Christ in Death

Octavius Winslow

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is with you — in the hour and article of death. Never did a believer in Jesus die alone! Alone he may be as to all human aid and Christian sympathy. But he cannot be really and actually alone; for, if ever Christ fulfils this exceeding great and precious promise, "I am with you always" — it is when His blood-bought, ransomed saint enters and passes through the shaded valley. He is with you to speak the promises, to mete out the grace, to stifle fear, to repel the tempter, to apply the blood, to strengthen faith, and to waken the echoes of the silent valley with the music of His voice: "I am with you."

Amid the prostration of earthly hopes, when unable to glance one thought on a dark future, when the stricken spirit, like a wounded bird, lies struggling in the dust, with broken wing and wailing cry, longing for pinions to fly away from a weary world, to the rest and quiet of the grave; in that hour of earthly dissolution, He who has the keys of death at His belt, nay, who has tasted death Himself, and better still, who has conquered it — draws near in touching tenderness, saying: "Surely, I am with you! I am with you to cheer you, to comfort you, to support and sustain you! I, who once wept at a grave, am here to weep with you! I will be at your side in all that trying future; I will make my grace sufficient for you, and my promises precious to you, and my love better than all earthly affection. I am the strength of your heart and your portion forever!"

In summary, Oh! seek much, living and dying — of the sensible presence of Christ! Let this be the grand, essential character of your religion: a religion, the essence, the sunshine of which is the ever conscious presence of Jesus. Walk daily at His side. Cultivate confidential transactions with Him. Allow no sin to grieve Him, no distrust to wound Him, no coldness, shyness, or distance of fellowship to lessen one throb, to suppress one desire, to congeal one current, or to prevent one act of your love. As his disciple and follower, separate yourself from the world, and bear His cross after Him boldly and uncompromisingly, yet meekly and heroically. Be happy in all His dealings with you; all that He sends or withholds, gives or removes — for He has said, "I will never leave you, nor ever forsake you!" No! He will be with you until He brings you home to glory! Precious presence of Christ on earth! it is the dawn of glory, the pledge of heaven, the foretaste of celestial bliss, the first-fruits of the golden harvest of eternity!

Christ as a Savior

Octavius Winslow, 1863

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

"She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus — because He will save His people from their sins." Matthew 1:21

Christ is ever with us — as a Savior. Oh, how the heart thrills, and the eye beams at the mention of the name of Jesus! What we chiefly need is — not wisdom to guide, or power to shield, or sympathy to soothe, or might to strengthen; it is Salvation — the soul saved — a Savior to save us to the uttermost! We need guilt-atoning blood, soul-justifying righteousness, sin-subduing grace! We need a Savior who has done all, suffered all, paid all, and leaves us nothing to do but, believe and be saved. This is Jesus!

My reader, salvation is the finished work of Christ, and the free gift of God; and nothing less and nothing more is required of you than that, with a penitent and believing heart — you trust in the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus. God has laid all your sins, all your curse, and all your condemnation — upon Christ! And all that He asks of you in return is, a believing, loving, obedient reception of His Son. Oh, then, grieve not; dishonor not the Savior by doubting His willingness or ability to save you!

Christ is the all-sufficient and only Savior and Redeemer for all those who will truly put their trust in Him. He saves to the uttermost all who come to God by Him.

Christ in Sickness

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Octavius Winslow, 1863

Christ is ever with you — in sickness. There are some trials which in an especial manner bring Christ near to us. There is a secret in all sorrow — there is a deep secret in sickness. To whom can the sufferer confide it? The disease, perhaps, perplexes the judgment or baffles the skill of the physician. 

The nervous irritability, the mental sensitiveness, the extreme weakness, the acute agony which renders the sound of the gentlest footfall too powerful for the frame — may be but little understood by the most considerate, tender watchers at your side. They, perhaps — but little know what heroic fortitude, what patient endurance of spirit — lie concealed beneath all this uncomplaining suffering, what an incessant conflict is waging, and by what a superhuman struggle — the mastery is obtained of the mind over the body, and of God's grace over both.

How difficult it is to suppress irritation, and how hard to express gratitude, when even the smile of love and the tear of compassion can awaken no responsive feeling — where all is pain, uneasiness, and despondency!

But Christ is ever with you in your sickness! You may not always be sensible of it. Your physical infirmities may absorb all thought and consciousness, but that of suffering and languor, depriving you of the sensible enjoyment of the Lords presence. Notwithstanding, He is at your side, watching you with sleepless love, supporting with His own grace — the spiritual depression of your soul; and mitigating with His own power — the anguish of your bodily sufferings.

Think of the human and tender considerateness of Christ! He knows your frame, and remembers that you are dust, and does not exact and expect from you, more than you are capable of experiencing. Blessed sickness — that leads the mind more fully into the conscious presence of Christ — that pillows the restless head upon His changeless love — that realizes the encircling of His omnipotent arm beneath the sinking frame — that attunes the discordant will into sweeter and more perfect harmony with His — that gently molds the soul to His own meek and patient spirit! Oh, holy lessons, precious truths, costly blessings — learned and experienced on a bed of sickness and of suffering! And were this the only blessing — the clinging, soothing, sustaining presence of Christ with the sick one He loves, it were enough.

Christ in Service

Octavius Winslow, 1863

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with you — in service. The religion of Jesus is an active, self-denying religion. The Divine Master has left the scene of His own toil — but He has given to every disciple, his work. Each has his mission — something to do for souls, something to accomplish for the Savior, some glory to bring to God. Realizing in some degree what a debtor to the Lord he is; what he owes to the love that chose him, to the blood that ransomed him, to the grace that called him, to the Savior that gave Himself a sacrifice — the believer exclaims from the depth of his grateful heart, "Lord, what will you have me to do?" And now, to labor for Christ is his highest desire and ambition; be the service home or foreign, pleasant or self-denying, distinguished or obscure, to rule an empire or to sweep a crossing.

In this service for Christ — Christ is ever with you. Unseen and unheard, He is close at your side — guiding your judgment, strengthening your faith, nerving your heart, sustaining and cheering your spirit, honoring, blessing, and rewarding your labor. Oh, think not that Christ can leave you for a moment, while you are active and toiling for Him. He knows all your difficulties, marks your discouragements, is cognisant of your infirmities, sees your faintings and deficiencies, and how burdensome, delicate, and humbling the task. Do you think, while engaged in a service of love for His name, the sweat upon your brow, the pressure of your mind, anxiety and exhaustion absorbing life itself, foes threatening, friends chiding, your own heart often misgiving — that Christ will leave you? Oh, never! "Lo I am with you always" — all days — are the words with which He seeks to strengthen and cheer you on in your work of faith and labor of love which you show for His dear name.

Christ must ever be with us in all the duties of life. We must have His presence as a power in our hearts. "I am with you always," has cheered thousands of hearts in the midst of arduous labors in His service.

Christ Our Guide

Octavius Winslow, 1863

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is with us, as our guide. How deep our need of Him as such, and how endeared does it make Him! So blind are we, so dark is our future, so perplexing is our present path — that the very next step might be a false one — taking us into a wrong direction, entailing untold anxieties and sorrows, or hurling us from a precipice into total ruin! Yes, we need just such a guide as Christ!

What Alpine traveler would attempt the ascent of a steep glacier, or cross the dangerous pass — unattended by an experienced guide — one who knew the route, whose skillful eye could detect the treacherous crevice, and whose strong arm could fence the narrow, winding way?

Our path to eternity demands just such a guide as the prophet foretold Christ would be. "I have given Him," says God, "for a Leader and Commander to the people." His own gracious words corroborate this statement when speaking of Himself as the Shepherd of His flock, who "Goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice."

Oh, what a privilege — in every path of doubt, in every circumstance of danger, where human judgment is either warped or beclouded, and your own mind hesitates and falters — to have such a wonderful Counselor, such a divine Guide as Christ at your side! As such — He is ever with you!

He will guide you . . .
with His eye of providence,
and with His hand of power,
and with His heart of love!

He knows the way that you take — for He has ordained it.

He knows every crook in your lot — for He has appointed it.

He will . . .
roll away the stone of difficulty,
level mountains,
fill up valleys,
make the crooked path straight,
and the rough place smooth; this will He do unto you, and not forsake you.

Oh, be honest and upright with Him! Go to Him first, consult Him first, acknowledge Him in all your ways — before you consult any human guide. May Christ, in all the minute details of your life, have the pre-eminence. Learn to lay your own desires and thoughts at His feet.

"He guides the humble in what is right — and teaches them His way!" Psalm 25:9. Not our way — but "His way." We must first surrender our way and will — before He will teach us His. He guides the "humble" — the childlike, trustful, unquestioning disciple, who humbly locks his hand in Christ's and says, "Lord, lead me and guide me, not in my own way — but in Yours!"

Oh, take a firm grasp of this unfailing Guide, and you shall travel safely and surely, through all your unknown future. Be honest and sincere only to know and to walk in the Lord's way, the way in which He would have you to go; and then will He fulfill His most gracious promise, "Surely, I am with you always" — in the midst of the utmost peril and dangers!

Christ Our Shield!

Octavius Winslow, 1863

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with His people — as a shield and deliverer. Our estimation of this truth, will be proportioned to our intelligent apprehension of the number and potency of our enemies — and the costliness and preciousness of the treasure thus divinely protected.

With what unslumbering vigilance,
with what divine power,
with what changeless love —
does the Lord Jesus shield the work of grace in the soul of His people!

Who keeps that spark alive — in the midst of the ocean?

Who guards this vineyard night and day — lest any hurt it?

Who preserves . . .
faith from faltering,
love from chilling,
hope from dying?

Who . . .
strengthens the 'work of grace' when it is feeble,
raises it when it droops,
restores it when it relapses,
keeps it in the cold of winter and the drought of summer;
and, when the frosts and winds of autumn would nip and scatter its foliage — clothes it with the freshness and bloom of spring?

Oh, it is Jesus, encircling with His all-protecting shield — the work of grace which His death has accomplished, and which His Spirit wrought!

"The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge! He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold!" Psalm 18:2

Trembling believer! The work of grace in your heart shall never die! The kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in your soul — is indestructible! "They shall never perish!" is the declaration of the Shepherd who bought you with His blood! You are watched over by Christ — and kept by the power of God. And although the tide of spiritual affection may ebb, and the shadows of twilight fall thickly upon your soul, and you are ready to regard your conversion a mistake, your religion a delusion, and your hope a fallacy — thus casting away your confidence; yet there is One who knows His own work, recognizes His own image, reads His Spirit's writing in the soul, and must Himself cease to be — before He allows those living embers of love He has enkindled upon the altar of your renewed heart, to die. The rain may descend, the winds may blow, the flood may surge — "But the inextinguishable flame burns on, and shall forever burn!"

There are assaults from which alone Christ can shield us!

Innumerable and invisible,
sleepless and restless,
working with an almost almighty power,
everywhere with an almost omnipresent existence,
ever plotting our ruin —
are the spiritual enemies of our soul, and the sworn foes of our faith!

The world and its fascinations,
Satan and his devices,
the flesh and its tendencies,
error and its disguises —
are all confederate against the child of God, opposing his every advance in holiness!

But Christ is our ever-present shield, near at the moment of assault, and skillful to deflect and disarm it! "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield!" are words addressed to all who have like precious faith with him.

Listen to Paul when defending Christianity before Nero: "At my first answer no man stood with me — but all men forsook me. . . . Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me." Severed from the protection and sympathy of man — he was all the more conscious of the presence and love of God. This is the manner of the Lord with us. The stage shall be swept of the human — to give place to the Divine. When the last human prop bends, and the last spark of creature-hope expires — hail it as the harbinger of Christ's nearness, that the more signal may appear His loving deliverance, and the more complete and undivided His glory.

Oh yes! the Lord encompasses you! Encircled by danger — you are also encircled by Christ! When you embark in His cause on foreign service, enter the carriage of a railway, launch upon the treacherous sea, bend your steps of mercy to the bedside of the sick, travel the lone and dreary road — be your experience what it may, let your mind be kept in perfect peace, trusting in this truth: the ever-present protection of Jesus. 

The unhealthy climate shall be harmless, the sickening malaria shall be innocuous, the perilous transit shall be safe — curtained within the pavilion of your Savior's love. Swelling above the tempest, louder than the voice of many waters, or whispered in the still solitude — shall be heard the words of Jesus, ""So do not fear — for I am with you! Do not be dismayed — for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand!" Isaiah 41:10. Lord, it is enough! My heart trusts in You, and I am helped!

Christ is with His people as the Head and Depository of all their spiritual supplies. The resources of the believer, although not from himself, and often, like Hagar's well, veiled from the eye — are yet, like that well-spring of water, flowing at the very side of the needy saint.

Destitution may reign far and wide, and the plaintive cry ascend from many a famished lip, "Who will show us any good?" Yet the Christian's soul, fed with the hidden manna and quenched from the river, the streams of which make glad the city of God — is kept alive in famine and in draught, and is like "a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not."

And what explains this mystery? The nearness at his side of a full Christ, overflowing with a redundancy of grace, love, and sympathy — suiting every circumstance, answering every call, supplying every demand.

New exigencies may occur in his daily history,
new demands made upon his mental and physical powers, 
trials of a new form may transpire,
new infirmities may strike, 
sorrows hitherto untasted, 
temptations before unknown —
all marking a new epoch in his history, a new phase of Christian experience — and all clamorous for the grace that is to sustain, the sympathy that is to soothe, the wisdom that is to guide. And shall they ask in vain? Never! Christ is with us — furnished, given, and pledged to supply amply and fully — all the necessities of His people.

"And of His fullness — we have all we received grace upon grace!" John 1:16. That is, grace following grace; grace answering every call for grace; more grace, grace out-measuring all past supply, all present need, "exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think." O blessed truth!

In the world's insolvency — the believer has a safe bank!

In the world's famine — he has a full granary!

In the world's drought — he has springs of water!

In the world's heat — he has his pleasant and grateful shade!

And all this is concentrated in Christ; for Christ is all. O favored saint! to have a full, overflowing, excess supply, so near; exiled from all other resources, other supports failing, other springs drying, other shadows vanishing as in a night — and he, perchance, sitting him down to die in hopeless grief, lo! words fall upon his ear softer, sweeter than angels' chimes, "I am with you always; with you in this lonely place and at this trying moment — to unseal your eye to the boundless fullness, that it pleased the Father would dwell in Me for you, the Father's child."

"Hold me up — and I shall be safe!"

Christ our Teacher

By Octavious Winslow, 1863

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is with His people — as a Teacher. There exists no office of Christ that is not openly impugned and denied in the present day — and not one more so than His prophetic office. False teaching everywhere and alarmingly abounds. 

The teaching of men is exalted above the teaching of Christ, and, as a consequence, Infidelity and Popery are rife, and the people are following after the false prophet and the beast. This is a day in which the Lord's true people must exhibit their loyalty to Christ in His prophetic office — as the sole, divine, authorized Teacher of the Church. To Him, as our Teacher — must we only look; and His teaching — must we only follow. There is no safety but at Christ's feet! We must accept no doctrine, and observe no practice — but what comports with the teaching, example, and simplicity of His Word. If true and faithful disciples — to Christ, we must closely and exclusively adhere. We have but one master, Christ; to Him we stand or fall.

Beware, in religious sentiments, of the fascination and influence of ecclesiastical authority, cultivated intellect, and polished teachers: all this is of man, and partakes of the errors and sinfulness of man. Untaught by the Holy Spirit, and unsanctified by God's grace — we have seen the most brilliant and eminent gifts prove, but as decoy lights — glimmering along the bleak, fatal shores of Infidelity and Romanism — alluring, and then wrecking, upon the rocks, quicksands, and shoals — the too confiding, unsuspecting mind, "handling the word of God deceitfully."

Oh, be Christ's true disciple — loyal to His person, and faithful to His truth! It is the Word of Christ which quickens you, sanctifies you, comforts you. Nor can you part with one doctrine of Christ, without inflicting the most serious injury upon your soul, and shading His glory. "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." 

The more experimentally you know of Christ's truth, and the more simply you walk in Christ's truth — the holier and the happier will you be. Oh, how increasingly glorious to your eye and precious to your heart, will Christ become! You will more and more clearly see, that all truth centers in Christ, and that Christ is the substance of all truth; that to know Christ — is to know the truth; and to know the truth — is to be freed from the blinding influence, erroneous teaching, and boasted authority of man. Blessed Jesus! O Divine Prophet of Your Church! "Happy are Your men, happy are these Your servants, who stand continually before You, and that hear Your wisdom."

Christ must be our wisdom in the midst of ignorance. He must be our Teacher, for He can teach without any man at all. "Who is a teacher like Him!" Job 36:22