Death Vanquished I am he that
lives, and was dead, and, behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen. And have the keys of hell and
of death. Revelation 1 verse 18 An enthroned Savior speaks, I
am the Living One. Others have passed away, but
I ever live and ever love. I am now living, a personal Savior,
Christ, your life. Are you stooping over some treasured
house of clay, Which the whirlwind has made a mass of ruins? I roused
the whirlwind from its chamber, I appointed the starling dispensation,
I ordered the shroud, and prepared the grave. Let not accident,
chance, or fate enter into the vocabulary of your sorrow. I
am the Lord of death as well as of life. I have the keys of
hell and of the grave suspended at my belt. The tomb is never
unlocked but by me. Let others talk of the might
of the King of terrors. He has no might but by my permission. More than this, mourning one,
I was dead. I myself once entered that gloomy
portico. I sanctified and consecrated
it by my presence. I was a tenant of the tomb. This
now glorified body was once laid by human hands in a borrowed
grave. Can you dread to walk the valley
trodden by your Lord? To encounter the last enemy,
which he fought and conquered? Death, it has been converted
by him into a parenthesis in endless life. I am he that was
dead. I am he who lives. What more could the Christian
desire than this twofold assurance? On the day of atonement of old,
the blood was sprinkled alike on the mercy seat. The voice
of the blood arose from the floor below and the mercy seat above. So it is with the voice of our
elder brother's blood. It cried first from earth beneath. and now from heaven. His dying
love is now ever-living, imperishable, and immutable as his own being. as the rainbow in the material
firmament can never cease to appear so long as the present
laws of nature continue and there is a sun in the heavens, so the
rainbow of the everlasting covenant and all its blessings can only
fail when Christ, the Son of Righteousness, ceases to shine
and ceases to be. With such a rainbow over-arching
the future, one limb resting amid the cloud-lands of life,
the other melting its hues into the deeper shadows of the valley
of death, I will fear no evil, for you, O Saviour God, are with
me. Your rod and your staff comfort
me.