Street Meeting Thirty Fourth

The dead may teach thee many things concerning the life you have now; yet of life thou canst teach the dead nothing. Their silence instructeth thee, but thy voice can no longer reach them. There are the dead who cannot answer, and there are the dead who will not answer. There are those who know not that they are dead, and those who care little whether they be so. The very words, the dead, have something in them at once dreadful and instructive; and the more I consider them, the more solemn doth the distinction appear.

To that man who shall die twice, the thought is dreadful indeed. He dieth once in the body, and afterward suffereth that second death from which there is no return. But unto the elect of God, who are born twice, the dead become instructors of many things. Having been born once of the flesh and again of the Spirit, they may look upon death and learn what true Life is, what little worth there is in the things which perish, and how precious is that life which is hid with Christ in God.

Death came not merely by the doing of the deed, but by rebellion against God; not first from the hand that took, but from the heart that coveted. Neither is death to be understood merely as the ceasing of breath. Man died when he was separated from God, the fountain of his life. To be lost is to have wandered from the way; and to love a lie is already to have turned the heart against the truth. How dreadful, then, are the words of Christ when we solemnly consider them: 

I am the Way
I am the Truth
I am the Life.
John 14:6

For whilst they contain unspeakable consolation for those who come unto Him, they pronounce also the condition of every man who remains apart from Him. If Christ be the Way, then apart from Him we are lost. If Christ be the Truth, then apart from Him we abide in falsehood. And if Christ be the Life, then apart from Him we are dead. Thus in declaring what He is, Christ discovers what we are; and in the same blessed sentence wherein He uncovers our misery, He sets Himself before us as the whole remedy.