112. The King’s Ferry-Boat

The King’92s Ferry-Boat

2Sa_19:18 : ’93And there went over a ferryboat to carry over the king’92s household.’94

Which of the crowd is the king? That short man, sunburnt and in fatigue dress. It is David, the exiled king. He has defeated his enemies, and is now going home to resume his palace. Good! I always like to see David come out ahead. But between him and his home there is the celebrated river Jordan, which has to be passed. The king is accompanied to the bank of the river by an aristocratic old gentleman of eighty years, Barzillai by name, who owned a fine country seat at Rogelim. Beside that, David has his family with him. But how shall they get across the river? While they are standing there I see a ferryboat coming from the other side, and as it cuts through the water I see the faces of David and his household brighten up at the thought of so soon getting home. No sooner has the ferryboat struck the shore than David and his family, and his old friend Barzillai from Rogelim, get on board the boat. Either with splashing oars at the side, or with one oar sculling at the stern of the boat, they leave the eastern bank of the Jordan and start for the western bank.

That western bank is black with crowds of people, who are waving and shouting at the approach of the king and his family. The military are all out. Some of those who have been David’92s worst enemies now shout until they are hoarse at his return. No sooner has the boat struck the shore on the western side than the earth quakes and the heavens ring with cheers of welcome and congratulation. David and his family and Barzillai from Rogelim step ashore. King David asks his old friend to go with him and live at the palace; but Barzillai apologizes, and intimates that he is infirm with age, and too deaf to appreciate the music, and has a delicate appetite that would soon be cloyed with luxurious living, and so he begs that David would let him go back to his country seat.

I once heard the father of a President of the United States say that he had just been to Washington to see his son in the White House, and he told me of the wonderful things that occurred there, and of what Daniel Webster said to him; but he declared, ’93I was glad to get home. There was too much going on there for me.’94 My father, an aged man, made his last visit at my house in Philadelphia; and after the church service was over, and we went home, some one in the house asked the aged man how he enjoyed the service. ’93Well,’94 he replied, ’93I enjoyed the service; but there were too many people there for me. It troubled my head very much.’94 The fact is that old people do not like excitement. If King David had asked Barzillai thirty years before to go to the palace, the probability is that Barzillai would have gone, but not now. They kiss each other good-by, a custom among men Oriental, but in vogue yet where two brothers part, or an aged father and a son go away from each other never to meet again. No wonder that their lips met as King David and old Barzillai, at the prow of the ferryboat, parted forever.

This river Jordan, in all ages and among all languages, has been the symbol of the boundary line between earth and heaven. Yet, when, on a former occasion, I preached to you about the Jordanic passage, I have no doubt that some of you despondingly said, ’93The Lord might have divided Jordan for Joshua, but not for poor me.’94 Cheer up! I want to show you that there is a way over Jordan as well as through it. My text says, ’93And there went over a ferryboat to carry over the king’92s household.’94 There were a good many people who came by ferry to Brooklyn. Some came from the New York hotels or from Hoboken or from Jersey City or from Staten Island, and returned in the same way. All our cities are familiar with the ferryboat. It goes from San Francisco to Oakland, and from Liverpool to Birkenhead, and twice every secular day of the week multitudes are on the ferryboat; so that you will not need to hunt up a classical dictionary to find out what I mean, while I am speaking to you about the passage of David and his family across the river Jordan.

My subject, in the first place, impresses me with the fact that, when we cross over from this world to the next, the boat will have to come from the other side. The tribe of Judah, we are informed, sent this ferryboat across to get David and his household. I stand on the eastern side of the river Jordan, and I find no shipping at all; but, while I am standing there, I see a boat ploughing through the river, and as I hear the swirl of the waters, and the boat comes to the eastern side of the Jordan, and David and his family and his old friend step on board that boat, I am mightily impressed with the fact that, when we cross over from this world to the next the boat will have to come from the opposite shore.

Every day I find people trying to extemporize a way from earth to heaven. They gather up their good works and some sentimental theories, and they make a raft, shoving it from this shore, and poor, deluded souls get on board that raft, and they go down. The fact is, that scepticism and infidelity never yet helped one man to die. I invite all the ship-carpenters of worldly philosophy to come and build one boat that can safely cross this river. I invite them all to unite their skill, and Bolingbroke shall lift the stanchions, and Tyndall shall shape the bowsprit, and Spinoza shall make the maintopgallant braces, and Renan shall go to tacking and wearing and boxing the ship. All together, in ten thousand years, they will never be able to make a boat that can cross this Jordan. Why was it that Spinoza and Blount and Shaftesbury lost their souls. It was because they tried to cross the stream in a boat of their own construction. What miserable work they made of dying! Diodorus died of mortification, because he could not guess a conundrum which had been proposed to him at a public dinner; Zeuxis, the philosopher, died of mirth, laughing at a caricature of an aged woman’97a caricature made by his own hand; while another of their company and of their kind died saying, ’93Must I leave all these beautiful pictures?’94 and then asked that he might be bolstered up in the bed in his last moments and be shaved and painted and rouged. Of all the unbelievers of all ages not one died well. Some of them sneaked out of life; some wept themselves away in darkness; some blasphemed and raved and tore their bed-covers to tatters. This is the way worldly philosophy helps a man to die.

A guide at Niagara Falls said to me: ’93Do you see that rock down in the rapids?’94 I said, ’93Yes.’94 ’93Well,’94 he said, ’93some years ago a man got into the rapids and floated down until he came to that rock, and he clutched that and held on. We sent five lifeboats at different times out to him, and they were all broken to splinters. After a while we got him some food, but he could not eat it. He seemed to have no appetite. He wanted to get ashore; and the poor fellow held on and held on, and, with a shriek louder than the thunder of the cataract, he went over.’94 When a man puts out from the shore of this world on the river of Death in a boat of his own construction, he has worse disaster than that’97shipwreck, eternal shipwreck.

Blessed be God, there is a boat coming from the other side! Transportation at last for our souls from the other shore; everything about this Gospel from the other shore; pardon from the other shore; mercy from the other shore; pity from the other shore; ministry of angels from the other shore; power to work miracles from the other shore; Jesus Christ from the other shore. ’93This! is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world [a foreigner] to save sinners.’94 I see the ferryboat coming, and it rolls with the surges of a Saviour’92s suffering; but as it strikes the earth the mountains rock, and the dead adjust their apparel so that they may be fit to come out. That boat touches the earth, and glorious Thomas Walsh gets into it, in his expiring moment, saying, ’93He has come! He has come! My Beloved is mine, and I am his.’94 Good Sarah Wesley got into that boat, and as she shoved off from the shore she cried, ’93Open the gates! Open the gates!’94 I bless God that as the boat came from the other shore to take David and his men across, so, when we are about to die, the boat will come from the same direction. God forbid that I should ever trust to anything that starts from this side.

Again, my subject suggests that, when we cross over at the last, the King will be on board the boat. Ship-carpentery in Bible times was in its infancy. The boats were not skilfully made and I can very easily imagine that the women and the children of the king’92s household might have been nervous about going on that boat, afraid that the oarsman or the helmsman might give out, and that the boat might be dashed on the rocks, as sometimes boats were dashed in the Jordan; and then I could have imagined the boat starting and rocking, and they crying out, ’93Oh, we are going to be lost! we are going down!’94 Not so. The king was on board the boat, and those women and children and all the household of the king knew that every care was taken to have the king’97the head of the empire’97pass in safety.

Now, I want to break up a delusion in your mind, and that is this. When our friends go out from this world, we feel sorry for them because they have to go alone; and parents hold on to the hands of their children who are dying, and hold on to something of the impression that the moment they let go the little one will be in the darkness and in the boat all alone. ’93Oh,’94 the parent says, ’93if I could only go with my child, I would be willing to die half a dozen times. I am afraid she will be lost in the woods or in the darkness; I am afraid she will be very much frightened in the boat all alone.’94 I break up the delusion. When a soul goes to heaven it does not go alone: the King is on board the boat. Was Paul alone in the last extremity? Hear the shout of the sacred missionary as he cries out, ’93I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.’94 Was John Wesley alone in the last extremity? No. Hear him say, ’93Best of all, God is with us.’94 Was Sir William Forbes alone in the last extremity? No. Hear him say to his friends, ’93Tell all the people who are coming down to the bed of death, from my experience it has no terrors.’94 ’93Oh,’94 say a great many people, ’93that does very well for distinguished Christians; but for me, a common man, for me, a common woman, we can’92t expect that guidance and help.’94 If I should give you a passage of Scripture that would promise to you positively, when you are crossing the river to the next world, the King would be in the boat, would you believe the promise? ’93Oh, yes,’94 you say, ’93I would.’94 Here is the promise: ’93When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.’94 Christ at the sick pillow to take the soul out of the body; Christ to help the soul down the bank into the boat; Christ mid-stream; Christ on the other side to help the soul up the beach. Be comforted about your departed friends. Be comforted about your own demise when the time shall come. Tell it to all the people under the sun that no Christian ever dies alone; the King is in the boat.

Again, my text suggests that leaving this world for heaven is only crossing a ferry. Dr. Shaw estimates the average width of the Jordan to be about thirty yards. What! so narrow? Yes. ’93There went over a ferryboat to carry over the king’92s household.’94 Yes, going to heaven is only a short trip’97only a ferry. It may be eighty miles, that is eighty years, before we get to the wet bank on the other side; but the crossing is short. I will tell you the whole secret. It is not five minutes across, nor three, nor two, nor one minute. It is an instantaneous transportation. People talk as though, leaving this life, the Christian went plunging and floundering and swimming, to crawl up exhausted on the other shore; and to be pulled out of the pelting surf as by a Ramsgate life-boat. No such thing. It is only a ferry. It is so narrow that we can hail each other from bank to bank. It is only four arms’92 lengths across. The arm of earthly farewell put out from this side, the arm of heavenly welcome put out from the other side; while the dying Christian, standing mid-stream, stretches out his two arms, the one to take the farewell of earth, and the other to take the greeting of heaven. That makes four arms’92 lengths across the river.

Blessed be God, that when we leave this world we are not to have a great and perilous enterprise of getting into heaven. Not a dangerous Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage among icebergs. Only a ferry. That accounts for something you have never been able to understand. You never supposed that very nervous and timid Christian people could be so unexcited and placid in the last hour. The fact is, they were clear down on the bank, and they saw there was nothing to be frightened about. Such a short distance’97only a ferry. With one ear they heard the funeral psalm in their memory, and with the other ear they heard the song of heavenly salutation. The willows on this side the Jordan and the Lebanon cedars on the other almost interlocked their branches. Only a ferry.

My subject also suggests the fact that, when we cross over at the last, we shall find a solid landing. The ferryboat, as spoken of in my text, means a place to start from and a place to land. David and his people did not find the eastern shore of the Jordan any more solid than the western shore where he landed, and yet, to a great many, heaven is not a real place. To you heaven is a fog-bank in the distance. Now, my heaven is a solid heaven. After the resurrection has come you will have a resurrected foot, and something to tread on; and a resurrected eye, and colors to see with it; and a resurrected ear, and music to regale it. Smart men in this day are making a great deal of fun about St. John’92s materialistic descriptions of heaven. Well now, my friends, if you will tell me what will be the use of a resurrected body in heaven with nothing to tread on and nothing to hear and nothing to handle and nothing to taste, then I will laugh too. Are you going to float about in ether forever, swinging about your hands and feet through the air indiscriminately, one moment sweltering in the center of the sun, and the next moment shivering in the mountains of the moon? That is not my heaven. Dissatisfied with John’92s materialistic heaven, theological tinkers are trying to patch up a heaven that will do for them at last. I never heard of any heaven I want to go to except St. John’92s heaven. I believe I shall hear Mr. Toplady sing yet, and Isaac Watts recite hymns, and Mozart play. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93where would you get the organ?’94 The Lord will provide the organ. Don’92t you bother about the organ. I believe I shall yet see David with a harp, and I will ask him to sing one of the songs of Zion. I believe after the resurrection I shall see Massillon, the great French pulpit orator, and I shall hear from his own lips how he felt on that day when he preached the king’92s funeral sermon, and flung his whole audience into a paroxysm of grief and solemnity. I have no patience with your transcendental, gelatinous, gaseous heaven. My heaven is not a fog-bank. My eyes are unto the hills, the everlasting hills. The King’92s ferryboat, starting from a wharf on this side, will go to a wharf on the other side.

Again, my subject teaches that, when we cross over at the last, we shall be met at the landing. When David and his family went over in the ferryboat spoken of in the text, they landed amid a nation that had come out to greet them. As they stepped from the deck of the boat to the shore, there were thousands of people who gathered around them to express a satisfaction that was beyond description. And so you and I will be met at the landing. Our arrival will not be like stepping ashore at Antwerp or Constantinople, among a crowd of strangers; it will be among friends, good friends, those who are warm-hearted friends, and all their friends. We know people whom we have never seen, by hearing somebody talk about them very much; we know them almost as well as if we had seen them. And do you not suppose that our parents and brothers and sisters and children in heaven have been talking about us all these years, and talking to their friends? so that, I suppose, when we cross the river at the last, we shall not only be met by all those Christian friends whom we knew on earth, but by all their friends. They will come down to the landing to meet us. Your departed friends love you now more than they ever did. You will be surprised at the last to find how they know about all the affairs of your life. Why, they are only across the ferry; and the boat is coming this way, and the boat is going that way. I do not know but they have already asked the Lord the day, the hour, the moment, when you are coming across, and that they know now; but I do know that you will be met at the landing. The poet Southey said he thought he should know Bishop Heber in heaven by the portraits he had seen of him in London; and Dr. Randolph said he thought he would know William Cowper, the poet, in heaven from the pictures he had seen of him in England; but we will know our departed kindred by the portraits hung in the throne-room of our hearts.

On starlight nights you look up’97and I suppose it is so with any one who has friends in heaven’97on starlight nights you look up, and you cannot help but think of those who have gone; and I suppose they look down, and cannot help but think of us. But they have the advantage of us. We know not just where their world of joy is; they know where we are.

There was romance as well as Christian beauty in the life of Dr. Adoniram Judson, the Baptist missionary, when he concluded to part from his wife, she to come to America to restore her health, he to go back to Burmah to preach the Gospel. They had started from Burmah for the United States together, but, getting near St. Helena, Mrs. Judson was so much better, she said, ’93Well, now, I can get home very easily; you go back to Burmah and preach the Gospel to those poor people. I am almost well; I shall soon be well, and then I will return to you.’94 After she had made that resolution, terrific in its grief, willing to give up her husband for Christ’92s sake, she sat down in her room, and with trembling hand wrote some eight or ten verses, four of which I will now give you:

We part on this green islet, love:

Thou for the eastern main;

I for the setting sun, love:

Oh, when to meet again!

When we knelt to see our Henry die,

And heard his last faint moan,

Each wiped away the other’92s tears;

Now each must weep alone.

And who can paint our mutual joy

When, all our wandering o’92er,

We both shall clasp our infants three,

At home on Burmah’92s shore?

But higher shall our raptures glow

On yon celestial plain,

When the loved and parted here below

Meet ne’92er to part again.

She folded that manuscript; a relapse of her disease came on, and she died. Dr. Judson says he put her away, for the resurrection, on the Isle of St. Helena. They had thought to part for a year or two; now they parted forever, so far as this world is concerned. And he says he hastened on board after the funeral with his little children to start for Burmah, for the vessel had already lifted her sails; and he says, ’93I sat down for some time in my cabin, my little children around me crying, ’91Mother, mother!’92 and I abandoned myself to heart-breaking grief. But one day the thought came across me, as my faith stretched her wing, that we should meet again in heaven, and I was comforted.’94

Was it, my friends, all a delusion? When he died, did she meet him at the landing? When she died, did the scores of souls whom she had brought to Christ, and who had preceded her to heaven, meet her at the landing? I believe it; I know it. Oh, glorious consolation, that when our poor work on earth is done and we cross the river, we shall be met at the landing.

But there is a thought that comes over me like an electric shock. Do I belong to the King’92s household? Mark you, the text says, ’93And there went over a ferryboat to carry over the king’92s household,’94 and none but the king’92s household. Then I ask, Do I belong to the household? Do you? If you do not, come today and be adopted into that household! ’93Oh,’94 says some soul here, ’93I do not know whether the King wants me.’94 He does; he does. Hear the voice from the throne, ’93I will be a Father to them, and they shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.’94 ’93Him that cometh unto me,’94 Christ says, ’93I will in no wise cast out.’94 Come into the King’92s household. Sit down at the King’92s table. Come in and take your apparel from the King’92s wardrobe, even the wedding garment of Christ’92s righteousness. Come in and inherit the King’92s wealth. Come in and cross in the King’92s ferryboat.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage