It would be very difficult, I think, to put a more serious question to
ourselves than this, _What is to become of its after death_?
All of us, I daresay, know from experience what is meant by
thoughtlessness or indifference about our state for ever. There are,
no doubt, some who, from having had a godly upbringing in their youth,
or at least religious instruction, have always thought more or less
about what would become of their souls. Perhaps these thoughts made
them uneasy, afraid, or anxious; but still they were often in their
mind, especially in times of sickness, or when death came near their
doors, or any event occurred which obliged them to think of eternity,
and of what might happen to themselves if they were to die suddenly,
and appear before God. But there are others, again, who seem never at
any time to have had a serious thought about their life after death.
They have, perhaps, not had the same advantage with those I have been
speaking of, but from infancy have lived among worldly-minded people,
who gave the impression, by their conversation and general conduct, on
week-days and Sundays, that this world was everything, and the next
world nothing; that this world alone was real; and that man's chief
end was to labour in it, and for it alone, to make money in it, be
happy in it, get everything for self out of it, and, as a matter of
hard necessity, at last die in it, and go from it--Whither? Ah! who
could tell _that?_--who ever thought of _that?_ To them it seemed that
death ended all that was reality, and began all that was visionary.
But whether early education is to blame, certain it is that many
people do come to this state. They seem stoneblind to the future. Not
one ray of light gets an entrance into their spirits from the great
and eternal world, on whose confines they every moment live. They
think, fear, hope, rejoice, plan, and purpose; but always about this
world,--never about the other! To rise in the morning; to be occupied
during the day; to buy and sell, and get gain; to talk on politics or
trade; to gossip about people, and all they speak or do; to marry or
give in marriage; to have this meeting or that parting; to give a
feast or partake of one; to fear sickness, and to keep it off; or to
be sick, and to try and get better:--all this sort of life, down to
its veriest trifles, they understand and sympathise with, and busy
themselves about. But what of God and Christ?--of eternal joy or
sorrow?--of how a man should live to God, please Him, enjoy Him, love
Him, and walk daily in fellowship with Him? What of such questions
as,--What shall become of us in eternity? What shall we do to be
saved? How shall we obtain life eternal? How shall we fulfil the end
of our being? All this--oh, strange mystery!--has no interest to them.
These thoughts, or any like these, never cross their mind, perhaps,
from morning till night, or from the first till the last day of the
year. They may, perhaps, have heard these words, read them in books,
or heard ministers speak them from the pulpit on Sunday, and they know
that the words have to do with what they call "religion," but never
think they have to do with what awfully concerns themselves! They are
words, but not about realities; or if they express realities, yet
realities which belong to some world of mist, and cloud, and darkness,
far, far away--one not nearly so real as this world of their own, made
up of fields and barns, streets and shops, sea and ships, friends and
action! But what, let me ask, separates us from that world which we
think to be so very far off--so very unreal? The thin coat of an
artery! No more! Let the thin pipe burst through which our life-blood
is now coursing in the full play of health, and where then will our
present world, now so very real, be to us? In a single second it will
have vanished for ever from our grasp, like something we clutch at
in the visions of the night. And where then will that other world be
which to many is now so dim and unreal as not to be worth thinking
about? We, the same living persons, will be in it--in the midst of
all its realities; and with these we shall have to do, and with these
only, for ever and ever.
But many people do not _wish_ to think about the unseen future. It is
not so much that _no_ thoughts about it intrude themselves upon their
minds, as that all such thoughts are deliberately banished. It is with
the eternal future as with anything which here gives them pain,--they
"hate to think about it." This, of course, arises from the suspicion,
or rather the conviction, that it cannot be a good future to them.
They have read enough about it from the Bible to make it alarming. At
all events, they have no security for its being to them as happy as
the present; and so, whether from a fearful looking for of judgment,
because of their sins, or from ignorance of the means of salvation,
or from unbelief in the good-will of God as ready to save them, the
result is, that they voluntarily shut their eyes to, and banish all
thought of, eternity. It pains them--it agonises them--to put the
question, "What is to become of me when I die?" And the more pain the
question gives them, the more they fly to the world, and occupy their
minds with its society, its amusements, and even its dissipation and
debaucheries, in order to banish care and snatch a fleeting joy. O my
brother, if you so act, from my soul I feel for you and pity you! For
the sick-bed is coming, and you may be compelled to think there; and
if so, you are treasuring up tenfold agony for yourself, by your
present off-putting apathy and wilful thoughtlessness. And should
you manage, even in the time of sickness, and up to the very hour
of death, to shut out the future from your mind; should long and
inveterate habit enable you to succeed in the terrible, suicidal
experiment, so that you shall die as you have lived--fearing nothing,
because believing nothing,--can you avoid entering the other world?
Can you prevent a meeting between yourself and your God; or silence an
accusing conscience for ever; or hinder Christ from coming to judge
the world; or fly from the judgment-seat, and by any possibility delay
or prevent a minute examination of your life; or stay the sentence
which the omniscient and holy Judge shall pronounce upon you? And if
you cannot do this,--and if, rather, every power, faculty, and emotion
of your heart and soul must one day be roused to the intensest pitch
of earnestness about your eternal destiny,--do you not think it wise,
my brother, to think about all this now?--_now_, when there is a
remedy, rather than _then_, when there is none?
This suggests another reason why possibly you hate to think about the
future. Not only are you conscious of want of any preparedness for it,
but you do not see how it can be much better with you. You have, in a
word, lost confidence in God--have no faith in His good-will to _you_.
You think of Him--if you think of Him at all--as one who watches you
with a jealous or angry eye; who has no wish that you should be better
or happier than you are; or who, if He can save you, will not; or who,
if He will, offers to do so only on such hard and impossible terms
as to make it practically the same as if there was no salvation
for _you_. In one word, you suspect God hates you, or at least is
indifferent to you--if, indeed, He knows anything at all about you,
which you are not quite sure of! It is very shocking to write such
things: but it is much more shocking that any one should think or
believe such things; for he who so thinks and believes is as yet
profoundly ignorant of God. What is called God, is as unlike Him who
is the living and true God as is any hideous idol in a heathen temple.
But this ignorance breeds fear--and fear, hate--and hate increases the
fear, until the future, in which this God must be met, is put away as
a horrible thing, or never thought of at all.
But, my brother, why should you thus think of God, and so fear to
think of the future? Read only what the Bible says of Him, and learn
what true Christians know of Him, and listen honestly to how your
own conscience responds to all you hear about Him, and then consider
whether you can conceive of one more glorious in his character, or
more worthy of your love. Peruse the history of Jesus Christ, and tell
me anything He ever said or did calculated to fill your heart with
fear or hate towards Him,--and remember, that he who sees Him sees the
Father. Think of all Jesus suffered as our atoning Saviour, and all
"to bring us to God." Think of all God has promised to those who will
only trust Him through Jesus,--the pardon of all sin, and the gift
of a new heart; with everything which can do them good, or make them
happy; and say, How can this make you dislike God? Think of all He has
given you since you were born,--friends and relations, health of body,
powers of mind, much time, many happy days, innumerable mercies and
sources of enjoyment; think how liberally, ungrudgingly, He has opened
His hand; think what patience, forbearance, kindness, He has shewn,
and what the eternal future has in store for all who love Him; and
tell me, What has _He_ done to make you dislike Him? Reflect on what
He _could_ have done and could do, if He disliked you as you dislike
Him, and say, How can you continue in your enmity? O my brother, "Only
believe!" Believe that "God _is_ love." Believe that "in this is
manifested the love of God, that He gave His Son to be a propitiation
for our sins." Believe that He willeth not that any should
perish,--that He has no pleasure in the death of sinners,--that He
is ready to forgive,--that this is the record, that "God hath given
eternal life." Believe--trust in God for the good, the whole good, the
most perfect good, that of a child's heart and sincere love towards
Him, which He seeks in you--trust God for this through faith in
Christ, and in the mighty power of that Spirit who is love; and
depend upon it, when you _know God_, and see how excellent He is, and
understand His love to you, and what He is willing to make you, and to
give you, and, above all, when you know what _He himself will be to
you_ for ever, you surely cannot choose but Him! and "_there is no
fear in love; because fear hath torment!_"