〔返回目录〕
【慕迪之死】慕迪是美国的大布道家，由十八岁传道到六十二岁，忠心事主四十四年。他创立学校，孤儿院，神学院数处，一生因他得救者，不下百万。英美各地教会因之复兴，美国青年会也因之大大兴旺。他临死说道：『如果死是这样的光景，我很愿意死。』他的妻，儿，孙等都在床旁流泪，慕迪看见说道：『你们这是作什幺？你们应当喜乐，天堂之门已经为我大开，耶稣亲自要来接我，我不过同你们暂时分离，不久在那光明里还要再见！」他对妻儿一切吩咐完毕之后，毫无痛苦的安然去世。
【搬家】美国阿伯典地方，有位麦贵歌牧师，不愿意死，别人临死时，他也不去安慰他们。一天，他在搬家，家具已经搬完，但是老牧师仍在那里来同走着，思想孩子们都是在这屋内生的，也是在此长大，主日讲题全是在这屋里豫备好的，真是恋恋不舍。他的仆人走来，对他说道：『牧师，东西全搬过去啦！新房子比这个好的多，走罢！」神为她的子民所豫备的宫殿，比这世上的房子好多了，那是『非人手所造的，永不败坏的基业。』信徒之死如同搬家，有何可怕！
【吴复初弟兄的祖父逝世情形】吴弟兄的祖父是个虔诚信耶稣的，活到七十余岁，平日时常扶其孙子（即吴复初）前往大路旁边行人休息亭内，劝人相信耶稣。在他临死之前，身体一点病痛也没有。一天晚间，正与家人围炉安坐闲谈，老太爷渐渐不讲话了，怡然安睡，家人以为他已年老，打肫睡觉了。儿子们继续谈话，此时吴先生的父亲从外进来，看见老太爷动也不动，威他也不答应，摸他的手已经冷了，这才发现老太爷死去，同到天家去了。信耶稣的人，真福气，凭他临终这点快乐，你也应该相信耶稣。幸𩃭照的人之死，如同搬家一样，从这里一间龌龊的房子，搬到另外一间美好的房子，永乐的房子。因为我们的家是天堂，地上是客栈，我们在世不是等死，乃是等返天堂老家去。因为我们在此世界，尚有救人工作未完，一时不能同去。任务一完，基督会来提接我们，与她一同享受永远福乐。在天堂无痛苦，无疾病，无忧虑，无烦恼，无忌妒，无仇恨，无不安，无死亡。朋友们！．我们一同相信耶稣罢！回到天父那里去罢！天父天天等着我们同头，何必死亡呢？不要再受魔鬼的欺骗罢！总有一天你要死去，总有一天你要见神，那时你要如何办呢？
【陈崇桂牧师的父亲归回天家】陈牧师的父亲是一虔诚信耶稣的人。一日他说，忠𩃭照明天就要接他去了，便对家人说道：『你们快打电报给我大儿子，叫他回来。』家人以为他的年纪太大随便说说，就对他说：『你老人家身体那样好，耶稣现在不会接你老人家去的。』他说：『你们不知道，昨晚耶稣自己告诉我的，你们照我的话去打电报，给我大儿子，并且为我买来白衣白裤穿上。』家人不得已，只好照办。次日晚上九点锺时，他还吃了一大碗面，加上两个荷包蛋。家人说，耶稣不会接你老人家去，他仍不听，旋把家人全都招到床前，对他们讲说一番，劝他们好好信耶稣，传福音救人，然后为他们祝福。祝福完了，他的眼睛闭着靠在床上，面带笑容，用手肿砒说：『主耶稣来接我了，她穿白衣，手里拿着一把钥匙。』按此钥匙即是圣经所载阴府和死亡的钥匙，是在耶稣手中。说时，他就安然去世了。你看这样死法，快乐不快乐？福气不福气呢？
【兴登堡巳经豫备好了】德国第二任巨大总统与登堡氏，八十四岁方才去世。当他卧病在状之时，医生看他病无起色，体力日衰，就对他说：『死神已到门口了。』他不慌不忙用手探取枕旁圣经，翻到约翰福音第十四章，慢慢的读耶稣的话：「你们心里不要忧愁，你们信神，也当信我。在我父的家里，有许多住处，若是没有，我就早已告诉你们了；我去原是为你们豫备地方去，我若去就必再来接你们到我那里去；我在那里，叫你们也在那里。』读了就对医生说道：『请死神来罢！尽管请死神来，我已经豫备好了。』
【只有解散丧事聚会】慕迪年青之时．曾在芝加哥忽然被人请去领一丧事聚会，赴会之人多半都未信主。慕迪想讲一篇完全合乎圣经的道理，于是就在圣经里面去找一篇主耶稣在丧事聚会的演词。但他找遍圣经，却未找到，因为主耶稣从未领过丧事聚会，只有解散丧事聚会。主耶稣说：『我实实在在的告诉你们，时候将到，现在就是了，死人要听见神儿子的声音，听见的人就要活了。』
【引我想家在天外】有位牧师失去了孩子；他曾经参加过很多的葬礼，并安慰丧家的忧伤，而这次竟是他自己的亲人，一股难堪的感觉涌上心头。这时，另一位牧师前来主持葬礼并讲道，讲道完毕，这位父亲即刻立起身来，站在棺木前方。他说，几年前刚到这教区时，他常常往河的对岸望过去，他对河那边的人没有兴趣，因为彼此并不相识，而且没有一位信徒是属于他的教区。然而几年后，有位青年来到他家，娶了他的女儿，之后就住在河的彼岸；于是，他突然对河那边的人产生兴趣，每早晨起床后总会往窗外看过去，眺望河那边女儿的家园。而如今，他说：「我另外一个女儿走了，她被带到另一条河的彼岸，此刻，我觉得天堂比以前任何时候都与我更亲切更靠近。」
【好牧人】一个父亲失去了他的独生子，心里闷闷不乐，对主也冷淡了，不再去聚会。有一天，他到郊外散心。以前他也常带他的孩子到那里，旧地重游，触景生情，倍感伤心。正在那时，他看见一个牧人在赶一群羊过山谷上的窄桥。牧人推母羊先走，但无论如何，母羊就是不肯动，它可能顾虑到自己的安全。牧人费了半天工夫，改让小羊先走，小羊也不肯走。那个父亲看见这一景像，觉得十分有趣。牧人后来在无可奈何之下，突生一计，他抱起一只最小的羊，撇下一大群羊，自己独自向窄桥走去。这时，羊妈妈慌了，它马上就跟随在牧人之后，也走向窄桥，因为它爱它的小羊；其余的羊，也随着羊妈妈平安走过了窄桥。
这位父亲忽然领悟到一点：主耶稣是好牧人，祂已抱起他的独生子先过窄桥到天父那里去，他必须跟在主的后面，将来也过窄桥到天父那儿。这个启示，使这个父亲的信心重新点燃，他又回去聚会，恢复原先的热心，因为他已经看见他的独生子现在正在主的怀中。
【跟随小羊羔】一位失去了所有儿女的朋友告诉我，他曾在一个东方国家看过一个牧羊人，想把他的羊群带过溪去，他下入水中按着名字呼叫它们，当它们来到沙滩，只是鸣叫，因害怕而不肯跟他下去，最后，他走回去，束紧腰带，抱起两只小羊羔，一只放进长袍，一只放进他的胸怀，然后下水，老羊现在不再低头往水中看，而是抬头仰望牧人，它们想看它们的小羊，他是这样把它们带过了溪水，带领它们进入另一边青草地上。
许多时候，我们的好牧人下到人间，带一只小羊到荣耀的山顶，他们的父亲和母亲也开始仰望而跟随。
【基督徒不需预备后事】有人问约翰卫斯理：「如果你知道主后天就要把你接去了，你怎么办呢？」问这话的人是想知道一个神仆如何处理他的后事。卫斯理说：「我们基督徒没有后事，因为不信主的人死了以后就完了，所以他们要预备后事。而我们属神的人一切都在神的手里，我们也没有死，不过是在基督里睡觉，将来还要复活，所以我没有后事。如果知道后天主来接我，我仍要照常工作，处理教会事工，安静读经、祷告。」─
寇世远《剩下集》
【视死如搬家】近代布道家慕迪先生曾宣告说：「朋友们，有一天若有人告诉你慕迪死了，请不要相信，慕迪只是搬家罢了。」这是个能真正视死如归、如「搬家」的人，他能不活得有意义吗？─
施达雄《生之态度》
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】The inevitable
tomb is not a period at the end of the sentence of life, but a conjunction
connecting us with the life to com.
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】A father gave
this counsel to his married daughter on the first anniversary of her mother’s
death:
“I had forty
wonderful years with your Mom,” he said, “the best years of my life, But that
part of my life is over. Finished!”
“But
Dad…” “No buts, listen to me.” His clear blue eyes stared intensely into mine.
I couldn’t turn away from him as much as I wanted to. “They were the best years
of my life,” he repeated. “Your mother is no longer with me; this truth has to
be faced. But I am alive and must live the time allotted me until she and I are
together again.” His voice trembled, but it was not uncertain. “She is gone,
but no one can take away the wonderful memories. They are part of me, the happy
memories and the sad ones. But only a part. I can’t let them possess me or I
couldn’t get through my days. Every day is a gift from God. It must be lived
with joy. It is just a taste of the joy to come when we will all be together
again.” I kissed him then, not realizing that our conversation would one day be
one of my fondest memories. Recalling that day has always been a great strength
to me, particularly today—the first anniversary of my dear father’s death.
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】Dr. Donald Grey
Barnhouse told of the occasion when his first wife had died. He, with his
children, had been to the funeral service for her. As he was driving his
motherless children home, they were naturally overcome with grief at the
parting. Dr. Barnhouse said that he was trying to think of some word of comfort
that he could give them. Just then, a huge moving van passed them. As it
passed, the shadow of the truck swept over the car. And as the truck pulled on
in front of them, an inspiration came to Dr. Barnhouse. He said, “Children,
would you rather be run over by a truck or by its shadow?” The children said,
“Well, of course, Dad, we’d much rather be run over by the shadow! That can’t
hurt us at all.” Dr. Barnhouse said, “Did you know that two thousand years ago
the truck of death ran over the Lord Jesus…in order that only its shadow might
run over us?”
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】I am standing on
a seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and
starts for the ocean blue. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand
and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where
the sea and sky come down to meet each other. Then someone at my side says,
“There, she is gone.” Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just
as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just
as able to bear her load of living weights to its place of destination. Her
diminished size is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone say,
“There she is gone,” on that distant shore there are other eyes watching for
her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes,” and such is
dying. ──《Immortality》Loraine Boettner
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】A little girl
whose father had just died asked her mother where her father had gone. “To be
with Jesus,” replied the mother.
A few
days later, talking to a friend, the mother said, “I am so grieved to have lost
my husband.”
The little
girl heard her and, remembering what she had told her, asked, “Mother, is a
thing lost when you know where it is?”
“No,
of course not,” said her mom.
“Well,
then, how can Daddy be lost when he has gone to be with Jesus?”
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】Years ago, Dr.
Arthur John Gossip preached a sermon titled “When Life Tumbles In, What Then?”
on the day after his beloved wife had died suddenly. He closed with these
words:
“I
don’t think you need to be afraid of life. Our hearts are very frail, and there
are places where the road is ery steep and very lonely, but we have a wonderful
God. And as Paul puts it, ‘What can separate us from His love? Not death,’ he
writes immediately. No, not death, for standing in the roaring of the Jordan,
cold with its dreadful chill and very conscious of its terror, of its rushing,
I, too, like Hopeful in 《Pilgrim’s Progress》, can call back to you who
one day in your turn will have to cross it, ‘Be of good cheer, my brother, for
I feel the bottom and it is sound.’”
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】As the great
Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson lay sick and about to die, he said, “I am
not tired of my work, neither am I tired of the world; yet when Christ calls me
home, I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from his school.
Perhaps I feel something like the young bride when she contemplates resigning
the pleasant association of her childhood for a yet dearer home—though only a
little like her, for there is no doubt resting on my future.”
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】When Martin
Luther’s daughter, Magdelena, was fourteen years old, she was taken sick and
lay dying. Luther prayed, “O God, I love her so, but nevertheless, Thy will be
done.”
Then
he turned to his daughter and said, “Magdelena, would you rather be with me, or
would you rather go and be with your Father in heaven?” And the girl said,
“Father, as God wills.” Luther held her in his arms as she passed away, and as
they laid her to rest, he said, “Oh my dear Magdelenachen, you will rise and
shine like the stars in the sun. How strange to be so sorrowful and yet to know
that all is at peace, that all is well.”
It is
this hope in the hour of death that the resurrection gives to us.
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】There are many
instances of those whose faith has triumphed in the hour of death. D.L. Moody,
the great evangelist of the past century, said on his deathbed, “Earth is
receding; heaven is approaching. This is my crowning day!”
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】This incident
illustrates how the child of God can face the last enemy with confidence and
courage:
Many
years ago, the ship known as the Empress of Ireland went down with 130
Salvation Army officers on board, along with many other passengers. Only 21 of
those Christian workers’ lives were spare—an unusually small number. Of the 109
workers who drowned, not one body had on a life preserver! Many of the
survivors told how those brave people, seeing that there were not enough
lifebelts, took off their own and strapped them onto others, saying, “I know
Jesus, so I can die better than you can.” Their supreme sacrifice and faithful
words set a beautiful example, which for many years has inspired the Salvation
Army to carry on courageously for God. Millions have come to recognize that
born-again individuals can face death fearlessly.
Death
for someone who has not come to know God is a frightening prospect. And indeed
it should be, for when one passes from this life, there is no longer the
possibility of coming right with God. In contrast, the dark door of death for a
Christian is only the other sie of the shining gate of life.
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】The dedicated
missionary Jim Elliot once said: “I must not think it strange if God takes in
youth those whom I would have kept on earth until they were older. God is
peopling eternity, and I must not restrict Him to old men and women.”
【Death,
Believer’s Response to】Samuel
Rutherford, a seventeenth-century Scottish pastor and theologian, wrote the
following to a woman when her young daughter died: “Remember what age your
daughter was, and that just so long was your lease of her…your lease (has) run
out, and you can no more justly quarrel against your great Superior for taking
His own, at His just term-day, than a poor farmer can complain that his master
taketh a portion of his own land to himself when his lease is expired.”
【Death, Enoch’s
Translation to Heaven】Enoch lived to
be 365 years old. The Bible says that he walked with God and God took him away.
A little girl described this experience to her mother. “Mamma,” she said, “one
day Enoch and God took a walk together. They walked and they talked, and they
talked and they walked, until Enoch finally said, ‘Oh, my, dear Lord, it’s
getting late. I’d better go home.’ And the Lord said, ‘Why, Enoch, we’ve been
walking so long together, I believe we’re closer to my home than yours. Why
don’t you come home with me tonight?’” So Enoch went home with God.
【Death, Fear of】A dying man was fearful, even though he was a
born-again Christian. He expressed his feelings to his Christian doctor. The
physician was silent, not knowing what to say. Just then a whining and
scratching was heard at the door. When the doctor opened it, in bounded his big
beautiful dog, who often went with him as he made house calls. The dog was glad
to see his master. Sensing an opportunity to comfort his troubled patient, the
doctor said, “My dog has never been in your room before, so he didn’t know what
it was like in here. But he knew I was in here, and that was enough. In the
same way, I’m looking forward to heaven. I don’t know much about it, but I know
my Savior is there. And that’s all I need to know!”
【Death, Fear of】John Wayne, at age 71, explained that he
sometimes had difficult moments watching his old movies: “It’s kind of
irritating to see I was a good-looking 40-year-old and suddenly I can look over
and see this 71-year-old…I’m not squawking…I just want to be around for a long
time.”
【Death, Last
Words】In Shakespeare’s
《Richard II》, the dying Duke
of Lancaster tells the Duke of York: “O, but they say the tongues of dying men
enforce attention like deep harmony; Where words are scarce they are seldom
spent in vain, for they breathe their words in pain.”
【Death, Ministry
to Terminally Ill】David Banner—the
main character in the T.V. series “The Incredible Hulk”—in talking to a
terminal cancer victim, told this story: “A man being chased b a tiger came to
a cliff. In desperation he jumped and grabbed a solitary limb. Below him, a
second tiger roared, waiting for his fall. Above him, the first tiger lashed
out, barely missing its prey. As the branch suddenly began to pull away from
the cliff, the helpless man noticed on the cliff in a patch of soil a single
bright red strawberry on a lonely plant. Hanging there, he reached out, grabbed
the fruit, and ate it. And, of, it tasted so good!”
Reach
out for the strawberries.
【Death,
Preparation for】Many people
sleep under an electric blanket during winter. The only problem with this
wonderful invention is that it is too good at what it does. That is, an
electric blanket makes a bed so warm and comfortable that on cold mornings it
is very hard to get up. Some people have found that the only thing that works
for them is to turn off their electric blanket so that the bed becomes much
less comfortable and thus it is easier to leave their cozy spot. Perhaps God
lets us deteriorate physically in our late years so that we will be more
willing to leave our ailing bodies for the unexplored future that he sets
before us.
【Death,
Preparation for】When Corrie ten
Boom was a girl, her first realization of death came afer a visit to the home
of a neighbor who had died. It impressed her that someday her parents would
die. Corrie’s father comforted her. “Corrie, when you and I go to Amsterdam,
when do I give you your ticket?” he asked.
Corrie
answered, “Why, just before we get on the train.”
“Exactly,”
responded her father, “and our wise Father in heaven knows exactly when we’re
going to need things too. Don’t run out ahead of him, Corrie. When the time
comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find
the strength you need—just in time.”