But you cannot be sure, even from appearances, that this is absolutely a watch. It might be only a watch-case. In order to tell whether it is a watch, let us open it. After all, it is not a watch. It is only a watch-case. You would not wish to spend your money when you expect to get a watch, and on reaching home find that you have been deceived, and that you had nothing but a watch-case.
Now, boys and girls, what is this? (holding up the works of the watch). "A watch." This time you are right, this is a watch. It is a watch without a case around it. Now we will put the works into the case, and then we will have a complete watch. The works and the case together more properly constitute a watch.
A Watch-case and Works.
You have, I suppose, been at a funeral, and have seen the body of the dead man or woman or child lying in the coffin. Unless somebody has told you differently, you may possibly have thought the person whom you had known was lying there in the coffin. But this was not the fact. Every man, woman and child consists of a soul and a body, and when a person dies the soul returns to God, who gave it. God made our body out of the dust of the ground, and when the spirit leaves the body, it is a dead body, and it begins to decay, and soon becomes offensive, and so we bury the body out of our sight, putting it again in the ground, and finally it moulders back again to dust.
It is not so, however, with the soul. That is a spirit. When God had made Adam out of the dust of the ground, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now, this soul never dies. God has created it to live forever and ever, throughout all eternity. Those who are good and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ will be received at death to dwell forever with the Lord. And those who are wicked and do not repent of their sins, God will banish forever from His presence; for sin is hateful in the sight of God, who cannot look upon it with any degree of allowance.
Case and Works Separated.
The moment you look upon a body, without being able to tell how, you can nevertheless quickly distinguish between one who is asleep and one who is really dead. Even animals can tell a dead body. When a dead horse lies along the road, it is very difficult to drive a live horse near to the dead one. The living horse knows at once that the other is dead, although we do not know how he knows it.
Now, I want to show you that death does not affect the existence of the soul. I will now lift these works out of the watch case.