Do you know that man?

(Archibald Brown)

"What man can live and not see death, or save himself from the power of the grave?" Psalm 89:48

How few men meditate on their own death! "All men think all men mortal, but themselves!"

I was talking with a friend only this afternoon about the continual procession of funerals that goes past my house on a Sunday afternoon; and as we were talking I could not help saying to myself, "I find it so difficult to realize that I may be looking on the very hearse which before long will carry me!"

Have you ever tried to look at your own death? It will do you no harm; so take up the Word of God, and read, "It is appointed for man to die once - and after that comes judgment!" Hebrews 9:27.

Do you see that man lying there on that bed? Do you hear how labored his breathing is? Do you see what big drops of sweat stand upon his brow? You take him by the hand, and he tries to speak to you - but he cannot. And there in the corner of the room you hear the suppressed sobbing of the wife as she folds her little child to her bosom. The dying man's breath gets heavier, and the doctor says, "There is nothing more that I can do."

Do you know that man? Why, it is yourself!

"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." Ecclesiastes 7:2