Jeremiah 12:5 If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? and if in the land of peace… I. This is an EXCEEDINGLY PRACTICAL QUESTION. How wilt thou do? is the inquiry. There are some subjects which are more or less matters of pure faith and personal feeling; and though all Christian doctrines bear more or less directly upon the Christian life, yet they are not what is commonly meant by practical subjects. Our text, however, brings us face to face with a matter which is essentially a matter of doing and of acting: it asks how we mean to conduct ourselves in the hour of death. Christians may differ from me on some points, but I am sure that here we are united in belief — we must die, and ought not to die unprepared. II. It is UNDOUBTEDLY A PERSONAL QUESTION. How wilt "thou" do? It individualises us, and makes us each one to come face to face with a dying hour. Now we all need this, and it will be well for each one of us to look for a minute into the grave. We are too apt to regard all men as mortal but ourselves. The ancient warrior who wept because before a hundred years were passed he knew his immense army would be gone, and not a man remain behind to tell the tale, would have been wiser if he had wept also for himself, and left alone his bloody wars, and lived as a man who must one day die, and find after death a day of judgment. Each one of you must die. We all come into the world one by one, and will go out of it also alone. We had better therefore take the question up as individuals, seeing that it is one in which we shall be dealt with singly, and be unable then to claim or use the help of an earthly friend. III. It is one of the MOST SOLEMN questions. Death and life are stern and awful realities. To say that anything "is a matter of life and death," is to bring one of the most emphatic and solemn subjects under our notice. Now, the question we are considering is of this character, and we must deal with it as it becomes us, when we investigate a subject involving the everlasting interest of souls. IV. This question was put by way of REBUKE to the prophet Jeremiah. He seems to have been a little afraid of the people among whom he dwelt. They had evidently persecuted him very much, and laughed him to scorn; but God tells him to make his face like flint, and not to care for them, for, says He, If thou art afraid of them, "how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" This ought to be a rebuke to every Christian who is subject to the fear of man. There is an old proverb, that "he is a great fool that is laughed out of his coat," and there was an improvement on it, that "he was a greater fool who was laughed out of his skin"; and there is another, that "he is the greatest fool of all who is laughed out of his soul." He that will be content to be damned in order to be fashionable, pays dear indeed for what he gets. Oh, to dare to be singular, if to be singular is to be right; but if you are afraid of man, what will you do in the swelling of Jordan? The same rebuke might be applied to us when we get fretful under the little troubles of life. You have losses in business, vexations in the family — you have all crosses to carry — but my text comes to you, and it says, "If you cannot bear this, how will you do in the swelling of Jordan?" When one of the martyrs, whose name is the somewhat singular one of Pommily, was confined previous to his burning, his wife was also taken up upon the charge of heresy. She, good woman, had resolved to die with her husband, and she appeared, as far as most people could judge, to be very firm in her faith. But the jailer's wife, though she had no religion, took a merciful view of the case as far as she could do so, and thought, "I am afraid this woman will never stand the test, she will never burn with her husband, she has neither faith nor strength enough to endure the trial"; and therefore, one day calling her out from her cell, she said to her, "Lass, run to the garden and fetch me the key that lies there." The poor woman ran willingly enough; she took the key up and it burned her fingers, for the jailer's wife had made it red hot; she came running back crying with pain. "Ay, wench," said she, "if you cannot bear a little burn in your hand, how will you bear to be burned in your whole body?" and this, I am sorry to add, was the means of bringing her to recant the faith which she professed, but which never had been in her heart. I apply the story thus: If we cannot bear the little trifling pangs which come upon us in our ordinary circumstances, which are but as it were the burning of your hands, what shall we do when every pulse beats pain, and every throb is an agony, and the whole tenement begins to crumble about the spirit that is so soon to be disturbed? V. The question may be put as A MATTER OF CAUTION. There are some who have no hope, no faith in Christ. Now I think, if they will look within at their own experience, they will find that already they are by no means completely at ease. The pleasures of this world are very sweet; but how soon they cloy, if they do not sicken the appetite. After the night of merriment there is often the morning of regret. "Who hath woe? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine." It is an almost universal confession that the joys of earth promise more than they perform, and that in looking back upon them, the wisest must confess with Solomon, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Now if these things seem to be vanity while you are in good bodily health, how will they look when you are in sickness? If vanity while you can enjoy them, what will they appear when you must say farewell to them all? VI. I use the question as EXCITING MEDITATION in the breasts of those who have given their hearts to Christ, and who consequently are prepared to die whenever the summons may come. Well, what do we mean to do, how shall we behave ourselves when we come to die? I sat down to try and think this matter over, but I cannot, in the short time allotted to me, even give you a brief view of the thoughts that passed through my mind. I began thus, "How shall I do in the swelling of Jordan?" Well, as a believer in Christ, perhaps, I may never come there at all, for there are some that will be alive and remain at the coming of the Son of Man, and these will never die. A sweet truth, which we place first in our meditation. I may not sleep, but I must and shall be changed. Then I thought again, "How shall I do in the swelling of Jordan?" I may go through it in the twinkling of an eye. When Ananias, martyr, knelt to lay his white head upon the block, it was said to him as he closed his eyes to receive the stroke, "Shut thine eyes a little, old man, and immediately thou shalt see the light of God." I could envy such a calm departing. Sudden death, sudden glory; taken away in Elijah's chariot of fire, with the horses driven at the rate of lightning, so that the spirit scarcely knows that it has left the clay, before it sees the brightness of the beatific vision. Well, that may take away — some of the alarm of death, the thought that we may not be even a moment in the swelling of Jordan. Then again, I thought, if I must pass through the swelling of Jordan, yet the real act of death takes no time. We hear of suffering on a dying bed; the suffering is all connected with life, it is not death. A dying bed is sometimes very painful; with certain diseases, and especially with strong men, it is often hard for the body and soul to part asunder. But it has been my happy lot to see some deaths so extremely pleasing, that I could not help remarking, that it were worth while living, only for the sake of dying as some have died. Well, then, as I cannot tell in what physical state I may be when I come to die, I just tried to think again, how shall I do in the swelling of the Jordan? I hope I shall do as others have done before me, who have built on the same rock, and had the same promises to be their succour. They cried "Victory!" So shall I, and after that die quietly and in peace. If the same transporting scene may not be mine, I will at least lay my head upon my Saviour's bosom, and breathe my life out gently there. VII. "How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" may be well used by way of WARNING. You grant that you will die, and you may die soon. Is it not foolish to be living in this world without a thought of what you will do at last? A man goes into an inn, and as soon as he sits down he begins to order his wine, his dinner, his bed; there is no delicacy in season which he forgets to bespeak, there is no luxury which he denies himself. He stops at the inn for some time. By and by there comes in a bill, and he says, "Oh, I never thought of that — I never thought of that." "Why," says the landlord, "here is a man who is either a born fool or else a knave. What I never thought of the reckoning — never thought of settling day!" And yet this is how some of you live. You have this, and that, and the other thing in this world's inn (for it is nothing but an inn) and you have soon to go your way, and yet you have never thought of settling day! "Well," says one, "I was casting up my accounts this morning." Yes, I remember a minister making this remark when he heard of one that east up his accounts on Sunday. He said, "I hope that is not true, sir." "Yes," he said, "I do cast up my accounts on Sunday." "Ah, well," he said, "the day of judgment will be spent in a similar manner — in casting up accounts, and it will go ill with those people who found no other time in which to serve themselves except the time which was given them that they might serve God." You have either been a dishonest man, or else you must be supremely foolish, to be spending every day in this world's inn, and yet to be ignoring the thought of the great day of account. But remember, though you forget it, God forgets not. VIII. Before I close I must guide your thoughts to what is THE TRUE PREPARATION FOR DEATH. Three things present themselves to my mind as being our duty in connection with the dying hour. First seek to be washed in the Red Sea of the dear Redeemer's blood, come in contact with the death of Christ, and by faith in it you will be prepared to meet your own. Again, learn of the Apostle Paul to die "daily." Practise the duty of self-denial and mortifying of the flesh till it shall become a habit with you, and when you have to lay down the flesh and part with everything, you will be only continuing the course of life you have pursued all along. And as the last preparation for the end of life, I should advise a continual course of active service and obedience to the command of God. I have frequently thought that no happier place to die in could be found than one's post of duty. If I were a soldier, I think I should like to die as Wolfe died, with victory shouting in my ear, or as Nelson died, in the midst of his greatest success. Preparation for death does not mean going alone into the chamber and retiring from the world, but active service, doing the duty of the day in the day." The best preparation for sleep, the healthiest soporific, is hard work, and one of the best things to prepare us for sleeping in Jesus, is to live in Him an active life of going about doing good. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? |
    |