2 Samuel 12:23 But now he is dead, why should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. I. THAT SURVIVORS MAY DERIVE COMFORT FROM THE REFLECTION THAT THEIR DEPARTED CHRISTIAN FRIENDS SHALL NO MORE RETURN TO THEM. "He shall not return to me." When men close their eyes in death, their connection with earth and the things of earth is dissolved for them. They go to the place "from whose bourn no traveller returns." We may be comforted by the truth, they "shall not return to us," when we are reminded: — 1. That at the gate of death the righteous bid adieu to sorrow. There is much in the present, world that harasses the children of God, and on account of which "rivers of waters run down their eyes." 2. That by death the righteous are taken away from approaching danger. "The righteous is taken away from the evil to come." What this "evil" may be, in any particular case, it is not for us to determine. It is their heavenly Father's account of the matter, and' therewith let us be content. 3. That by death God does not only take His children from evils to come, but He brings them also to their promised rest. It is thus He answers the Redeemer's prayer. "Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, that, they may behold My glory." II. THAT AMIDST OUR SORROWS ON ACCOUNT OF DEPARTED CHRISTIAN FRIENDS, WE MAY BE EDIFIED AND COMFORTED BY THE SOLEMN, YET CHEERING TRUTH, THAT WE MUST SOON FOLLOW THEM. 1. We shall go to them in death. We also are mortal, and we too must die. (1) The same necessity to die lies on us, as was laid on those who have already passed through the portals of death. They died because they had been appointed unto death. We are under the same appointment, nor can we reverse the decree. Nor does the Divine decree apply only to the fact that man must die, the time of his departure is likewise appointed. Nay more, the immediate cause of our dissolution, and the very circumstances with which our death will be attended, appear also to have been arranged by Him who knoweth the "end from the beginning."(2) The same procuring cause of death operates in every mortal body. It has triumphed over those whose loss we deplore; it is accomplishing the same end in us; and we shall go to them in death. 2. We must go to them in their state of separate existence. Here we learn that though death shall decompose and separate every particle of the body, yet it shall leave the soul unscathed, in a state of conscious existence, capable of exercising its high and immortal faculties on the objects which shall then be spread before it, and susceptible of those exhaustless pleasures, or those never-ending pains, into the enjoyment or endurance of which it is immediately introduced. Admitting that while the body of the believer slumbers in the dust, his soul is in a state of active being, we must remember that when we die we too shall enter instantaneously on a new and untried state. 3. That if we die in the faith of Christ Jesus, we shall go to the sainted dead, and be enshrined with them in all the blessedness of the world of glory.Application 1. Are we mourners? then let the subject teach us piously to acquiesce in the dispensation with which we have been visited. 2. Are we mourners? then let us be deeply impressed with the nature of that moral and spiritual change which must have passed over us, before we can adopt the language of the text, and rejoice in the prospect of following departed friends. "We shall go to them." 3. Are we mourners? let the subject teach us to moderate our grief for those who have been removed by death. (J. Gaskin, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. |
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