Most of you young people are but little accustomed to reflect upon
yourselves, or upon the special characteristics and prerogatives of
your time of life. But it will do you no harm to think for a minute or
two of what these characteristics are, that you may know your
blessings, and that you may shun the dangers which attach to them.
'When thou wast young thou girdedst thyself.' _There_ is a picture
easily translated, and significant of much. The act of girding implies
preparation for action, and may be widened out to express that most
blessed prerogative of youth, the cherishing of bright imaginations of
its future activity and course. The dreams of youth are often laughed
at, but if a young man or woman be faithful to them they are the
prophecies of the future, and are given in order that at the opening of
the flower nature may put forth her power; and so we may be able to
live through many a dreary hour in the future. Only, seeing that you do
live so much in rich foreshadowings and fair anticipations of the times
that are to come, take care that you do not waste that divine faculty,
the freshness of which is granted to you as a morning gift, the 'dew of
your youth.' See that you do not waste it in anticipations which cling
like mist to the low levels of life, but that you lift it higher and
embrace worthy objects. It is good that you should anticipate, that you
should live by hope. It is good that you should be drawn onwards by
bright visions, whether they be ever fulfilled or no. But there are
dangers in the exercise, and dreaming with some of you takes the place
of realising your dreams, and you build for yourselves fair fabrics in
imagination which you never take one step to accomplish and make real.
Be not the slaves and fools of your imaginations, but cultivate the
faculty of hoping largely; for the possibilities of human life are
elastic, and no man or woman, in their most sanguine, early
anticipations, if only these be directed to the one real good, has ever
exhausted or attained the possibilities open to every soul.
Again, girding _one's self_ implies independent self-reliance, and that
is a gift and a stewardship given (as all gifts are stewardships) to
the young. We all fancy, in our early days, that we are going to build
'towers that will reach to heaven.' Now _we_ have come, and we will
show people how to do it! The past generations have failed, but ours is
full of brighter promise. There is something very touching, to us older
men almost tragical, in the unbounded self-confidence of the young life
that we see rushing to the front all round us. We know so well the
disillusion that is sure to come, the disappointments that will cloud
the morning sky. We would not carry one shadow from the darkened
experience of middle life into the roseate tints of the morning. The
'vision splendid'
Will fade away
Into the light of common day,'
soon enough. But for the present this self-reliant confidence is one of
the blessings of your early days.
Only remember, it is dangerous, too. It may become want of reverence,
which is ruinous, or presumption and rashness. Remember what a cynical
head of a college said, 'None of us is infallible, not even the
youngest,' and blend modesty with confidence, and yet be buoyant and
strong, and trust in the power that may make you strong. And then your
self-confidence will not be rashness.
'Thou wentest whither thou wouldest.' That is another characteristic of
youth, after it has got beyond the schoolboy stage. Your own will tends
to become your guide. For one thing, at your time of life, most other
inward guides are comparatively weak. You have but little experience.
Most of you have not cultivated largely the habit of patient
reflection, and thinking twice before you act once. That comes: it
would not be good that it should be over-predominant in you. 'Old heads
on young shoulders' are always monstrosities, and it is all right that,
in your early days, you should largely live by impulse, if only, as
well as a will, there be a conscience at work which will do instead of
the bitter experience which comes to guide some of the older of us.
Again, yours is the age when passion is strong. I speak now especially
to young men. Restraints are removed for many of you. There are dozens
of young men listening to me now, away from their father's home,
separated from the purifying influence of sisters and of family life,
living in solitary lodgings, at liberty to spend their evenings where
they choose, and nobody be a bit the wiser. Ah, my dear young friend!
'thou wentest whither thou wouldest' and thou wouldest whither thou
oughtest not to go.
There is nothing more dangerous than getting into the habit of saying,
'I do as I like,' however you cover it over. Some of you say, 'I
indulge natural inclinations; I am young; a man must have his fling.
Let me sow my wild oats in a quiet corner, where nobody will see the
crop coming up; and when I get to be as old as you are, I will do as
you do; young men will be young men,' etc., etc. You know all that sort
of talk. Take this for a certain fact: that whoever puts the reins into
the charge of his own will when he is young, has put the reins _and the
whip_ into hands which will drive over the precipice.
My friend! 'I will' is no word for you. There is a far diviner and
better one than that--'I ought.' Have you learnt that? Do you yield to
that sovereign imperative, and say, 'I _must_, because I _ought_ and,
therefore, I _will_'? Bow passion to reason, reason to conscience,
conscience to God--and then, be as strong in the will and as stiff in
the neck as ever you choose; but only then. So much, then, for my first
picture.
II. Now let me ask you to turn with me for a moment to the second
one--What you will certainly become if you live.
I have already explained that putting this meaning on the latter
portion of our first verse is somewhat forcing it from its original
signification. And yet it is so little of violence that the whole of
the language naturally lends itself to make a picture of the difference
between the two stages of life.
All the bright visions that dance before your youthful mind will fade
away. We begin by thinking that we are going to build temples, or
'towers that shall reach to heaven,' and when we get into middle life
we have to say to ourselves: 'Well! I have scarcely material enough to
carry out the large design that I had. I think that I will content
myself with building a little hovel, that I may live in, and perhaps it
will keep the weather off me.' Hopes diminish; dreams vanish; limited
realities take their place, and we are willing to hold out our hands
and let some one else take the responsibilities that we were so eager
to lay upon ourselves at the first. Strength will fade away. 'Even the
youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail.'
Physical weariness, weakness, the longing for rest, the consciousness
of ever-narrowed and narrowing powers, will come to you, and if you
grow up to be old men, which it is probable that many of you will do,
you will have to sit and watch the tide of your life ebb, ebb, ebbing
away moment by moment.
Self-will will be wonderfully broken, for there are far stronger forces
that determine a man's life than his own wishes and will. We are like
swimmers in the surf of the Indian Ocean, powerless against the
battering of the wave which pitches us, for all our science, and for
all our muscle, where it will. Call it environment, call it fate, call
it circumstances, call it providence, call it God--there is something
outside of us bigger than we are, and the man who begins life, thinking
'Thus I will, thus I command, let my determination stand instead of all
other reason'; has to say at last, 'I could not do what I wanted. I had
to be content to do what I could.' Thus our self-will gets largely
broken down; and patient acceptance of the inevitable comes to be the
wisdom and peace of the old man.
And, last of all, the picture shows us an irresistible approximation to
an unwelcome goal: 'Another shall carry thee whither thou wouldest not.'
Life to the old seems to you to be so empty and ashen grey that you
wonder they care to live. But life to them, for all its
disappointments, its weariness, its foiled efforts, its vanished hopes,
its departed companions, is yet life, and most of them cling to it like
a miser to his gold. But yet, like a man sucked into Niagara above the
falls, they are borne on the irresistible, smooth flood, nearer and
nearer to the edge of the rock, and they hear the mighty sound in their
ears long before they reach the place where the plunge is to be taken
from sunshine into darkness and foam.
So 'when thou shalt be old' your fancy will be gone, your physical
strength will be gone, your freshness will be gone, your faculty of
hoping will work feebly and have little to work on; on earth your sense
of power will be humbled, and yet you will not want to be borne to the
place whither you must be borne.
Fancy two portraits, one of a little chubby boy in child's dress, with
a round face and clustering curls and smooth cheeks and red lips, and
another of an old man, with wearied eyes, and thin locks, and wrinkled
cheeks, and a bowed frame. The difference between the two is but the
symbol of the profounder differences that separate the two selves,
which yet are the one self--the impetuous, self-reliant, self-willed,
hopeful, buoyant youth, and the weary, feeble, broken, old man. And
that is what you will come to, if you live, as sure as I am speaking to
you, and you are listening to me.
III. And now, lastly, what in the view of both these stages it is wise
for you to do.
'When He had spoken thus, He saith unto him, Follow Me.' What do we
mean by following Christ? We mean submission to His authority. 'Follow
Me' as Captain, Commander, absolute Lawgiver, and Lord. We mean
imitation of His example. These two words include all human duty, and
promise to every man perfection if he obeys. 'Follow Me'--it is enough,
more than enough, to make a man complete and blessed. We mean choosing
and keeping close to Him, as Companion as well as Leader and Lord. No
man or woman will ever be solitary, though friends may go, and
associates may change, and companions may leave them, and life may
become empty and dreary as far as human sympathy is concerned--no man
or woman will ever be solitary if stepping in Christ's footsteps, close
at His heels, and realising His presence.
But you cannot follow Him, and He has no right to tell you to follow
Him, unless He is something more and other to you than Example, and
Commander, and Companion. What business has Jesus Christ to demand that
a man should go after Him to the death? Only this business, that He has
gone to the death for the man. You must follow Christ first, my friend,
by coming to Him as a sinful creature, and finding your whole salvation
and all your hope in humble reliance on the merit of His death. Then
you may follow Him in obedience, and imitation, and glad communion.
That being understood, I would press upon you this thought, that such a
following of Jesus Christ will preserve for you all that is blessed in
the characteristics of your youth, and will prevent them from becoming
evil. He will give you a basis for your hopes and fulfil your most
sanguine dreams, if these are based on His promises, and their
realisation sought in the path of His feet. As Isaiah prophesies, 'the
mirage shall become a pool.' That which else is an illusion, dancing
ahead and deceiving thirsty travellers into the belief that sand is
water, shall become to you really 'pools of water,' if your hopes are
fixed on Jesus Christ. If you follow Him, your strength will not ebb
away with shrunken sinews and enfeebled muscles. If you trust Christ,
your self-will will be elevated by submission, and become strong to
control your rebellious nature, because it is humble to submit to His
supreme command. And if you trust and follow Jesus Christ, your hope
will be buoyant, and bright, and blessed, and prolong its buoyancy, and
brightness, and blessedness into 'old age, when others fade.' If you
will follow Christ your old age will, if you reach it, be saved from
the bitterest pangs that afflict the aged, and will be brightened by
future possibilities. There will be no need for lingering laments over
past blessings, no need for shrinking reluctance to take the inevitable
step. An old age of peaceful, serene brightness caught from the nearer
gleam of the approaching heaven, and quiet as the evenings in the late
autumn, not without a touch of frost, perhaps, but yet kindly and
fruitful, may be ours. And instead of shrinking from the end, if we
follow Jesus, we shall put our hands quietly and trustfully into His,
as a little child does into its mother's soft, warm palm, and shall not
ask whither He leads, assured that since it is He who leads we shall be
led aright.
Dear young friends! 'Follow Me!' is Christ's merciful invitation to
you. You will never again be so likely to obey it as you are now. Well
begun is half ended. 'I would have you innocent of much transgression.'
You need Him to keep you in the slippery ways of youth. You could not
go into some of those haunts, where some of you have been, if you
thought to yourselves, 'Am I following Jesus as I cross this wicked
threshold?' You may never have another message of mercy brought to your
ears. If you do become a religious man in later life, you will be
laying up for yourselves seeds of remorse and sorrow, and in some cases
memories of pollution and filth, that will trouble you all your days.
'To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.'
'THEY ALSO SERVE WHO ONLY STAND AND WAIT'
'Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do!
Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that
to thee? Follow thou Me.'--John xxi. 21, 22.
We have seen in a former sermon that the charge of the risen Christ to
Peter, which immediately precedes these verses, allotted to him service
and suffering. The closing words of that charge 'Follow Me!' had a deep
significance, as uniting both parts of his task in the one supreme
command of imitation of his Master.
But the same words had also a simpler meaning, as inviting the Apostle
to come apart with Christ at the moment, for some further token of His
love or indication of His will. Peter follows; but in following,
naturally turns to see what the little group, sitting silent there by
the coal fire on the beach, may be doing, and he notices John coming
towards them, with intent to join them.
What emboldened John to thrust himself, uncalled for, into so secret an
interview? The words in which he is described in the context answer the
question. 'He was the disciple whom Jesus loved, which also leaned on
His breast at Supper, and said, Lord! which is he that betrayeth Thee?'
He was also bound by close ties to Peter. So with the familiarity of
'perfect love which casteth out fear,' he felt that the Master could
have no secrets from him, and no charge to give to his friend which he
might not share.
Peter's swift question, 'Lord! and what shall this man do?' though it
has been often blamed, does not seem very blameworthy. There was
perhaps a little touch of his old vivacity in it, indicating that he
had not been sufficiently subdued and sobered by the prospect which
Christ had held out to him; but far more than that there was a natural
interest in his friend's fate, and something of a wish to have his
company on the path which he was to tread. Christ's answer, 'If I will
that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me!'
gently rebukes any leaven of evil that there may have been in the
question; warns him against trying to force other people into his
groove; with solemn emphasis reiterates his own duty; and, in effect,
bids him let his brother alone, and see that he himself discharges the
ministry which he has received of the Lord.
The enigmatical words of Christ, and the long life of the Apostle,
which seemed to explain them, naturally bred an interpretation of them
in the Early Church which is recorded here, as I believe, by the
Evangelist himself, to the effect that John, like another Enoch at the
beginning of a new world, was to escape the common lot. And very
beautiful is the quiet way in which the Evangelist put that error on
one side, by the simple repetition of his Master's words, emphasising
their hypothetical form and their enigmatical character: 'Jesus said
not unto him, He shall not die; but _if_ I will that he _tarry_ till I
come, what is that to thee?'
Now all this, I think, is full of lessons. Let me try to draw one or
two of them briefly now.
I. First, then, we have in that majestic 'If I will!' the revelation of
the risen Christ as the Lord of life and death.
In His charge to Peter, Christ had asserted His right absolutely to
control His servant's conduct and fix his place in the world, and His
power to foresee and forecast his destiny and his end. But in these
words He goes a step further. 'I _will_ that he tarry'; to communicate
life and to sustain life is a divine prerogative; to act by the bare
utterance of His will upon physical nature is a divine prerogative.
Jesus Christ here claims that His will goes out with sovereign power
amongst the perplexities of human history and into the depths of that
mystery of life; and that He, the Son of Man, 'quickens whom He will,'
and has power 'to kill and to make alive.' The words would be absurd,
if not something worse, upon any but divine lips, that opened with
conscious authority, and whose Utterer knew that His hand was laid upon
the innermost springs of being.
So, in this entirely incidental fashion, you have one of the strongest
and plainest instances of the quiet, unostentatious and habitual manner
in which Jesus Christ claimed for Himself properly divine prerogatives.
Remember that He who thus spoke was standing before these seven men
there, in the morning light, on the beach, fresh from the grave. His
resurrection had proved Him to be the Lord of death. He had bound it to
His chariot-wheels as a Conqueror. He had risen and He stood there
before them with no more mark of the corruption of the grave upon Him
than there are traces of the foul water in which a sea bird may have
floated, on its white wing that flashes in the sunshine as it soars.
And surely as these men looked to Christ, 'declared to be the Son of
God with power, by His resurrection from the dead, 'they may have
begun, however 'foolish and slow of heart' they were 'to believe,' to
understand that 'to this end Christ both died and rose and revived,
that He might be the Lord both of the dead and of the living,' both of
death and of life.
These two Apostles' later history was full of proofs that Christ's
claim was valid. Peter is shut up in prison and delivered once, at the
very last moment, when hope was almost dead, in order that he might
understand that when he was put into another prison and _not_
delivered, the blow of martyrdom fell upon him, not because of the
strength of his persecutors, but because of the will of his Lord. And
John had to see his brother James, to whom he had been so closely knit,
with whom he had pledged himself to drink the cup that Christ drank of,
whom he had desired to have associated with himself in the special
honours in the Messianic Kingdom--he had to see him slain, first of the
Apostles, while he himself lingered here long after all his early
associates were gone. He had, no doubt, many a longing to depart.
Solitary, surrounded by a new world, pressed by many cares, he must
often have felt that the cross which he had to carry was no lighter
than that laid on those who had passed to their rest by martyrdom. To
him it would often be martyrdom to live. His personal longing is heard
for a moment in the last words of the Apocalypse, 'Amen! even so, come,
Lord Jesus!'--but undoubtedly for the most part he stayed his heart on
his Lord's will, and waited in meek patience till he heard the welcome
announcement, 'The Master is come and calleth for thee.'
And, dear friends! that same belief that the risen Christ is the Lord
of life and death, is the only one that can stay our hearts, or make us
bow with submission to His divine will. He who has conquered death by
undergoing it is death's Lord as well as ours, and when He wills to
bring His friends home to Himself, saith to that black-robed servant,
'Go, and he goeth; do this and he doeth it.' The vision which John saw
long after this on another shore, washed by a stormier sea, spoke the
same truth as does this majestic 'I will'--'He that liveth and became
dead and is alive for evermore,' is by virtue of His divine eternal
life, and has become in His humanity by virtue of His death and
resurrection the Lord of life and death. The hands that were nailed to
the Cross turn the keys of death and Hades. 'He openeth and no man
shutteth; He shutteth and no man openeth.'
II. We have here before us, in this incident, the service of patient
waiting.
'If I will that he tarry, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me.' Peter
is the man of action, not great at reflection; full of impulse,
restless until his hands can do something to express his thoughts and
his emotions. On the very Mount of Transfiguration he wanted to set to
work and build 'three tabernacles,' instead of listening awed to the
divine colloquy. In Galilee he cannot wait quietly for his Master to
come, but must propose to his friends to 'go a fishing.' In the
fishing-boat, as soon as he sees the Lord he must struggle through the
sea to get at Him; whilst John sits quiet in the boat, blessed in the
consciousness of his Master's presence and in silently gazing at Him
verily there. All through the first part of the Acts of the Apostles
his bold energy goes flashing and flaming. It is always his voice that
rings out in the front, whether preaching on the Pentecost Day,
bringing healing to the sick, or fronting the Sanhedrim. His element is
in the shock of conflict and the strain of work.
John, on the other hand, seldom appears in the narrative. When he does
so he stands a silent figure by the side of Peter, and disappears from
it altogether before very long. We do not hear that he did anything. He
seems to have had no part in the missionary work of the Church.
He 'tarried,' that was all. The word is the same--'abide'--which is so
often upon his lips in his Gospel and in his Epistles, as expressive of
the innermost experience of the Christian soul, the condition of all
fruitfulness, blessedness, knowledge and Christ-likeness. Christ's
charge to John to 'tarry' did not only, as his brethren misinterpreted
it, mean that his life was to be continued, but it prescribed the
manner of his life. It was to be patient contemplation, a 'dwelling in
the house of the Lord,' a keeping of his heart still, like some little
tarn up amongst the silent hills, for heaven with all its blue to
mirror itself in.
And that quiet life of contemplation bore its fruit. In his meditation
the deeds and words of his Master slowly grew ever more and more
luminous to him. Deeper meanings came out, revealing new
constellations, as he gazed into that opening heaven of memory. He
reaped 'the harvest of a quiet eye' and garnered the sheaves of it in
his Gospel, the holy of holies of the New Testament; and in his
Epistles, in which he proclaims the first and last word of revelation,
'God is love'--the pure diamond that hangs at the end of the golden
chain let down from Heaven. Often, no doubt, his brethren thought him
'but an idler in the land,' but at last his 'tarrying' was vindicated.
Now, dear brethren! in all times of the world's history that form of
Christian service needs to be pressed upon busy people. And there never
was a time in the world's history, or in the Church's history, when it
more needed to be pressed upon the ordinary Christian man than at this
day. The good and the bad of our present Christianity, and of our
present social life, conspire to make people think that those who are
not at work in some external form of Christian service for the good of
their fellows are necessarily idlers. Many of them are so, but by no
means all, and there is always the danger that the external work which
good, earnest people do shall become greater than can be wholesomely
and safely done by them without their constant recourse to this
solitary meditation, and to tarrying before God.
The stress and bustle of our everyday life; the feverish desire for
immediate results; the awakened conviction that Christianity is nothing
if not practical; the new sense of responsibility for the condition of
our fellows; the large increase of all sorts of domestic, evangelistic,
and missionary work among all churches in this day--things to be
profoundly thankful for, like all other good things have their possible
dangers; and it is laid on my heart to warn you of these now. For the
sake of our own personal hold on Jesus Christ, for the sake of our
progress in the knowledge of His truth, and for the sake of the very
work which some of us count so precious, there is need that we shall
betake ourselves to that still communion. The stream that is to water
half a continent must rise high in the lonely hills, and be fed by many
a mountain rill in the solitude, and the men who are to keep the
freshness of their Christian zeal, and of the consecration which they
will ever feel is being worn away by the attrition even of faithful
service, can only renew and refresh it by resorting again to the
Master, and imitating Him who prepared Himself for a day of teaching in
the Temple by a night of communion on the Mount of Olives.
Further, there is here a lesson of tolerance for us all. Practical men
are always disposed, as I said, to force everybody else into their
groove. Martha is always disposed to think that Mary is idle when she
is 'sitting at Christ's feet,' and wants to have her come into the
kitchen and help her there. The eye which sees must not say to the hand
which toils, nor the hand to the eye, 'I have no need of thee.' There
are men who cannot think much; there are men who cannot work much.
There are men whom God has chosen for diligent external service; there
are men whom God has chosen for solitary retired musing; and we cannot
dispense with either the one or the other. Did not John Bunyan do more
for the world when he was shut up in Bedford Gaol and dreamed his dream
than by all his tramping about Bedfordshire, preaching to a handful of
cottagers? And has not the Christian literature of the prison, which
includes three at least of Paul's Epistles, proved of the greatest
service and most precious value to the Church?
We need all to listen to the voice which says, 'Come ye apart by
yourselves into a solitary place, and rest awhile.' Work is good, but
the foundation of work is better. Activity is good, but the life which
is the basis of activity is even more. There is plenty of so-called
Christian work to-day which I fear me is not life but mechanism; has
slipped off its original foundations, and is, therefore, powerless. Let
us tolerate the forms of service least like our own, not seek to force
other men into our paths nor seek to imitate them. Let Peter flame in
the van, and beard high priests, and stir and fight; and let John sit
in his quiet horns, caring for his Lord's mother, and holding
fellowship with his Lord's Spirit.
III. Lastly, we have here the lesson of patient acquiescence in
Christ's undisclosed will.
The error into which the brethren of the Apostle fell as to the meaning
of the Lord's words was a very natural one, especially when taken with
the commentary which John's unusually protracted life seemed to append
to it. We know that that belief lingered long after the death of the
Apostle; and that legends, like the stories that are found in many
nations of heroes that have disappeared, but are sleeping in some
mountain recess, clustered round John's grave; over which the earth was
for many a century believed to heave and fall with his gentle breathing.
John did not know exactly what his Master meant. He would not venture
upon a counter-interpretation. Perhaps his brethren were right, he does
not know; perhaps they were wrong, he does not know. One thing he is
quite sure of, that what his Master said was: '_If_ I will that he
tarry.' And he acquiesces quietly in the certainty that it shall be as
his Master wills; and, in the uncertainty what that will is, he says in
effect: 'I do not know, and it does not much matter. If I am to go to
find Him, well! If He is to come to find me, well again! Whichever way
it be, I know that the patient tarrying here will lead to a closer
communion hereafter, and so I leave it all in His hands.'
Dear brethren! that is a blessed state that you and I may come to; a
state of quiet submission, not of indifference but of acquiescence in
the undisclosed will of our loving Christ about all matters, and about
this alternative of life or death amongst the rest. The soul that has
had communion with Jesus Christ amidst the imperfections here will be
able to refer all the mysteries and problems of its future to Him with
unshaken confidence. For union with Him carries with it the assurance
of its own perpetuity, and 'in its sweetness yieldeth proof that it was
born for immortality.' The Psalmist learned to say, 'Thou shalt
afterward receive me to glory,' because he could say, 'I am continually
with Thee.' And in like manner we may all rise from the experience of
the present to confidence in that immortal future. Death with his
'abhorred shears' cuts other close ties, but their edge turns on the
knot that binds the soul to its Saviour. He who has felt the power of
communion with the ever-living Christ cannot but feel that such union
must be for ever, and that because Christ lives, and as long as Christ
lives, he will live also.
Therefore, to the soul thus abiding in Christ that alternative of life
or death which looms so large to us when we have not Christ with us,
will dwindle down into very small dimensions. If I live there will be
work for me to do here, and His love to possess; if I die there will be
work for me to do there too, and His love to possess in still more
abundant measure. So it will not be difficult for such a soul to leave
the decision of this as of all other things with the Lord of life and
death, and to lie acquiescent in His gracious hands. That calm
acceptance of His will and patience with Christ's '_If_' is the reward
of tarrying in silent communion with Him.
My dear friend! has death to you dwindled to a very little thing? Can
you say that you are quite sure that it will not touch your truest
self? Are you able to leave the alternative in His hands, content with
His decision and content with the uncertainty that wraps His decision?
Can you say,
'Lord! It belongs not to my care,
Whether I die or live'?
The answer to these questions is involved in the answer to the
other:--Have you trusted your sinful soul for salvation to Jesus
Christ, and are you drawing from Him a life which bears fruit in glad
service and in patient communion? Then it will not much matter whether
you are in heaven or on earth, for in both places and states the
essence of your life will be the same, your Companion one, and your
work identical. If it be 'Christ' for me to live it will be 'gain' for
me to die.