January 29

Are We Ready

And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ. — Luke 2:26

It is a fearful thing for any one to see death before seeing Christ. Death is terrible. It is a vale of shadows. It ushers us into the presence of God to be judged. What if we have never seen Christ? No matter how many great men we have seen during our life; no matter what we may have done in the way of good or great deeds. We may have seen the wonders of every land; we may have achieved honour and fame. But if we have not seen Christ we are not ready to die. Even wicked men want to see Him before death, although all through their life they have rejected Him. They can live without Him, but without Him they dare not die.

There is a story of an infidel whose wife was a lovely Christian. Their beautiful young daughter was dying. Her father had always ridiculed Christ in her presence. When she was near death she asked him whether he wanted her to die in his or in her mother’s belief — as an infidel or as a Christian. With great emotion he said, “Mary, I would rather you would die in your mother’s faith — die as a Christian.” He was not content for his child to meet death as an unbeliever; all his scepticism vanished in the presence of the dread mystery.

Death tests all creeds. A belief that is not good to die in, which a man wants to give up and throw away as he enters the portals of eternity, surely cannot be worthy of acceptance by an immortal being. No one, as he entered the valley of shadows, was ever heard regretting that he had trusted his soul in Christ’s hands. When we have truly seen Christ, we are ready for death any moment. We have already passed from death unto life, and have nothing to dread in the experience of dying. Departure will only be translation from darkness into light.