Perhaps you will say, “All we meant when we said that the chances were against our dying was that God’s will was against our dying.”
Did you only mean that? Then why put the thought of God away by foolish words about chance? For you know that it is God and God only who keeps you alive. You must look at that, you must face that. If you are alive now, God keeps you so. If you live forty years more, God will make you live that time. And He who can make you live, can also let you not live; and then you will die. God can withdraw the breath of life from you or me or any one at any moment. And then where would our chances of not dying be? We should die here and now, and know that God is the Lord and not chance . . .
But think again. If God makes you alive He must have some reason for making you alive. For mind—it is not as you fancy, that when God leaves you alone you live, and when He puts forth His power and visits you, you die. Not that, but the very opposite. For in Adam all die. Our bodies are dead by reason of sin, and in the midst of life we are in death. There is a seed of death in you and me and every little child. While we are eating and drinking and going about our business, fancying that we cannot help living, we carry the seeds
of disease in our own bodies, which will surely kill us some day, even if we are not cut off before by some sudden accident. That is true, physicians know that it is true. Our bodies carry in them from the very cradle the seeds of death; and therefore it is not because God leaves us alone that we live. We live because God, our merciful heavenly Father, does not leave us alone, but keeps down those seeds of disease and death by His Spirit, who is the Lord and Giver of Life.
God’s Spirit of Life is fighting against death in our bodies from the moment we are born. And then, as Moses says, when He withdraws that Spirit of His, then it is that we die and are turned again to our dust. So that our living a long time or a short time, does not depend on Chance, or on our own health or constitution, but entirely on how long God may choose to keep down the death which is lying in us, ready to kill us at any moment, and certain to kill us sooner or later.
And yet people fancy that they live because they cannot help living, unless God interferes with them and makes them die. They fancy, thoughtless and ignorant as they are, that when they are in health, God leaves them alone, and that therefore when they are in health they may leave God alone.
My friends, I tell you that it is God, and not our constitution or chance either which keeps you alive; as you will surely find out the moment after the last breath has left your body. And therefore I ask you solemnly the plain question, “For what does God keep you alive?” For what? Will a man keep plants in his garden which bear neither fruit nor flowers? Will a man keep stock on his farm which will only eat and never make profit; or a servant in his house who will not work?
Much more, will a man keep a servant who will not only be idle himself, but quarrel with his fellow servants, lead them into sin and shame, and teach them to disobey their master? What man in his senses would keep such plants, such stock, such servants? And yet God keeps hundreds and thousands in His garden and in His house for years and years, while they are doing no good to Him, and doing harm to those around them.
How many are there who never yet did one thing to make their companions better, and yet have done many a thing to make their companions worse! Then why are they alive still? Why does not God rid Himself of them at once and let them die, instead of cumbering the ground? I know but one reason. If they were only God’s plants, or His stock, or His servants, He might rid Himself of them. But they are something far nearer and dearer to Him than that. They are His children, and therefore He has mercy on them. They are redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world; and therefore for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, God looks on them with long-suffering and tender loving-kindness. Man was made in God’s likeness at first, and was the son of God. And therefore howsoever fallen and corrupt man’s nature is now, yet God loves him still, even though he be a heathen or an infidel. How much more for you, my friends, who know that you are God’s children, who have been declared to be His children by Holy Baptism, and grafted into Christ’s church. You at least are bound to believe that God preserves you from death, because He loves you. He protects you every day and every hour, as a father takes care of His children, and keeps them out of dangers which they cannot see or understand.
Yes! this is plain truth—your heavenly Father is keeping you alive! Oh, do not make that truth an excuse for forgetting and disobeying your heavenly Father!