My family thanks all of you for
coming out, although most of you are family. But we do thank
you for coming out and showing your love and respect for mom
and her family. We do really appreciate it. And
it's an honor to perform this memorial service for my mother.
I told mom and dad, oh, it's been a few years ago. I said,
I'll do your funeral. And they were a little bit surprised. They was glad that I, that I
would do it. And I told him it was an honor for me to do this
for them. You know, she's a, she's a special
lady, special lady. Dad told me that grandpa Chapman
said concerning mom, they might come bigger, but they don't come
better. And he's right. He's right. She's special. She's special to her Lord. He
redeemed her. He died for her. Think about
that. That's special. For God to send his son to die and to redeem and to bring her
home, that's special. They don't get any more special
than that. And she's special to her family. I told dad once,
I said, you know, me and you way out married ourselves. And
he agreed with me. He said, I agree. Now Sunday
at 4.40 p.m. the great physician of souls
called mom home where she will enjoy her Lord and with the rest
of God's saints. This is real. What I'm talking
about is real. It's not a mythology, it's not
a fairy tale. What I'm talking about, what
the word of God gives us is real. It's very real. Our Lord is real,
eternity's real, judgment's real, God's real, salvation's real,
it's real. Now mom was an outstanding wife,
an outstanding mother, and an outstanding grandmother. She
was, and one of the best ways I can describe our mother was
she was quietly strong. She was quietly strong. And she
was the hub of the family. I assure you, she was the hub
and the strength of our family. She was an example to her children
to follow. That's so, I can say that with
100% confidence. Mom was an example for us to
follow. And here's something that's rare.
Here's something that's rare. I don't know anything negative
about any of mom's siblings or any person of what she said in
my presence. That's the truth. I don't. I
don't know one thing negative about anybody that my mother
said to me about them. And my mother, as many of you
can attest to, was a great cook. She was a great cook. And one
of the things that I remembered, I asked her about this some time
ago, and Shirley mentioned this in her memories. I asked them
to write down some favorite memories. Celia wrote a book. I read that last night. I said,
I can't read this. That's too emotional. She'd think
I made a steal. So I just went and shortened it some. But Shirley
mentioned this in the one she wrote. I might have to check out a few
times, but I'll be back. There was a stranger that came
to our door one night, in the night, just knocked on the door.
And mom went to the door. Dad was at work. He was working
evening shift. He was hungry, he asked for something
to eat. Mom told him to sit there on the banisters and she went
in the house and fixed him something to eat and brought it to him.
He ate it and then walked off into the dark. And I asked her
here not long ago, I said, do you remember that? She goes,
yes, I was scared to death. I said, well, you sure didn't
show it. She said, I was scared to death. She was a strong lady. And it's
funny, Celia mentioned this in her memory. Both of us did this,
and we never knew this until she wrote that down. And I've
never told this. But when I was a little boy,
and she was a little girl, I prayed that God would let mom and dad
live till I grew up. And she did too. Evidently, it
took both of us a long time to grow up. Because they lived to
be 91, both mom and dad lived to be 91. It took us a long time
to grow up. But one of my favorite memories
of mom, she was giving me a whipping. I know you're thinking, that's
a good memory. Well, she was giving me a whipping. And I was
dancing around in a round circle like an idiot. And I was making
all kinds of noise. And I started laughing. She started
laughing. We both were laughing so hard,
she just stopped. And that was the last time she
gave me a whip. And she dished out most of them to all of us. And that was one of my favorite
memories. And I told her, I asked her that. Here's some time ago. I said, do you remember that?
She goes, no. She said, but I tell you. She
said, I really hated whipping you kids. I said, well, you sure
hid it well. Because she gave us enough of
them. And I'll tell you this. She could double dutch with the
best. Remember that? She could jump in there and double
dutch. Whatever athletic abilities we have, we got it from mom.
She'd jump in there and double dutch, and I can remember that
just as plain as can be. One of her favorite sayings as
she got older is this, growing old is not for sissies. She said
that to me so many times. And I told her not long ago,
I said, you know, I don't know who come up with the golden years
for old age, but they missed it. I said, Solomon, in Ecclesiastes
12, called them evil days. He said, before the evil days
come not. He didn't call old age, because old age comes with
a lot of problems, because you get older and older. They're
tough. They're tough years. As I've
gotten older, I remember, I think more now of the elderly, and
I pray more for the elderly than I ever did before, because now
I'm starting to see what Solomon means. You know, growing old
is not easy. But here's some of the memories.
Here's a few memories, and then I'm going to get to a message
that I want to bring on a blessed death. And that sounds like a
paradox. A blessed death. But you'll see
it when I get to it. But Celia's, one of hers, or
two or three of hers, mom would make some, mom made the girls
clothes. She made their clothes all the
time. And she would measure her, and Cecilia says she always tried
to keep getting them shorter. But mom would not. She wouldn't
give in. Mom won that battle. She would
not make them shorter. And she says she remembers standing
beside her in church and hearing her sing so softly. I don't know
where I was at. I didn't pay attention at all
when I was in church. And then here's one of her favorites.
She said she'd fight with Rex and mom would make him hug. And
so he says she loved it because she knew it made Rex madder.
She knew it was just like stirring a hornet's nest. And then she prayed one night.
She said it was Christmas. She says she believed it was
one Christmas night that mom and dad would live. I read that and
I thought, you want more toys. But the Lord did let them give
them a long, a long blessed life. And then Becky, she said, my
special memories on Saturday evening, Lawrence Welk, I remember
that, he hauled, and mom be polishing dad's shoes, and she, I mean,
she saw to it that all of us went out that door dressed to
the T, and we were never late. Seven kids and dad, and we were
never late. And she'd make a pie and then
she'd take the extra crust on it and she'd cut it off and she'd
make cinnamon sticks out of it for us. She was always in the
kitchen baking. And this one I thought was good
of Shirley. She said when she dated Denver,
she said mom would say, Shirley, it's time for Denver to get a
haircut. It's touching his collar. They were a stickler on that
hair. I left home one time over it. I stayed with Becky for a
while. I stayed with some other people.
While I left, I ran away from home. They didn't give in either. I had to cut my hair and come
back. And that was never mentioned again. But I tell you what, they
told me one time, to be in by a certain time, 11 o'clock. I came in at about 11.15. The
doors were locked. I had to sleep in the car. They meant what they said. They
meant what they said. Examples to follow. Examples. And Shirley wrote that, she quoted
that virtuous woman in the song of Proverbs 31. And it's so,
it fits. And then Becky, another one Becky
had written, she told me about this and I hadn't forgot it.
Mom was trying to get something off the floor. She got down on
the floor, she couldn't get up. And she's just rolling around
the floor just laughing. Both of them just laughing away trying
to get up out of the floor. I can just see that like a... And Sue, she says she asked mom
if she can go to the ninth grade prom. Mom said, ask your daddy. And she says she wrote dad a
letter. And dad let her go. I wish she'd have told us that.
I'd have had her write more letters. Dad didn't know how to say yes.
But he let her go. But those are precious. And you
can't write down all these memories. They go on and on and on. We'll
talk about them until we lay there. Precious memories, they
are. Now, the text I want to use. is in Psalm 116.15. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his saints. That's a precious death, in his
sight, in his sight. You know, if my death, all who
believe God, If our death is precious in the sight of God,
it ought to be precious to us. The day of my death is better
than the day of my birth in this world. It has a much better end. But precious in the sight of
the Lord is the death of his saints. Now I know this, I know
this. I know that the death of a beloved
saint is not really precious in our
sight because it's painful. It's painful, it's sorry. Paul
said, we sorrow not as others who have no hope, but we do sorrow.
We do feel pain, we do. It's a pain mixed with joy. But it is in God's sight. You
know, we ask God to leave them here, don't we? When they get
sick, what do we do? We pray that the Lord will heal
them. We pray that the Lord will leave
them longer, that we can have them here longer, that he'll
bring them back, that they can stay longer. But then our Lord
prays in John 17, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast
given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory.
Well, that prayer was just answered. His prayer is going to be answered.
I pray, listen, I pray, Father, thy will be done. The Lord Jesus
Christ, who is God in the flesh, prays, I will. He's the only
one who can say, I will. And it happened. And he said,
I will, that they also, whom thou hast given to me, be with
me where I am, that they may behold my glory, the glory I
had with you before the world was. Now, life is precious to God.
Our Lord, speaking to his disciples, said, not even a sparrow falls
to the ground without your heavenly Father. Mom didn't just die of
old age or a stroke. You know, the Lord called her
home. These are second causes. These
are second causes. God's the first cause. And when
he calls us out of this world, we are leaving it. There's no
stay. There's a time to be born and
there's a time to die, and God Almighty determines both times,
right to the second. He leaves nothing to chance.
Everything God does, He does on purpose. He does it on purpose. And if a sparrow doesn't fall
to the ground without our Heavenly Father, how much more the life
of His saints? You know, the Lord said that
the very hairs of their head are numbered. Do you know how
many hairs are on the head of your children? God does. God does. He knows exactly how many hairs
are on my head. I'll tell you this, God is so
intimately involved with his children. A gnat, a gnat can't
even fly into my eye without his permission. That's who God
is. That's the God of creation. He
rules and reigns over all and his children are under his care
all the way to the end. and every trial and every heartache
that will come their way, He ordained it before the world
began. He ordained it for their good, their eternal good in His
glory. Every tear I will ever cry, every
tear my mother cried, every one of them, God ordained it. He ordained it. And every one
of them conform us to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. God
had one son without sin, no sons without suffering, no sons without
suffering. The life of God's saints is precious,
listen, one is not more precious than another. Whether it be a
prophet like Moses or poor Lazarus laying at the rich man's gate,
both are equally precious in God's sight. Both serve God where
He put them. Both belong to the same body
of Christ. They are precious to Him. My
whole body, from the top of my head to the bottom of my shoes,
my whole body is precious to me. I don't want to lose any
member. Every member of the body of Christ
is precious to Him. Precious. And listen, in His
sight, In his sight. The life of every believer is
always in his sight. Never out of his sight. His eye
is upon them. He carries them through their
whole life. I despise that sticker that says,
Jesus is my co-pilot. Like you're flying the plane,
and if you need help, you'll ask him. When he finds the sheep,
you know what he does? That lost sheep? He says, he
puts it on his shoulder and he carries it home. I mean all the
way home. He carries his children all the
way home. He's not my co-pilot. He's not
the man upstairs. I hate that. He's God Almighty
in human flesh. That's who God is. That's who
Jesus Christ is. He's God. He's the sovereign
God of heaven and earth. And he carries his sheep all
the way home. And there's one thing I challenge
you to do this. Go home and look up the word
sheep. He never calls his children goats. He's not turning goats
into sheep. He always calls them his sheep.
My sheep hear my voice. He speaks of the one lost sheep.
He doesn't say a lost goat and brings it back and it's a sheep.
He's called him his sheep. They're always been his sheep.
And he's loved him with an everlasting love. He loved my mother with
an everlasting love. And the proof of that is that
he came into this world, took upon him flesh, satisfied his
own law, went to the cross, and died under the penalty of his
own law, went to the grave, rose again, ascended back on high,
interceded for her, and then called her. That's everlasting
love. That's the God of the Bible.
The God of the Bible is no weak God. You know, when the Lord
saved me, he didn't ask me if he could. He saved me. And I thank God he did. Like one old preacher said, he
saved me against my will with my full consent. Thy people shall
be willing in the day of thy power. He made me willing. He made Mom willing. And then precious, listen. Precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. They're
his saints. He calls them his saints. And
yes, they are a saint. There's a saint. Every person
in this room that believes is a saint. You know what that word
means? You know where they get that word? Sanctified. That comes
from the word sanctified. That word means set apart. That
word means made holy. Made holy for God's use. For
God's use. His sanctified ones, that's what
He's talking about, which means one set apart for God chosen
in Christ before the foundation of the world. Ephesians chapter
1. And they're precious because the
saints are His by creation. They're His by creation. Listen
to Psalm 103. Know ye that the Lord, know this first, He's God. He's God and there's none like
Him. There's none beside Him, none
be compared to Him. It is He that has made us and not we ourselves. I didn't make myself a believer.
Mom didn't make herself a believer. God did. God did. Faith's the gift of God. For
by grace are you saved through faith. That's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. It's the
work of the Holy Spirit. Listen to this in 2 Corinthians
5.17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature, a new creation. All things are passed away, behold,
all things are become new. A believer is said in Ephesians
chapter 2, the workmanship of God. Mom, her character, Devoted
wife and mother is a work of the grace of God in her. That's
what it is the work of the grace of God and then precious Her
death is precious Because that and all of God's saints death
are precious because they've been redeemed by the precious
blood of Christ Purchased yet. We're redeeming purchase God
purchased her He purchased her and first Peter Chapter one,
for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible
things as silver and gold from your vain conversations received
by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ, none like it, none like it. You know why there's none like
it? Listen to this, Acts 20, 28. Take heed therefore, Paul
speaking to the elders at Ephesus, Take heed therefore unto yourselves
and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost has made
you overseers to feed the church of God. Now listen, here's why
the blood of Christ is so precious. There's none like it. To feed
the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. Who purchased the church? Whose
blood purchased the church? The blood of God. Do we not sing
a song? Do we not sing this song? There's
a fountain filled with blood drawn from whose veins? Emmanuel's
veins. I shall call him Emmanuel, meaning
God with us. That man is almighty God. As God, absolute God, he has
no blood. But as a man, as a real human,
God became a real man. And now he has something to offer.
Now he has something to offer himself. Himself. Great, it says in 1 Timothy 3,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. He said in John 14, you've seen
me, you've seen the Father. He said, show us the Father and
it suffices. He said, you're looking at him. You're looking
at the Father. Oh, my soul. We haven't even
begun to scratch the surface of who Jesus Christ is. He's
the wisdom of God. He's the wisdom. Can you exhaust
the infinite wisdom of God? Christ, He's not just a wise
man. He's the wisdom of God. He said,
I'm the way, the truth, and the life. He is that. He didn't just tell the truth,
though He did. He is the truth. He is life. If I have life, I
have him. It's not just something he gives
me. I have him. He's my life. He's mom's life. He's mom's life. You know, it
says, Christ said to Thomas, he said, touch me for a spirit
hath not flesh and bone. And in first Corinthians, he
said, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven.
In the scriptures it says, the life of the flesh is in the blood.
You know what the life of that new body is? That spiritual body,
that new body that every believer will receive? The life of that
body is Christ. He is life. You don't need the
blood no more. The life of this body is in the
blood. The life of that body is in Jesus Christ, who is life. That's who he is, he's life.
And then the faith by which the saints believe is precious because
it's of God. It's of God, who by grace are
you saved through faith. That's not of yourself. That
faith's not of yourself. It's the gift of God. You know, a
gift is not an offer. A gift is not an offer. It's
a gift. God gave it to you. Eternal life
is not an offer. Eternal life, first of all, is
a person. Secondly, it's a gift. He didn't offer me life, he gave
it to me. I didn't know I was lost until
God saved me. I didn't know I was blind until he gave me sight.
I didn't know that. I didn't know I was dead until
he gave me life. Now I'm gonna close. I'm gonna
give you a few things of what happens when a believer, a saint
of God, dies. The death of the saint is the
death of the presence of sin. Christ has saved his people,
a multitude of sinners, no man can number. He saved them from
the power of sin. When he saved me, he saved mom,
he saved me from the power of sin, the guilt of sin. And then when this happens, from
the presence of sin. From the presence of it. Sin
will molest her no more. No more. And then it's the death
of the suffering of the body. I watched both my parents suffer
in their old age. They suffered. No more. No more. And then it's the death
of all temptations. I'll be, thank God, when I'm
not tempted again. Thank God when I'll never be tempted again.
Nothing will pass through my mind that ought not to pass through
my mind. And here's a good one, listen. It's the death of that warfare
within. I never had a warfare with sin
until God saved me. The only warfare I had was how
to accomplish the lust of this flesh. That's the only problem
I had was trying to figure out how to do it. And when God saved
me, then there began a warfare, a warfare within. And now that
warfare is over. It's over. And listen to this. Death is the end of dying. I'm dying. You're dying. Every person in this room is
dying. You see, I mean, I don't look like I did when I was 20.
I'm melting. I'm melting is what's happening. I'm starting to decay. This body, what you see aging,
I'm telling you the truth, it's decaying is what it is. We can put on whatever we want. I've got to be careful here. I'll just leave that alone. We're
decaying. We're dying. It's the end of dying. I'm not
dying no more. I'm not dying no more. Mom's
not dying no more. That's over. Death is the end
of dying. And then death is the end of
death. It'll never happen again. It will never ever happen again. Sin will never ever exist again. Satan will not exist again. On
that new heaven and that new earth, there'll be nothing but
a righteousness. The kingdom of righteousness.
and sin is gone, Satan's gone, and all bad is gone, and all
pain and suffering gone. I like reading, as I've gotten
older, I like reading the last part of Revelation, where it
talks about that new heaven, new earth, and God will wipe
away all tears. That means more to me now than
ever before. It won't be long, we'll be back
here again. Especially when you have a big family, you know,
you do this a lot as you get older. And this must happen. This must
happen. You know, our Lord said, except
a grain of corn fall into the ground, it abides alone. But
if it falls into the ground, he said it'll spring forth and
you have this abundance, this new body, this glorified body.
That wasn't, you know, you planted that little grain of corn in
the ground, but now look at it. Look at it, it's beautiful. There's
no comparison. This has to happen. As hard as
it is for us, it has to happen. And this change right here is
the last part of our salvation. You know, listen, I have been
saved. I am being saved and I shall
be saved. And this is the last part of
it. Laying this old body in the ground. And I like what our Lord
said to Martha. You remember Martha said, he
said, your brother will rise in the resurrection. Martha said, I know my brother
will rise again in the resurrection. She's looking for an event. There's
a lot of people looking for an event they're going to miss.
They're going to miss him. He said, Martha, I am the resurrection. I'm it. The resurrection is a
person. It's not an event. I'm the resurrection. I'm the
life. I'm the life. If you have me,
you have it all. I'm already risen in Christ.
There is a real sense in which everyone whom God will ever save
are already seated at God's right hand in Christ. I'm the resurrection. When he rose, I rose. When he
ascended, I ascended. And then someday, I'm going to
experience what mom experienced. I can't even imagine what it
is to leave this body and go be with the Lord. To leave the
body for my soul. I am a soul. I don't have a soul.
I am a soul. And for me to leave this body,
I can't even begin to think what that must have been like. But
I want to close with this story. It's a little girl. A little
girl went out to her backyard and she found a bird's nest with
four little blue eggs in it. And day by day she'd go out in
the backyard and she'd look at those eggs. It was like a treasure
to her. And one day the family went on vacation. About two weeks
later, they came back, and she ran out into the backyard to
look at those little blue bird eggs, her treasure. And she went
out to that backyard and looked, and there was nothing but broken
shells. And she came running back into
the house crying, and her mother said, what's wrong? What's wrong? And she said, my little blue
eggs are broken. She said, they're broken. My
treasure's blue eggs are broken. And her mother said, honey, don't
cry. The little birds that were in those eggs are free. Those are just shells. The bird's
free. They're singing in the trees
now. They're free. This is what happened to mom
Sunday, the 11th at 4.40 PM. She was set free from this shell. She was set free and now she's
singing with the praises of God with the rest of God's saints. You know this body, and I say
this with all sincerity, this body to me is a prison. It's a prison. It's called a
body of corruption in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. This body is a prison,
and someday God's gonna set me free from it, and I'm gonna fly
away. And I'm gonna sing His praises
with the rest of God's saints. This is a precious death. Maybe
not to us, but it's precious to the one that it counts. God. God Almighty. All right.