Faithful Steward Ministries and FSM Women's Outreach

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DEVOTION

Spurgeon Gems on Death and Dying

(You will find it helpful to LISTEN to the Audio, as you READ the text below.)

Ecclesiastes 7:1-2, “The day of death, is better than the day of birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning, than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.”

The sight of a funeral is a very healthful thing for the soul.

It is very wise to talk about our death. The shroud, the grave and the shovel, may teach us more of true wisdom than all the learned heads that ever pondered vain philosophy, or all the lips that ever uttered earth-born science! “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning–but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.” Ecclesiastes 7:4 

We are all like trees marked for the woodsman’s ax. The fall of one should remind us that for everyone, whether as great as the cedar, or as lowly as the fir tree–the appointed hour is hurrying on apace.

We talk of death too lightly. It is solemn work to the best of men. I can assure you that it is no child’s play to die. May we regard death as the most weighty of all events, and be sobered by its approach.

The young may die.
The old must die.

There is no pain in death, the pain is in life.
When a man dies, there is an end of life’s pain.
Death is the pain-killer, not the pain-maker.
It is not a loss to die–it is a lasting, perpetual gain.

Death is the physician that eases all pain!
Death is no punishment to the believer–it is the gate of endless joy!

I never yet heard regrets from dying men that they had done too much for Christ, or lived too earnestly for Him.

To be prepared to die, is to be prepared to live.

Where death leaves you, judgment will find you, and eternity will keep you!

He who does not prepare for death, is more than an ordinary fool–he is a madman!

The Lord will give dying grace in dying moments.

Let us learn to hold our dearest friends loosely.
Let us love them, but let us always learn to love them as dying things.

We go through the dark valley of death–and emerge into the light of eternity.
We do not die--but only wake in eternity!

God has fixed the hour of our death.
It can neither be postponed by skill of physician, nor hastened by malice of foe.

Time, how short!
Death, how brief!
Eternity, how long!
Immortality, how endless!

There is an essential difference between the death of the godly and the death of the ungodly. Death comes to the ungodly man as a penal infliction–but to the righteous man, as a summons to his Father’s palace!

To the lost sinner, death is an executioner.
To the saint, death is a casting aside of his sins and infirmities.

Death to the wicked, is the king of terrors.
Death to the saint, is the end of terrors, and the commencement of eternal glory!

Oh, if we could not die, it would be horrible indeed!
Who wants to be chained to this poor life for a century or longer?
It is the very joy of this earthly life, to think that it will come to an end.

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far!” Philippians 1:21, 23

https://www.gracegems.org/Grace_Gems.htm

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CONTEXT/STUDY

Verses 1–6 Reputation for piety and honesty is more desirable than all the wealth and pleasure in this world. It will do more good to go to a funeral than to a feast. We may lawfully go to both, as there is occasion; our Saviour both feasted at the wedding of his friend in Cana, and wept at the grave of his friend in Bethany. But, considering how apt we are to be vain and indulge the flesh, it is best to go to the house of mourning, to learn the end of man as to this world. Seriousness is better than mirth and jollity. That is best for us which is best for our souls, though it be unpleasing to sense. It is better to have our corruptions mortified by the rebuke of the wise, than to have them gratified by the song of fools. The laughter of a fool is soon gone, the end of his mirth is heaviness.

Matthew Henry and Thomas Scott, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 1997), Ec 7:1.

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v.1 A GOOD name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.
A good name; a good and well-grounded report from wise and worthy persons. Heb. a name, which is put for a good name by a synecdoche, that only being worthy to be called a name, because evil and worthless men quickly lose their name and memory. Thus a wife is put for a good wife, Prov. 18:22, and a day for a good day, Luke 19:42, 44. Precious ointment; which was very fragrant, and acceptable, and useful, and of great price, especially in those countries. See Deut. 33:24; Psal. 92:10; 133:2; Isa. 39:2. The day of death, to wit, of a good man, or one who hath left a good name behind him, which is easily understood both from the former clause, and from the nature of the thing; for to a wicked man this day is far worse, and most terrible. Yet if this passage be delivered with respect only to this life, and abstracting from the future life, as many other passages in this book are to be understood, then this may be true in general of all men, and is the consequent of all the former discourse. Seeing this life is so full of vanity, and vexation, and misery, it is a more desirable thing for a man to go out of it, than to come into it; which is the more considerable note, because it is contrary to the opinion and practice of almost all mankind, to celebrate their own or children’s birth-days with solemn feasts and rejoicings, and their deaths with all expressions of sorrow.

Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible, vol. 2 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1853), 292.

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Ver. 1. A good name is better than precious ointment, &c.] The word “good” is not in the text, but is rightly supplied, as it is by Jarchi; for of no other name can this be said; that which is not good cannot be better. Some understand this of the name of God, which is God himself, who is the summum bonum, and chief happiness of men, and take it to be an answer to the question ch. 6:12 this and this only is what is a man’s good, and is preferable to all outward enjoyments whatever; interest in him as a covenant-God; knowledge of him in Christ, which has eternal life annexed to it; communion with him; the discoveries of his loving-kindness, which is better than life; and the enjoyment of him to all eternity. This is true of the name of Christ, whose name Messiah, which signifies anointed, is as ointment poured forth, and is preferable to it, Cant. 1:3; John 1:41 so his other names, Jesus a Saviour; Jehovah, our righteousness; Immanuel, God with us; are exceeding precious to those who know the worth of him, and see their need of righteousness and salvation by him; his person, and the knowledge of him; his Gospel, and the fame and report it gives of him; infinitely exceed the most precious and fragrant ointment; see 2 Cor. 2:14–16. So the name or names given to the people of God, the new names of Hephzibah and Beulah, the name of sons of God, better than that of sons and daughters; and of Christians, or anointed ones, having received that anointing from Christ which teacheth all things, and so preferable to the choicest ointment, Isa. 56:5 and 62:3, 4 and 65:15; Rev. 2:17; Acts 11:26; 1 John 2:20, 27. Likewise to have a name written in heaven, in the Lamb’s book of life, and to have one’s name confessed by Christ hereafter before his Father and his holy angels; or even a good name among men, a name for a truly godly gracious person; for love to Christ, zeal for his cause, and faithfulness to his truths and ordinances; such as the woman got, better than the box of ointment poured on Christ’s head; and which the brother had, whose praise in the Gospel was throughout the churches; and as Demetrius, who had good report of all men, and of the truth itself, Matt. 26:13; 2 Cor. 8:18; 3 John 12. Such a good name is better than precious ointment for the value of it, being better than all riches, for which this may be put; see Isa. 39:2; Prov. 22:1 and for the fragrancy of it, emitting a greater; and for the continuance of it, being more lasting, Psal. 112:6; Prov. 10:6. The Targum is, “better is a good name the righteous get in this world, than the anointing oil which was poured upon the heads of kings and priests.” So Alshech, “a good name is better than the greatness of a king, though anointed with oil.” And the day of death than the day of one’s birth; some render it, in connexion with the preceding clause, as a good name is better, &c. so the day of death than the day of one’s birth; that is, the day of a man’s death than the day of his birth. This is to be understood not of death simply considered; for that in itself, abstracted from its connexions and consequences, is not better than to be born into the world, or come into life, or than life itself; it is not preferable to it, nor desirable; for it is contrary to nature, being a dissolution of it; a real evil, as life, and long life, are blessings; an enemy to mankind, and a terrible one: nor of other persons, with whom men have a connexion, their friends and relations; for with them the day of birth is a time of rejoicing, and the day of death is a time of mourning, as appears from Scripture and all experience; see John 16:21; Gen. 40:20; Matt. 14:6; Gen. 23:2; John 11:31, 33. It is indeed reported of some Heathenish and barbarous people in Thrace, and who inhabited Mount Caucasus, that they mourned at the birth of their children, reckoning up the calamities they are entering into, and rejoiced at the death of their friends, being delivered from their troubles: but this is to be understood of the persons themselves that are born and die; not of all mankind, unless as abstracted from the consideration of a future state, and so it is more happy to be freed from trouble than to enter into it; nor of wicked men, it would have been better indeed if they had never been born, or had died as soon as born, that their damnation might not have been aggravated by the multitude of their sins; but after all, to die cannot be best for them, since at death they are cast into hell, into everlasting fire, and endless punishment; this is only true of good men, that have a good name living and dying; have a good work of grace upon them, and so are meet for heaven; the righteousness of Christ on them, and so have a title to it; they are such who have hope in their death, and die in faith and in the Lord: their death is better than their birth; at their birth they come into the world under the imputation and guilt of sin, with a corrupt nature; are defiled with sin, and under the power of it, liable in themselves to condemnation and death for it: at the time of their death they go out justified from sin through the righteousness of Christ, all being expiated by his sacrifice, and pardoned for his sake; they are washed from the filth of sin by the blood of Christ, and are delivered from the power and being of it by the spirit and grace of God; and are secured from condemnation and the second death: at their coming into the world they are liable to sin yet more and more; at their going out they are wholly freed from it; at the time of their birth they are born to trouble, and are all their days exercised with it, incident to various diseases of the body, have many troubles in the world, and from the men of it; many conflicts with a body of sin and death, and harassed with the temptations of Satan; but at death they are delivered from all these, enter into perfect peace and unspeakable joy; rest from all their labours and toils, and enjoy uninterrupted communion with God, Father, Son, and Spirit, angels, and glorified saints, The Targum is, “the day in which a man dies and departs to the house of the grave, with a good name and with righteousness, is better than the day in which a wicked man is born into the world.” So the Midrash interprets it of one that goes out of the world with a good name, considering this clause in connexion with the preceding, as many do.

John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, vol. 4, The Baptist Commentary Series (London: Mathews and Leigh, 1810), 589–590.

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SERMON