Living or Dead? A Series of Home Truths

“YOU HATH HE QUICKENED WHO WERE DEAD.

Ephesians ii. 1.

Reader, —

Look at the words before your eyes, and ponder them well. Search your own heart, and do not lay down this paper without solemn self-inquiry. I meet you this day with one simple question, — Are you among the living, or among the dead?

Listen to me while I try to help you to an answer. Give me your attention, while I unfold this matter, and show you what God has said about it in the Scriptures. If I say hard things, it is not because I do not love you. I write as I do, because I desire your salvation. He is your best friend, who tells you the most truth.

I. First then, let me tell you what we all a?’e by nature, — we are DEAD!

“Dead” is a strong word, but it is not my own coining and invention. I did not choose it. The Holy Ghost told Paul to write it down about the Ephesians, — “You hath he quickened who were dead.” (Eph. ii. 1.) The Lord Jesus Christ naade use of it in the parable of the prodigal son, — “This my son was dead, and is alive again.” (Luke xv. 24, 32.) You will read it also in the Epistle to the Corinthians, — “One died for all, then were all dead.” (2 Cor. v. 14.) Shall a mortal man be wise above that which is written? Must I not take heed to speak that which I find in the Bible, and neither less nor more?

“Dead” is an awful idea, and one that man is most unwilling to receive. He does not like to allow the whole extent of his soul’s disease. He shuts his eyes to the real amount of his danger. Many a one will allow me to say that naturally most people “are not quite what they ought to be, — they are thoughtless, — they are unsteady, — they are gay, — they are wild, — they are not serious enough.” But dead? Oh! no! I must not mention it. It is going too far to say that. The idea is a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence.*

My dear Reader, what we like in religion is of very little consequence. The only question is — What is written? What saith the Lord? God’s thoughts are not man’s thoughts, and God’s words are not man’s words. God says of every living person, who is not a decided Christian, — be he high or low, rich or poor, old or young, — lie is dead.

In this, as in everything else, God’s words are right. Nothino; could be said more correct, nothing more accurate, nothing more faithful, nothing more true. Stay a little, and let me reason this out with you. Come and see.

What should you have said, if you had seen Joseph weeping over his father Jacob? — “He fell upon his face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.” (Gen. 1.1.) But there was no reply to his affection. All about that aged coun-

* “That is the reason we are no better, because our disease is not perfectly known: that is the reason we are no better, because we know not how bad we are.” — Archbishop Usher’s Sermons, preached at Oxford. 1650.

tenance was unmoved, silent, and still. Doubtless you would have guessed the reason. — Jacob was dead.

What would you have said, if you had heard the Levite speaking to his wife, when he found her lying before the door in Gibeah? “Up,” he said, “and let us be going. But none answered.” (Judg. xix. 28.) His words were thrown away. There she lay, motionless, stiff, and cold. You know the cause. — She was dead.

What would you have thought, if you had seen the Amalekite stripping Saul of his royal ornaments in Mount Gilboa? He “took from him the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm.” (2 Sam. i. 10.) There was no resistance. Not a muscle moved in that proud face. Not a finger was raised to prevent him. And why? — Saul was dead.

What should you have thought, if you had met the widow’s son in the gate of Nain, lying on a bier, wrapped about with grave-clothes, followed by his weeping mother, carried slowly towards the tomb? (Luke vii. 12.) Doubtless j it would have been all clear to you. It would j have needed no explanation. — The young man j was dead.

I Now, I say this is just the condition of every

i man by nature in the matter of his soul. I say j this is just the state of the vast majority of people around us in spiritual things, God calls to them continually, — by mercies, by afflictions, by ministers, by His word; — but they do not hear His voice. The Lord Jesus Christ mourns over them, pleads with them, sends them gracious invitations, knocks at the door of their hearts; — but they do not regard it. The crown and glory of their being, that precious jewel, their immortal soul, is being seized, plundered, and taken away; — and they are utterly unconcerned. The devil is carrying them away, day I after day, along the broad road that leads to I destruction; — and they allow him to make them his captives without a struggle. And this is going on everywhere, — all around you, — among all classes, — through the length and breadth of the land. You know it in your own conscience, while you read this paper. You must be aware of it. You cannot deny it. And what then, I ask you, can be said naore perfectly true than that which God says, We are all by nature spiritually dead?

Yes! when a man’s heart is cold and unconcerned about religion, — when his hands are never employed in doing God’s work, — when his feet are hot familiar with God’s ways, — when his tongue is seldom or never used in prayer and praise, — when his ears are deaf to the voice of Christ in the Gospel, — when his eyes are blind to the beauty of the kingdom of heaven, — when his mind is full of the world, and has no room for spiritual things, — when these marks are to be found in a man, the word of the Bible is the right word to use about him, and that word is “dead.”

We may not like this perhaps. We may shut our eyes both to facts in the world, and texts in the Word. But God’s truth must be spoken, and to keep it back does positive harm. Truth must be spoken, however condemning it may be. So long as n’lan does not serve God with body, soul, and spirit, he is not really aliva

So long as he puts the first things last and the last first, buries his talent like an unprofitable servant, and brings the Lord no revenue of honor, so long; in God’s sight he is dead. He is not filling the place in creation for which he was intended. He is not using his powers and faculties as God meant them to be used. The poet’s words are strictly true,

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