Why is this? I do not mean why is it in the case of the wilful, the sensual, the worldly—there is no need to ask the question of them; CHRIST’S coming will be their utter confusion, and the immediate forerunner of their destruction. It is easy to understand why _they_ wish him to delay. But why is it in the case of the truly penitent, the reformed, the faithful, the holy, the comparatively ready for CHRIST’S kingdom of glory? The foremost reason seems to be that they have never had the courage to meditate calmly and sufficiently on death. The first thought of death alarms them. And this is natural, for death is part of the punishment of sin, and all that reminds of sin should alarm. But it is only the _first_ thought that alarms. If they would give it further consideration, they would see that death is deprived of his sting, that, monster as he appears, to them he is harmless. “There is no condemnation for them that are in CHRIST JESUS.” Death is not their enemy, but their friend. In fact, he is death no longer. He is an appointed minister to take them out of what might be more properly called death—this mortal life—and introduce them into real life. He does not separate them from CHRIST, but joins them more truly to Him. It is not a dark, bottomless pit, with sides that cannot be climbed, to which he brings them, but a short valley leading from the plain of this world to the city of glory, which he that enters passes through in a moment, ay, and less than a moment, and is new born for eternity. Bring yourselves, brethren, to believe this, to feel the reality of it, to be sure that the moment your body falls asleep in JESUS your spirit is wafted to Paradise, and begins to rest consciously on CHRIST, and to company with the spirits of the just departed. Then, though the nearness of death may for the moment awe you—because it is the antechamber which leads directly into the presence of so much holiness and glory—it will have no power to fill you with dismay, no undesirableness to make you shrink from it. No, brethren, you will think much of it, you will patiently hope for it, you will anticipate it and watch for it, and when it draws nigh, you will welcome it with joy, and hasten to be transferred by it from mortal life to immortal!