The Service Rendered by Death
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; Thou hast loosed my bonds.” — Psa. cxvi. 15, 16.
HAVE a peculiar idea as to the meaning
of this psalm. It is popularly thought to be a psalm of thanksgiving for recovery from sickness. But why, then, should the restored man break into the rapturous cry, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints”! Is this not an incongruous utterance in a thanksgiving for recovery — in a thanksgiving for the averting of death? I think it is; and therefore I do not believe that the psalm is a thanksgiving for such recovery. I think it is an attempt to depict the idea of a man’s recovery not on this, but on the other, side of death. It is an imagination of
immortality preceding the revelation of immortality. The writer conceives himself to have waked from his sleep of exhaustion in a new and revived Jerusalem — to have waked strong and well, renovated from fatigue and loosed from his old bonds of infirmity. He conceives himself to be looking back upon his former state — on the days when he was bowed down by the weakness of the fiesh. He had expected that death would be the culmination of that weakness. To his astonishment he finds that death has been his deliverance — that instead of being a prison-house, it has loosed his bonds and set the prisoner free. It has emancipated him, disencumbered him, given him wings. It has made him a more useful servant to the Almighty, more capable of work, more profitable for labour. It has given to God an army of invigorated souls, stronger to fight and hardier to bear; and, looking upon heaven’s gain, the Psalmist cries, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”
My soul, there is no more frequent plaint of thine than thy dirge over the departed great. Thy cry is, “To what purpose is this waste!” The Psalmist thinks it is a redeeming from waste — a gain to the harvest-field of God. I have often heard thee say, “If God spares me.” Hast thou analysed these words? If a servant
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asks to be absent from household duties, we say, “I will spare you for a few days” — submit to the want for a few days. When God spares a good servant He submits to a want. He is in need of all ministering spirits yonder. The harvest to be reaped is plenteous, but the labourers are few. It is not every redeemed life that is fit to be a ministering spirit. There are hosts among the saved who are not ready to be angels. Millions can serve by day; but they who “serve day and night” must have come out of great tribulation — washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. Hast thou ever pondered the words, “Pray the Lord of the harvest that He will send labourers into His harvest.” Hast thou ever considered that the answer to that prayer may be just the death of the saint — the very thing which makes thee think the prayer denied. Hast thou ever reflected that there is less mystery in the death of the good than in the death of the ignoble. There is a cry from the Macedonia of God “Come over and help us!” There is a cry from the eternal sea, “Send men to Joppa!” — men who can embark upon the deep and breast the waves. Forget not the labourers hired at the eleventh hour — the hour thou callest death! Think not that these have escaped the burden and the heat ! — they are called to a weightier burden and a heat more potent. There are myriads who enter the fields where thy Father’s seed is sown, but methinks the most precious in His sight are they who enter by the valley of the shadow.