Genesis 48:2 "Israel strengthened himself and sat up on the bed." (NKJV)
This was an interesting moment in the life, or rather the death, of
this great man of God. May it help my soul to show what ought to be the
conduct of the believer he nears death. The imagination can hardly
conceive any situation equally momentous, in every point of view, both
as it concerns a faithful God, a man's own heart, and the church the
dying saint is going to leave behind. What can form a more pleasing
sight than a dying saint, sitting up in the bed, (if the Lord permits
the opportunity) and telling, as Jacob, did, the merciful works of the
Lord in his life. All the way along the path of pilgrimage, "The God who
has fed me," said Jacob, "all my life long until this day: the Angel
(and who was this but Jesus?) which redeemed me from all evil."
Pause, my soul. Prepare yourself now for that day when it comes.
Imagine to yourself your friends around you, and you yourself
strengthened, just to sit up in the bed, to take an everlasting
farewell. What will you have to tell? What have you treasured up of
God's dealings with you, to sweeten death in the narrative, to bless God
in the just acknowledgement, and to leave behind you a testimony to
others of the truth, as it is in Jesus? My soul, what can you speak of?
What can you tell of your God, your Jesus? Have you known enough of him
to commit yourself into his Almighty hands, with an assurance of
salvation?
Pause! Did you not in the act of faith, long ago, stake yourself upon
Jesus for the whole of your everlasting welfare? Did you not from a
perfect conviction of your need of Jesus, and from as perfect a
conviction of the power and grace of Jesus to save you, did you not make
a full and complete surrender of yourself? Did you not affirm and
praise this blessed plan of God's mercy in Christ, to be saved wholly by
him, and wholly in his own way, and wholly to his own glory? And as
such, are you now afraid, or are you now shrinking back, when you are
come almost within sight of Jesus' arms to receive you? Oh, no! blessed
be God, this last act of committing your soul is not as great an act of
faith as the first was; for since that time you have had thousands of
evidences, and thousands of signs of love and faithfulness, that your
God is true.
Sit up then, my soul, and do as the dying patriarch did; recount to
all around you your confidence in the Son of God, who "has loved you,
and given himself for you." Cry out, as he did, "I have waited for your
salvation, O Lord." And as this will be the last opportunity of speaking
a word for God, testify of his faithfulness, and encourage all that
behold you to be seeking after an interest in Jesus, from seeing how
sweetly you finish a life of faith before you begin a life of glory, in
blessing God, though with dying lips, that the last notes which you
utter here below, may be only the momentary interruption to the same
subject in the first of your everlasting song. "To him that has loved
you, and washed you, from your sins in his blood."
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