The Last Enemy Destroyed! 2
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Notice, dear friends- for herein lies the savor of the thought- it is the last enemy. Picture in your mind’s eye our brave soldiers at the battle of Waterloo; for many weary hours they had been face to face with the foe; the fight had lasted so long and been so frequently renewed that they seemed to have encountered successive armies, and to have fought a dozen battles; charge after charge had they borne like walls of stone: imagine then that the commander is able to announce that they have only to endure one more onslaught of the foe. How cheerfully do the ranks close! How gallantly are the squares formed! How firmly their feet are planted! "Now," say they, "let us stand like a wall of rock; let no man shrink for a moment, for it is the last the enemy can do. He will do his worst; but soon he will be able to do no more but sound to boot and saddle, and leave the field to us."
The last enemy! Soldiers of Christ, do not the words animate you? Courage, Christian, courage; the tide must turn after this, it is the highest wave that now dashes over you; courage, man, the night must close, you have come to its darkest hour, the day star already dawns! Now that you are dying you begin to live. The last enemy conquered! Does it not bring tears to your eyes to think of bearing your last temptation? Little care we who the foe may be, if he be but conquered and be but the last, for have we not been perplexed with a succession of enemies? We have only conquered one foe to find another waiting for us. Our path has been hitherto from temptation to temptation, from trial to trial, from tribulation to tribulation. We are growing weary, we cannot forever bear wave upon wave, grief upon grief, and temptation upon temptation. Like the warrior of old, our arm grows weary, but our hand (glory be to divine grace!) cleaves to our sword; we are faint, yet pursuing; but what good news when we shall hear that the present enemy is the last! Though it be death, we will rejoice! O Christian, there will be no more poverty to tempt you to murmur, no more losses and crosses to cast your spirit down, no more inbred sins to mar your devotion, and to spoil the glory of your faith, no outward temptation, no sinners with their trifling talk to vex your ear, no blasphemies to torment your soul, no more aches and pains of body, no more tortures and troubles of spirit! The dog of hell will be silenced for ever, there will be no more Canaanites to drive out of the land, the race of Amalek shall then be utterly destroyed. And where will you be? In the land that flows with milk and honey, in the home of peace and the abode of rapture,
"Far from a world of grief and sin,
With God eternally shut in."
Well may you welcome death! Let him come in his chariot of fire, he bears you to Elijah’s God! Let him lay hold of the shield and buckler, and frown upon you like a king of fierce speech and terrible countenance, he carries you not into captivity, but delivers you out of bondage! At his coming your sky may be darkened, the thunders may roll, and the solid pillars of your house may be shaken, but it is the last commotion, and is therefore the token of everlasting rest. Having overcome death, peace is proclaimed, the sword is sheathed, the banners furled, and you are forever more than a conqueror through him that loved you.
III. Having come so far, we may now proceed another step. Death is an enemy, the last enemy- HE IS AN ENEMY TO BE DESTROYED. Here I take away the salt and bring the milk and honey, for surely here is much of exquisite sweetness and of true spiritual food to the child of God. Death is the last enemy to be destroyed. The destruction of death will be perfectly achieved at the resurrection, for then death’s castle, the tomb, will be demolished, and not so much as one stone left upon another. All death’s captives must go free; not a bone of the saints shall be kept as a trophy by the arch foe; not so much as a particle of their dust shall he be able to show as a spoil which he has been able to preserve. He must disgorge the whole that he has fed upon; he must pay back all that he has stolen; the prey shall be taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive shall be delivered.
From the land and from the sea, those that were lately dead, and those that centuries ago had moldered into dust shall rise. The quickening trumpet shall achieve a work as great as the creation. The voice of God which said, "Let there be light" and there was light, shall say, "Let there be life," and there shall be life; and, as in the valley of vision, bone shall come to bone, and the flesh shall come upon them, and life shall come into them, and they shall live. The same bodies shall arise, the same for identity, but not the same for quality! The same, but oh, how changed! They were the shriveled seed when death sowed them in the earth, they shall be the fully developed flower when resurrection’s springtime shall bid them blossom from the dust. They were battered and time-worn when he dragged them to his den; they shall come forth with the dew of their youth upon them when Christ shall give them life.
Oh, the sweet gains of death! "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption." Oh the interest, which we shall win from that arch usurer who thought to claim both principal and interest! "It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;" it is sown a natural body, it is raised a heavenly and spiritual body. O death! you are no gainer by us, but we shall be mighty gainers by you, for though this poor body shall become worms food, and through and through and through this mortal frame, decay shall drive its tunnels and make its solemn ways; though back to dust, eye and arm and hand and brain must moulder, yet not lost, nor in any degree injured, shall the whole fabric be; but as it were filtered, purified by the grave, the fair body shall emerge again! The grave shall be to the believer’s body as the bath of spices in which Esther bathed herself to make herself ready to behold the great King. Corruption, earth, and worms do but refine this flesh, and make it pure according to God’s will, until we shall put it on afresh at his bidding.
We throw aside a workday dress, all torn, and crumpled and dusty; we are glad to put it off, glad that evening time has come, and that it is time to undress; but when we awake, we shall find instead of that worn-out vesture, a noble change of raiment. The same dress will be there, but marvelously changed- the great Fuller shall have exercised his art upon it, and made it like the array which Moses and Elijah wore on Tabor. How precious will our royal robes be, how bedecked with pearls, how stiff with threads of gold, and studs of silver, how fitted for God’s priests and kings, how befit for those who shall enter the pearly gates, and tread the golden streets of the heavenly Jerusalem, how proper for those that shall walk in the golden light of the city that has foundations, whose maker and builder is God! Death is thus to be destroyed by the resurrection of the body, when our Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout a resurrection which shall prove to assembled worlds, that to those who are in Christ Jesus, "to die is gain."
But, dear friends, although this is a great truth with regard to the future, I desire just to conduct your minds for a few minutes over the road by which Christ has, in effect, virtually destroyed death already. In the first place, he has taken away the shame of death. It was once a shameful thing to die. A man might hold his head low in the presence of angels who could not die, for he might remember with shame thathe is the brother of the worm and corruption is his sister. But now we can talk of death in the presence of archangels and not be ashamed, for Jesus died. It is henceforth no degradation to man to die, to sleep in the bed where Christ reposed- it is an honor, and angels may almost regret that they have not the ability in this respect to be made like unto the angels’ Lord. Oh, Christian, you need not speak of death with bated breath, but rather rejoice that you have fellowship with Jesus in his tomb, and shall have fellowship with him as one of the children of the resurrection.
Christ has, moreover, taken away the sting of death. The sting of death lay in this- that we had sinned and were summoned to appear before the God whom we had offended. This is the sting of death to you, unconverted ones, not that you are dying, but that after death is the judgment, and that you must stand before the Judge of quick and dead to receive a sentence for the sins which you have committed in your body against him. This makes it death to die; this hangs the dying bed with black curtains, and puts out the light of the sick chamber: the second death makes death to be death indeed; but
"If sin be pardoned I’m secure,
Death has no sting beside;
The law gave sin its damning power,
But Christ, my ransom, died."
Christmas Evans represents the monster death as being so intent to destroy our Lord, that it drove the dart in its tail right through the Savior, until it stuck in the cross on the other side, and the monster has never been able to draw it out again. Christ on the cross took away the sting of death, so that death has no further power to hurt the Christian. "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be unto God which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Our divine Lord has taken away from sin its slavery. The bondage of death arises from man’s fearing to die. Death has fitted fetters upon many a man’s wrist, and fixed an iron collar on his neck, and driven him with his whip about the world, but Jesus has taken away the yoke of death from the necks of his disciples. The Christian is not afraid to die; he looks forward to it sometimes with composure and frequently even with expectation.
Hundreds of saints have been able to speak of dying as though it were but every-day work, and there have been hundreds more who have looked forward to their last day with as much delight as the bride hopes for the wedding. Was not our song, which we sung just now a truthful one?
"Sweet truth to me! I shall arise,
And with these eyes My Savior see."
It was to some of us at any rate, and we are still desirous to sing it, longing for that time when death shall come, and we shall enter into the joy of our Lord.
Moreover, Christ has abolished death by removing its greatest sorrows. I told you that death snatched us away from the society of those we loved on earth; it is true, but it introduces us into nobler society far. We leave the imperfect church on earth, but we claim membership with the perfect church in heaven. The church militant must know us no more, but of the church triumphant we shall be happy members. We may not now see the honored men on earth who now serve Christ in the ministry, but we shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the noble army of martyrs, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, and the glorious company of the apostles. We shall be no losers, certainly, in the matter of society, but great gainers when we are introduced to the general assembly and the church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven. I said that we should be taken away from enjoyments. I spoke of Sabbath bells that would ring no longer, of communion tables at which we could not sit, and songs of holy mirth in which we could not join- ah! it is small loss compared with the gain unspeakable, for we shall hear the bells of heaven ring out an unending Sabbath, we shall join the songs that never have a pause, and which know no discord; we shall sit at the banqueting table where the King himself is present, where the symbols and the signs have vanished because the guests have found the substance, and the King eternal and immortal is visibly in their presence. Beloved, we leave the desert to lie down in green pastures; we leave the scanty rills to bathe in the bottomless river of joy, we leave the wells of Elim for the land which flows with milk and honey. Did I speak of leaving possessions? What are the possessions? Moth-eaten garments, cankered gold and silver, things that rust consume and that thieves destroy. But we go to the land where nothing corrupts or decays, where flowers fade not, and riches take not to themselves wings to fly away. Loss! let the word be banished! Death gives us infinitely more than he takes away! I spoke of death as an enemy because he took us from sacred employments. It is so, but does he not usher us into nobler employments far? To stand before that throne upon the sea of glass mingled with fire, to bow within the presence chamber of the King of kings, gazing into the glory that excels, and to see the King in his beauty, the man that once was slain, wearing many crowns and arrayed in the vesture of his glory, his wounds like sparkling jewels still visible above!
Oh! to cast our crowns at his feet, to lie there and shrink into nothing before the Eternal All, to fly into Jesus’ bosom, to behold the beauty of his love, and to taste the kisses of his mouth, to be in Paradise, swallowed up in unutterable joy because taken into the closest, fullest, nearest communion with himself! Would not your soul burst from the body even now to obtain this rapture?Cannot you say,
"I’d part with all the joys of sense
To gaze upon your throne,
Pleasure springs fresh forever thence,
Unspeakable, unknown."
If death does but give us a sight of Jesus and make it our employment for ever to sing his praise, and forever to learn his character, forever more lie in his bosom, then let him come when he wills, we will scarcely call you enemy again! An enemy destroyed in this case becomes a friend. The sting is taken away from you, you hornet, and you become a bee to gather sweet honey for us. The lion is slain, and like Samson we go forth to gather handfuls of sweetness.
I shall not tarry longer, though greatly tempted, except to say this one thing more, the fear of death which arises from the prospect of pain and grief is also taken away by Christ when he reminds us that he will be with us in our last moments; he will make the dying bed feel soft, and in the midst of the river he will say, "Fear not, I am with you." So that in all respects death is to be destroyed.
IV. Time warns us to clear the tables and send home the guests, with the fourth consideration, THAT DEATH IS THE LAST ENEMY THAT SHALL BE DESTROYED.
Do not, therefore, give yourself so much concern if you do not feel
death to be destroyed in you at present. Supposing that it does cause you pain and fear, remember that dying grace would be of no value to you in living moments. Expect that if your faith is not faith enough to die with, yet if it he faith as a grain of mustard seed it will grow; and, growing, it will in a more developed state enable you to die triumphantly when dying time comes. When I looked at the Book of Martyrs and noticed the fearful pictures of saints in their dying agonies, I asked myself, "Could I bear all that for Christ?" and I was compelled to say, "No, I know I could not as I now am." But suppose I were called to martyrdom should I bear it? and I thought I could say without presumption I could, for Christ would give me grace when grace was needed. Now, death is to be destroyed, but not until the last. You have many enemies who are not destroyed, yet you have inbred sins unslain. Look well to them. Until they are all gone you must not expect death to be destroyed, for he is the last to die. So then, friend, let me whisper in your ear, expect to lose your dear ones still, for death is not destroyed. Look not upon any of your friends as though they would be with you tomorrow, for death is not destroyed yet.
See you the word "mortal" written upon all our brows. The most unlikely ones die first. When I heard during this week of several cases of dear friends who have gone to their reward, I could have sooner believed it had been others, but God has been pleased to take from us and from our connection many whom we supposed to be what are called good lives, and they were good lives in the best sense, and that is why the Master took them; they were ripe, and he took them home; but we could not see that.
Now, remember that all your friends, your wife, your husband, your child, your kinsfolk, are all mortal. That makes you sad. Well, it may prevent your being more sad when they are taken away. Hold them with a loose hand; do not count that to be freehold which you have only received as a leasehold; do not call that yours which is only lent you, for if you get a thing lent you and it is asked for back, you give it back freely; but if you entertain the notion that it was given you, you do not like to yield it up. Now, remember, the enemy is not yet destroyed, and that he will make inroads into our family circle still.
And then remember that you too must die. Bring yourself frequently face to face with this truth, that you must die. Do not forget it, Christian friend. No man knows whether his faith is good for anything or not if he does not frequently try that faith by bringing himself right to the edge of the grave. Picture yourself dying, conceive yourself breathing out your last breath, and see whether then you can look at death without quaking, whether you can feel, "Yes, I have rested upon Jesus, I am saved, I will go through death’s tremendous vale with his presence as my stay, fearing no evil." If you have no good hope, may God give you grace at this moment to fly to Jesus, and to trust in him, and when you have trusted in him death will be to you a destroyed enemy. May God grant his blessing for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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