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I. THE UTTER HELPLESSNESS OF MORTALITY.

1. What might is there that call withstand death! From armies, thrones, castles, courts, and empires, death hath plucked his prey.

2. The universality of death's empire.

(1)  We walk not an untrodden path; "It is the way of all flesh."

(2)  Though it is "the way of all flesh," yet we must each walk that path alone, and yet not alone (Psalm 23:4).

3. What a picture is here drawn of all enmity against God! Rebellion against God is madness (Psalm 2).

4. What a contrast the grave of the Saviour presents to these! Victorious death in that bright Easter morn was subdued and crushed. Ours is the triumph also. Though mortality be helpless, and must bow to the dust, yet humanity is triumphant, and shall rise again.

II. THE FOND TENACITY OF MEMORY. Memory surrounds the living with relics of the dead and mementoes of the past. Even the dead are surrounded with tokens of their circumstances, character, and career. Above the grave stands the grey tombstone, with the simple inscription, "To the memory." What memories are you preparing for your deathbed and the grave? Our moral actions, mental emotions, and impressions we cannot bury in everlasting oblivion. Our character is our true epitaph cut deeply into our tomb.

(R. S. Latimer.).

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KJV: And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.

WEB: They shall not lie with the mighty who are fallen of the uncircumcised, who are gone down to Sheol with their weapons of war, and have laid their swords under their heads, and their iniquities are on their bones; for [they were] the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.