STABILITY IN THE PRESENCE OF DEATH
J. Mair
I am impressed, dear brethren, with the stability that enters into our souls on an occasion such as this. Instability marks the whole scene through which we pass, but here we have a scene of stability. The field that our brother referred to was assured to Abraham for a possession. The Lord Jesus has been pleased to put our sister to sleep and no one can challenge His right. Who would dare to? It is His own personal service, “asleep through Jesus”, and then at His coming He will yet serve her as He will serve each one of His own. He will not delegate the service to an angel, but “The Lord himself, with an assembling shout, with archangel’s voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air”. It is the personal service of Christ.
I recall visiting our sister a few weeks ago and the last audible words we heard in her weakness were, ‘Jesus is becoming more precious’. Can you and I say that in the presence of death? Do we know Him as the resurrection and the life? Can we say in the presence of the article of death, in the assurance of our souls, that Jesus is becoming ever more precious to us? Think of the stability of the position. It says of Abraham, “the father of all them that believe …” (Romans 4: 11), that he believed God and He reckoned it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15: 6). You and I come in in the same way. The assurance of an eternity of glory with our Lord Jesus is in coming the same way as Abraham, who believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, Romans 4: 3. It is the righteousness of faith, another kind of righteousness, not by works nor by the law, but righteousness of faith.
The position is stable. What does Mamre speak of? Stability. Earlier in this book Abraham was sitting by the oaks of Mamre (Genesis 18: 1). Think of what came to him there in the stability of his own soul, and that belongs to us, in stability, as we recognise our precious links with Christ in what He has achieved through going into death and rising again. Mamre antedates the whole world system and it is assured to us on the principle of faith. O, dear brethren, what stability this gives! Our brother referred to the verse, “Precious in the sight of Jehovah is the death of his saints”. What assurance it gives us when we know that the power of death, which no human power could challenge, has been challenged and met by that glorious Man who is at the right hand of God and who is about to come for His saints. O that each one here, in the inward secret of their souls, may be conscious of this link with Christ, the One who is going to exercise His power in love to raise our sister from the grave.
It says that the cave that was in the field was “assured to Abraham for a possession of a sepulchre by the sons of Heth”. Our hymn (No. 375) said—
‘Thy precious blood the purchase price
To be with Thee in paradise’.
The field was purchased for four hundred shekels of silver. Who can challenge the Lord’s rights in a situation like this? It is a position unshakable and unchallengeable. We can rest our souls, dear brethren, on what our blessed Lord Jesus has done. Our brother referred to the cave that is in the field, and we are about to lay our sister in the grave; we commit her body to the Lord until that glorious resurrection day. It says “the cave that was in it, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all its borders round about, were assured to Abraham for a possession”. Think of that, the trees that were in its borders, that which is distinctly defined, the living saints there in testimony, to put it in current language. Today there is a distinct border marked out by the trees, “The trees of the Lord are full of sap”. Psalm 104: 16 (A.V.), like our sister going out in a ripe age. The trees of the Lord are full of sap and clearly define the borders of Abraham’s possession. O, dear brethren, what comfort, what assurance this begets in our souls! May the Lord bless the word.
Words at the burial of Mrs. K. Gardiner at Cullen
25 September 1975