Try to say this in a nice way.
I'll say it like this. About 95% of what I've ever heard
about the book of Revelation is not according to the book
of the Revelation. And for those of you who don't
know, the key is in the very first line of the first verse
of the first chapter. It's the revelation of Jesus
Christ. And that word revelation means
the unfolding, the unveiling, the revealing of Jesus Christ. And the message in its entirety
throughout is the victory of Christ and His church. But this
morning in the 14th chapter, We're just reading one verse
with a specific thought. Revelation 14 and verse 13. And I heard a voice from heaven
saying unto me, write, blessed are the dead which die in the
Lord from henceforth. Yea, sayeth the spirit. that
they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." When we read the word blessed
in the New Testament, we immediately think of Matthew chapter 5 and
those statements that are commonly called the Beatitudes. You remember that? Blessed are
the poor in spirit. for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth, and so on. There's nine of them there
in Matthew 5 we call Beatitudes. And when it says, those are not prescriptions,
those are described conditions. of the Lord's people. But they're
not limited to Matthew 5. In Matthew 11, verse 6, Jesus
said, And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me. Blessed. It's not a prescription
for blessing. It is a description of those
who are blessed. And blessed is he whosoever shall
not be offended in me. Most people are offended in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Did you know that? Most religion is. He would go against the grain
and against tradition and be very offensive. But Jesus said,
blessed is he. You talk about a blessed fellow.
Here's the blessed man, here's the blessed woman, one that is
not offended in Jesus Christ. And then concerning the final
judgment, our Lord spake in Matthew 25, 34, and he says to his people,
to the sheep, to the elect, to them on his right hand, come
ye blessed of my father. inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world. You're blessed of
my father because he's prepared for you a kingdom. And he did
it before you got here from the foundation of the world. Most
folks won't have that. That God has a chosen people
he calls elect. Chosen in Christ. before the
foundation of the world, and the kingdom is prepared for them
from the foundation of the world. Most folks would rather have
a God that's trying to play catch-up. That's not the God of the Bible.
So these are blessings, beatitudes throughout. And here in the verse
we've read, Revelation 14, 13 is one more. Another example
of blessedness. The middle of the verse we read,
blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. You say, well, I don't see death
as a blessing. Well, it does not say all who
die are blessed. It says, blessed are the dead
who die. Now we look at it that only the
living die. The dead are already dead. But
it says, blessed are the dead who die. Only those who died
already with Christ our Lord and are in Him can die in the
Lord. Only those who've already died
in the Lord have a heart to yet die in the Lord. So this is another beatitude. Blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord. People don't like to talk about
death. People don't like to hear about death. But may I say, if your trust
this morning is really in Christ and not in yourself, death is
a beautiful subject. It goes against the grain of
this flesh, which struggles and strives to live. But for the believer, for God's
child, Think of this, death is the transition that frees us
from every trace of sin. Wouldn't you be interested in
that? I sure am. Wouldn't you like
to be free from every trace of sin, totally free? Well, that's
what awaits us. in this thing we call death. Now I know they sing, thank God
I'm free, free, free from this world of sin. We're not even
free from that world of sin, let alone this world of sin. Huh? The psalmist said, I shall be
satisfied when I awake. in his likeness. And I hear a lot of people say,
bless God, I'm satisfied now. Well, then there's a difference
between them and the man after God's own heart
who said, I'll be satisfied when I awake in his likeness. Big
difference. Big difference. Christ said in
John 11, 26, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never
die. What we call death is but a momentary
transition. Moving from out of this sin-cursed
body to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord. Another pleasant thought, what
we call death, is the end of all sickness and suffering, sorrow,
pain, any struggle, any shame of any
kind to any degree. Heard a fella say, I've never
been ashamed of anything in all my life. Well, I believe he was
lying, really. Or extremely ignorant, one. Or
both. But we'll be rid of all suffering,
sorrow, sickness, shame. What we call death is but to
close our eyes as we do each night. and awake in the morning
of a brand new day, a brand new life, a brand new world. This
is such a blessed thing if your hope is in Christ alone. If you're still looking for something
in you that God might say okay to, you're miserable from now
on. But when your trust is in Christ
alone, that fixes everything. I'd give us a few thoughts from
this verse of Scripture. And I don't want to be too long,
but I want you to follow it with me in your Bibles, Revelation
14, 13. And I trust the Lord will use
these things to help someone this morning in our understanding in this thing we call death.
prepare our hearts for it, and see the blessedness of believers
in it. First, in this verse, the first
line of this verse, we learn that this is not just an imaginary
thought of the Apostle John. He's the penman, writing by divine
inspiration, inspired of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle John
is writing. But this is not his imagination. He begins by saying, I heard
a voice from heaven. This is a divine word from heaven
itself. It's not to be questioned. It's
not to be debated. It's not to be altered. It's
a voice from heaven. Who in their right mind would
temper with, let alone deny and disbelieve a word from heaven? Well, the answer to that is apart
from the Holy Spirit, we all do. We ignore it. We disbelieve it, but this is
a voice. And secondly, the voice says
to John, write. Do you see that word? Write. Not just tell, but write. Scripture is that which is written. How often did the Lord Jesus
refer back to it and say, it is written. It is written. it is written. That settles it. A word has come from heaven and
it is written. And that settles it. The fact that the Bible is a
permanent and fixed record is most important when we consider
all the distortions and all the deviations and all the devisings of men, and when you consider even the unintentional
errors in oral transmission, how blessed then that we have
a written record. Orally spoken, especially coming
from the mind of prejudicial traditions, How blessed to have
a word from heaven written, written. Write it down, John. This is
how it is. Write it down. What is it he writes? He writes
certain things, certain things, not possibilities, but certain
things. God doesn't deal in possibilities.
He deals in certainties. It would do you good, when you've
got nothing else to do, I don't know when that would be, to take
your concordance, go through the New Testament, and look up
every time we find the word certain. Certain. Certain. God deals in
certainties. And he's writing here a certain
thing concerning believers in this matter of death. And the
bottom line is it's not a bad deal. It's not a bad deal. Blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord from henceforth. I want to read you something
from an old book. This is by an author named John Cumming.
He was a minister of the Scots church in the crown court, London.
This copy was written in 1858. That's 161 years ago. And I read his comments on this
verse, and I can't say it better than I can read it, so I'm just
going to read it to you. He says, this text is a lamp
in the dark and gloomy sepulcher. A consolation just where consolation
is most deeply needed. An inscription upon the tombstone
that covers the ashes of the sainted dead that makes death
look lifelike and the grave seem but the best of you or the approach
to a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. It is such a text as this that
indicates the Christian religion, a life to live by and a hope
to die with. It begins at our birth. It surrounds
our cradle. It comes to the sick bed. It
forsakes us not when we enter the house appointed for all living. It gives life its consecration.
its brightest path and its blessed issue. And it takes from death
its terrors, its awe and uncertainty. I know no other system that can
do this. Infidelity serves at least to live with, though it
serves very badly. But it fails at the dying hour.
Christianity makes life holy and death happy. To live in the
Lord is the highest life, and to die in the Lord is the noblest
death. It is not the Christian that
dies, but death itself. It is a beautiful transition
and no more. Here, too, lies the difference
between the Christian and the mere man of the world. I mean,
the man who is not truly a child of God. A worldly man who lives
by bread alone believes that all blessedness is in living
and that that blessedness grows in intensity and brightness,
just as in the ratio in which he excludes the light, the anticipations
or the forebodings of an eternity to come. He says, blessed are
the rich, blessed are the great, blessed are the learned. But
he cannot conceive that there is any blessing upon dying or
that death has any crown of beauty or of glory. He shrinks from
death as from a dire necessity. If he cannot escape the fact
of it, he ever tries and toils to escape the thought of it.
Because to him, life has nothing but outer joys. And death, which
quenches these, is therefore nothing but unmingled calamity. If he sees life no more, he cannot
understand that strange parable. Blessed are the Lord. Blessed
are the dead. But a Christian who has learned
Christ sees death not as a catastrophe in nature's hand, but an emancipation
from the hand that was nailed to the cross. To him, death has
lost its sting. And to his eye, the grave is
encircled and illuminated by a beacon of heavenly light. He
fulfills life's duties as one of God's sons. And he enters
the valley of the shadow of death Fearing no evil, because the
shepherd's rod and staff will comfort him. Tremendous writing on this verse
of scripture. Now, blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord. In the year 1980, I believe my
dad died in the Lord. In the year 1985, I believe my
mother died in the Lord. You say, well, I don't know so
much about mine. No, but you know about you. Will you die in the Lord? Or will you die in yourself? Still hoping you haven't been
that bad. Still hoping you've made amends. Still hoping you this and you
that. No, you've got to get rid of
you. Forget about you. You will put
you in hell. Only Christ can put you in heaven.
The key is to die in the Lord. And the message here is not,
blessed are they which are rich, blessed are they which die famous,
no. But the voice from heaven said
to John, write this down. This is it. Blessed are the dead
which die in the Lord. The blessing is upon people,
the Lord's people. Man-made religion, regardless
of denomination. I won't pick on Catholics. Baptists
are just as bad. Man-made religion puts blessing on rituals, traditions,
priests, and popes, robes, and candles, and ceremonies. and
even animals. We have the blessing of the animals
now, you know, locally. I'm not going there. Some of
you would shoot me. But the Lord puts His blessing
on His people. Spiritual blessing that is. I
know materially it rains on the just and the unjust. We know
that. That's material blessing. But spiritual blessing is to
them that die in the Lord. They may die on the sickbed.
They may die on the battlefield. They may die in the mighty deep
in a sunken ship. Or they may die in a collision
on the highway. Where and by what means is not
the issue. The beautiful thing, the blessed
thing is to die in the Lord. Now, don't miss these two words.
From henceforth. That means from now on. In this life, we have good times
and bad times. Pleasant experiences, painful
experiences. And sometimes, in the good times,
we say, I wish it could be like this from now on. When we pass through this little
transition we call death, and the Spirit leaves this sin-cursed
body, and we're immediately in the presence of the Lord, it's a trade-off. We leave all
the bad. and enjoy all the good from now
on, from henceforth. There's not good days and bad
days in the presence of the King. Oh, no. It's happiness, joy,
bliss from henceforth and forever. And get this now, your loved
ones who died in the Lord, No matter how many years it's been,
they haven't experienced a bad moment since they left here. Isn't that nice? That's very
nice. Y'all need to wake up. I said
that's nice. Those who have died in the Lord,
no matter how many years it's been, haven't had a bad day or
a bad moment. or a bad experience since they
left here. Who in their right mind is not
interested in that? I am. The cancer is gone. The heart
disease is gone. The emphysema is gone. Everything
wrong is gone, long gone. Thank God for this blessed provision
in his time to rid us of all the trouble, the heartaches,
and the suffering, and the sin, and the shame of this life. Now note the divine witness. We've already read in the beginning
of the verse that this came in a voice from heaven. Now we read,
yea, which means yes. Yes. Sayeth the Spirit. God, the Holy Ghost says this
is a fact. This is a fact. It's a voice from heaven. And
the Spirit says this is a fact. Not this is something you might
consider. Not, this is something you might
want to think about. Not, this could be how it is.
No, this is it. Yea, saith the Spirit. What does he say? Blessed are
the dead which die in the Lord. They are blessed not for a time,
but for eternity. from henceforth. Then he says,
they rest from their labors. The future of God's children
is rest. And I know being so what we're accustomed to in
this world, the mention of rest, The first thought is bodily and
maybe even mental, sometimes emotional, but this
future of God's children is rest bodily, mentally, emotionally,
and spiritually. They rest from their labors. In the presence of the Lord,
the psalmist says at thy right hand, our pleasures forevermore. All will be well. Now that's the moment we pass
through this transition we call death. And that brings me to this. So
much for the hellish idea of purgatory. The concoction of wicked and
greedy religion to tell you that you can pay your departed loved
ones out of trouble. No. Luke chapter 16 tells of
a man who closed his eyes in death and in hell he lift up
his eyes. But the beggar Lazarus died.
and was carried by the angels into the Lord's presence. Abraham's
bosom was in Christ. They rest from their labors. All God's elect children, the
soldier, the stranger, the sinner, they all rest from their labors. All labors. But especially, especially
we rest from the labor of being under the load of sin and shame and unworthiness and
failure. It'll be done one day. And here's the deal. As long
as you're striving in yourself to make the grade, you'll be
no more prepared in that day to meet the Lord in your own
record than you are right now. You're not going to gain anything.
He's not going to think any more of you then than He does now.
Rest. Rest in the Lord. Just give up
on that. Trust Christ. plead his righteousness. Paul said, lay hold on eternal
life. Where is it? In Christ. You'll never find it in yourself.
And what a great promise this is. And we enter into the certainty
of it now. They shall, not they might, but
they shall rest from their labors. Now the last statement. And their
works do follow them. Not their profession, what they
say they'll do. Not their intentions, what they
plan to do. Not their religious pretense,
what they claim to be. But their works, what they actually
do, will follow them. Now notice it's the works follow,
not precede. If it said our works precede
us, it would imply acceptance with God on the basis of those
works. But no, acceptance is in Christ. He precedes us. Our works follow. Now a little clarification on
that. I read this wrong for many years in my life. They don't follow us into judgment
and into condemnation. We were judged in Christ. There
is therefore now, right now, no condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus. What is meant then here? Their
works do follow them in this world. What did the Bible say about
Abel? He being dead, yet speaketh. We all will leave behind us a character. lessons, teaching, works. And these things really are monuments
that speak for God or against God in all who knew us from now
on. Their works do follow them. Our works that follow Our memory in the minds and hearts
of loved ones and friends that are left here will either make people wiser
or better or corrupt them further. What kind of works are we leaving
behind? You're not talking about religious works. Our works do follow us. It behooves us, Paul said, to
walk as becometh saints. That which is appropriate of
God's child. One final thought. Our works
are all that follow us. The king is not followed by his
scepter. He can't take that with him. The queen is not followed by
her crown. She can't take that with her. The rich man is not followed
by his wealth. He can't take that with him. He has to let
go of that. The scholar is not followed by
his learning. He can't. This cuts off. when we pass through this transition
of death. But our works follow. Follow. They live on. They live on. But thank God only
our works follow us. Our sins, our failures, our shortcomings,
even the coming short of our responsibilities in life. None
of that will matter then. Christ fulfilled. He, Christ
is the perfection that I need as we'll be forever with the
Lord. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write. Put this down, John. Here's how
it is, bud. Blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord. from henceforth, from now on.
Yea, sayeth the Spirit. The Holy Ghost says, Amen. That
they may rest from their labors, struggles, heartaches, and troubles,
and their works do follow them.