Now, in these few words, our Saviour gives us an assurance on this question which is more than sufficient. We shall go into a world in which He is ready to meet us, and in which He is preparing mansions for us. Without the Gospel, there is a complete veil over the future life. But to the Christian that veil is lifted by the Saviour and His Apostles in some glorious details, and above all—far above all—in this: that the Lord Jesus Christ, that living Man of whom you read in the Gospels, Whose character stands out so clearly there, in all graciousness, justice, love, and power, is preparing homes for us, and will be there to receive us unto Himself. David was inspired to sing, When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me. It was a great height of inspired faith to be able to utter that prayer of trust in the great God of his fathers, surrounded, as he then was, by clouds and darkness. But what a vastly greater blessing it is to be able to say it of the Lord Jesus Christ, Whom we are privileged to know, not only as God, but as Man in flesh and blood, and to be assured that in death, as in life, we have with us all the sympathy, all the tenderness, as well as all the righteousness and justice, which He showed during His life on earth. Had He not reason to say: Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in Me?
But if it is to be a comfort to us to know that we shall be received by the Lord Jesus Christ when we pass from this world, and that, whether we pass suddenly or slowly, we shall find ourselves in His hands, we cannot fail to realize that one condition on our own part is essential. We must come to Him with a character, and in a condition, which He can approve. He will meet us in two capacities; first, as our Saviour and friend, but also as our Judge. Without waiting for that ultimate judgment which He has announced, the thought of our closer approach to Him at death must make us deeply apprehensive of His personal judgment on our character and our lives. If we desire to meet Him in happiness, we must be preparing ourselves, while we are here, so as to be at least in general harmony with His will and His character. In consequence of those inveterate sins of mankind, which bring about wars and all other such miseries, He Himself, with His own deliberate consent, was brought to death, and sacrificed His life as an atonement for our evil; and by that sacrifice He has won from God the Father, His Father and our Father, the right to forgive us and to judge us mercifully. We may be sure accordingly that He will receive us into the arms of His mercy, and pardon our innumerable failures and offences, if we truly repent of them. But if we are to be at peace with Him hereafter, in His mansions, He must needs expect us, while we are here, to be trying to grow like Him, and to be doing His will. This accordingly is the second main point which follows from this assurance of our Lord. It places us under the strongest possible obligation to live here as Christ would have us, in order that we may look forward with full hope to living with Him hereafter.
Consequently, this promise of Christ obliges us to Christen, as it were, or to Christianize, the work of our lives, and every duty or profession in which we are engaged. This is a principle which has innumerable applications; and I will only apply it this morning to one aspect of the profession of a soldier. Men had great ideals before Christ came. Few things are nobler, in the profession of arms, than the examples of self-sacrifice, of bravery, of generosity, exhibited by the ancient Jews, Greeks, and Romans, and, in our own days, by the Japanese. But the history of the Christian world has shown that it is possible to raise those ideals, if not to a higher, yet to a more gracious, height by adding a Christian touch or colour to them. The knighthood of the Middle Ages, for instance, exhibited the highest qualities of a manly soldiery, elevated, purified, and illuminated by the supreme graces of gentleness, of mercy, of tenderness for the weak, of that impulse to save the suffering and the crushed, which is embodied in our Lord’s character as “the Saviour.” The knight of the Middle Ages was essentially the saviour of the weak, the champion of women, bound by oath to uphold all right and righteousness, to avenge wrong, to maintain, in the midst of his stern duties, the mercies and graces of Christian feeling. One of them, as he stood at the bier of the most famous knight of his day, is described in the old romance as exclaiming: And now, I daresay, that Sir Lancelot, there thou liest: thou wert never matched of none earthly knight’s hands; and thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse; and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights; and thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest. Can we fail to be sensible that, even in such an imperfect example, something of the grace of Christian tenderness has been shed over the character—an essence of Christian feeling, which would make impossible in such a soldier any brutal violence or wilful injustice? It was, in fact, the conscious example of Christ which controlled them. They all, more or less, resembled the knight of our own noble poet Spenser:
For on his breast a bloody cross he bore,
The dear remembrance of his dying Lord:
For Whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead, as living ever, Him adored;
Upon his shield the like was also scored,
For sovran hope which in his help he had.