WRONG PLACE
B y VANCE g ^ V N E R * Charleston, South Carolina
and pursuits and possessions, are out on a fruitless search. One thinks o f the dapper Beau Brummel who, in the midst of popularity and gayety, passed a dead dog and remarked, “ I wish I were that dog.” Men have forsaken the fountain o f living waters and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jer. 2 :13 ), and all the while, the living Christ says, “ I f thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water . . . Whosoever drinketh o f the water that I shall give him shall nev.er thirst” (John 4:10, 1.4). Men seek the water of satisfaction at the Jacob’s wells of earth while only Jesus Christ can give that Living Water which becomes in the believer a well of water springing up into everlasting life and issuing in rivers o f blessing. Think of how poor souls today seek the living, in this sense, among the dead philosophies and moralities, the vain isms and ologies of this world. What a pitiful sight is that poor religionist who carefully follows a round o f observ ances, punctiliously keeps days and seasons of fasting, and faithfully trails some blind guide into the ditch, vainly seeking the living among the dead! One thinks o f the hollow forms of Judaism in which thousands seek peace and comfort today, some o f them even recognizing Christ as a teacher, but going no further than scant respect to a Galilean still in His sepulcher so far as they care. C hurchgoers T hat F a il to F ind L ife But we come within the ranks o f Protestantism to ob serve that those modernists who do not believe Christ really arose in body are still seeking the living among the dead.
* i “Why seek ye the living among the dead?”? (Lk .2$ *5 ). I t is quite characteristic of w eak , doubting human nature that the women who had heard the Lord Jesus declare that He would rise on the third day should come to the sepulcher bringing spices for the dead instead of approaching the grave in high expectation to see the living. On the very day He had promised to return from the dead, they came to honor a corpse instead o f to greet a Conqueror! So forgetful o f His promise were they that the angels must call it to their attention (Lk. 24 :5 -8 ), The angels must have been astonished at such weak faith. Certainly they never expected the Christ, the Living One, to stay in a grave. They had known Him in heaven, and although they knew He had submitted to death and had become obedient to the death o f the cross, they knew also that “ it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” Thus they speak to the perplexed women as if to say, “ Why are you coming to a grave this morning? You might know that the Living One would not stay in a sepulcher!” M istaken Q uests in O uk D ay But the centuries have passed, and we today have no right to cast stones at the weak faith o f these faint-hearted women, for we also seek the living among the dead. T o begin with, it is quite true that, as Matthew Henry puts it : “ All they that expect happiness and satisfaction in the creature, or perfection in this imperfect state, may be said to seek the living among the dead.” Men who seek living and enduring things in the graves o f this earth, its pleasures *Pastor, First Baptist Church.
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