The one shall be taken, and the other shall be left
One taken, and the other left
Every great act of God has the effect of dividing, separating, and judging men.
So great are the diversities among men, so various their characters, so various by nature, and so endlessly varied by education and habit, that, when God acteth before them in any great or signal way, forthwith those who seemed to be much alike, are found to be really very different. The mercy that is balm to one, is poison to his next neighbour; the trial, which to one is easy and simple, is to his neighbour destruction and inevitable woe. To be born in a Christian country, to be the son of careful and godly parents, to be baptized in infancy, to be trained in the knowledge of God, to have natural abilities, to have education, to have station, or wealth, all these things have this effect of dividing men, and trying their hearts. To those who are obedient, and endeavour to please God, all these things are high blessings, choice gifts of God. Each of them enables a man to render God better service, to please Him better, to do more good, and to make higher attainments of holiness and happiness. But to the disobedient they are all so many downfalls. Every such thing brings out more, and makes more conspicuous and hopeless the inner disobedience; each one of them exhibits more strikingly the spirit of inward rebellion, which, but for these things, might have been comparatively unseen. Illness tries us; health tries us; every day, as it passes, tries us in innumerable ways; tries, and trains us; tries what we are now, and tries whether we will be better; furnishes matter for our judgment, and gives us the means of improvement, so that judgment may not be our ruin. And so we go on being tried, being balanced, and sifted, and searched, thousands of times, many times more than we suppose or conceive, every day of our life. We think of the great trials, but the little ones, which we do not think of, try us still more. It is very observable that, in the account given of the judgment-day by our Lord in the Gospel of St. Matthew, the doom of the righteous and wicked is made to depend on grounds wholly unexpected by each. They are alike represented as exclaiming, in astonishment and surprise, “Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison?” Full of fears, no doubt, and hopes about things which they do remember, nothing doubting that this or that great act (as they think it), is to be the one on which everything is to turn, for weal or woe, they seem alike struck with astonishment to find that things which they have wholly forgotten, which they neither observed when they happened, nor can recall since, have been laid up in the mind of the Judge, to be the ground of their last and inevitable doom. “Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, or athirst, or sick, or in prison, and ministered, or ministered not unto Thee?” this, I say, is one of the striking things revealed of that awful time. And another is, the alteration which that day shall make; when last shall be first, and first last; when not only the ranks of the earth shall be in many instances reversed, but when the estimations of the earth shall be found to be entirely mistaken; apparent saints taking their place among the hypocrites departing to everlasting fire; publicans and sinners, purified by repentance, their robes washed in the blood of the Lamb, entering, among the blessed, into the joy of their Lord. And the text teaches us a third and different lesson still; how those who have been side by side upon earth, alike in condition, opportunity, and encouragement, to all human sight much alike in mind or temper; not much unlike, perhaps, in apparent earnestness and spiritual attainment, shall then be found, one on the right hand, and one on the left hand; one be taken, taken to joy, caught up to meet the Lord in the air, so as to be ever with Him; and the other left, to woe and despair for ever. Children of one family, bred alike, and taught alike, who have learned to say the same infantine prayers, have known the same friends, read the same books, loved the same pleasures; if one is earnest in his prayers, and, in his secret obedience, serves God faithfully, and the other persists in unfaithfulness and disobedience,--shall it not surely be so with them, that one shall be taken in that day, and the other left? What, then, shall we do? With this reality of trial on us, and this reality of judgment before us, the one more searching than we can trace, the other likely to be more unexpected than we can foresee, how are we to walk to be safe? how to pass through the present trial, how to meet the future judgment? Simply by turning with all our hearts and souls to our duties, and our prayers. We do not need any particular excitements of mind, or any particular glow of sentiments; we want to be in earnest, and the good Spirit of our God, by which we were sealed in baptism unto the day of our redemption, will help us to our safety. (Bishop Moberly.)
The great division
1. The meaning of the text being established, we have next to inquire what the lessons are which it is designed to teach us. When it is considered in relation to its context, it becomes plain that the primary intention of the passage is to denote the suddenness with which the day of the Lord will come upon the inhabitants of the earth. “Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but My Father only.” There will be no perceptible check or change in the current of human affairs to warn us of its coming. Men will be engaged to the very last in the ordinary occupations of life, “as in the days of Noe” and “as in the days of Lot,” “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.” Nor shall the great and final partition of good and evil be preceded or prefigured by any partial and gradual severance. Men and women shall be united in their daily tasks, and even in the most familiar intercourse of domestic life, between whom there shall be a great gulf fixed in that day.
2. There is a further lesson which may be derived from the text, and which it is also without doubt intended to convey. It is one which is set forth more or less plainly in other places of Holy Scripture. The children of this world and the children of light cannot be absolutely distinguished, so long as we see through a glass, darkly. Our estimate of another’s character is after all nothing better than an inference from phenomena, and our powers of inference are at least as fallible in this as in all other matters. The warmest friendships, the most endearing ties, can afford us no unmistakable guarantee that those with whom we are thus outwardly united, are both almost and altogether such as we are.
3. There is, however, a third inference to which we are naturally led by the words before us, and to which I desire particularly to direct your attention at present. However closely and undistinguishably men are mingled together in this world, however various, minute, and delicate are the shades of character by which they are severally differenced, however hopeless it may appear, I will not say for man, but for Absolute Wisdom and Absolute Justice, to draw a broad line between the children of this world and the children of light, the text seems to imply, what we are elsewhere taught, that they will ultimately be divided into two and only two classes. But I think the text goes beyond this, at all events in the way of implication. For it not only tells us that such a sharp line as I have described will ultimately be drawn between the evil and the good, but it seems also to tell us that the line exists already, although we may be unable to discern it. For inasmuch as it represents the day of judgment as coming upon men unprepared, discovering them in the midst of their daily avocations, finding persons of the most opposite characters united in the closest intercourse without a suspicion of their incompatibility, and then at once awarding to every man his everlasting doom; is it not reasonable to infer that the grounds of that award exist already, although they are not in every instance cognizable by us? At this point, however, we are met by a difficulty. Our experience of the world and of human life appears to teach us a different lesson. No doubt there are good men and there are bad men on the face of the earth--good men who are acknowledged to be so even by those who are farotherwise, and bad men who are confessed to be so even by themselves. But the great mass of mankind seems to belong to an intermediate and indifferent body, consisting of those who are neither saints nor reprobates, neither fit for eternal life nor deserving of eternal death. The longer the world lasts, the more complicated the developments of society become, the more does this appear to be the case. The visible confusion of the moral world may only serve to cover a clear and well-defined line of demarcation. And, as much, on the one hand, that is outwardly and materially honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report, when traced to its true source would be found to be of the earth, earthy; so we must remember that “the Lord knoweth them that are His”; that, “the kingdom of God,” which “is within” us, “cometh not with observation”; and that as “the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; so is event one that is born of the Spirit.” But we shall do well to recollect, in addition, that we see men ordinarily in a transitional and undeveloped state. The good or the evil that is in them may not have had time to come to a head, or may be over shadowed by old habits which hang about a man like parasites, but which can hardly be said to form a part of his proper self. But as each man’s probation draws near its close, it may be that his character is altogether simplified and stereotyped. Then it is that the awful decree goes forth: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still.” Mere experience, then, can decide nothing against the teaching of holy Scripture on this point, although it may not actually confirm it. On the other hand, it is worthy of observation, that a great thinker, whose name marks an era in the history of modern philosophy, in endeavouring to frame a religious system a priori, was led to a result altogether coincident with the doctrine under consideration. After raising the two following questions: first, Whether man can be neither good nor evil? and then, Whether man can be partly good and partly evil? he decides against the former, in opposition (as he confesses) to the prima facie dictates of experience, upon the ground that moral neutrality in any voluntary act is an impossible conception; and he disposes of the latter, by observing that no act has any intrinsic moral worth, unless it spring from a deliberate adoption of the moral law as our universal principle of action. I have cited this writer’s testimony mainly because he cannot be accused of any undue partiality towards the distinctive peculiarities of the Christian system. But it is not difficult to translate his arguments into Scriptural language. For, on the one hand, it is our Lord Himself who proposes the dilemma, “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt”: and, on the other, His apostle tells us that “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” (W. B. Jones, M. A.)
Divine sovereignty in the death of men
I. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN GOD’S ACTING AS A SOVEREIGN.
1. His acting as a sovereign implies that He always acts after the counsel of His own will, without consulting the will, or pleasure, or counsel of any other being.
2. His acting as a sovereign implies that He always acts not only without the counsel, but without the control, of any created beings.
II. IN WHAT RESPECTS HE ACTS AS A SOVEREIGN IN TAKING AWAY THE LIVES OF MEN. Here it may be observed--
1. That He acts as a sovereign in respect to appointing the time of every one’s death.
2. God acts as a sovereign in determining not only the time, but the place of every one’s death.
3. God acts as a sovereign in respect to the means of death.
4. God acts as a sovereign in regard to the circumstances of death. He takes one, and leaves another, under the very same circumstances. He takes one, and leaves another, according to the order in which He has been pleased to place their names in death’s commission, regardless of all exterior circumstances or distinctions.
5. God acts as a sovereign in calling men out of the world, whether they are willing or unwilling to leave it.
6. God displays His awful sovereignty by calling men out of time into eternity, whether they are prepared or not prepared to go to their long home.
III. WHY GOD ACTS AS A SOVEREIGN IN THIS VERY IMPORTANT CASE. Several plain and pertinent reasons may be mentioned.
1. Because He has an independent right to act as a sovereign in taking away the lives of men. He is the former of their bodies, and Father of their spirits. In Him they live, and move, and have their being.
2. God acts as a sovereign in the article of death, because He only knows when and where to put a period to human life.
3. Another reason why God disposes of the lives of men as a sovereign, in all those respects which have been mentioned, is because He is under indispensable moral obligations to dispose of His own creatures in the wisest and best manner.
Application:
1. If God acts as a sovereign in taking away the lives of men, then the aged have great reason of gratitude for the continuance of life.
2. If God acts as a sovereign in taking away the lives of men, then they ought to maintain a constant and realizing sense that their lives are uncertain.
3. If God acts as a sovereign in taking away the lives of men, then they ought to avoid every mode of conduct which tends to stupify their minds, and create an insensibility to the uncertainty of life.
4. If God acts as a sovereign in taking away the lives of men, then it is not strange that He causes so many sudden and unexpected deaths.
5. It appears from what has been said that there is a solid foundation for the most cordial and unreserved submission under the heaviest bereavements. They come from the hand and heart of a holy, wise, and benevolent Sovereign, who has a right to take one, and leave another, and who never afflicts willingly, or grieves the children of men. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Eternal separation
The Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, formerly president of Princeton College, America, was once on board a packet-ship, where, among other passengers, was a professed atheist. This unhappy man was very fond of troubling every one with his peculiar belief, and of broaching the subject as often as he could get any one to listen to him. He did not believe in a God and a future state, not he! By and by there came on a terrible storm, and the prospect was that all would be drowned. There was much consternation on board, but not one was so greatly frightened as the professed atheist. In this extremity he sought out the clergyman, and found him in the cabin, calm and collected in the midst of danger, and thus addressed him: “Oh, Doctor Witherspoon! Doctor Witherspoon! we are all going; we have but a short time to stay. Oh how the vessel rocks! We are all going! Don’t you think we are, doctor?” The doctor turned to him with a solemn look, and replied in broad Scotch, “Nae doubt, nae doubt, man, we’re a’ ganging; but you and I dinna gang the same way.” (W. Baxendale.)