Made Meet to Depart

“Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.”- Luke 2:29-30.

Blessed wert thou, O Simeon, for flesh and blood had not revealed this unto thee; neither had it enabled thee so cheerfully to bid the world farewell. The flesh clings to the earth-it is dust and owns affluity to the ground out of which it was taken; it loathes to part from mother earth. Even old age, with its infirmities, does not make men really willing to depart out of this world. By nature we hold to life with a terrible tenacity; and even when we sigh over the evils of life, and repine concerning its ills, and fancy that we wish ourselves away, it is probable that our readiness to depart lies only upon the surface, but down deep in our hearts we have no will to go. Flesh and blood had not revealed unto Simeon that he saw God’s salvation in that babe which he took out of the arms of Mary and embraced with eager joy. God’s grace had taught him that this was the Savior, and God’s grace at the same time loosened the cords which bound him to earth and made him feel the attractions of the better land. Blessed is that man who has received by grace a meekness for heaven, and a willingness to depart to that better land: let him magnify the Lord who has wrought so great a work in him. As Paul says, “Thanks be unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” Certainly, none of us were meet by nature-not even Simeon; the fitness of the venerable man was all the handiwork of God, and so, also, was his anxiety to obtain the inheritance for which God had prepared him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1014.cfm

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