Matthew xxvii. 38-50.

ET me listen to the ribald jeers which were flung upon my Lord. And let me listen, not as a judge, but as one who has been in the company of the callous crowd. For I, too, have mocked Him! I have said: “Hail, King!” and I have bowed before Him, but it has been mock and empty homage! I have sung: “Crown Him Lord of all!” but there has been no real recognition of His sovereignty; mine has been a mock coronation. From the seat of the mocker, deliver me, good Lord!

And let me stand near the cross while that awful voice of desolation rends the heavens. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” In that agonizing cry I am led to the real heart of the atonement. My Saviour was standing where His believers will never stand. That was the real death, the death of an inconceivable abandonment. And “He died for me!” He so died in order that I may never taste death. “He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.”

Every believer will go to sleep, and through a short sleep he will wake in the glory of the Eternal Presence. But he will never die: no, never die!