The Death of His Saints by Alexander
Smiley The Secret Place 1907 Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his saints. Psalm 119 verse 15 To me, death has its unlovely
aspects. I may be ready by God's grace
to meet it, and yet I recoil instinctively from the act of
dying. It seems unnatural. It is usually
attended by pain and suffering. It is a farewell to dear and
beloved associations. It is going out into an untrodden
land. I cannot coax myself to love
the dreadful experience, and therefore I'm glad to think that
there is another side to the matter, and that to my Lord my
death is precious. And why should it be so? Let
me consider the name by which he calls me, and I shall begin
to understand. His saints. That is his title
for his sons and daughters among whom I have been enrolled. The
people of his own purchased possession. The redeemed people whom he has
set apart for himself. He owns them in virtue of the
stupendous price which he paid for them. He has been at infinite
pains to redeem and save and cleanse them. Nothing which concerns
them appears indifferent to him. The death of the humblest of
them is of stupendous moment in his sight. Let me reflect,
too, that death is one of the means His grace and power employ
to uplift and crown me. It looks as though I scarcely
could know God thoroughly or confide in Him completely until
I learned to lean upon Him. when heart and flesh faint and
fail, when the long and close fellowship of body and soul is
sundered, and when I pass forth alone into the mystery of unseen
eternity. Then he becomes more indispensable
than ever. Then my trust must be simple
and absolute. Then, when lover and friend are
put far away, I cling to him and refuse to let him go. Death
teaches us this perfection of dependence. And let me predict
to myself the future to which death is the doorway. I can scarcely
imagine it, its spotless holiness, its unfathomable bliss, its endless
pleasures, its divine love. But he sees it clearly and comprehends
it in its breadth and length and depth and height. He is familiar
with the flowers and fruits of his upper garden, with the refreshment
of the fourfold river, with the music of the better country,
with the city's foundations of gems and its gates of pearl and
its streets of gold. Is it a marvel that he should
pronounce desirable and precious that loosening and wrench from
earth which liberates me for a heaven like this? When I think
my Lord's thoughts I shall cease to be so afraid of death. you