Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of His saints. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of His saints. First of all, the family of James
would like to thank all of you for coming and showing your love
and respect to the family. and also for all the food and
generosity that you have shown over the last few days. And it is an honor, it's an honor
to me to perform this memorial service. It's an honor to do
this for my sister. Jane was and is a special lady. She's special to her Lord, He
redeemed her. Came into this world, took upon
Him flesh, became bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh, and
died in her place. Now how special is that? That's
special now. And then she's special to her
husband Tommy of 54 years, special life together. God gave them
a special life together as believers. That's priceless. That's priceless. When God saves a husband and
a wife, and they together can worship the Lord Jesus Christ,
when they together can be in full agreement as to who God
is, what He's done, who He did it for, where He is now. I tell
you, to have that, that's priceless. You know, the Scripture says
in Proverbs 18.22, "...whoso finds a wife, finds a good thing,
and obtains favor of the Lord." Tommy would agree he has found
favor of the Lord. And then she's special to her
children. I know she's special to her children. You know, it says in Proverbs
31 concerning the virtuous woman, Her children will call her blessed. They will speak well of her,
highly of her. They will bless her name. They
will give thanks to God that they had such a mother. And then
she specialed her grandchildren in her great-grandchildren. Oh,
I tell you, there's nothing like grandma and grandpa, is there?
Nothing like them. Nothing like them. And she's
special to her sisters. I'm sure there's good long memories
there growing up. Special. And she's special to
this church. She was faithful. Faithful to
be here. Special to this pastor because
she was easy to preach to. She soaked it up like a sponge.
Always, always complimenting me and I don't deserve that very
often, if at all. But she was a special person,
special. Now Tuesday morning, August the
6th, the great physician of souls took Jane home where she will
enjoy her Lord forever and ever. Scripture says, our times are
in His hands. She lived the full life. She
lived the life God gave her. And then He took her home. It
is written in John 14, our Lord said this, I go and prepare a
place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again. That's a promise. I will come
again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may
be also. Now, if it were up to you and
me, we wouldn't let each other die. We wouldn't let our loved
ones die and they wouldn't let us die. But I thank God He doesn't
leave that up to us. I'm so glad He doesn't leave
that up to us. Now listen, He officiated her
departing. The Lord was in that room. He
said, I will come and receive you to Myself. He officiated
the departing. The great physician came and
severed the soul from the body. He said, He might take her home. And that's exactly what He did.
He waited for the coroner to come and pronounce her dead,
but you know what the Lord pronounced? He pronounced her alive, forevermore,
forevermore. Now believers know why they die,
we know that. Some say, well, this one died
of a heart attack, this one died of cancer. No, I'll tell you
why we die, we die because of sin. That's the very root of
the problem. By one man sin entered the world,
and death by sin, and death is passed upon all men for all sin,
and comes short of the glory of God." That's Bible. That's
the Word of God. However, the death of the believer
is not the same as the death of the unbeliever. With the unbeliever,
it is total and final ruin, it's separation from God. But with
the believer, it's the means. It's the means that God uses
to bring His loved ones home. What was an enemy is now a friend.
He used it to bring her home and the rest of His saints home. Now our text says in verse 15,
"...precious." You wouldn't think that would be used in reference
to death, would you? To God's saints, it is. Precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Now, the
word precious means to delight in. He delighted in her. She is His delight. It means
beauty. Beauty, beautiful in His sight. It means greatly beloved. Loved
with an everlasting love. God loved her as He loved all
His saints with an everlasting love. Every time He did not love
her, He loved her with an everlasting love. It means pleasant. What was unpleasant to the family
and what felt unpleasant to us was pleasant to God because He
took her home. It also means precious thing.
Precious thing. Oh, it's a precious thing. God's
saints are precious to Him. Now, first let me say something
here about life before we get to this matter of precious in
the sight of the Lord's death of His saints. But life is precious
to God. You know, not even a sparrow
falls to the ground without our Heavenly Father's hand in it.
Not even a sparrow falls to the ground. How much more precious
the life of his saints? He said, even the hairs of their
head are all numbered. God knew every hair that was
on her head. They were numbered. He knows
it. That's how intimately acquainted he is with his children. I know
man does not count life as precious except his own. How many lives
have been sacrificed on the battlefield by tyrants? Trying to prove a
point. Like pawns on a chessboard, but not so with God. The life
of His saint is precious. It's the life of God. It's the
life of God. You know eternal life is not
how long you're going to live. Eternal life is the life of God
in the soul. It's the quality of it. Everybody's
going to live forever in one place or the other. The life of all God's saints
is precious. One's not more precious than
the other. Whether it be a prophet like
Moses or a poor Lazarus laying at the rich man's gate, both
are equally precious. Her life was every bit as precious
to God's coming here and sitting and listening to me standing
here preaching. Both serve God where He put them
in the body. God puts us in the body. He puts
every one of His children in the body where it pleases Him.
And there's where she served Him. Both belong to the same
body. I'm going to tell you something.
Every part of this body right here, from head to toe, is precious
to me. There's not one body part, not
one finger or toe, I can say, well, I'll just cut it off and
do without it. No, I won't. No, you don't bother my body. It's
precious to me. The whole body is. The whole
body is. Christ died for all His saints.
All His saints. And listen, in His sight, precious
is the death of His saints in His sight. The life of every
saint is always in His sight. This event that just happened,
this unimaginable event, was with Him officiating it. I mean,
the Lord officiated it. His eye is always upon His children. He carries them through their
life. He places them where He will in life. In all their down
seedings, in all their uprisings, He carries them. He said, Lo,
I am with you always, even unto the end. In another place He
said, I'll carry you to your old age. The verse says, Precious in the
sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. Well, how's that?
How is death precious? The death of God said, how is
it precious? Well, first of all, she is His
saint. You know what that means? His
sanctified one. Which means one set apart by
God for God. Chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world, God chose her. called her by His grace, redeemed
her." She's His. Sanctified, that's what sanctified
means, a sanctified one. Then she's precious because not
only did He choose her, He made her a new creation in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Listen to Psalm 103, "'Know ye
that the Lord, He is God, It is He that hath made us, and
not we ourselves. We are His people, and the sheep
of His pasture. He made us. He made Jane a believer. God made her a believer. She
didn't make herself a believer. God did that. That's the work
of God. Faith is the gift of God. And precious in the sight of
the Lord is the death of His saints, because she has been
redeemed by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to 1 Peter 1.18-19, "'For
as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible
things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received
by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ.'" No other blood like it. No other blood like it. You
know why? It says in Acts 20.28, it's the
blood of God, redeemed by the blood of God Almighty. And then the faith by which he
believed is called in the Scriptures, precious faith. Precious faith. God gave it to her. Faith, the
Scripture says, is the gift of God. It is written in 2 Peter
1.1, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to
them that have obtained. How did they obtain it? By the
grace of God. That's how she obtained precious
faith. It's precious because God gave it to her. It's of God
and she exercised it in God. And then she believed the precious
promises. The promises by which she believed.
Listen, the promises by which she was made a partaker of the
divine nature are the precious promises of God. It is written
in 2 Peter 1.4, "...whereby are given unto us exceeding great
and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is
in the world through lust." There's a few other reasons I
thought of when I was putting this together. It's precious. The death of the
saint is precious in the sight of the Lord because it's the
means by which God brings them home. Flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God. Listen to 1 Corinthians 15, Now
this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption.
Behold, I show you a mystery. I show you a mystery. We shall
not all sleep, and that's exactly what this is for her. It's a
sleep. She fell asleep in Christ and woke up in heaven. But we shall all be changed in
a moment in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for
the trump shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible."
That is that dead body that we're going to bury is going to be
raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible
must put on incorruption for us to enter the kingdom of God,
heaven, paradise. This corruptible must put on
incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality.
So when this corruption shall have put on incorruption, is
exactly what she did. That's what happened. And this
mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. This
is a day of victory. This is a day of her homecoming. This is her homecoming. It's
a day of victory. Oh, death, where's your sting?
Oh, I tell you, for the unbeliever it is a sting, but for the believer,
there's no sting in it. Oh, grave, where's your victory?
The sting of death is sin, the strength of sin is the law, but
thanks be to God which gives us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. He's my victory. He's my victory. He's her victory. And here's
another reason it's precious. The death of the saint is the
death of the presence of sin. It's gone. It's gone. You don't have to deal with sin
no more. Don't have to deal with it. It's gone. The presence of
sin. You know, when God saves a sinner,
he saves it from the power of sin, the guilt of sin. But it's
not until we die that we are saved from the very presence
of it. It's no more. I've not known anything but sin
since my birth. But someday, someday, I'm going
to be laying here and sin will be gone. That's the death of
sin. It's gone. Then the death of the suffering
of the body is gone. She suffered. She suffered in that body. But that's gone
now. That's gone. And then it's the death of all
temptations. Inward and outward. Never be
tempted again. Never be tried again. That's
gone. And here's the best part. It's the death of death. We'll never do this again for
Jane. It's the death of death. That's an end. It's also the
beginning of life with the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven forever.
A thief said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
And he said, This day shalt thou be with me in paradise. This is not Greek mythology. This is real. Our sister is in
paradise, enjoying the presence of her
Lord. Faith has given way to sight. And then it's precious
in the sight of the Lord, and I'm going to close. It's precious
in the sight of the Lord because it is an answer to the Lord's
prayer. Listen to this, in John 17, 24. Father, I will that they also
whom Thou hast given Me be with Me, where I am, that they may
behold My glory," that's what she's doing, "...which Thou hast
given Me, for Thou lovest Me before the foundation of the
world." It's blessed because it's an answer to the Lord's
intercessory prayer. He prayed to His Father that
she would be with Him and behold His glory, the glory He had before
the world was. And he prays that for all his
children. This is what our sister's doing right now. This is a precious
time for Jane. Hard time for us, but a precious
time for her. Let me close with telling you
a story I read by Charles Spurgeon. There was a little girl who'd
gone out in her backyard. And she found this bird nest. And it had these little blue
bird eggs in it. And she'd go out there day by
day and look at them. And they went away for a little
while, vacation, whatever it was. But they went away for a
little while. And she came back, and she went out there to look
at those eggs. And all she saw was a broken
shell, the broken shells of those eggs. And she went running into
the house and crying. And her mother said, what is
the matter? She said, the eggs are broken. And the mother said, well, dear,
the eggs are broken. The shells are broken. But the
bird is free. The birds are free. They're out
there flying in the tree. They're free. They're out of
the shell. That's what happened on August the 6th. That's just a shell right there.
The bird is free. Jane is free. Set free, free.
Whom the son sets free, he's free indeed. And in the fullest
sense of that word, our sister, your mother, grandmother, is
free indeed. She's free. And we wouldn't change
that, would we? We wouldn't change that. As much
as we would miss her, we wouldn't want to change that. Our Father, bless this family. Make them
to know that Thy grace is sufficient. And Lord, help us, help us to
bear good witness to Your name until You take us home. In Christ's name we pray, and
amen.