to me"

CHAPTEE II.

Eecognition in Heaven.

"T IFE changes all our thoughts of heaven ;

At first we think of streets of gold, 1 J Of gates of pearl and dazzling light,

Of shining wings and robes of white, And things all strange to mortal sight. But in the afterward of years It is a more familiar place, A home unhurt by sigh or tears, Where waiteth many a well-known face. With passing months it comes more near, It grows more real day by day. Not strange or cold, but very dear — The glad home-land not far away. Where none are sick, or poor, or lone, The place where we shall find our own. And as we think of all we knew Who there have met to part no more, Our longing hearts desire home, too, With all the strife and trouble o'er."

Ever since I first began to visit Europe I have been interested in viewing the old palaces where lived the great rulers in the days gone

by.

During my first visits to England I used to spend days around her old palaces, reading guide books — the usual American's occupation in England — and wondering how things went on inside the walls of those ancient palaces. I have often passed Buckingham Palace in coming and going, and wondered what was going on inside those walls, and how they did things there. Of course I never expect to have my curiosity gratified, and perhaps that makes it the more interesting, and certainly the more abiding. I can not help it. They may think that I have no business with what takes place in there, but I was born that much like a woman: just to know that I can not know, makes me feel like I must know.

I want for the present to take you back with me down the dim corridors of the past, and have you stop with me for just a little while by one of the greatest palaces of all the ages ; and certainly one in which lived one of the greatest rulers that the world ever saw. It is the home of Israel's Shepherd King. It is a magnificent palace, with its splendid columns and its many courts, its long corridors and broad halls, each stretching far back into the distance; its unequalled gardens and exquisite flowers. Armies of soldiers constantly mark time in front of the palace. They are there for the purpose of protecting the king and his household.

I fancy it was during the shades of night, while the soldiers marked time 'round the palace, that the arch enemy of the race passed their ranks. He passed unobserved, and entered the door and stalked down the long corridor, past the beautiful court, and then down the broad hall, and across it to the king's chamber, in which lay the child of fortune; and when he entered that room he strode to the side of the bed of the child, and reached forth his hand and with icy fingers broke the brittle thread of life and the child was dead.

Nobody knew he was in the house : not even the king himself knew of his presence. But after a while the king became conscious of the fact that the monster death was lurking in the chamber, and he would drive him from his palace. But he failed; and failing, he took himself off to a quiet place and prostrated himself upon the ground, and began to implore God to come and do what he could not do. And there, without food and water, fasting and praying, lie remained for days.

After a while he heard the servants as they whispered in his presence, lest they should inform him of what had transpired and add to his grief. But he heard the servants whispering, and arose, and asked, "Is the child dead?" And they said, "Yes, he is dead." Then it is said "David arose from the earth, and washed and anointed himself and changed his apparel, and he came into the house of J ehovah and worshipped. . . . And he said, * While the child was yet alive I fasted and wept : for I said, Who knoweth whether Jehovah will not be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast ? Can I bring him back again ? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me/ "

Ah, my friends ! I wonder how many people have at some time felt the thrill of these words! I wonder how many of us have at some time been comforted, as David himself was comforted, with that thought.

MARY MAGDALENE AT CHRIST'S SEPULCHRE Mark 16 : 9—11 , John 20 : 11-17

Just five hundred miles from the city of Atlanta, where for fifteen years I lived and labored, was a beautiful little mountain city called Eeidsville. In that city I once lived. In that city I was ordained to preach. In that city I preached my first sermon. In that city we buried our only little girl, a little cooing darling. That cemetery is along by the side of the railway track.

Twenty-two years had passed, and I chanced to pass on a train over that track, and the train stopped in sight of the cemetery. I looked through the window, and on the hill top I looked for a beautiful white tomb which had grown much dearer these twenty-two years, and I recognized the spot where it all took place, and for a time I lived over again that sad experience. I saw a little headstone that marked the grave ; and as I looked at it, a tear came into my eye and ran down my face. A man stepped up to me and said, "Have you anybody buried in that cemetery'?" I told him my story, and as I told him I thought of these words "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me."

And from the depth of my heart I would say — though I loved her as I never loved anything in this world — "I thank God that she has gone to Him, and that it is as it is ; that I am going to her rather than have her come back to me."

And others have at some time passed through some experience like my own, and got such comfort and solace out of these words, uttered under the direct inspiration of the Spirit of Glod by His servant David.

And the question that I present to you is this: Is there any sufficient ground for the hope that the majority of us Christians have of heavenly recognition? It is to this question that I desire to address myself.

First of all, let me say that I am not going to speculate at all around the meaning of the word " heaven." I know all that the world is saying to-day about that state : but for the purpose that I have in my mind, I am not at all concerned with it. I am simply here speaking of heaven as we have regarded it all our lives, and as our dear old fathers and mothers regarded it in their lives.

First of all I want us to pay our attention to a great class of skeptics that naturally force themselves upon us when we come to consider a subject like this. I want us to consider them for a special reason, a reason which I think you will afterwards see.

First, there is that company of skeptics, honest men, perhaps, who say, "I do not believe there is any future state for me." I have no time to argue with that man ; only let me say in passing him by, that the man that holds that view denies the most ancient traditions, and most abiding, that the world has ever known since the days of man. But I am not going to argue that question with him now, I am going to pass him by, and come to a class of men that do believe in a future state — but they can not somehow accept what is said about heavenly recognition, for the reason, first that the heaven they see pictured in the Scripture is too big. And I agree with them that heaven is big. And if you are at all in doubt about the size of it you read John's description of it in The Revelation. When the finger of inspiration touched his heart and brain and eyes, beyond the curtain that divides the mainland of time from the great ocean of eternity, he saw what we call heaven, and he gives us some few hints concerning it. He describes it as to size like this: "Thousands, and thousands." That is his first glimpse of it : then he is taken up a little higher, and he gets a second glimpse of it and he says : ' 6 Ten thousand times ten thousand." And then he is taken a little higher up, and again he gets another view of it, and he speaks of "A hundred and forty-four thousands and thousands of thousands." Then he goes up a little higher, and this time he speaks of it as "A great multitude that no man can number." When he starts out to describe the bigness of heaven he begins with "thousands" and ends with "a multitude that no man can number ! ' '

Oh, I am sorry for the man who thinks that heaven is a place where he and only his little church will get in! or where he and his little coterie will get in. " Thousands'' and " thousands upon thousands;" beyond the possibility of numbering was what John saw.

But, my friends, is the bigness of heaven any barrier to recognition in heaven? No, verily, for this reason: God up there is in charge of all the natural and spiritual forces that exist ; and that being true all distance and difficulty in the way of communication is absolutely and forever removed.