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Frank Tate

A Message From A Deathbed

Numbers 21:5-9
Frank Tate February, 9 2022 Video & Audio
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In his sermon "A Message From A Deathbed," Frank Tate addresses the theme of salvation through Christ, particularly through the Old Testament account in Numbers 21:5-9. Tate emphasizes that the Israelites' sinfulness and their subsequent cries for help mirror humanity's own condition before God. He points out how God provided the brass serpent as a foreshadowing of Christ, highlighting Jesus’ own declaration in John 3:14-15 that He must be lifted up for salvation. The practical significance of the sermon underscores the urgent call for individuals to look to Christ for their salvation and comfort in times of crisis, asserting that true faith is manifested in this act of looking to Him, similar to how the Israelites looked to the venomous serpent for healing.

Key Quotes

“You look to Christ. Right now, where you sit, you look to Christ. Right where you sit, without moving a muscle, you come to Christ.”

“He took the place of his people. And he did for his people what they could not do for themselves.”

“Looking to Christ is believing on Him. It's the message of the whole Bible.”

“Today is the day of salvation. Look to Him. Look to Him. Believe Him.”

Sermon Transcript

Auto-generated transcript • May contain errors

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Psalm 27. Psalm 27. Many of you have probably
already heard that young Ben Thompson, 23 years old, passed
away just before six o'clock this evening. Mersa was all through his body,
just caused a cascading failure of organs. I read often in times of sorrow
and heartache, David says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is
the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When
the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat
up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp
against me, my heart's not feared. Though war should rise against
me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the
Lord, that will I seek after. That I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life. To behold the beauty of
the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble,
he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret of his tabernacle
shall he hide me. he shall set me up upon a rock.
Now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about
me. Therefore will I offer his tabernacle, sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing
praises unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with
my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer
me. When thou saidest, seek ye my
face, my heart said unto thee, Thou hast been my help. Leave
me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father
and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach
me Thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of
mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the
will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against
me, and such as breathe out cruelty. I just would have quit, unless
I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living. So wait no more. Be of good courage. He shall strengthen my heart.
Wait, I say. if you would turn to song number
268. One more can he say, that to
you he hath said, to you who for him, to Jesus have bled. Nearer, I am, with thee, O thee
not dismayed, For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid. While strength and rehab me enfolds
thee to stay, I'll be When through fiery trials my
pathway shall lie, Thy praise, O salvation, shall be my supply. Oh, I will not, I will not desert
to His cause. That some poor boy should endeavor
to stay, I will never forget. Okay, and if you would now turn
to song number 337, Teach Me Thy Way, O Lord. Teach me thy
way. Guiding grace of old, teach me
thy way. Help me to walk the right, for
I may bless thy sight. Lead me in brevity, guide me,
teach me thy way. When I am sad and low, Let earth rejoice in God, teach
me thy way. In hour of holiness, in times
of righteousness, in error or success, teach me thy way. When droughts and fears o'ercome,
teach me thy way. When storms o'erspread the skies,
teach me thy way. ? Sorrows more than pain ? ? May
Thou my path reclaim ? ? Teach me Thy way ? ? Long as my life
shall last ? ? Teach me Thy way ? ? Where Thou coming hast ?
? Teach me Thy way ? Until the race is won, until the journey's
done, until the ground is warm, teach me my way. If you would open your Bibles
with me, Numbers chapter 21. Numbers chapter 21. Begin reading in verse 5 of Numbers
21. And the people spake against God
and against Moses. Wherefore have you brought us
up out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread,
neither is there any water, And our soul loatheth this light
bread. We ate this light bread that you provided, this light
bread which is a picture of Christ. And the Lord sent fiery serpents
among the people, and they bit the people. And much people of
Israel died. Therefore the people came to
Moses and said, we have sinned. For we have spoken against the
Lord and against thee, praying to the Lord that he take away
the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and
set it up upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that every
one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses
made a serpent of brass, and put it up upon a pole, and it
came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld
the serpent of brass, he lived. We'll end our reading there.
Let's bow for our Lord together. from your word that would comfort
our hearts by pointing us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
I pray this evening, as Christ our Savior is preached, that
you would cause each one of us to look to him and live, that
you give us the faith to look to him, to rest in him, to see
Christ crucified as our only hope of salvation, the only hope
that we have, the only hope that we want, by the suffering and death of
Christ our Savior. Father, enable us to see past
this picture and see Christ the Savior and cling to Him. Let
His name be glorified. We've wasted our time if we meet
together and talk about religious things and Christ is not glorified. Lord, glorify Him in our presence
this evening. Show us your glory that we might
worship, that we might bow before you. in humble thanksgiving and
adoration. Father, we pray a special blessing
on the Thompson family tonight. In the days ahead, we pray for
Scott and Tommy, especially in that whole family. Father, that
you comfort their hearts as only you can. It doesn't take much for us to
realize how helpless we are. And Father, we beg of you in a special way. Father, we
pray that you'd be with others who are sick and hurting. It
seems there's so many of you right now. And we're thankful
to come and lay these cares and concerns and prayer for help
that defeat the sovereign who sits on the throne doing all
things after the counsel of his own. I had a message that I have worked
on for days. I type out my notes because I
can't read my own handwriting. And I go over and over and over
and over them. And I had that done today. I
was getting ready to get dressed and come here when I got the
news that young men could, they said it would be today, it would
be soon. And I sat down in less than 10
minutes to prepare these notes. We'll see how it goes. I don't
know if I can read my writing in enough to keep me on track.
I just can't get away from this. I have to bring this message
tonight. I thought I'd wait until Sunday.
I don't mean to scare anybody.
I don't know if I'll be here Sunday. I want to bring his message
tonight. Yesterday evening, I was called
to the hospital to be at the bedside of a 23-year-old young
man who's dying. They told us he's dying. Three
weeks ago, he was beaten strongly by probably any of us know personally,
and today he's gone. I went to the bedside, friends
with the family, with him, knowing he lost a whole life. I went
to that bedside. And I went to talk to him. He's
unconscious. He couldn't respond. He's on a ventilator. But I went
to talk to him in hopes maybe he'd hear me. I went to talk
to him in hopes that he could hear, that I could read the Word,
that I could make a few comments and that maybe he'd hear. And
I went to stand by that bedside with his parents and pray in
hope that the Lord would hear our cry. And tonight I want you
to hear just a little bit about what I told him. My first point
here is pretty much what I told him in his ear yesterday. I've
added a couple points and things to say. And like I said, I feel
very impressed to the Lord to bring this message tonight. As your pastor and as your friend,
what I want more than anything is for you to hear this message
tonight and believe it. I want you to hear it tonight.
I don't want to wait for you on your deathbed and then become
whisperer in your ear. I want you to hear it tonight.
I want God to give us faith to hear it and believe it tonight.
And I pray that the Lord will hear our cry and that he'll give
us faith to believe, to believe on Christ and that he might have
mercy on our sinful souls. Now, I pretty much tried to say
this in every message, and let me tell you one more time as
clearly and succinctly as I can, you look to Christ. Right now, where you sit, you
look to Christ. Right where you sit, without
moving a muscle, you come to Christ. You look to him. And
you look to him at all times. Look to him and never quit. Look
to him and look to me at all times in every situation, because
in every situation that we find ourselves in, our need is Christ. So look to Him. Look to Him.
My first point is this. Salvation is in the love. Let's
look here in Numbers again. Let me read these verses to you
again, but back around, understanding where I'm hoping to go in the
message tonight, looking to Christ. In verse five, the people spake
against God and against Moses. Wherefore have you brought us
up out of Egypt? Why did you bring us out here,
just to die in the wilderness? There's no bread, neither is
there any water. Our soul loatheth this light bread. This man that
God gave is such a glorious picture of Christ. He said, we don't
like this. We don't want this. We want something more. And the
Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the
people. And much people of Israel died.
Therefore the people came to Moses and said, we've sinned.
We've spoken against the Lord and against thee. Pray unto the
Lord that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for
the people. And the Lord said unto Moses,
make thee a fiery serpent, set it up upon a pole, and it shall
come to pass that everyone that's bitten, when he looketh upon
him, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass
and put it up upon a pole, and it came to pass, just exactly
like the Lord said, that if a serpent had bitten any man, When he beheld
a serpent of brass, he lived. Now, I love these Old Testament
pictures of Christ. Whenever I'm asked to go somewhere
else and preach, my first inclination is to always go to the Old Testament,
find an Old Testament picture of Christ to preach. I love them,
I just love these pictures. And this picture is one of the
clearest ones that you can find. Serpents that come into the people,
the people that sinned against God, They complained about God's
provision. They complained about God's providence.
They complained about what God's done. They complained about God's
prophet, God's servant, his message that he was preaching, the way
he was leading the people. And Lord, his anger was kindled. He sent these fiery serpents
among the people. From what I read, they were just
everywhere. You couldn't get away from it. Everywhere in the
kingdom. And they had a very venomous
bite. They bite somebody, you're gone. No just strange coincidence. That's the form of Satan talking
when he deceived these serpents. And the venom from these serpents
is a picture of sin. Every one of us have been bitten
by it. That venom is coursing through our bodies. And it's
gonna kill us. The soul that's in it, it shall
die. It shall. These bodies must die
because of sin. Sin, when it's finished, pray
for death. The people prayed. They prayed
for help, but they asked Moses to pray for us. And the Lord
just didn't suddenly take away the fire servants. He just didn't
suddenly heal the people. He gave them a picture of Christ. He told Moses, you get you some
brass, and you melt it, you do whatever, however it is that
you fashion brass, and you make a representation. of this fiery
serpent. Make it look just like these
fiery serpents. That serpent of brass, if Moses or whoever
made this was any kind of artistic person, looked just exactly like
those fiery serpents that kill the people. It looked just exactly
like it. But gee, there's something different
to that brass. There's no venom. There's no venom in it. And Lord
told Moses, now you lift that serpent up on the pole. Our Lord Jesus Christ's sin coursing
through our bodies, sin killing our bodies, killing us, damning
our souls. And we cry out to God for help.
And you know what God did in this response to cry for help? He sent his son, made a woman. He made flesh, made flesh and
bones. He was as much of a man as you
and I are. Bone of our bone. Flesh of our
flesh. He looked just like all the other people that he lived
around. One difference. No seed. No venom was in him. And that
made him the perfect man. The perfect sinless man. And
that man is holy. He's harmless. He's undefiled.
Separate from sinners. whom we've sinned against. You
know what he did? He took the place of his people.
And he did for his people what they could not do for themselves.
He obeyed God's law for them. Perfectly. Thought, word, and
deed. He obeyed God's law body on the tree. The Father
made him sin for his people. Such a horrible, awful transaction. You and I can't imagine. We just
can't imagine how horrible that was for the Holy Son of God to
be made sin. And you know what the people
did with him? They lifted him up on a pole
and there he sat. of darkness, showing us that,
you know, I can't comprehend the transaction that was going
on at that time. A transaction between God and
God to redeem His people, to justify His people. And at the
end of those three hours, He cried, it's finished. The great transaction's done.
Redemption has been accomplished for His people. And that's the
Savior. That is God's response to His
people crying out for help in this problem of sin. And you
look. Whoever loves sin will live. Let me show you that in John
chapter 3. We don't have a New Testament
commentary in every Old Testament picture, but we do some. Our Lord here, talking to Nicodemus. You can imagine the, I just think
about Nicodemus, before he came to the Lord by night. I mean,
this man's a Pharisee, he's a ruler of the Jews. He's, I mean, he's
studied, he's, I mean, just the things that this man knew. You
think about the things he wanted to talk to the Lord about. I'm
sure they were all such highfalutin theological things so far up
there in the clouds, none of us could understand it. simple language, bringing the
conversation to this point because that's all that matters. It's
Christ. It's Christ crucified. Verse
14. As Moses lifted up the serpent and the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. He must be lifted up. It's the
only way Satan can be put away. But whosoever believeth in him
shall not perish, but have eternal life. time, that whosoever believeth
in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. For God
sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world through him might be saved. The world was already
condemned. God didn't send his Son into
the world and now he's going to condemn you if you don't look
to him. No, the world's already condemned. God sent his Son into
the world to be crucified, that whosoever would look to him,
look to him and lift it up, would live. would have eternal life. And the Lord told us plainly,
this is a picture of Christ. And I just love the simplicity
of the gospel. The simplicity of the God Word,
a book that is so, so vast, so deep, it's the Word of God Himself. And yet it's so simple. He said,
look. Anybody can look. Everybody knows. Everybody knows exactly what
that means. Look. Scripture never one time
says, understand. Scripture never one time says,
now know this and get to the bottom of this so that you got
it. Never. It said, look. And our Lord tells
us here exactly what look means. It means to believe. Believe
on whosoever believeth on thee, should not perish, everlasting
life. Looking to Christ is believing
on Him. It's the message of the whole
Bible. Look at Isaiah chapter 45. image, that pray unto a God,
an idol that cannot save? Tell ye, and bring them near.
Yea, let them have counsel together. Who hath declared this from ancient
time? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I the Lord? There is no God else beside me,
a just God and a Savior. There is none beside me. Look
unto me, and be ye saved all the ends of the earth, for I
am God. And there is none else. Look
to Christ, look to God. There is no place else to look.
God himself says, look and live. Read on, verse 23. God says,
look, look unto me all the ends of the earth and be saved. Will
you do it? I swore by myself. The word has gone out of my mouth
that righteousness that shall not return, that unto me every
knee shall bow. have I righteousness and strength.
Even to him shall men come, and all that are incensed against
him shall be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and glorified." In the Lord they're gonna be
justified. So look, look. And I tell you again, look to
Christ. Now you've seen him lifted up.
You've seen him, you've heard him lifted up in the gospel.
Now look. Don't wait till tonight. Don't
wait till tomorrow. Don't wait till Sunday. Today
is the day of salvation. Look to Him. Look to Him. Believe Him. He'll do exactly
what He said He'd do. Isn't that hard to do? Isn't
it hard to believe God's gonna do what He said He'd do? Then believe
Him. He said look to Him and be saved. You'll be saved. You'll have
eternal life. Then look to Him. You don't have to do anything
else. You don't have to know. You don't have to do. Look. Look. I thought about those people
bitten by those serpents. Maybe they, I've heard about
people, I don't know if it's every Vietnamese boy's And the Lord told him, look.
I thought about that. I thought about that yesterday. Stood beside the bed, the man
can't open his eyes. He told him, look. Look. Without opening up his eyes,
he can look. Is the Lord laying here? Look! Look! Don't see! Don't understand him. Don't believe because you can
see. Don't believe because you understand. Look. Believe, because
Christ is all you need. Believe, because Christ is all
it takes. Believe, because God said look. Because God said. Can you think of a better reason
to trust the Lord Savior than to do what he said? Which is
trust Christ. Now look to him. Look at John
chapter one. I'm telling you this is the message
of the whole gospel. Look and live. Look to Christ.
John chapter 1, verse 35. Began the next day after John
stood and two of his disciples and looking Look below, now look. And don't
just look. And go on about your merry way. Look to Christ. Look to Him,
believing Him, and follow Him. Change what you're doing and
follow Christ. That's what these disciples did.
Look at verse 37. And the two disciples heard Him
speak, and they followed Jesus. Sometimes somebody came to John
the Baptist and said, oh, all these people are leaving you
and following Christ. He's got a bigger crown than
you do now. And John said, good, that's what
I've been wanting. Behold the Lamb of God. Now you follow Him.
And those two disciples left John and they followed Christ.
And nothing could make John happier. Now look. Look to Christ and
follow Him. Believe Him and follow Him. Look
to Christ and keep looking to Him. Keep looking to Him for
everything that you need. Keep looking to Him to be everything
that God requires of you at all times in every situation. Look to Christ. That brings me
to my second point. Look at Isaiah chapter 40. Look
to Christ. And then I think, well, now your
trouble's just starting. Now it's just starting. You know,
the Lord said to somebody, don't ever be mistaken in thinking,
well, now, now, it's all pie in the sky, it's all, you know,
I'm gonna live on this different religious plane and everything's
just gonna be unenduring and what happens, I'm gonna be happy
about it. No, you're not. I mean, let's just be honest. No, you're not. If that were
so, the Lord would have said what he says here in Isaiah 40
verse 1. Comfort ye. Comfort ye my people,
sayeth your God. This is my second point. Look
to Christ for comfort. Look to Him for comfort. And
God tells the prophet here, comfort ye my people. He tells him what
to say. He gives him the message that
will comfort God's people. He says, speak ye comfortably.
Speak to the heart, speak to that new heart of my people.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, her warfare's
accomplished, the war's over. Her iniquity is pardoned, for
she hath received with the Lord's hand double for all of her sins.
The voice of heaven that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye
the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a
highway for our God. Every valley should be exalted.
Every mountain and hill should be made low, and the crooked
should be made straight, and the rough places plain, and the
glory of the Lord should be revealed. The glory of the Lord there is
not a thing, it's not a glow in the sky, it's a person. The
Lord Jesus Christ, he's gonna be revealed. And all flesh will
see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Now look,
look to Christ for your comfort. No matter what's happening. bottles.
Look to Christ, the Redeemer. Look past this veil of flesh. Look past this veil of tears
and look to Christ, the Redeemer. I'm not saying that that will
take away the pain. I'm not saying that at all. Now look to Christ. In your sorrow,
in your pain, in your heartache, in your uncertainty, in the darkness,
look to Christ for comfort. What's going on with our bodies
at different times in the Thompson family tonight, tough business,
isn't it? Tough business. But you know what will comfort
your heart? Looking to something greater. Look to Christ and just
think how amazing, I mean just utterly amazing that it is, that
this man, the Godly, the Son of God, would come in the flesh,
on purpose, to save me. And not only me, but this one
man, by his obedience, by his one sacrifice, saved another
Think how amazing, think how glorious he is. Think by his
one sacrifice, he washed his people in his blood and cleansed
them of their sin, the sin that has stained their souls and washed
them white as night. So that God says they're holy,
so that God says that they're righteous. What man did that?
By his one sacrifice, by his blood, think how glorious and
precious his body is. Think of the glory of his love
for his people. Oh my goodness, he loved a people
that are completely unlovable. And he loved them. The proof
of it is he gave himself to be the propitiation for their sins.
He loved them. He loved them. Think of his perfection. There's nobody like him. He's
perfect and he's holy. And He still loves me. He still
loves you. He still loves His people. He's
so different from us. Think of His success. It's not
possible that He died for somebody that cares. It's not possible. Think how glorious that is. There's
a lot of uncertainty here in this life, isn't there? There's
none but Him. And I like that. I like this. This thing's not uncertain at
all. or their sin. Now look to me,
and we'll see, there's something more greater than what's going
on here. And I can't, I would never lie
to you and tell you I understand what God's doing and why He's
doing it. I hate when people even guess about what the Lord's
doing when He does things. I just don't even, I mean, yeah,
that's possible, We don't know. We just don't know. I do know
this. Whatever happens, I know this. It's God's purpose. I know that.
But what is it? I have no idea. None whatsoever. But I do know where Salvation's
found. I do know who the Savior is.
I do know why he came. I do. I know what he did. I know
where he is now. Brother Henry said one time,
I don't even remember if we were talking to him after the question,
you know, one of these questions probably, I don't even remember
what it was. Did he even have an answer? I don't know. And
he said, well, let's start with what we know. Let's start with
what we know. Here's what I know. Christ is the Savior. I look
to Him. He has saved His people from
their sin. And He's able to deliver your
body if He will to. I know that. Look, will it take
away the pain? no harm, will it comfort your
heart? Yes, it will. And when you don't
understand. And when we don't understand,
let's just be honest with each other now. It can be frustrating
to us, we don't understand, and I reckon it's wrong to say we wanna
ask the Lord why, don't we? But we don't know. But when you
don't understand, here's what you hang on, look to Christ now,
here's what you hang on to. Look here at verse six. Here's what you tell them, all
flesh is grass. It's no wonder you're troubled.
It's no wonder everybody's troubled. All flesh is grass. That's all
it is. All the good that is thereof is of the flower of the field.
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the spirit of
the Lord bloweth upon it. It didn't just happen, did it?
I have my purpose. When did the spirit of the Lord
blow upon it? O Zion, that bringest good tidings,
lift ye up into the high mountains. O Jerusalem, that bringest good
tidings, lift up thy voice with strength. Lift it up, be not
afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah,
Behold, you're God. Look. Look and live. Behold, the Lord God will come
with strong hand in his arms to rule for him. Behold, his
reward is with him and his work before him. He shall be his flock
like a shepherd. He shall gather the lamb with
his arm and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead
those that are with young. Zion, behold your God. He's reigning. As painful as
what we are going through might be, God's still on the throne. It hurts that we don't understand
that. But now you look to me. And this will comfort your heart.
He did it. Our God did it. Our Father, who
said He loves us, did it. Well, I don't have to understand.
I just trust Him. Good. Don't think you're gonna
see the purpose in it someday. More likely you won't. More likely
you won't. There's a purpose in it. I'll
tell you that. And it's been accomplished. It's been accomplished.
When you just don't understand it, you take comfort in this,
our God reigneth. He worketh all things after the
counsel of his own will. veil of tears that we're in,
look to something greater. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 18, while
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen. The things which are seen are
temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Look to those things. Look to
Christ in those things, and you'll find comfort for your heart. One of the scriptures I love
to think about is Peter said, to whom come ye, come to Christ,
and then keep coming to him. Keep coming in because you keep
depending on him. Look to Christ and keep looking to him. Hebrews
12, 12 verse two. Well, the first one, wherefore,
seeing we are encompassed by the Bible so great a cloud of
witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth
so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that's
set before us. How are you gonna run this race?
This race is hard, there's gonna be some steep hills, there's
gonna be some dark nights, there's gonna be some tough places, but
run with patience. How are you gonna do that? Looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith. Looking unto him, depending
upon him. He's the author and finisher.
He's the beginner and he's the finisher of our faith. who for
the joy that was set before him, there was a joy that was set
before him, redeeming his people from their sin, and that joy
enabled him to endure the cross, despising the shame, and he sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him,
consider him, look to him and consider him, look to Christ
and keep looking to him, and keep looking to him, and keep
looking, and consider him, Don't just consider circumstances.
Consider Him who's done it. Consider Him. Consider His person. Consider His success. Consider
His love for His people. Keep looking to Christ. Don't
ever think you're going to begin looking to Christ and finish
by your own works. Don't get off on a tangent now.
Don't get off on a tangent. Keep looking to Christ. Depend
on Him and keep depending upon Him. I forwardly look in at Philippians
chapter 3. the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who should change our body, that it may be fashioned like unto
his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is
able even to subdue all things unto himself." As you're looking
to Christ, remember this. You're looking to him. You're
depending upon him. But also, live your life looking
for his return. He's coming back. We're in what
Paul calls here, this vile body. No wonder we're in trouble. We're
a vile body, a body of sin. So we're gonna suffer all the
effects of sin in these bodies. But don't just look at these
bodies now. Look past that and look to Christ. Look for His
return. He's coming. He's coming. He's coming back for his people. I've used this illustration before,
but I'll use it again. When I get to the age I can keep
repeating myself. The day that Janet and I dropped
Holly off at the kindergarten was a traumatic day for me and
Janet, not for Holly. She was, man, she was, I mean,
we got up to her teacher and she said, And we're just standing
there like, off she goes, you know. I mean, Jan cried all this,
woo-hoo, you know. But before she left, Jan told
her this. They were going to school, you know, got a school
day. And she said, at the end of the day, the bell's going
to ring, and you're going home. I'll be here. She said, I'll
be right here. And I won't be late. In the middle of that first day,
some little boy started crying. He was crying, so I thought maybe
she should cry. She said, no, I won't cry. She said, Mama says
she's coming back. There will be times where I'm
gonna cry in these vile, vile, vile bodies. But I heard her
say one time, I'll be glad when we quit dying. I'll be glad. But you just remember this. Our
Savior's coming back. and he won't be late. He's gonna
be right on time. And when he does, he's gonna
take us to something so much better than right now. To get
rid of his vile body and have a body fashioned like his glorious,
perfect body. To be with him in a perfect body,
worshiping him face to face. Can you imagine such a day? No,
we can't. And there's a reason for that. The Lord's, you know, take care
of business here. The Lord shows that to him, you
know. But you look for his coming.
And it'll comfort your heart to remember something better's
coming. Something better's coming. Let's bow together. Our Father, I pray, the salvation of your people,
the faith of your people, the comfort of the hearts of your
people. Father, give us the grace and the faith to, as David of
old said, to wait on the Lord. Wait, I say, on the Lord. To
look to you and to keep looking to you. To find our comfort,
our hope, our peace indeed. Father, again, we pray a special
blessing for the Thompson family today and in the days and weeks
and months ahead. If you would, turn to song number
495 and stand as we sing Unsearchable Riches. Who in search of the rich don't
rise, The blind can never be told. Riches exhaust us of mercy
and grace, Precious, more precious than gold. Precious, more precious
O ye sons of the riches of Christ, precious, more precious than
gold! O ye sons of the riches of Christ,
who shall their greatness defend? adorned, those that love for
us they legend. Precious, oh precious, love can
never be told. Long in search of the riches
of Christ, precious, oh precious, they know. Oh, the absorption of the fish
of life, freely, how freely they flow, making the souls of the
faithful and true, happy wherever they go. Precious, oh, precious, I can never be told. Oh, in a
search of the riches of life, precious, more precious than
gold. Oh, in a search of the riches
of life, do not blindly indulge. Vitals of riches and crosses
on earth, riches like those to save us. Precious, oh precious,
wealth we can never be told. Hope you search for the riches
of Christ, Precious moon, precious rainbow
Frank Tate
About Frank Tate

Frank grew up under the ministry of Henry Mahan in Ashland, Kentucky where he later served as an elder. Frank is now the pastor of Hurricane Road Grace Church in Cattletsburg / Ashland, Kentucky.

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