Elijah’s Translation – Charles Spurgeon

EVEN to a Christian, death is not a soft, dainty thing. To die is no child’s-play. We speak of it as a sleep; but it is no such sleep as yon youngster’s, when he lies down upon the sunny bank, to wake again. There are solemnities about it. There are horses and there are chariots, and so far there is comfort; but they are all of fire, and he who sees them need have Elijah’s eyes, or perhaps his own will blink. Elijah had seen fire before; he had called it from Heaven upon his enemies; he had brought it down from Heaven upon sacrifice; he had seen fire flashing on him at Horeb, until the whole sky was bright with sheets of forked flame, and the Lord was not in that fire as he was in this. He who had looked at that former fire, and feared not, for he was of unblushing eye and of uncolored cheek, could bear to look upon the horses and chariots of fire which God had sent.