"Do not all go to one place?"

Do you know what the wise man means when he offers this question to your consideration, "Do not all go to one place?" The thing, no doubt, here spoken of is death; the place here spoken of, no doubt, is the grave. An amazing consideration! part of the first sentence that the great and holy God ever denounced against fallen man, to one and all, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." But in another case we may venture to contradict even Solomon: for ii we consider the words of our text in another view, all do not go to one place; it is true, all are buried in the grave either of earth or water, but then after death comes judgment; death gives the decisive, the separating blow. Suppose, then, in our enlarging on the text, we should confine the word "all" to the unregenerate; these, indeed, die when they will, all go to one place. O awful thought I and yet it is n certain truth, all on earth must go to one place; if we live like devils here, we must go to, and be with them, when we die, for ever! A blessed minister of Christ, in Scotland, told me a story he knew for truth, of a dreadful answer a poor creature gave on her deathbed. This person when dying was asked by a minister, "Where do you hope to go when you die?" Says she, "I do not care where I go." "What," says he, '"do not you care whether you go to heaven or hell? No," says she; "I do not care whither I go." "But," says he, "if you were put to your choice, where would you go?" Says she, "To hell." To that he replied, "Are you mad — will you go to hell?" "Yes," says she, "I will." "Why so?" says he. "Why," says she, "all my relations are there." But I have another place to tell you of, and another sort of people to speak of, who shall all, as well as those I have spoken of, go to one place; blessed is it to live in God. When death closes the eyes, an actual separation is made, and instead of hearing "Depart, ye cursed," they will hear, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." If you ask where that place is? I answer, to heaven; if you ask to whom they shall go? I answer, to the spirits of just men made perfect; and, what will be best of all, to Jesus Christ, the heavenly inheritance. If we were not to go to Him, what would heaven be? If we were not to see Him, what would glory be?

( G. Whitefield, M. A.)