Before we pray and seek God's
blessing on the ministry of the Word, I read but one text of
Scripture, Revelation chapter 14 and verse 13. Revelation 14 and verse 13. John writes, And I heard a voice
from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord
from henceforth. Yes, says the Spirit, that they
may rest from their labors, for their works follow with them. Let us pray and ask God's help
in the opening up of His Word this morning. Our Father, it is encouraging
to us to know that as we sit and as I stand in this place,
those things of which we have just sung are true, that there
is a vast company surrounding your throne and the throne of
the Lamb who have overcome and entered into their rest. and with one voice exclaim that
they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, by the grace and power
of your Spirit. And we ask this day as we contemplate
what they now know and what we shall know when we join them
by the same grace, that our hearts will burn within us that we may
be nerved to face the last enemy with confidence that neither
life nor death shall separate us from your love that is in
Christ Jesus. Speak to us then with grace and
power, we plead in Jesus' name. Amen. It was on September 20th, 2004,
exactly three years ago this past Thursday, at 6.20 in the
morning, that Marilyn Martin, my wife of 48 years, breathed
her last and died. As most of you know, she died
at home in my presence and in the presence of her daughter,
Heidi Cook, and of my sister, Joyce Maltby. Four weeks later,
on October 17, 2004, I stood behind this very pulpit
and preached a sermon entitled, Death and Its Immediate Sequel
for the One Who Dies in the Lord. In his wise, loving, but inscrutable
providence God has once more thrust upon us as a congregation
the unsettling facts concerning the uncertainty of life and the
cold, brutal, irreversible finality of death. God has done this by
taking a relatively young man from our midst on July the 3rd
our brother Dan Haynes, less than three months ago. And then
again in the shocking murder of Arif and Kathy Kahn on August
29th, now three and a half weeks ago. In seeking to put these
dark providences into some biblical perspective for you, those who
feel most keenly this unwanted but irreversible intrusion of
death and seeking to bring to you, God's people, some biblical
perspective to settle your minds and your hearts. I have not addressed
in any extended way the question what precisely has happened to
Dan and to Arif. and to Kathy in the experience
of their deaths. And it is that question that
I will attempt to answer from the Scriptures this morning using
Revelation 14 and verse 13 as the basis of my message. This
text states, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. And it has struck me in coming
back to this text of Scripture that there is an apparent contradiction
in the language of this text. Blessed are the dead who die. The word dead and die are nestled
under a canopy of blessedness. Blessed are the dead who die. We do not think of death in the
category of anything that is a blessing. Death that wrenches
our hearts, that opens up our tear ducts. Death that brings
us to that shocking realization of how tenuous life is. And yet the text says, write
these words, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. And so this morning my message
is simply this, an attempt to answer this question, in what
does this blessedness consist for those who die in the Lord? In what does this blessedness
consist for those who die in the Lord? Now, at the outset,
I admit what is evident to any serious student of the Bible.
Compared to what the Bible tells us about the consummation of
redemption, when Jesus returns in glory and power, raises the
dead joins their perfected spirits to resurrection bodies, the Bible
has a lot to say about the consummation of God's redemptive work in the
hearts and in the lives and in the bodies of His people. Compared
to all that the Bible tells us about the consummation, it tells
us relatively little about what the theologians call the intermediate
state. that condition between death
and the coming of the Lord Jesus. However, the Bible gives us sufficient,
clear, unmistakable information that we are able to answer the
question, in what does the blessedness consist for those who die in
the Lord. And I want to answer that question,
in what does that blessedness consist, with four very simple
affirmations rooted in the Word of God. Number one, they are
blessed with the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence
of Jesus. When the text says, blessed are
the dead who die in the Lord, they are blessed with the welcoming
of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus. We begin by
asking the question, where is Jesus right now? And the Bible
answers it very clearly. In the body in which he lived,
performed his miracles, died upon the cross, and rose from
Joseph's tomb, that body in a new resurrected condition that had
corporeal substance, he could say, handle me, see that a spirit
hath not flesh and bones as you see me have yet. A body capable
of appearing in a room with closed doors, the doors being locked,
capacity to pass through the walls, through the door, and
yet appear with corporeal substance before the disciples. A body
that apparently could remove from one place to another without
the ordinary means of passing from one place to another by
walking, by running, by riding upon a donkey. On the road to
Emmaus, our Lord is with the two dejected disciples. He sits
with them, and while He sits with them, their eyes are opened
to behold who He really is, and then He's gone. So we don't understand
and fully know the nature of that body that was given him
at his resurrection and any changes that may further have occurred
when in that body he went to the place where he is right now. And where is that? Well, when
we turn to Acts chapter 1, the scriptures answer the question
for us. In Acts chapter 1, Luke has told
us that our Lord has spent some 40 days with the disciples subsequent
to His resurrection, showing Himself alive and speaking of
the things of the kingdom. And then, as He's about to leave
them, we read in Acts 1 and verse 9, And when He had said these
things, they were looking. He was taken up, and a cloud
received Him out of their sight. And while they were looking steadfastly
into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white
apparel who said, you men of Galilee, why do you stand looking
into heaven? This Jesus who was received up
from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you behold
him going into heaven." Here the language could not be more
plain. Wherever this heaven is, That's
where Jesus is. They beheld him going up from
their presence into heaven. And this is the uniform testimony
of the New Testament in Hebrews 1 and verse 3. The language is
a bit different, but it does not contradict, but simply complement
who being the brightness of his glory, the image of his substance,
upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made
purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty
on high." And again, in Hebrews 10 and verse 12, we have a similar
affirmation. He, when he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. So where is Jesus? Jesus is in
a place designated as heaven, somewhere in the vast universe
of God, perhaps in a way that we cannot even begin to understand
with realities penetrating other realities, There in his glorified
body, our Lord Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of the concentrated
presence of the majesty and glory of God. So wherever that heaven
is, he is there in his now glorified body. And when anyone dies in
the Lord, That human spirit which leaves that human body is immediately
welcomed into the very presence of Jesus so that the body remains
down here while the spirit goes immediately into the presence
of Jesus up there, wherever up there may be. And there are several
texts of scripture which again make this abundantly and unmistakably
clear. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, 2 Corinthians
chapter 5, verses 6 to 8. Being therefore of good courage,
knowing that while we are at home in the body, We are absent
from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of
good courage, I say, willing rather to be absent from the
body and to be at home with the Lord. Twice we have at home and
absent. While we are at home in the body,
that is, our spirits are inhabiting these corporeal subsistences
called our bodies, we are away from or absent from the Lord. While we are not absent in terms
of His dwelling in us by the Spirit, We are not absent in
terms of holding loving communion and fellowship with him, but
in terms of being in his immediate presence, the glorified, exalted
God-man with his glorified body. When we are at home in the body,
we are absent from the immediate presence of the Lord Jesus. However,
When we vacate the body, when we are absent from this body,
we are immediately at home with the Lord. Language could not
be more plain. We are willing, rather, to vacate
the body and to be at home with the Lord. Even though in the
previous verses Paul says his great longing is not for the
disembodied state, the intermediate state, this abnormal state of
severance of soul and body He longs ultimately that his mortality
would be swallowed up by immortality, that he will have his resurrection
body. But he said, though that's my
great longing, I'm perfectly content for the wonder and the
privilege of the intermediate state that when I vacate the
body as my home, I come to be home with my Lord. The second
text that makes this unmistakably clear is Philippians chapter
1. Philippians chapter 1, Paul is
in prison writing to this church that brought him such delight
and he tells them that his great passion is that Christ will be
magnified in his body whether by life or by death, the end
of verse 20 of chapter 1. He says, for to me to live is
Christ and to die is gain. Well, in what sense is death
gain? And he's going to explain. But
if to live in the flesh, if this shall bring forth fruit from
my work, then what I shall choose I know not. I'm in a strait.
I'm torn between two great desires, having the desire to depart and
to be with Christ. Depart is the language of dying. Dying is gain. And what is the
gain? If I depart from this bodily
existence, the gain is with Christ. the Christ who arrested me on
the Damascus Road, the Christ who commissioned me, the Christ
who empowered me, the Christ whose presence I have known in
my fellowship and communion with Him, but I long to be with him
and he says to depart and to be with Christ which is very
far better he piles superlatives upon superlative and said it's
very far better and this is no selfish death wish for he goes
on to say however It's more needful for me to remain in this body
with all of its scars from my beatings, with all of the aching
joints from the deprivations I've suffered as a gospel minister,
as an apostle, and a church planter and missionary. I'm prepared
to stay on in this state for your sake. And I have intimations
from God that that will be His will. But if I have my choice,
It would be to depart from this bodily existence and in my disembodied
state to go immediately into the presence of Jesus. And then you have a beautiful
picture of this actually happening with one of God's precious saints
in Acts chapter 7. In Acts chapter 7. that godly, spirit-filled, Bible-soaked
man called Stephen is standing before enemies of his Christ
and of his gospel. And he is preached faithfully,
powerfully, to the point where they gnash upon him with their
teeth and they pick up boulders to throw upon him and to snuff
out his life. And we read in Acts 7.59, And
they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord and saying, Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down and cried
with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, He
fell asleep. A beautiful euphemism for He
died, for the believer to die. The bodily part of death is like
being put to sleep, awaiting the morning of the resurrection
when He and all the saints shall awake, resplendent with glorified
bodies. But meanwhile, where is His spirit? He's very conscious that his
spirit is to be received by the Lord Jesus himself. He then calls upon the Lord saying,
receive my spirit. And in what posture did he see
the Lord, of whom he petitions now, receive my spirit? But he, being full of the Holy
Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory
of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And he
said, Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing
on the right hand of God. Standing for what reason? I thought
we read in Hebrews. He sat down at the right hand
of God. He stands to receive the spirits
of his own. Stephen sees this reality. Jesus standing to receive what? Not his body. His body will be
buried. We read that in the next paragraph
in chapter 8. His body will go into the ground. But his spirit will be in the
immediate presence of the Lord Jesus. In a very real sense,
dear people of God, When anyone dies in the Lord, they are blessed
in that death because Jesus gets his greatest desire fulfilled
in them. His greatest desire. Turn to
John 17 in his high priestly prayer. The language, the verbs
of petition, the standard words are used throughout this prayer.
But when we come to verse 24, it's not the standard language
of petition, but it is an expression of want, of will. Father, I will. I want. that they also whom you
have given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my
glory which you have given me, for you love me before the foundation
of the world. Father, it is my strong wish
and desire that those that you have given me, those for whom
I am about to die and lay down my life, those to whom I will
send my Spirit, regenerating them, giving them eyes to see
my glory and to embrace me as their only hope of life and salvation,
those in whom I will come to dwell by the Spirit, that by
a process of sanctifying grace I will make them more and more
like myself. But Father, though I will that
all this shall be done in them and for them, my great desire
is that they be with me where I am. And the moment someone
dies in the Lord, This desire of the Lord Jesus is fulfilled
and that departing spirit is with him where he is. Surely then, when John hears
the voice saying, write these words, blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord, the first dimension of that blessedness that is theirs
is that they are blessed with the welcoming of their spirits
into the very presence of Jesus. Yes, all of them have seen their
need of Him as the only way to be right with God, to have the
forgiveness of sins, to be accepted in the court of heaven. They've
entrusted themselves to Him in the abandonment of saving faith. They've come to love Him supremely
above mother, father, brother, sister, and their own lives also. They have enjoyed communion with
Him in prayer and praise, in the fellowship of the church,
and in the secret place of the closet, and at the family table. But, but, if they truly know
Him, their greatest longing is to be with Him. to see Him face
to face, to behold His glory at the right hand of the Father. The great longing of their hearts
is to be in His immediate presence. Blessed are those who die in
the Lord from henceforth. Why? They are blessed with that
entrance of their spirits into His presence. For those of us
who have lost those dearest to us, concerning whom we have confidence
they died in the Lord, no little part of stabilizing our hearts,
of chastening and disciplining our grief, is to think of the
blessedness that is theirs. when the deepest yearning of
their renewed inner being is now fulfilled, and they look
upon the face of their Redeemer with joy. Few things are more
calculated to give us as God's people confidence in the face
of our own death than to really believe by whatever means God
chooses to bring to me that abnormal and temporary severance of soul
and body as the body apart from the spirit is dead. That's what
death is. This radical, unnatural severance
of soul and body to know that by whatever means, whether it's
a sudden tragic accident, whether it's by a lingering, debilitating
illness, whatever the means by which my death will glorify God,
to face death with the confidence the moment I breathe my last. And the line goes flat. And the
nurse puts her finger on my carotid artery and says, he's gone. To know that I'll look upon his
face and the great desire of my heart will be fulfilled. How can we have a crippling fear
of death when we have that confidence blessed are the dead? fully satisfied. That Greek word, blessed, packs
into it all of the Hebrew concept of the shalom of God, the well-being
that God gives to us, the peace, the joy of being in covenant
relationship with God. Blessed are the dead who die
blessed because, first of all, they experience what I have called
the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus. But secondly, they are blessed
with the perfecting of their spirits into the moral likeness
of Jesus. Not only the welcoming of their
spirits into the very presence of Jesus, but the perfecting
of their spirits into the moral likeness of Jesus. According
to the scriptures, when God sets his heart upon the salvation
of a sinner, he has a gracious determination that he will fulfill
in every such sinner. And what is that gracious determination? Romans 8 tells us. Here's God's
determination in the salvation that He has purposed, that He
has planned, for which He has marked out fallen sons and daughters
of Adam in His free, sovereign, loving, electing grace. And here
is His purpose. Verse 29 of Romans 8, For whom
He foreknew, that is, those upon whom He set His sovereign love. he also foreordained to be conformed
to the image of his Son, that he, Jesus, might be the firstborn,
the chief among many brethren, and whom he foreordained, that
is foreordained to this end, to be conformed to the image
of his Son, them he also called. Whom He called, them He also
justified. Whom He justified, them He also
glorified. And what is glorification? Glorification
is God's accomplishment of His sovereign purpose to conform
the subjects of His saving grace to the image of Christ, spirit
and body, so that Christ will be the great paradigm of what
they will be. He will be the elder brother,
the chief in the family, the firstborn, and his brethren will
bear his likeness in their spirits being perfected in holiness and
in their bodies being conformed to the body of his glory as Paul
describes it in Philippians chapter 3 and in verse 21. However, while glorification
is total conformity to Jesus, sinless spirits inhabiting deathless
bodies, only those alive when Jesus come get both parts at
once. Most of us get it in two installments. The glorification of our spirits
occurs when we die. the glorification of our bodies
when He returns. And I'm amazed how much sloppy
thinking there is among Christians. They say, oh, my loved one's
gone to heaven and they're doing cartwheels. No, you don't do
cartwheels as a disembodied spirit. My loved one's gone to heaven
and they were crippled and now they're running 100-yard dashes
in 11 seconds. No, you don't run 100-yard dashes
in a disembodied spirit. No. We've got to think biblically,
dear people. God's committed that when He's
done with us, Christ will be the firstborn. We'll all bear
the form family likeness in spirit and in body. However, for most
of us, we will pass through the door of death. And as we do,
what happens that enables the Spirit to say to John, write
these words, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. I answer
by saying, they are blessed with the perfecting of their spirits
into the moral likeness of Jesus. They get the glorification of
the inner man the moment they die. they'll get the glorification
of the outer man when Jesus returns and gives them resurrection bodies. Now where does the Bible teach
that? Well, turn with me please to
Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. In this section of the book of
Hebrews, seeking to persuade these Hebrew Christians not to
cast off their faith but to cling to Christ and all that they have
in Christ in spite of the opposition they receive and the persecution
they're enduring. And here in Hebrews 12, beginning
in verse 18, the writer to Hebrews contrasts what you would have
come to had you been there at Mount Sinai when God gave the
terms of the old covenant under Moses. And he has all this descriptive
language of what was true when the old covenant was inaugurated
at Mount Sinai. And he begins by saying, you
are not come unto a mount. And then he says, all the things
to which we have not come in the new covenant Then he contrasts
them with the things to which we have come. Verse 22, But you
have come unto Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general
assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and
to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made
perfect. He says, when you come to Jesus,
Mediator of the New Covenant, to lay hold of the blessings
held out in Him, here is one of the things to which you come. You come into this communion
with the spirits of just men made perfect. You come into this
communion with those who have, right now, a spirit existence. Their bodies lie in graves all
over the place. The worms have eaten them and
the fish have consumed them, but their spirits have entered
into the presence of their God. And having entered into their
presence, they are now spirits having been and remaining in
a state of perfection. He uses a perfect passive construction
of the verb to complete, to bring to fullness, to bring to its
terminus. And he says you've come to the
spirits of just men, those who were justified by faith in life,
so that it would be right for God to welcome them into His
presence with no controversy against them, made righteous
on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus, mediator of the new
covenant whose work is applied to all of those under the old
covenant who came to true faith in himself. And he says, in coming
into communion with them, you come into communion with spirits
having been made perfect. And one of the wonderful things
about the death of a Christian when we're thinking biblically
What makes us blessed as we die in the Lord is this. We are blessed
with the perfecting of our spirits into the moral likeness of Jesus. While here on earth, when we
came to Christ, quickened by the Holy Spirit to repentance
and faith, in our union with Christ and by the indwelling
of the Spirit, the dominion of sin was broken in us. Romans
6.14, sin shall not exercise lordship over you, for you are
not under the law, but under grace. If we've come out from
under the condemning power of the law as a covenant, sin's
dominion over us has been broken in the cross of Jesus Christ. The willful practice of sin has
ceased. We read of that in 1 John 3 this
morning. He that is born of God does not
make a practice of sin. Why? His seed remains in him,
the principle of divine life, and he cannot be at home in sin
as his native environment because he has been born of God. The mortification of sin as an
ongoing discipline has been their reality. If you by the Spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. The image of
Christ has begun to be formed in us, 2 Corinthians 3.18, but
we all, all of us, in the blessing of the new covenant, with unveiled
face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into that image from one stage of glory to another. A pattern of Christ-like behavior
has begun to emerge in us. 1 John 2.6, He that says he abides
in Him, ought himself so to walk even as He walked. Christ suffered,
leaving you an example that you should follow His steps. All
of this is true of every single true child of God. Dominion of
sin has been broken. The willful practice of sin has
ceased. The mortification of sin is an
ongoing reality. The image of Christ is being
formed in him or her. The pattern of Christ-like behavior
is emerging. Yet, yet, yet, yet, sin remains. We heard of it in the previous
hour. For me who would do good, I'm quoting Romans 7. I find
another law warring against the law of my mind. When I would do good, evil is
present with me. The same Paul writes, the flesh
lusts against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, and
these two are contrary, the one to the other, so that you may
not do the things that you would. It's the reality. And the child
of God longs, longs with a passionate longing for the time when sin
will no longer be any element in his experience of grace. The moment we die, listen to
me carefully, the moment we breathe our last and our spirits leave
our bodies in order to make it feel comfortable In the immediate
presence of God and of the Lamb, the Holy Spirit puts forth a
burst of redemptive energy and power upon every last element
in the texture of the human spirit that purges away every vestige
of sin, and implants every perfection of Christ-like grace. In an instant, it's done. Think of it. What power was operative
to break sin's dominion? Some of us can remember we had
filthy minds, had dirty tongues that liked to tell dirty jokes. They had no heart for God. What
did God do by the power of the Spirit to dethrone sin and make
it a clean tongue and holy eyes? What amazing power! That's why
God calls it a spiritual resurrection. You hath He made alive who were
dead in your trespasses. Think of the power that's been
operative in us to keep us, as we heard in the previous hour,
from the potential that is still within us. Think of the power
that's working in us day by day that we don't bring shame to
the name of Christ, fall into grievous and shameful sin, every
irritation breaking out in foul words and striking and hitting.
We're in amazement if we're real Christians. But I tell you, all
that God's done right now, that's five watts compared to what He's
going to pour in the moment we die. That's 10,000 megawatts. of sanctifying grace that is
going to take this spirit that lies behind all of the remaining
struggle. Yes, it brings into its service
the members of our body, and I am fully conscious of that
emphasis in Scripture. But sin does not reside in the
corpuscles of my fingers or in my head or in the stuff of my
eyeballs. It resides in my spirit. And
God is going to do something marvelous. The moment we breathe
our last, that spirit will experience its perfecting into the moral
likeness of Christ. So instead of being uncomfortable
in the presence of the Holy One of Israel, we'll feel perfectly
at home in His presence. What happened to Isaiah when
he had a vision of the Holy God? It shattered him! Fell on his
face! He said, I'm undone! I'm unzipped
from head to toe! I'm shattered! I'm disoriented! My eyes have seen the King! God's
going to do something in us. We're not going to fall down
shattered. We may fall down, however disembodied spirits fall
down, I don't know. But we're going to be at home.
And we're going to run into the arms of our Savior and say, Lord
Jesus, at last I'm home and I'm like you. Blessed are the dead
who die in the Lord. Child of God, do you believe
God's going to do that for you? If you do, why can't you look
on death with such dark, foreboding, shrinking fears? If you really
believe that, Then you'll understand why McShane wrote the words that
he did. When I stand before the throne,
dressed in beauty not my own, when I see you as you are, love
you with unsinning heart, then, Lord, shall I fully know, not
till then, how much I owe. Some of us feel we could give
a pinky to go through one day without sinning. Maybe an index finger to go through
a week. I've got news for you. You're
going to go through an eternity and never sin. And it all is
going to begin when God ushers you through the door of death
and you experience the blessedness of the perfecting of your spirit.
into the moral likeness of Jesus. Surely, this is the great attraction
of heaven for the child of God. Next to being with Jesus is the
longing to be fully like Jesus. And when you think of heaven,
if those two are not the dominant attractions, you probably have
a heaven like unto the Muslim. It's escape from this and that,
and it's enjoying this, that, and the other that has nothing
to do with that work which God does in making Christ precious
and making sin our greatest mortal enemy. Child of God, this is
for your comfort. I say to grieving widows and
widowers, grieving sons and daughters, Think, think, think. What's happened
to Dan? What's happened to Areth and
to Kathy? They've enjoyed whatever consciousness
of time there may be. They've enjoyed for these several
months in Dan's case, and three and a half weeks in Areth and
Kathy's case, uninterrupted communion with their Savior in His presence
without sin. And it should go far to help
you and me to have a balanced biblical attitude to our own
eventual death. But then I must hurry. Thirdly,
blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, blessed not only
with the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus,
blessed with the perfecting of their spirits into the moral
likeness of Jesus. But thirdly, they are blessed
with the gathering of their spirits into the company of all those
redeemed by Jesus. They are blessed with the gathering
of their spirits into the company of all those redeemed by Jesus. While each one of us is born
as an individual, even if you're one of triplets, somebody came
out first, second, and third, you're born all alone. And if
we're in Christ, we come into Christ individually. We don't
come in on mama and daddy's belt or apron strings. And if we've
experienced new birth, God has born us individually by His Spirit. We will die as individuals and
will stand before God in the day of judgment as individuals. Yet, yet, hear me now, God's
great design in salvation is not crassly individualistic. Rather, in redemption, God is
committed in that redemptive grace to create a new humanity,
a city of God, a bride for His Son, a holy nation, a people
for His own possession. When Paul describes the consummation
at the second coming, he writes of this togetherness that is
in the mind and purpose of God and will be in our experience. In the familiar words of 1 Thessalonians
chapter 4, if we believe Jesus died and rose again, them also
that are fallen asleep in Jesus, God will bring with him For this
we say to you by the word of the Lord, we who are alive and
left to the coming of the Lord shall in no wise go before them
that are fallen asleep. There was some teaching abroad
that there was going to be a bifurcation of class distinction at the coming
of Christ, that the living saints were going to have preference
to the dead saints. He said, no, no, no splitting up of the
people of God. Listen to what he says. The Lord
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout. with the voice
of the archangel and the trump of God, the dead in Christ shall
rise first. Then we that are alive, that
are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we in our togetherness
ever be with the Lord. And those pictures of the consummate
glory of redemption, the new heavens, the new earth, it is
a city that comes down from God. It is a vast multitude whom no
man can number out of every kindred, tribe, and tongue, and people,
and nation. It is 144,000 of the spiritual
Israel. God is committed to make a new
humanity. And when the Spirit says to John
Wright, blessed are those who die in the Lord, a third aspect
of that blessedness is the gathering of their spirits into the company
of all those redeemed by Jesus. And again, I go back to the Hebrews
12 passage. What do we come to in the New
Covenant? We come here and now into relationship and communion
with the spirits of just men made perfect. Verse 23 of Hebrews
12, we are come, now we have come to the spirits of just men
made perfect. This is captured in one of the
verses of one of our lovely hymns. Yet she on earth hath union with
God, the three in one, and mystic, sweet communion with those whose
rest is one even now. We have a dimension of mystic,
sweet communion with Abraham and Isaac and Joseph and Sarah
and Mary and Martha and Ruth and Naomi and all of those redeemed
by Christ. How much more then can we expect
that when our spirits leave our bodies, that communion will be
intensified because we now become part of the company of the spirits
of just men made perfect, so that when those still on earth
come to faith in Christ, they come into mystic sweet communion
with us, and I'm part of the us. And I don't know about you,
I don't know how disembodied spirits recognize one another,
communicate, But aren't angels disembodied spirits? The Bible
says they are spirits sent forth to do service to the heirs of
salvation. The angels, obviously, communicate
with God and He communicates to them. They recognize their
rank and their station. There are angels and archangels
and there are different categories and structures of power. So in
some way, disembodied spirits are going to be able to communicate.
I don't know how! But they're going to. And after
I've seen my Savior, and seen Paul, and seen Dick, and thanked him
for all he did, that I now have the wife God's given me, and
I see Marilyn, and thank her for all that her life and ministry
to me meant over those 48 years, I want to meet Moses and Joseph. And Daniel, and Peter, and Paul,
and all those lesser saints of the book of Hebrews says, of
whom the world was not worthy, time will fail me, he says, to
speak of. And then he mentions Gideon,
and Samson, and Jephthah, and those who were sawn asunder.
Brothers who have lost their lives in my generation, seal
their testimony with blood. It's going to be wonderful. and
will be introduced into something. far grander than we've ever known
in our most loving, intimate moments of communion down here. When at the end of a Lord's Day,
when we've worshipped God together, and we've felt the impress of
the Word upon our hearts together, and we've been drawn out in prayer
and praise together, and we've lingered long to enter into each
other's joys and sorrows, and we've said, ah, this Lord's Day
was a taste of heaven. Ah, but what a pathetic taste.
Still a bunch of sinners with selfishness and we hear things
wrongly and we interpret things wrongly. What will it be to be
gathered home with the spirits of just men made perfect? And I'll be one of them and you
will be one of them. I say again, this should be of
comfort to those of us who've lost loved ones have gone before
us. Think of what they now enjoy. You wonder, do they even have
time to think of us poor folks down here? You wonder. Their eyes, their hearts, their
souls, however disembodied spirits communicate, I don't know. I've
got some secret holy fantasies that I'll never preach. I'll
never say publicly. In the early hours of this morning,
I said, Lord, should now be the time when I pull back the veil?
I said, no, I'm not going to do it, because I've never preached
my fantasies. But I have some, between me and
the Lord and my wife. If she ever squeals on me, she's
in trouble. But seriously, isn't this calculated
to take away some of the brininess of our tears? as we think of
those whom God has taken from us. What they now experience
as they have been gathered into the company of those redeemed
by Christ. And fourthly and finally, when
the Spirit, says John Wright, blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord from henceforth. They are blessed with the experiencing
in their spirits of the promised rest of Christ, blessed with
experiencing in their spirits the promised rest of Jesus. Go back now to the Revelation
14 passage with me. And we're going to concentrate
a little bit more on some of the wording to which I've not
made reference. And I heard a voice from heaven
saying, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth,
yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors. When the Spirit tells John to
write, the words he gives John are rather shocking at first.
You would think he would have said, right, blessed are the
dead who die in the Lord from henceforth, yes, says the Lord,
in order that they may see their Savior. in order that they may
be perfectly holy. In order, these other three things
that to me are prominent emphases, but the Holy Spirit here emphasizes
with a Hena clause of purpose, what it is that is a focal point
of their blessedness. Blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord, in order that they may rest from their labors. Now it's interesting that the
verb to rest is the very verb used in Matthew 11, 28. Come
unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden. That's the word
that's used, I'm sorry, for labor. And you shall find rest. They've
come laboring. with an accusing conscience,
laboring with the guilt of sin and coming to Christ, they have
found the promise of rest to their souls. They rest from trying to save
themselves. They trust in another for their
salvation, but in this life they continue to labor, life in general
under the ancient curse upon the ground. Life as a Christian
in a fallen world. Life with a decaying outward
man. No wonder Paul said in Romans
8.23, not only does the creation groan, but we groan, longing
for our resurrected bodies. Second Corinthians 5.2, he says
the same thing. We that are in this tabernacle
groan, being burdened. But God says, the moment we die
in the Lord, we enter in to the rest of Jesus. What is that rest? One man of
God wrote, and I found this so helpful, rest also may be rest
above all. Here we have responsibilities,
pain and temptation. Here, harassment by the demonic,
persecution from the world, disappointment in our friends, Here, relentless,
remorseless pressure requiring us to live at the limit of our
resources and at the very edge of our endurance. But there,
rest. The battle's over. The victory's
won. The toil is behind us and the
danger past. No more the burden of unfinished
work or the frustration of inbuilt limitations. No sin to mortify. no self to crucify, no pain to
face, no enemy to fear. Blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord in order that they may rest from their labors, blessed
with entering in to the promised rest of Jesus. And here again
I say, for our consolation who've come called upon to grieve. Think, think of the blessedness
of those who have died in the Lord and have entered fully into
that rest. No struggle with the unyielding
nature of a cursed earth. No struggle against the powers
of darkness. No struggle with remaining sin. No weariness in the performance
of duty. No frustration with not enough
hours to do all the things it appears one must do. All of that
is over. Perfect rest. And whatever activities
there are, they are the activities of sheer, unbounded, limitless,
Holy Spirit-imparted heavenly energy, so that there's never
any weariness in worship, never any weariness or distractedness
in praise. They've entered into their rest. Now, what do I say to you by
way of final summary and application? Well, the Bible clearly teaches,
my friends, that death is the result of the intrusion of sin
into the world. It is the unnatural, temporary
separation of soul and body. It is called in our Bibles the
last enemy and leaves a trail of emotional trauma, tears, and
broken hearts. The Spirit says, write these
words, John, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. And I've tried to answer the
question, in what does that blessedness consist? And I've sought from
the Scriptures to give you four assertions. They are blessed
with the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus. They are blessed with the perfecting
of their spirits into the moral likeness of Jesus. They are blessed
with the gathering of their spirits into the company of all the redeemed
by Jesus. And they are blessed with experiencing
in their spirits the promised rest of Jesus. while not denying
the fact that death is still an enemy, the last enemy, 1 Corinthians
15, 26, a cruel, ugly, heartless enemy. And if you've had to look
at it up close, by bits and pieces, taking a loved one to a grave
with a horrible, lingering, debilitating illness, you grow to hate that
enemy. Years ago I heard Dr. Tozer on a tape speaking of the
fact that if you can't hate you can't love and make it mean anything
and he was speaking of the things he loved and then he spoke of
the things he hated and this will tell you when he lived.
He'll say I hate the devil and I hate Khrushchev and I hate
cancer. I didn't understand him at the
time. I now do. death's instrument, a debilitating
disease that wrenches away a loved one. I'm not denying any of that
reality, but, but, here in our text, blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord. And what should be the result
of internalizing these things that have grown out of our question
and the biblical answer wherein consists that blessedness We
ought to be able, in facing our own death and the death of others
who die in the Lord, we ought to enter into this holy triumphalism
of the Apostle, Romans 8.37. In all these things we are more
than conquerors through him that loved us. I am persuaded that
neither death nor life nor angels, nor principalities, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Dear child of God, for you to
be tentative as you face death is a disgrace to the power of
the gospel. and takes away the edge of the
convincingness of your witness. The world lives in denial of
death. It has no answer in the face
of death. And in honest moments, people
will admit they fear it. And they want to do everything
to reverse the undeniable evidences that the outward man is decaying. The billions of dollars spent
on elective cosmetic surgery to say I'm going to live forever
in this body that's going to rot and be eaten by the worms
in the grave. And when you as a child of God
can speak of death, not in a cavalier way, But with the confidence
of the apostle, death shall not separate me from the love of
God. It will usher me in to four wonderful
dimensions of the love of God that I can't have down here. And then you tell them what they
are. I'm going to be with Jesus. I'm going to be like Jesus. I'm
going to be with Jesus, people. And I'm going to enter rest. Child of God, that's your privilege.
And then to go even further, 1 Corinthians chapter 3. This
is an amazing statement. 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 21. Therefore let no one glory in
men, for all things are yours. In Christ, everything is yours
for your spiritual profit. Then he specifies different ministers. Paul, Apollos, or Cephas. Because
they were splitting up and lining up behind one or the other, Paul
says, don't do that, they're all yours. Appreciate them all
for what God would do in you through every one of them. Paul,
Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, now listen, or life, or death,
or things present, or things to come, all are yours. Death
is now mine, yes. In Christ, death is my possession
to do what? Chase me home to Jesus. Bring
me into total conformity to Jesus. Put me at home with my people
of Jesus and to enter the promised rest of Jesus. Death is mine
to do that for me. There's an anthem I sang way
back fifty-plus years ago in college, and the phrase in it
was this, thou hast made death glorious and triumphant for through
its portals we enter into the presence of the living God. That's why the words of Jesus
that puzzled me for years, I think I understand them a little better
now. In John 8, in verse 51, Jesus
made this stupendous claim. John 8, 51. Truly, truly, I say
unto you, if a man keep my word, he shall never see death. If you're one of my true disciples,
and you've been bonded to me in faith and love and obedience,
you will never see death. What did he mean? Did he mean
that his true followers will never experience that radical
temporary severance of soul and body? No. What he meant was this. You'll never see death in its
naked essence as the wages of sin. to separate your soul from
your body in order to drive that soul into the hell of the immediate,
the intermediate state, the provisional suffering of the hell that is
the moment you die out of Christ. And then the hell of soul and
body in Gehenna after the judgment you will never see death Death
as the wages of sin has been swallowed up by my Savior. And if I'm united to my Savior
in faith, in love, that issues in obedience, I have His promise,
if you keep my word, you shall never taste of death. And then
a similar statement in John chapter 11 verses 25 and 26, Jesus said,
I'm the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me,
though he die, yet shall he live and whosoever lives and believes
in me shall never die. Of course, that's pointing ultimately
to the eternity of eternal life, but it has wrapped up in it this
wonderful reality. that death in its naked essence
as the wages of sin cannot touch me, for I am in my Savior. If you are in Christ as one who
will die in the Lord, surely murky views of what will happen
when you die are inexcusable, and a crippling fear of death
is dishonorable to God. And if your loved ones die in
the Lord, grief unmixed with joy is dishonoring to the Lord
if we're thinking as Christian men and women. Now I'm not saying
that we should all rise to the level of Billy Bray. Have you
ever heard of Billy Bray? He was a Cornish miner, Cornwall
in England. He'd been a profligate, wicked
man, and God saved him. And just as God gave to George
Muller an unusual gift of faith, he gave to Billy Bray an unusual
gift of joy. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy. Some people seem to have a peculiar
dimension of love, some of joy, some of peace. And he was known
when walking down the street, and he would start praising God
out of, for no apparent reason, Billy would say, Billy, Billy,
why are you always praising God? He said, I can't help it. When
I'm walking, one foot says glory, and the next one says hallelujah.
I can't help but say it. Well, his wife struggled with
assurance and struggled with doubts. And Billy sought to minister
to her to enable her to come to full assurance. And when he
stood by her bed and she breathed her last and he knew she was
gone. The story is that he raised his
hands and bellowed out in praise. She's done with the doubters,
gone up with the shouters. Now I'm not saying that I should
have stood by Marilyn's bed and raised my hand like Billy Bray. But shame on me if I could not
look upon that lifeless form and say, she's with Jesus, she's
like Jesus, she's in the company of Jesus' people, and she's entered
into the rest of Jesus. Dear people, those four realities
should enable us to look death straight in the eye and know
what it can and cannot do to us. But my final word is back
to Revelation 14, 13. Blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord. Taking the teaching of Scripture
from other places, we could well write, cursed, cursed are the
dead who die out of the Lord. And if you want to know what
that curse is, just stay within this very 14th chapter of the
book of Revelation and go back to verse 10. He shall drink of
the wine of the wrath of God prepared unmixed in the cup of
his anger shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the
presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb and
the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. And they
have no rest day and night. No rest day and night. They that worship the beast and
his image and receive the mark of his name. Those who sell their
souls to the world and to its spiritual harlotry. Horrible, horrible description. Cursed are those who die out
of the Lord. And I pray that if you're not
in the Lord, that this day you will determine that the sun will
not set without you embracing the Son of Righteousness and
casting yourself upon Him. I think especially of you, dear
children. And I do so because I cannot
remember a time as a child when I was not terrified at the thought
of death. I'd go to bed every night saying,
oh God, don't let me die. Afraid to go to sleep for fear
I might die in my sleep. I thank God that I had that fear
of hell. I thank God I no longer do. But there may be some of you
children that are where I was. And I want to tenderly plead
with you this day that you might join the ranks of those who are
in the Lord. I found this little story, a
young girl at a certain point in England who died at nine years
of age, one day in her illness, said to her aunt with whom she
lived, Quote, when I'm dead, I should like the pastor to preach
a sermon to children to persuade them to trust in Jesus, to love
Christ, to obey their parents, not to tell lies, but to think
about dying and going to heaven. I've been thinking, she said,
what text I should like the pastor to preach from at my funeral. Second Kings 426. Auntie, you're
the Shunammite. When the pastor, who I regard
as the prophet, and I am the Shunammite's child, when I'm
dead, I dare say you will be grieved, though you need not.
The prophet, the pastor, will come to you, and when he says,
how is it with the child, like Elijah came to the Shunammite,
you may say, it is well For I'm sure, auntie, it will be well
with me, for I shall be in heaven singing the praises of God. You
ought to think it well, too." The pastor accordingly fulfilled
the wish of this nine-year-old child. Dear children, if one
of you should die in the next week, the next month, the next
year, could your mom and dad say, You know what my kid said
to me? Tell pastor to preach on this
text. And when he asks, is it well?
You tell him, it's well with my soul. Oh, dear children, is
it well with you? Are you trusting in the Lord
Jesus to take away your sins? Are you loving Jesus? Are you
telling lies or speaking truthfully to mom and dad? Do you love the
worldling that has no use for Jesus? Or do you like to be with
the kids that like to talk about the sermons and about Sunday
school? And when they're laughing and
playing and having innocent fun, their language is clean and their
attitudes are loving. Are you showing that you are
a true child of God? I yearn for you. that you may
be able to say it is well with the child. Let's pray. Our Father, we have looked death
straight in the eye this morning, and we are so thankful that your
word gives us clear light as to what death can and cannot
do for those who die in the Lord. Take your word and make it fruitful
and profitable in all of our hearts for comfort, for conviction,
for instruction. Oh God, write these things upon
our hearts to the praise of your grace, we pray.