The Lord's Gentle Usher by Thomas Brooks Our life in this world is made up of troubles and trials, of calamities and miseries, of crosses and losses, of reproaches and disgraces. Death frees the Christian from all these things. It wipes away all tears from his eyes. It turns his miseries into mercies, his crosses into crowns, and his earthly hell into a glorious heaven. When a godly man dies, he shall never more be haunted, tempted, and buffeted by Satan. Death, which was before the devil's sergeant to drag us to hell, has now become the Lord's gentle usher to conduct us to heaven. For a saint to die is for a saint to be eternally happy. Death is but the entrance into glorious life. That is not death, but life, which joins the dying man to Christ. Death will blow the bud of grace into the flower of glory. Death is not the death of the man, but the death of his sin. When a believer dies, his sin dies with him. As death came in by sin, so sin goes out by death. Death kills sin, which bred it. The Persians had a certain day in the year wherein they killed all serpents and venomous creatures. Such a day as that will the day of death be to every believer. All his serpentine and venomous sins will be forever destroyed. Then he shall never again be proud, nor passionate, nor unbelieving, nor worldly, nor neglectful of duty, nor grieve the Holy Spirit, nor wound his conscience, nor break peace with God. When death takes away a godly man, it takes him away from his sins. And as death rids the believer of all his sins, so it will rid him of all his sorrows. Death cures all diseases, the aching head and the unbelieving heart. Death does for a godly person that which all ordinances could never do. and which all their duties could never do, and which all their graces could never do, it immediately frees them from all their sins, from all their sorrows, from all their tears, from all their temptations, from all their oppressions, from all their oppositions, from all their vexations.