2 Kings 20:1-3 - Homiletics

Aspects of death.

We may look on death from three points of view—that of the natural man, unenlightened by Divine revelation; that of the Israelite under the Law; and that of the Christian. The contemplation will be wholesome, for we are all too apt to turn our thoughts away from any consideration of the grim enemy, who will certainly have to be met and encountered one day.

I. DEATH FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE NATURAL MAN . By nature man has an absolute horror of death. Self-preservation is the first law of his being. He will suffer anything, he will do anything, to avoid death. Death is in his eyes a fierce monster, cruel, relentless, detestable. To live may be hard, grievous, wretched, scarcely tolerable; but to die is wholly intolerable. It is to exchange the bright pure light of day for absolute darkness, or at best for a dim, dull, murky region in which souls wander without aim or hope. It is to be cut off from all that is known, customary, intelligible, and to be thrown into a world unknown, unfamiliar, full of terrors. It is to lose all energy, all vigor, all robustness, all sense of power. In the "happy hunting-fields," the shade of the living man may still pursue the unsubstantial forms of elk, or deer, or antelope; but the sport is a poor and colorless replica of that pursued on earth, and is anticipated with but little satisfaction. Better, in the eyes of the natural man, to live on earth, even as slave or hireling, the hardest of all possible earthly lives, than to hold the kingship of the world below and rule over the entire realm of shadows. In the vigor of his youth and early manhood the natural man forgets death, views it as so distant that the fear of it scarcely affects him sensibly; but let the shadow be suddenly cast across his path, and he starts from it with a cry of terror. He can, indeed, meet it without blenching in the battle-field, when his blood is hot, and to the last he does not know whether he will slay his foe, or his foe him; but if he has to die, he accepts his death as a miserable necessity. It is hateful to him to die; it is still more hateful to be cut off in his prime, while he is still strong, vigorous, lusty. It is not till old age comes on, and his arm grows weak, and his eye dim, that he can look on death without loathing. Then, perhaps, he may accept the necessity without protest, feeling that actual death can be little worse than the death-in-life whereto he has come.

II. DEATH FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE ISRAELITE . The Israelite had not very much advantage over the natural man in respect of the contemplation of death. But little was revealed to him concerning the life beyond the grave. He knew , indeed, that his life did not end everything, that he would certainly go down to Sheol when he died, and there have a continued existence; but Sheol presented itself to him in as dismal colors as Hades did to the Greek. "The living, the living shall praise thee; Sheol cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee," cried Hezekiah from his bed of sickness ( Isaiah 38:18 , Isaiah 38:19 ). Thus the Israelite too shrank from death, not merely instinctively, but as a sad and poor condition compared with life. And untimely death was even more hateful to him than to the natural man, since under the Mosaic dispensation it was declared to be a mark of the displeasure of God. "The fear of the Lord prolongeth days; but the years of the wicked shall be shortened" said Solomon ( Proverbs 10:27 ). "Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days," sang David ( Psalms 55:23 ). Long life was a gift repeatedly promised to the righteous ( Proverbs 3:2 , Proverbs 3:16 ; Proverbs 9:10 , Proverbs 9:11 ; Psalms 91:16 , etc.); and when a man found himself struck down by a dangerous disease in his middle age, it seemed to him, and to those about him, that he must have sinned grievously, and so brought down upon himself God's anger. Still more bitter was the feeling of one who was cut off in mid life, if he was childless. Then the man's name was "clean put out;" his memorial perished with him; he had no more part or lot in Israel, no more inheritance among his brethren. Thus death remained a terror and a calamity, even to the most religious Jew, until, about the time of Daniel, the doctrine of the resurrection began to be preached ( Daniel 12:1-3 ), and the life beyond the grave to take a more cheerful aspect.

III. DEATH FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE CHRISTIAN . The whole relation of death to life and of life to death became changed by the revelation made to man in Christ. Then for the first time were "life and immortality" fully "brought to light." Then first it appeared that earth was a mere sojourning-place for those who were here as "strangers and pilgrims" upon it, having "no continuing city." Then first were the joys of heaven painted in glowing hues, and men told that eye had not seen, nor ear heard, neither had it entered into the heart of man [to conceive], the things which God had prepared for those that love him" ( 1 Corinthians 2:9 ). No sensuous Paradise of earthly joys was depicted, no "Castle of Indolence," no mere haven of rest, but man's true home, the place and state for which he was created, where is his citizenship, where he will be reunited to those whom in life he loved, where his nature will be perfected, and where, above all, he will "be with Christ" ( Philippians 1:23 ), will "see God" ( 1 John 3:2 ), and "know even as he is known ' ( 1 Corinthians 13:12 ). The prospect of death thus, to the true Christian, lost all its terrors. "I am in a strait betwixt two," says St. Paul, "having a desire to depart , and be with Christ, which is far better " ( Philippians 1:23 ); and again, "I am willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord" ( 2 Corinthians 5:8 ). Natural shrinking there may be, for "the flesh is weak;" but thousands have triumphed over it, have sought martyrdom, have gone gladly to their deaths, and preferred to die. Even when there is no such exaltation of feeling, death is contemplated with calmness, as a passage to a better world—a world where there is no sorrow nor sighing ( Isaiah 35:10 ), where there is no sin, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest" ( Job 3:17 ). Untimely death from natural disease or accident is to the Christian no sign of God's displeasure, but rather an indication of the contrary. God takes to himself those whom he recognizes as fit to die, of whom it may be said that τελειωθέντες ἐν ὀλίγῳ ἐπλήρωσαν χρόνους μακρόυς . He takes them in love, not in wrath, to join the company of "the spirits of just men made perfect" ( Hebrews 12:23 ), to be among his "jewels" ( Isaiah 61:10 ; Malachi 3:17 ).