Death the Gate of Life
F. B. Meyer

"In the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight."
(Hos. 6:2)

It was beneath the inspiration of such thoughts as these, that my friends clasped each other's hands, and looking steadfastly up to Christ, dared reverently and trustfully to say,'"Lord, we choose death; let us drink of Thy cup, and be baptized with Thy baptism, if only we may have Thy life abundantly." It was a great thing to say—but, after all, is it not what each of us should say to Him, who has passed through the grave to the glory of the Risen Iife, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps, and in whom God reckons that we have died already? "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death ?" and does not that initial act of our religion accept that position which is ours in God's purpose, and write the sentence of death on all our existence? We must not court death—we must not invent ingenious methods of dying. But we are to yield ourselves into the hands of the Living One that became dead, asking Him to lead us as He will, sure that He can make no mistake; and that in proportion to our deep planting together in the dark soil of death will be the wealth and radiance of colour in our common after-life.

We must die to self-complacency. —The first step in the education of some village lad, who gives evidence of the artist's gift, which has already made him the idol of the rustics around, is to introduce him to the masterpieces of human genius, that he may be fit to die of shame, when any shall mention his own rude daubs. And the first step in the education of the spirit is to break down all conceit in its own goodness. This is the lesson of the Book of Job. At the outset Job accounts himself the perfect man, and stoutly protests his innocence against the accusations of his friends; but at the close, when he has seen the holiness of God; he confesses himself vile. Any kind of self-esteem on account of our superiority to others, of the sensitiveness of our conscience, or of our very humility and modesty, must be denied and offered to death.

We must die to our own method of justification. —We are all anxious to stand right with God's law. We allege excuses why we have Sinned as we have done. We blame our parents, our temperament, or our circumstances. We try to compensate by the makeweight of good things we do, or evil things we avoid. Like Cain, we come before God with the fruit of the earth, produced and ripened by our assiduous care. And so long as this is our case, we are not only in a state of condemnation before God, but we shut ourselves out of that blessed redemption which has been wrought out for us in the Person and Work of Jesus.

We must die to our own method of sanctification. —This, at least, we think we can do. If only we are started right, we surely can keep so. We can at least be good, and pure, and gentle. Resolutions well made, the self-watch well kept, the temper of the soul well maintained by contact with noble ideals—surely these will suffice to maintain our spiritual life on the high level to which, at the outset, the Saviour lifted it. We start out as an army, with banners and bands, and gleaming armour; but we encounter nothing but disappointment and failure, and return at last defeated, disheartened, almost in despair. Ah, we must: die to our good self, arrayed in its Sunday best, as we once died to our bad self, dressed in rags !

We must die to our spiritual joys. —In the early stages of Christian living, our Father allures us forward with many moments of radiant sunshine and seasons of sacred· delight; but, alas! we get to cling to these rather than to Himself, and so it befalls that He is obliged to cut them off and to wean us, that we may turn to Himself, to find
what we could never find in His gifts.

We must die to our self-energy in Christian work. —How much there is of this in us all ! We are more taken up in doing things for Christ than with Christ Himself; as if a wife should be so occupied in doing acts of service for her husband, that she neglected communion with him in the twilight, beneath the trellis-work of the porch, or in the glow of the winter fire. How much of natural impetuosity, of ambition, of dependence on our own schemes, of resolve to do as others have done, of yearning for notice and patronage, there is in all our Christian work! To see the result; to know that you are effecting something; to feel that you are exercising an influence in the moulding of men--all this is such a temptation, diverting us from the simplicity and unobtrusiveness of the highest form of work.

We must die to excess in what is right. —Of course we must he crucified to all that is wrong; but our difficulty will often lie with what is in itself innocent and right. Human affection ; the love of wife or child, of parent or friend; the desire to know; the power of conversation; the play of poetry, imagination, and genius. All these things are precious and inestimable gifts, for which we should be always thankful, and for the proper use of which we shall be called to account. We have no right to bury any one of them in the napkin of neglect. We must rejoice in every good thing which the Lord our God has given. But we must never forget that there is as much danger through excess in a right direction, as through the least trespass in a wrong one. The excessive use of a right thing is its abuse; and is that sin of idolatry against which we are perpetually warned. Nothing will more certainly affect and hinder the work of God in the soul. We must learn self-restraint; to be still; to die to our impetuosity and excess.

There are times when we are called upon to die to what is natural and right in others, but which we must renounce for some special purpose. —The right hand, or foot, or eye, may cause us to stumble; and in this case we must be willing to dispense with them. Or we may be specially called on to undertake some mission, which will involve our leaving father and mother, and wife and children, and lands. But these demands do not come to all; and when they seem to come, we must carefully wait to ascertain beyond a doubt what may be the precise will of God. It is His business to explain His will to the obedient soul; and until we are certain of it, we must keep still, and wait patiently for Him.

Dying is neither easy nor pleasant. —The Master did not find it so, nor shall we. To learn that your righteousnesses are as filthy rags; to be reduced to take the gift of forgiveness on the same terms as the meanest and vilest sinner; to find that it is impossible to realize your cherished ideals; to discover that God wants neither your wisdom nor strength, but your helplessness in His work;to be content to lose all the bright manifestation of God's favour; to lay your Isaac upon the altar, your dearest, most cherished, most God-given possession; to turn aside from some gate standing open before you into a sunlit garden, and at the call of God to take a darker, stonier pathway; to renounce what others hold without rebuke; to go to Gethsemane, and Calvary, and the grave, in close companionship with the Man of Sorrows; to be stripped of friends, and wealth, and reputation, and success; flung like a shipwrecked mariner on some lone shore—ah ! this is not the lot which we would naturally select. Nay, it is that from which we shrink.

But we are not called upon to experience the whole of this at once. —Many pass through life knowing comparatively little of it. Others know only the earlier stages. And for such as are called to drink this cup to its dregs, it is diluted in its preliminary experiences. The

Let us look, not on the dying side, but on the living side. —Each shadow has its light; each valley its height; each night its dawn; each wound of the oyster-shell its pearl; each kind of death its counterpart of life.

Above all, trust the lead of Jesus. —"He will revive us; He will raise us up; and we shall live in His sight." He knows every step of the way through the dark valley; because, as the Captain of Salvation, He has been obliged to traverse it with each son whom He has brought to glory. While the heart is breaking, He yearns with tender pity over the bleeding member of His own body. The knife which cuts into our flesh pierces His heart. Lean heavily on His arm. He is with you, feeling for you infinitely, though you cannot see Him. It is impossible for Him to take one false step, or inflict one needless stab of pain.

And out of alI this will come the more abundant life. —Suffering at first isolates us; but afterwards it links us in the closest bonds with all who are sitting on the hard benches of the school of sorrow. We learn to comfort them with the comfort with which we have ourselves been comforted of God. The water streams from the smitten rock. flower springs from the dead seed. The crystal river flows from the melting glacier. The bright gold emerges from the dark mine and the cleansing fires. As the marble wastes beneath the sculptor's chisel, and falls in a shower of splinters to the floor, the image grows in its fair and perfect beauty.

--Taken from "The Future Tenses of the Blessed Life"

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