2 Kings 2:12

2 Kings 2:12

I. Bodily partings. Such partings are matters of everyday experience. They are part of our lot. They remind us of the great dispersion; they should make us long for the great reunion. The word of God is so tender to us, so full of sympathy, that it paints this kind of parting in all its bitterness. In reference to these partings we must remember: (1) that they must be borne. They are part of life's discipline. (2) Remember in reference to bodily separations that coexistence is not union. To be present in the body is often to be furthest away in spirit.

II. There are partings between souls. I speak still of this life. (1) There are those who once knew each other intimately, called each other friends, who now scarcely know whether the once-beloved be dead or living. Ghosts of old, obsolete, worn-out friendships haunt the chambers of this being, to remind us of the hollowness of human possessions and the utter transitoriness of all affections save one. (2) Still more painfully is this seen in cases where early friends have become, not forgetful, but hostile, by reason of conflicting opinions and antagonistic creeds. The most dreadful parting is that which consists in living for opposite objects the one for some device of man, the other for God's truth and God's salvation.

III. Go on from the partings of time to the death-parting which must come. It is through the death-parting that the everlasting meeting begins. Never till we die shall we have quite discarded those infirmities and those meannesses which cling to the friendships and loves of the fallen. Let us learn not to dread, but rather to desire and be enamoured of, that mysterious close, which, in our blindness and darkness, we so often shrink from. The death-parting is but that brief laying to rest from which we shall awake refreshed and invigorated for a glorious eternity.

C. J. Vaughan, Last Words at Doncaster,p. 276.

Reference: 2 Kings 2:12. Parker, Fountain,March 8th, 1877, and vol. viii., p. 91.