You must indeed, O believer, grapple with death, and shall get the first fall – but you shall rise again, and come off victorious at last. You must go down to the grave; but, though it be your long home, it will not be your everlasting home.
You will not hear the voice of your friends there; but you shall hear the voice of Christ there. You may be carried there with mourning, but you shall come up from it rejoicing. Your friends, indeed, will leave you there, but your God will not. What God said to Jacob, concerning his going down to Egypt (Gen. 46:3, 4), he says to you, on your going down to the grave, ‘Fear not to go down – I will go down with you – and I will also surely bring you up again.’
O solid comfort! O glorious hopes! ‘Therefore comfort’ yourselves, and ‘one another with these words’ (1 Thess. 4:18).
