John Flavel · 25 of 34

Sermon 5. Heb. 12:23 · Part 11

I am convinced that very many of our afflictions come upon this score and account, to make us willing to die.

Is it not sad that God is forced to bring death upon all our comfortable and desirable things in this world, before he can gain our consent to be gone? Why will you put God upon such work as this? Why cannot he have your hearts at a cheaper rate? If you could die, many of your comforts, for ought I know, might live. Had Joab come to Absalom when he sent for him the first or second time, Absalom had never set his field of barley on fire, 2 Sam. xiv. 30. And were you more obedient to the will of God in this manner, it is likely he would not consume your health, and estates, and relations with such heavy strokes as he has done, and will yet farther do, except your wills be more compliant.

Alas! to cut off your comforts one after another, and make you live a groaning life, the Lord has no pleasure in it; but he had rather you should lose these things, than that he should lose your hearts on earth, or company in heaven: Impatiens aegrotus crudelem facit medicum.

Arg. 10. The decree of death cannot he reversed, nor is there any other ordinary passage for the soul into glory, but through the gates of death. Heb. ix. 27. "It is appointed for all men once to die, but after that the judgment."

There is but one way to pass out of the obscure, suffocating life in the womb, into the more free and nobler life in the world, viz. through the agonies of birth: and there is ordinarily but one way to pass from this sinning, groaning life we live in this world, to the enjoyment of God and the glory above, viz. through the agonies of death. You must cast off this mean, this vile body, before you can be happy. Heaven cannot come down to you, you cannot see God and live, Exod. xxxiii. 20. It would certainly confound and break you to pieces, like an earthen pitcher, should God but ray forth his glory upon you in the state you now are in; and it is sure you cannot expect the extraordinary favour of such a translation as Enoch had, Heb. xi. 4. nor as those believers shall have that shall be found alive at Christ’s coming, 1 Thess. iv. 17. You must go the common road that all the saints go; but though you cannot avoid, you must sweeten it. God will not reverse his decree, but you may, and ought to arm yourselves against the fears of it. Ahasuerus would not recall the proclamation he had emitted against the Jews, but he gave them full liberty to take up arms to defend themselves against their enemies. It is much so here, the sentence cannot be revoked; but yet God gives you leave, yea, he commands you to arm yourselves against death, and defy it, and trample it under the feet of faith.

Arg. 11. When you find your hearts reluctant at the thoughts of leaving the body, and the comforts of this world, then consider how willingly and cheerfully Jesus Christ left heaven, and the bosom of his Father, to come down to this world for your sakes, Prov. viii. 30, 81. Ps. xl. 7. Lo, I come, &c.

O compare the frames of your hearts with his, in this point, and shame yourselves out of so unbecoming a temper of spirit.

(1.) He left heaven and all the delights and glory of it, to come down to this world to be abased and humbled to the lowest; you leave this world of sin and misery to ascend to heaven, to be exalted to the highest. He came hither to be impoverished, you go thither to be enriched, 2 Cor. viii. 9. yet he came willingly, and we go grudgingly.

(2.) He came from heaven to earth, to be made sin for us, 2 Cor. v. 21. We go from earth to heaven, to be fully and everlastingly delivered from sin; yet he came more willingly to bear our sins, than we go to be delivered from them.

(3.) He came to take a body of flesh, to suffer and die in it, Heb. ii. 24. you leave your bodies that you may never suffer in, or by them any more.

(4.) As his incarnation was a deep abasement, so his death was the most bitter death that ever was tasted by any from the beginning, or ever shall be to the end of the world; and yet how obediently does he submit to both at the Father’s call, Luke xii. 50. "I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" Ah Christian, your death cannot have the ten thousandth part of that bitterness in it that Christ’s had. I remember one of the martyrs being asked, why his heart was so light at death? returned this answer, because Christ’s heart was so heavy at his death. O there is a vast difference between the one and the other; the wrath of God, and the curse of the law were in his death, Gal. iii. 18. but there is neither wrath nor curse in their death who die in the Lord, Rom. viii. 1.

God forsook him when he hanged upon the tree in the agonies of death, Mat. xxviii. 46. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But you shall not be forsaken; He will make all your bed in sickness, Phil. xii. 8. He will never leave you, nor forsake you, Heb. xiii. 5.

Yet he regretted not, but went as a sheep or lamb, Isa. liii. 7. O reason yourselves out of this reluctance at death, by this great example and pattern of obedience.

Arg. 12. Lastly, Let no Christian be affrighted at death, considering that the death of Christ is the death of death, and has utterly disarmed it of all its destructive power.

If you tremble when you look upon death, yet you cannot but triumph when you look believingly upon Christ.

For, (1.) Christ died (O believer) for your sins, Rom. iv. 25. His death was an expiatory sacrifice for all your guilt, Gal. iii. 13. so that you shall not die in your sins: The pangs of death may, and must be on your outward man, but the guilt of sin and the condemnation of God shall not lie upon your inner man.

(2.) The death of Christ, in your room, has utterly destroyed the power of death, which once was in the hand of Satan, Heb. ii. 24. Col. ii. 14, 15. His power was not authoritative, but executive; not as the power of a king; but of a sheriff; which is none at all when a pardon is produced.

(a.) Christ has assured us, that his victory over death shall be complete in our persons. It is already a complete personal victory in respect of himself, Rom. vi. 9. He dies no more, death has no more dominion over him. It is all incomplete victory already as to our persons. It can dissolve the union of our souls and bodies, but the union between Christ and our souls it can never dissolve, Rom. 8:38, 39. And as for the power it still retains over our dust, that also shall be destroyed at the resurrection, 1 Cor. 15:25, 26, compared with ver. 54, 55, 56, 57, so that there is no cause for any soul in Christ to tremble at the thought of a separation from the body, but rather to embrace it as a privilege: Death is ours.

O that these arguments might prevail! O that they might at last win the consent of our hearts to go along with death; which is the messenger sent by God to bring us home to our Father’s house.

But I doubt, when all is said, we are where we were: all this suffices not to overcome the regrets and reluctancies of nature; still the matter sticks in our minds, and we cannot conquer our disinclined wills in this matter. What is the matter? Where lies the rubs and hindrances? O that God would remove them at last!

Objection 1. This is a common plea with many, I am not ready and fit to die; were I ready, I should be willing to be gone.

Solution (1.) How long soever you live in the body, there will be somewhat still out of order, something still to do; for you must lie in a state of imperfection while you remain here, and according to this plea, you will never be willing to die. (a.) Your willingness to lie dissolved and to be with Christ, is one special part of your fitness for death: and till you attain it in some good measure, you are not so fit to die as you should be. (3.) If you be in Christ you have a fundamental fitness for death, though you may want some circumstantial preparatives. And as to all that is wanting in your sanctification or obedience now, it will be completed in a moment upon your dissolution.

Object. 2. Others plead that the desire they have to live, is in order to God’s further service by them in this world. O. say they, it was David’s happiness to die, when he had served his generation according to the will of God: Acts xiii. 86. If we had done so too, we should say with Simeon, "Now lettest thou your servant depart in peace."

Sol. (1.) God needs not your hands to carry on his service in the world; he can do it by other hands when you are gone. Many of greater gifts and graces than you, are daily laid in the grave, to teach you, God needs no man’s help to carry on his work.

(2.) If the service of God be so dear to you, there is higher and more excellent service for you in heaven, than any you ever were, or can be employed in here on earth. Oh! why do not you long to be amidst the company of angels and spirits made perfect in the templeservice in heaven?

Object. 3. O. but my relations in the world lie near my heart, what will become of them when I am gone?

Sol. (1.) It is pity they should lie nearer your heart than Jesus Christ: If they do, you have little reason to desire death indeed.

(2.) Who took care of you, when death snatched your dear relations from you, who possibly felt the same workings of heart that you now do? Did you not experience the truth of that word, Psal. xxii. 10. "When father and mother forsake me, then the Lord taketh me up." And if you be in the covenant, God has prevented this plea with his promise, Jer. xlix. 11. "Leave your fatherless children to me, I will keep them alive; and let their widows trust in me."

Object. 4. But I desire to live to see the felicity of Zion before I go hence, and the answer of the many prayers I have sown for it; I am loath to leave the people of God in so sad a condition.

Sol. The publicness of your spirit, and love to Zion, is doubtless pleasing to God; hut it is better for you to be in heaven one day, than to live over again all the days you have lived on earth in the best time that ever the church of God enjoyed in this world; the promises shall be accomplished, though you may not live to see their accomplishment; die you in the faith of it, as Joseph did, Gen. 1. 24.

But, alas! the matter does not stick here: this is not the main hindrance. I will tell you where I think it lies: (1.) In the hesitancy and staggering of our faith about the certainty and reality of things invisible. (2.) In some special guilt upon the conscience, which discourages us. (3.) In a negligent and careless course of life, which is not ordinarily blessed with much evidence or comfort. (4.) In the deep engagements of our hearts to earthly things: they could not be so cold to Christ, if they were not overheated with other things. Till these distempers be cured, no arguments can prosper that are spent to this end. The Lord dissolve all those ties between us and this world, which hinder our consent and willingness to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, which is far better.

And now we have had a glance and glimmering light, a faint umbrage of the state of the separated souls of the Just in heaven: it remains that I show you somewhat of the state and case of the damned souls in hell. A dreadful representation it is, but it is necessary we hear of hell, that we may not feel it.