Let me listen to the ribald jeers which were flung upon my Lord. And let me listen, not as a judge, but as one who has been in the company of the callous crowd. For I, too, have mocked Him! I have said: |Hail, King!| and I have bowed before Him, but it has been mock and empty homage! I have sung: |Crown Him Lord of all!| but there has been no real recognition of His sovereignty; mine has been a mock coronation. From the seat of the mocker, deliver me, good Lord!

And let me stand near the cross while that awful voice of desolation rends the heavens. |My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?| In that agonizing cry I am led to the real heart of the atonement. My Saviour was standing where His believers will never stand. That was the real death, the death of an inconceivable abandonment. And |He died for me!| He so died in order that I may never taste death. |He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.|

Every believer will go to sleep, and through a short sleep he will wake in the glory of the Eternal Presence. But he will never die: no, never die!