Congregation of the dead

Job 17 My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.
Alas! I am just setting out on that journey, am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. My breath is already corrupt, or broken off; my spirits are spent; I am a gone man." It is good for every one of us thus to look upon ourselves as dying, for we are dying, daily, that is:
1. Our life is going; for the breath of life is going. It is continually going forth; it is in our nostrils (Isaiah 2:22), the door at which it entered (Genesis 2:7); there it is upon the threshold, ready to depart. Let the Anointed of the L-rd be the breath of our nostrils, and let us get spiritual life breathed into us, and that breath will never be corrupted.
2. Our time is ending: Our days are numbered and as a candle which, from the first lighting, is continually wasting and burning down, and will by degrees burn out of itself, but may by a thousand accidents be extinguished. Such is life. It concerns us therefore carefully to redeem the days of time, and to spend them in getting ready for the days of eternity, which will never be extinct. We will be accountable for all of our actions.
3. We are expected in our long home: The graves are ready for us. But would not one grave serve? Yes, but also the sepulchers of our fathers, to which we must be gathered: "The graves where they are laid are ready for me also," graves in consort, the congregation of the dead. Wherever we go there is but a step between us and the grave. Whatever is unready, that is ready; it is a bed soon made. If the graves be ready for us, it concerns us to be ready for the graves. If the graves are our destiny, denoting not only our expectation of death, but our desire of it, for to be absent from the body is to be present with the L-rd. "I have done with the world, and have nothing now to wish for but a grave."
4. The period of our days will be the period of all our contrivances and hopes for this world; but, if with full purpose of heart we cleave to the L-rd, death will not break off that purpose. And our lives work towards the Kingdom will go on.
5. In all our prosperity it is good to keep death in prospect. No matter how much or how little you think you have materialistic, you are rich if your prosperity is in the service of the Father. Did you use your prosperity for His purposes?
6. The grave is a house; to the wicked it is a prison-house (Job 24:19, 20); to the godly it is Bethabara, a passage-house in their way home. "It is my house, mine by descent, I am born to it; it is my Father's house. It is mine by purchase, for I was bought by a ransom, and became a child of the Kind. I have made myself ready for it, grave were is thy victory or death were is thy sting." We must everyone of us be remove to this house, and it is our wisdom to provide accordingly; let us think of that day approaching, and prepare for our eternal home.
7. The grave is a bed, for we shall rest in it in the evening of our day on earth, and rise from it in the morning of our everlasting day, Isaiah 57:2. Let this make good people willing to die; it is but going to bed; they are weary and sleepy, and it is time that they were in their beds. Why should they not go willingly, when their Father calls? "Nay, I have made my bed, by preparation for it, have endeavored to make it easy, by keeping conscience pure, by seeing the Messiah lying in this bed, and so turning it into a bed of spices, and by looking beyond it to the resurrection."
Job complained that his kindred were estranged from him (19:13); therefore here he claims acquaintance with other relations that would cleave to him when those disowned him. First, we are all of us near akin to corruption and the worms. Secondly, it is therefore good to make ourselves familiar with them, by conversing much with them in our thoughts and meditations, which would very much help us above the excessive love of life and fear of death.
8. The hope which I comfort and support myself with, who shall see it? It is something out of sight that I hope for, not things that are seen, that are temporal, but things not seen, that are eternal."
Since, therefore, our rest will be together in the dust, let us all lay aside the thoughts of this world and set our hearts upon another." We must shortly be in the dust, for dust we are, dust and ashes in the pit, under the bars of the pit, held fast there, never to loose the bands of death till the general resurrection. But we shall rest there; we shall rest together there. We and our friends may not agree now, but we will both be quiet in the grave; the dust of that will shortly stop our mouths and put an end to the controversy.
Let the foresight of this cool the heat of all contenders and moderate the disputers of this world.