The Aquila Report

Your independent source for news and commentary from and about conservative, orthodox evangelicals in the Reformed and Presbyterian family of churches

Providence College
  • Biblical
    and Theological
  • Churches
    and Ministries
  • People
    in the News
  • World
    and Life News
  • Lifestyle
    and Reviews
    • Books
    • Movies
    • Music
  • Opinion
    and Commentary
  • General Assembly
    and Synod Reports
    • ARP General Synod
    • EPC General Assembly
    • OPC General Assembly
    • PCA General Assembly
    • PCUSA General Assembly
    • RPCNA Synod
    • URCNA Synod
  • Subscribe
    to Weekly Email
  • Biblical
    and Theological
  • Churches
    and Ministries
  • People
    in the News
  • World
    and Life News
  • Lifestyle
    and Reviews
    • Books
    • Movies
    • Music
  • Opinion
    and Commentary
  • General Assembly
    and Synod Reports
    • ARP General Synod
    • EPC General Assembly
    • OPC General Assembly
    • PCA General Assembly
    • PCUSA General Assembly
    • RPCNA Synod
    • URCNA Synod
  • Subscribe
    to Weekly Email
  • Search
Home/Biblical and Theological/Do You Knock at the Gates of the Grave?

Do You Knock at the Gates of the Grave?

Previous generations of Christians had a heightened understanding of the importance of being ready.

Written by Tim Challies | Tuesday, February 22, 2022

We knock and listen so we are prepared for the day—the inevitable day—when the gates will open to receive us to new life or a second death, to the bliss of heaven or the horrors of hell. We knock to ensure we are waiting, to ensure we are ready, to ensure we will go to be with the Lord we love.

 

There is a sense in which we are less familiar with death than our forebears, more insulated from its horrors. Of course the death rate in the twenty-first century is identical to every century before and every century to come—“it is appointed for [each and every] man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” So perhaps it is better to say we are less familiar with what we consider premature death—the death of infants, children, and young adults.

Because we are less familiar with death, we tend to prepare less for its inevitable encroachment. With the average lifespan now extending well past the promised threescore and ten, it is easy enough to set death alongside retirement, pensions, and inheritances as matters that should concern us sometime in the future, but certainly not right now.

But it was not always so and there are lessons we can and should learn from previous generations of Christians, for they had a heightened understanding of the importance of being ready. They had to. Like first responders, they had to be in a state of constant preparation, ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. Like servants, they had to be dressed and ready for the moment they were summoned into the presence of the king. They did not have the luxury of associating death with a life well-lived to a ripe old age. Death could come quickly and at any time. It commonly did.

In reading the Puritans and their successors, I’ve often come across a captivating little phrase: “knocking at the gates of the grave.” Jeremy Taylor wrote a whole book about Christian dying and said, “He that would die well must always look for death, every day knocking at the gates of the grave; and then the gates of the grave shall never prevail against him to do him mischief.” Theodore Cuyler sometimes recounted strolling through Greenwood cemetery where three of his children had been laid to rest—two as infants and one as a young adult—and using his time there to metaphorically knock at the gates of the grave, “to listen whether any painful echo comes back from within.”

Read More

Related Posts:

  • For Better, For Worse…
  • The Church Will Thrive…Right?
  • The Joy Beyond the Pain
  • Gates
  • Is Jesus Knocking at the Heart of the Unbeliever?

Subscribe, Follow, Listen

  • email-alt
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • apple-podcasts
  • anchor
Providence College
Kept Pure Conference - 2023

Archives

Books

Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian, Confessional Presbyterian - by Danny Olinger

Special

God is Holy
  • About
  • Advertise Here
  • Contact Us
  • Donations
  • Email Alerts
  • Leadership
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Principles and Practices
  • Privacy Policy

Important:

Free Subscription

Aquila Report Email Alerts

Special

Letter of Jude
  • About
  • Advertise Here
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Principles and Practices
  • RSS Feed
  • Subscribe to Weekly Email Alerts
Providence Christian College - visit

DISCLAIMER: The Aquila Report is a news and information resource. We welcome commentary from readers; for more information visit our Letters to the Editor link. All our content, including commentary and opinion, is intended to be information for our readers and does not necessarily indicate an endorsement by The Aquila Report or its governing board. In order to provide this website free of charge to our readers,  Aquila Report uses a combination of donations, advertisements and affiliate marketing links to  pay its operating costs.

Return to top of page

Website design by Five More Talents · Copyright © 2023 The Aquila Report · Log in