Eternity: from An Illustrated Summary of J.C. Ryle's Practical Religion

This is a chapter from J.C. Ryle's classic book Practical Religion.

ETERNITY

"The things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:18

There are star depths in the heavens that the most powerful telescopes cannot pierce, yet it is well to look into them and learn something if we cannot learn everything. There are heights and depths about the subject of eternity that mortal man can never comprehend, but God has spoken of it and we have no right to turn away from it altogether. In examining points like these we have nothing to do with preconceived notions about God's character and what we think God ought to do with man after death. The thoughts we have a right to hold are the thoughts He has been pleased to reveal to us in His written Word, the holy Bible. If you are tempted to doubt that, consider this: Imagine a judge who calls in witnesses and pretends to examine them while simultaneously issuing a statement that no matter what they say or evidence they give, their cause is so absurd and unjust that no evidence will be sufficient to prove it. Do not be that kind of judge.

1. We live in a world where all things are temporal and passing away. Everything around us is decaying, dying, and coming to an end. In a practical sense, there is nothing undying about us except our souls. That is what this line by a dying poet in the hymn Abide with Me attempts to capture: "Change and decay in all around I see. O Thou who changest not, abide with me."

Beauty is only temporal. Sarah was once the fairest of women and the admiration of the court of Egypt, yet a day came when her husband, Abraham, said, "Let me bury my dead out of my sight" (Genesis 23:4). Strength of body is only temporal. David was once a mighty man of valor, the champion of Israel against Goliath, yet the day came when he had to be nursed like a child in his old age. As humbling and painful as these truths may sound, it is good for us to take them to heart. The houses we live in, the relations we enter into,  the professions we follow, the riches we accumulate, the plans we form are only for a time. "The form of this world is passing away" (1 Corinthians 7:31).

Think of pleasures, amusements, profits, and earthly callings as poor ephemeral things that cannot last. Love them not too well or grasp them too tightly: they are useful as servants but dreadful as idols. You cannot keep them and must lose them. "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness," said Jesus, and then everything else needful will be added as well (Matthew 6:33). "Set your mind on things above," not on earthly things (Colossians 3:2). The world and its lusts are passing away, "but he who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:17).

If you take these things to heart, you may take heart because your trials and conflicts are only temporary. They will soon come to an end and even now are working for you "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17).  Bear them patiently and quietly. Look upward, forward, and far beyond them. The cross shall soon be exchanged for a crown and you shall sit down at a feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven (Matthew 8:11).

2. We are all going toward a world where everything is eternal. The Bible teaches that the great unseen state of existence lying behind the grave is forever. Whether it be happy or miserable, in one respect it is utterly unlike this world: it is eternal. There will be no change and decay, no end, no goodbyes, no mornings and evenings, no annihilation. "The things unseen are eternal." We cannot fully grasp this: the contrast between now and then, between this world and the next, is so enormously great that our feeble minds will not take it in. The consequences it entails are so tremendous, they almost take away our breath and we shrink from looking at them. But when the Bible speaks plainly, we have no right to turn away from a subject.

A. Future happiness. The future is eternally bright for those who, by definition, have been rescued by their saving faith in Christ's righteous life, death, and resurrection on their behalf. At God's "right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11). Awaiting them is "an inheritance ... imperishable, undefiled, and unfading," including "an unfading crown of glory" (1 Peter 1:4; 5:4). Their fight is over; their work is done. No more will they hunger and thirst. They are traveling towards an "eternal weight of glory," towards a home that shall never be broken up, a meeting without parting, a family gathering without separation, a day without night. Faith shall be swallowed up by sight and hope by certainty. They "shall always be with the Lord." No wonder Paul adds, "Comfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:17-18).

B. Future misery. For those who have no faith in Christ, the future is eternally bleak. That is a solemn truth and flesh and blood naturally shrink from the contemplation of it, but it is plainly and mercifully revealed in Scripture. Whoever spoke such loving and merciful words as our Lord Jesus Christ? No one warned more about hell than Him, describing it as a place "where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:47-48). No one has written more eloquently about love than the apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 13), yet he warns that the wicked "shall be punished with everlasting destruction" (2 Thessalonians 1:9). The same words that describe the eternality of heaven likewise describe the eternality of hell. 

Sin and death entered the world by the devil's daring falsehood, "You surely shall not die" (Genesis 3:4). Thousands of years later, the great enemy of our souls is still using his old weapon, trying to persuade men and women that they may live and die in sin, yet at some distant period be finally saved. Let us not be taken advantage of by being "ignorant of his devices" (2 Corinthians 2:11). There is nothing Satan desires more than we should believe he does not exist and that there is no such thing as eternal torment.

Think: what was the use of God's Son becoming incarnate, living a perfect life, agonizing in Gethsemane, and dying on the cross to make a substitutionary atonement for sin for all who trust in Him if people can be finally saved without believing in Him? Where is the slightest proof that saving faith in Christ's blood can ever begin after death? We are told, "It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). Where is the need for the Holy Spirit if sinners are at last to enter heaven without conversion and renewal of heart? Hear what Solomon the wise says to curb youthful lusts: "Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment" (Ecclesiastes 11:9). Unrepented sin is an eternal evil and can never cease to be sin. He "to whom we must give account" (Hebrews 4:13) is an eternal God. 

The words of Psalm 145 are strikingly beautiful: "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. All Your works shall praise You, O Lord, and Your saints shall bless You.... 

"The Lord upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look expectantly to You, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all His ways, gracious in all His works ...  near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them. The Lord preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy" (Psalm 145:8-20).

3. Our state in the unseen world of eternity depends entirely upon what we are in time. The life we live on earth is short and soon gone: "We finish our years like a sigh.... What is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away" (Psalm 90:9; James 4:14). The life before us when we leave this world is an endless eternity, a sea without a bottom and an ocean without a shore. "Do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (2 Peter 3:8). But as short as our life is here and endless as it will be hereafter, it is of utmost importance that eternity hinges upon time. Our lot after death depends, humanly speaking, on what we are while we are alive. It is written that God "will render to each one according to his deeds: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath" (Romans 2:6-8).

We ought never to forget that we are all, while we live, in a state of probation. We are constantly sowing seeds that will spring up and bear fruit, every day and hour in our lives. Eternal consequences result from our thoughts, words, and deeds, of which we take far too little account. Jesus said, "For every idle word men speak, they will  give account of it in the day of judgment" (Matthew 12:36). No wonder Paul was inspired to write, "He who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life" (Galatians 6:8). So what we sow in life we shall reap after death and to all eternity.

The Bible teaches clearly that as we die, whether converted to Christ or unconverted, whether believers or unbelievers, whether godly or ungodly, so shall we rise again when the last trumpet sounds. There is no repentance in the grave. There is no purgatory. Now is the time to believe in Christ and lay hold of eternal life. As Jesus said, "The night is coming when no one can work" (John 9:4). "In the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie" (Ecclesiastes 11:3). If we leave this world impenitent and unbelieving, we shall rise the same in the resurrection morning and find, as Jesus said of Judas, that it would have been better not to have been born.

Remember this and make good use of time. Regard it as the stuff of which life is made and never waste it or throw it away. The means of grace, including prayer, Bible reading, and faithfully attending public worship, are given to help you toward an eternal world. Not one of them should be thoughtlessly treated or lightly and irreverently handled. Use them all as one who remembers eternity.

Place in the face of temptation the thought of eternity, setting aside thoughts such as, "It is only a little one," "Never mind. What is the harm? Everyone is doing it." The soon-to-be- martyred English Reformer John Hooper was tempted to recant his faith in Christ in exchange for safety with a concerned enemy telling him this: "Life is sweet and death is bitter." But Hooper  remembered eternity when giving his memorable reply: "True, quite true, but eternal life is more sweet and eternal death is more bitter."

4. The Lord Jesus Christ is the great Friend whom we all must look to for help, both in time and eternity. The reason the eternal Son of God came into the world is to give us hope and peace while we live among "the things that are seen," which are transient, and glory and blessedness when we go into "the things that are unseen," which are eternal. He came to bring "life and immortality to light through the Gospel" and to "release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (2 Timothy 1:10; Hebrews 2:15). He saw our lost and bankrupt condition, and had compassion on us. 

These mighty privileges our Lord Jesus Christ purchased for us at the cost of His own precious blood. He became our Substitute and bore our sins in His own body on the cross and then rose again for our justification. Christ "suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." He who knew no sin was temporarily made sin for us that we poor sinful creatures might have pardon and righteousness while we live, and glory and blessedness when we die (1 Peter 3:18; 2 Corinthians 5:21).

Jesus offers these blessings freely to everyone who will turn from his or her sins, come to Him, and believe. "I am the light of the world," He says. "The one who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12). "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink" (John 7:37). "The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out" (John 6:37). Whoever believes in Christ "shall not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). The only way to pass through "things seen" with comfort and look forward to "things unseen" without fear is to have Christ as our Savior and Friend. If you and I have no comfort amid the temporal and no hope for the eternal, the fault is all our own. It is because, as Jesus said, we will not come to Him that we may have life (John 5:40).

Are you wasting your time or turning it to good account? Are you preparing to meet God? It is not too late if you are reading this. Christ waits to be gracious: He invites you to come to Him. Before the door is shut and the judgment begins, repent, believe, and be saved. Cling to Christ and live a life of faith in Him. Follow Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, seeking to know Him better every day. So doing you will look forward to eternal things with unfailing confidence, and feel and "know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Corinthians 5:1). 

Sickness: from An Illustrated Summary of J.C. Ryle's Practical Religion

This is a chapter from J.C. Ryle's classic book Practical Religion.

SICKNESS

"He whom You love is sick." John 11:3

The chapter that text is taken from is well known to Bible readers. There is something here no unbeliever can ever account for, so striking is its account of God at work. It begins with a short, desperate message to Jesus from Mary and Martha regarding their brother, Lazarus. Christ's help was their first thought in the day of trouble. Christ Himself was the refuge to which they fled in their great need. Blessed are all who do likewise (Psalm 2:12; 34:8).

Notice the simple humility of what they write about Lazarus: they do not say, "He who loves You, believes in You, and serves You" but "He whom You love." Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were well taught. They had learned that Christ's love towards us and not our love towards Christ is the true ground of expectation, and true foundation of hope. Notice also that Lazarus, although a believer in Christ, friend of Christ, and heir of glory, is sick. Therefore, sickness is no sign that God is displeased. Sickness for the believer is intended as a blessing, not a curse, since "we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). Blessed are all who can say when they are ill, "This is my Father's doing. It must be for ultimate good."

1. The universal prevalence of sickness and disease. Sickness is everywhere, among all classes, and of every sort and description. "The rich man's wealth is his strong city" (Proverbs 18:11), but there are no doors and bars that can keep out disease and death. Sickness is one of the most humbling and distressing trials that can come upon a person, for it can soon make a strong man afraid of heights and feel like the weight of a mere "grasshopper is a burden" (Ecclesiastes 12:5). There are ailments of the nervous system that can reduce a Solomon in mind to the thinking of the youngest child.

The average duration of life may be somewhat lengthened, and the enforcement of wise sanitary regulations will greatly lower the death rate in a land. We are rightfully thankful for the skill of doctors in discovering new remedies, but what Moses wrote about 3,400 years ago is still generally true: "The days of our lives are 70 years; and if by reason of strength they are 80 years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away" (Psalm 90:10). 

How shall we account for the universal prevalence of sickness? How shall we answer the perceptive child who asks, "Why do people get ill and die?" Can we suppose for a moment that God created sickness and disease at the beginning? Did He who formed our world in such perfect order create needless suffering and pain? Did He who made all things "very good" (Genesis 1:31) make Adam's race to sicken and die? No! The only explanation that makes sense is what the Bible gives: something came into the world that dethroned man from his original position and stripped him of his original privileges. Like a handful of gravel thrown into masterful machinery, that something has marred the perfect order of God's creation. That something is sin: "sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Romans 5:12).

Sin is the cause of all the sickness, disease, pain, suffering, and death that prevail on earth. They are all part of the curse that came into the world when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and fell. There would have been no sickness if there had been no fall, no death apart from sin. Those biblical doctrines directly challenge atheists and deists. Atheists believe there is no God, no Creator, no First Cause, and that all things came together in this world by chance. Take such a person to a surgical school and show him the matchless skill with which every joint, vein, valve, muscle, nerve, bone, and limb has been formed. Show him the perfect adaptation of every part of the human frame to the purpose it serves. Show him the myriad delicate contrivances for serving wear and tear. Ask him if this wonderful mechanism is the result of chance. Would he think that of the watch he looks at, the bread he eats, or the coat he wears? Design is an insuperable difficulty in the atheist's way. There is a God.

Deists, sometimes calling themselves agnostics or liberals, believe there is a Creator God, but not the God of the Bible. Take such a person to a hospital and show her some of the dreadful effects of disease. Take her to the bed of a child, scarce knowing good from evil, with an incurable cancer. Take her to a ward where a loving mother of a large family is in the last stage of some excruciating disease. Ask her to give account for the racking pains and agonies to which flesh is subject. Ask this woman who sneers at Christian theology, thinking herself too wise to believe in the fall of Adam, how to explain the universal prevalence of pain and disease. Sickness and suffering are insuperable difficulties for the deist, agnostic, and theological liberal.

The Bible alone looks the subject in the face. It boldly proclaims that man is a fallen creature, and with equal boldness proclaims remedy from God in Christ. Christianity is revelation from heaven. "Your Word is truth," declares Jesus (John 17:17). Anchor your soul firmly on this safe principle: that the whole Book is God's truth. Tell enemies of the Bible that there is no book that compares: none that so thoroughly explains the state of mankind and meets our needs. Regarding the hard things in the Bible, tell them you are content to wait. You will find enough plain truth in the Book to satisfy your conscience and save your soul. The hard things will be cleared up one day. What we do not know now, we will know later. 

2. The  benefits sickness brings to mankind. I use that word benefits advisedly, for I am aware that many consider the existence of sickness proof against the goodness of God. But that is as unreasonable as doubting the existence of a Creator because the earth is disturbed by earthquakes, hurricanes, and other storms. Cast your eyes on the world around you and notice the extent to which we submit to present pain and loss for the sake of future joy and gain. The seed is thrown into the ground and rots, but we look for a future harvest. A child is sent to school for many tears, but we hope for him or her to gain wisdom and skill. A man undergoes a painful operation in the hope of future health. Similarly, God allows pain, sickness, and disease in this fallen world not because He loves to trouble mankind, but because He desires to benefit our heart, mind, conscience, and soul for all eternity.

A. Sickness reminds us of death. Most people live as if they were never going to die. They follow business, pleasure, politics, and science as if earth were their eternal home. They plan and scheme for the future like the rich fool in the parable, as if  they had a long lease on life and were not tenants subject to God's will. A significant illness sometimes goes far to dispel such illusions, which is a great good to the soul. 

B. Sickness helps us to think seriously about God, our souls, and the world to come. Most in their days of health find no time for such thoughts. They dislike them and shove them aside, but a severe affliction can have the wonderful power of mustering all those thoughts before the eyes of the soul. Pagan sailors, when death was in sight, were afraid "and every man cried out to his god." They soon honored the one true God when they saw Him at work through the disobedient prophet Jonah (Jonah 1).

C. Sickness helps to soften our hearts and teach us wisdom. As a result of the Fall, the natural heart of every person is as hard as a stone. It can see no good in anything not of this life, and no happiness except in this world. A long illness can go far to correct those ideas. It exposes the hollowness of what the world calls good, and teaches us to hold them with a loose hand. The man of business finds that money alone is not everything the heart requires.  The worldly woman finds that costly apparel and the latest news and events are miserable comforters in a sick room. Surely anything that obliges us to alter our weights and measures of earthly things is beneficial.

D. Sickness helps to level and humble us. We are all naturally proud and high minded. Few, even the poorest, are free of this defect. Most people look down on others and secretly flatter themselves that they are not like them. A sick bed is a mighty tamer of such base thoughts. It forces on us the reality that we "dwell in houses of clay,"  easily crushed like a moth (Job 4:19). We realize that rulers and the ruled, rich and poor are all dying creatures who will stand side by side at the judgment seat of God. It is not easy to be proud in the sight of the coffin and the grave. Surely anything teaching that lesson is good.

E. Sickness puts our religion to the test. Whether that religion is no religion or other beliefs gained from one's upbringing, few have a religion that will bear inspection. Most are content with traditions received from family or friends, and can offer no reason for the hope that is in them. Disease is sometimes most useful to a man in exposing the worthlessness of his soul's foundation. It often shows him he has nothing solid under his feet. It may make him find out that, although he may have had a form of religion, he has been all his life worshiping an "unknown god" (Acts 17:23). Many beliefs that look fine on the smooth waters of health prove unsound and useless on the rough waves of sickness. Just as the storms of winter reveal the defects in a man's house, illness exposes the chinks in a man's soul. Surely anything that makes us find out the real character of our faith is good.

I do not say that sickness confers all those benefits on all to whom it comes. Sadly, many are laid low by illness and restored to health who evidently learn nothing from the experience. Even sadder, many are passing from sickness to the grave, yet receiving no more spiritual impression from it than the beasts that perish. While they live they have no feeling, and when they die "there are no pangs in their death" (Psalm 73). These are dreadful things to say, but they are true. The degree of deadness to which a man or woman's heart and conscience can attain is a depth I cannot fathom. But many do learn and profit spiritually from the school of sickness. Churches and missions have had a blessed ministry to such people since the days our Lord walked this earth.  The sickness of people's bodies has often led, in God's wonderful providence, to the salvation of people's souls. Let us therefore never complain about sickness, but seek to learn what we can from it.

3. The special duties to which sickness calls us. What lessons can we learn? What, in a fallen world of disease and death, ought we to do?

A. Live habitually prepared to meet God. Sickness is a reminder of death, the door through which we pass to judgment, when we see God face to face. When are you prepared to meet God? Only when your heart is renewed, your sins forgiven, and your will taught to delight in the will of God. The atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ alone can cleans those sins away. His righteousness alone can make you acceptable in the sight of God. Faith in Him alone gives you a stake in Christ and all His benefits. To live in the actual possession of those things in a world full of sickness and death is the first duty I press home upon your soul.

B. Bear patiently with our afflictions. Sickness is a great trial to flesh and blood. To feel our nerves unstrung and our natural force abated; to be obliged to sit still and be cut off from our usual activities, to see our plans set aside and our purposes frustrated, and to endure long hours, days, and nights of weariness and pain is a severe strain on poor sinful human nature. The temptations to irritation and impatience are great. How shall we learn to bear sickness patiently when it is our turn? We must store up grace in our times of health, seeking out the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit over our unruly tempers and dispositions. Daily ask God for strength to endure His will as well as to do it. Such strength is to be had for the asking, for our Lord invites us, saying, "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it" (John 14:14). He likes being asked. James cautions us, "You do not have because you do not ask" (James 4:2).

I believe some graces of Christianity receive far less attention than they deserve. Meekness, gentleness, patience, faith, and long-suffering are mentioned in the Word of God as fruits of the Spirit. They are passive graces that glorify God by manifesting His character. They often make people think, even those who are repelled by the more active side of the Christian faith. Never do those graces shine so brightly as in the sick room. They enable many gravely ill people to preach a silent sermon that those around them never forget. Do you want to adorn the doctrine you profess? Would you make your Christianity beautiful in the eyes of others? Practice your gentle patience now and when sickness comes, whether it leads to death or not, it shall be "for the glory of God" (John 11:4).

C. Sympathize with and assist others who suffer. Sickness is never very far from us. Few are the families who do not have a sick relative. Few are the churches where you will not find someone struggling with a significant illness. Wherever there is sickness is a call to duty. A little timely assistance in some cases, such as a kindly visit, a friendly inquiry, or a mere expression of sympathy may do vast good. Those are the sorts of things that soften rough edges, bring people together, and promote good feeling. They can help you lead suffers and their families to saving faith in Christ. These are good works every professing Christian should be ready to do. In a world full of sickness and disease, we ought to "bear one another's burdens" (Galatians 6:2) and "be kind to one another" (Ephesians 4:32).

Conscientious attention to these little acts of brotherly kindness is one of the clearest evidences of having "the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16). Our Lord Himself always "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38), especially to the sick and sorrowful. They are acts to which He attaches great importance in a solemn passage describing the last judgment. He says there, "I was sick and you visited Me" (Matthew 25:36). Beware of unfeeling selfishness and neglect of your sick brethren. Assist them if they need aid. Show your sympathy and try to lighten their burdens. Above all, try to do good to their souls. It will do you good even if it does no good to them. God is testing and proving us by every case of sickness within our reach.

In conclusion I ask a few questions. First, what will you do when you are ill? Where do you mean to turn for comfort? On what do you mean to build your hope? Please do not ignore those questions. Allow them to work on your conscience and do not rest until you can give them a satisfactory answer. The body that now takes up so much of your attention must one day return to the dust. Think what a dreadful thing it would be to have provided for everything except the one thing most needful: your eternal soul.

My counsel is you acquaint yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ without delay. Repent and be converted; flee to Christ and be saved. Of all the gambling in the world, there is none so reckless as the man or woman who lives unprepared to meet God, yet puts off repentance. Either you have sins or you have none. If you have—who is foolish enough to deny it?—turn away from those sins without delay and go to the only One who is able to grant you complete forgiveness and give you new desires. Commit your soul to Christ's keeping. Cry mightily to Him for pardon and peace with God. He will hear and honor your prayer if you are sincere for He has promised, "The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out" (John 6:37). 

Beware, I beseech you, of a vague and indefinite Christianity. Do not rest until you can say with Paul, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day" (2 Timothy 1:12). Mere perfunctory church attendance will never do in the day of sickness. It will break down entirely when death is in sight. Nothing will do but real union with Christ, with Him interceding for us at God's right hand as our Priest, Physician, and Friend. He alone "can release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Hebrews 2:15). Turn to Christ first in the day of sickness, like Martha and Mary did. Keep on looking to Him to the last breath of your life. The more you know Him the better you will love Him.

I exhort all true Christians to remember how much they may glorify God in the time of sickness. Are you one of them? Be sure to lie quiet in God's hand when you are ill. I have marked how prone some good people are to torment themselves with morbid thoughts at such seasons, like, God has forsaken me. Please remember you may honor God as much or more by patient suffering than by active work. It often shows more grace to sit still than perform considerable exploits. Christ cares for you deeply whether you are sick or well. He is working in both states for your good. He felt specially for the sick in the days of His flesh. He feels for them specially still. Sickness and suffering, I often think, make believers more like their Lord than does health. Fulfilling prophecy, He took their illnesses and bore their diseases, and was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief (Matthew 8:17; Isaiah 53:3).

Keep up a habit of close communion with Christ and never be afraid of going too far in your religion. Love Him more deeply, copy Him more thoroughly, confess Him more boldly, follow Him more fully. Religion like that will always bring its own reward, especially when facing illness and death. Worldly people may laugh at it, weaker brothers may think it extreme, but it will wear well. At all times it will bring us light, in sickness it will bring us peace, in the world to come it will give us a crown of glory that will not fade away. We travel towards a world where there is no more sickness, where parting, pain, crying, and mourning are done with forever. In just a little while, "He who is coming will come and will not tarry" (Hebrews 10:37). Christ shall wipe away all tears from His people's eyes. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death; death itself shall one day die (Revelation 20:14; 21:4). 

In the meantime, let us live a robust life of faith in the Son of God. He is alive and powerful, declaring, "O Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your destruction!" (Hosea 13:14). He has already redeemed His people from death and will one day change their mortal bodies into their own unique likeness of His glorious body. In sickness and in health, in life and in death, let us lean confidently on Him.

2 PETER+—An Illustrated Summary of Life Applications from Every Chapter of the Bible by G. Campbell Morgan

"On every page of the God-breathed writings are many thoughts that stretch out like long, clear arms of light across the darkness, discovering things otherwise hidden and illuminating wider areas than those of the immediate context. They are searchlights. I have selected one in each chapter of Scripture, for at least one central thought in every chapter should arrest the mind and affect the life," wrote G. Campbell Morgan, a skilled, wise, warm-hearted Bible teacher who conducted a classic 3-year study called Life Applications from Every Chapter of the Bible. Here is the fruit of that research—summarized, illustrated, and amplified with useful details—on all 66 books of the Bible.

GENESIS, EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS, 

DEUTERONOMY, JOSHUA, JUDGES, RUTH, 

1 SAMUEL, 2 SAMUEL, 1 KINGS,  2 KINGS, 

1 CHRONICLES, 2 CHRONICLES, EZRA, 

NEHEMIAH, ESTHER, JOB, PSALMS, 

PROVERBS, ECCLESIASTES, 

SONG OF SOLOMON,  ISAIAH, JEREMIAH,

 LAMENTATIONS, EZEKIEL, DANIEL, 

HOSEA, JOEL, AMOS, OBADIAH, JONAH, 

MICAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK, ZEPHANIAH,  

HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH, MALACHI,

 MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, JOHN, 

ACTS, ROMANS, 1 CORINTHIANS,

2 CORINTHIANS, GALATIANS, EPHESIANS, 

PHILIPPIANS, COLOSSIANS, 1 THESSALONIANS,

2 THESSALONIANS, 1 TIMOTHY,  2 TIMOTHY, TITUS,

PHILEMON, HEBREWS, JAMES, 1 PETER, 2 PETER,

1 JOHN, 2 JOHN, 3 JOHN, JUDE, REVELATION

2 Peter 1:9 "Whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins." Second Peter is the second of two letters the apostle Peter wrote. He begins with this astonishing reality for all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ: "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness ... by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature" (verses 3-4). That is God's part in our sanctification, or progressive holiness and Christ-likeness. This is what Peter says about our part: "Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue ... knowledge ... self-control ... steadfastness ... godliness ... and brotherly affection with love" (verses 5-7). The verse highlighted above is a graphic description of the spiritual condition of a Christian who fails to advance as Peter outlines. The condition, thankfully, is not total blindness, but a serious form of nearsightedness. Such a person sees what is immediately before him or her, but fails to recall what is eternal. He focuses on himself but not on God. He has "forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins," which means he has failed to respond to the enlargement of life and vision that came to him when he received the cleansing of his nature at the beginning of his Christian life. The cure for this nearsightedness, Peter says, is to "be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities," the aforementioned virtues that characterize our Savior, who purchased our forgiveness, "you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (verses 10-11). High levels of assurance rightly accompany high levels of obedience rooted in God's grace.

2 Peter 2:19 "They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. Whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved." This entire chapter is a serious warning about false prophets or teachers who promise freedom, but cannot deliver. This verse explains why they cannot. The apostle Paul says something similar here: "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" (Romans 6:16). It is a truth mankind is slow to believe because it means that the freedom of the will is strictly limited. I am free to choose my master. I am not free when I have chosen. I become the servant of that master. A man or woman may choose to yield to temptation and sin, but in doing so he or she becomes the servant of that sin. It is impossible for anyone to treat sin as completely under his control, to be either indulged in or set aside at will. Yielding is yielding and that means submission, the bending of the neck, and being compelled to obey the commands of sin. The only way to freedom from the mastery of sin is escape through submission to Christ, and that submission must be more than an act, but instead an attitude maintained by steady action. Otherwise, to quote Peter, those who superficially profess faith in Christ but are again entangled in the defilements of the world, "the last state has become worse for them than the first. It would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them" (verses 20-21).  This truth humbles the soul and leaves no room for pride of will. When we recognize and obey it, however, we will remain free from the dominion of sin. Abandoning ourselves to the Lord delivers us from the power of sin, but in no other way shall we be anything other than slaves of sin.

2 Peter 3:8 "Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Peter concludes his final letter with a challenge to Christians of all times and places to rethink how we think about time. We basically need to cancel the time element when contemplating the ways and works of God. Time is as nothing to God. We become hurried and flustered because we have only a day in which to do something. God has no such unrest, for in our small one day He is able to accomplish things we could only hope to do in a thousand years. On the other hand, we look down on the long time that must elapse before things can happen that we earnestly desire, but to God a thousand-year wait is as a day in passing. Throughout this chapter Peter has been talking about the imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ. People today tend to declare either that the promised return is false because about 2,000 years have passed since the promise was made or that He who made it is not acting as speedily as He might. But when we look at time from the Lord's perspective, thanks to Peter's clarity, we see that the purposes of God are so vast that their working out in human experience must take place at what He deems to be the optimum point in our time. On the other hand, His power is such that if and when He will, things can be done in the "twinkling of an eye" that will revolutionize all life, something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. To let Peter have the last word, "What sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to His promise we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (verses 11-13). Meanwhile, "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity" (verse 18).

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