Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayer for attention to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs
chapter 14. And we'll read for our text verse
32. The latter part of verse 32. The righteous hath hope in his
death. The text is a contrast, a comparison. The whole verse reads, The wicked
is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in
his death. A division is made amongst the
people on this earth, two divisions. One is called the wicked, and
the other the righteous. The Word declares that there
is none righteous, no, not one. That is, not in their own righteousness. All our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. So what is described here as
the righteous, in the first place, it is the Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ, the only one that is righteous. The righteous hath
hope in his death. But then there are those that
their righteousness is of Christ. He imputes his righteousness
to them that believe, and to them the righteous hath hope
in his death. What a contrast. To the wicked,
those that are outside of Christ, those that are trusting in their
own righteousnesses with just filthy rags, they are driven
away. And they're driven away while
they're actually in their wickedness. There's been no change. They
died as they lived. God is angry with the wicked
every day. Well, I want this evening to
look at four ways in which there is hope after death. The righteous have hope in his
death. I want to look at it more looking
at pointing after death. I want to begin with the fall. hope after the sentence of death
at the fall. In the very beginning, when our
first parents sinned, God had given them a command, in the
day that thou eatest thereof of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt surely die. That was the sentence
And when they did eat, through Satan's temptation, seeing that
that tree was nice and pleasant to the eyes, it was good to eat,
and it was to make one wise, they took off it. Their eyes
were opened, they knew that they were naked. By one man, sin entered
into the world, and death by sin. What we are under now is
under the sentence of death. The immediate consequence was
spiritual death. The separation between our first
parents and their God was immediately evident. That instead of being
joyful at His coming, in the cool of the day, they were fearful.
They covered themselves, tried to hide. They fled from His presence. And then in due time, there was
to be physical death. And then after death, the judgment,
and the second death, eternal death. But we are, all of us
are born into this world. We are born already under the
sentence of death. It is appointed unto man once
to die. Then after death, the judgment, But what happened after death,
after the sentence was executed? What was there that was given?
And given by God to immediately raise up hope. And that hope that still exists,
or even in more greater measure to us. The first thing that was
given was that they didn't immediately die. Immediately that they sinned,
they weren't struck down dead. They were given a length of life. Where there is life, there is
hope. And that is always traced through
the scriptures. We think of with the Ninevites,
when Jonah came, Jonah's message itself never brought hope. It
was, in 40 days the city would be destroyed. It was a sentence
of death. But the fact that they were given
40 days, they were given time, and in that time they were brought
to repentance, and that sentence was taken away. Wherever the
Lord gives time is not with the thought that, well, given enough
time, we'll change our hearts and we'll rectify our lives and
we'll make things right and we'll be acceptable unto God. That
is not what the time is. We've already broken the law.
And by the deeds of the law, no man living shall be justified. So what is the time for? Well,
Adam and Eve, they proved it very quickly because as they
lived those hours, you might say, after that they had sinned,
the Lord came to them. He didn't just say, Adam and
Eve, you have sinned and I'm having nothing more to do with
you. I'm just going to leave you. I'll give you life to live
for some years, but you're never going to See my face again, you
know I'm not going to come to you at all. He came to them. The Lord instigated what followed
after death. The Lord instigated it. It wasn't
Adam, it wasn't Eve trying to find the Lord and trying to find
a way back. No, the Lord came to them. And not only did he come to them,
But He came and in a gracious way convinced them of their sin. Not in a way that crushed them,
destroyed them and left them without hope. He gave them hope. In fact, He gave the first promise
of the Saviour. The seed of the woman shall bruise
the serpent's head. And so, after death, After the
sentence of death, what the Lord is doing is raising up hope and
that hope is still with us. With every poor sinner brought
into this world and as their life goes on, there is hope in
that life and there's hope when the Lord starts to visit that
soul and visit them to find out their sins and convict them of
their sin and to make them feel the distance between themselves
and God and then give some promises, some promises of his coming and
promises in the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe think on that. Think on
being under the sentence of death and how God dealt right at the
beginning with our first parents. So after hope, after the sentence
of death, at the fall, a hope. realised and a hope brought about
by God himself. The second one I wish to speak
of is the hope after death of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. We said with our text, the Lord
is truly the only righteous one. the righteous man is primarily
is pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. Job, he knew that if
the seed of the woman was to be brought forth, it must be
spotless. And he says, how can a clean
thing come out of an unclean? It must have been a real puzzle
to all of those Old Testament saints. How it could be they
had to choose out a lamb, a spotless lamb, with no blemish at all. And Moses says that a prophet
shall the Lord God raise up unto you like unto me. Him shall you
hear. But even Moses, how he sinned,
how he wasn't allowed to go into the promised land. The people
must have thought, how is this going to happen? How shall one
be raised up of a brethren that is spotless, that is sinless? In these gospel days we know
how it is done, with the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost over Mary,
that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God, the spotless, pure, innocent, holy Son of God. made like unto his brethren of
the seed of Abraham, body and soul, and yet sin accepted. And we see him then living a
life, a perfect life of obedience, tested and tried by Satan, much
more than ever the first Adam was. Adam had every fruit in
the garden, but tempted of one that was forbidden, our Lord,
Fasted for 40 days and hungered and then was tempted to use his
power to change the stones into bread. And all those temptations
proving him to be sinless, spotless, the nail in a sure place, able
to bear his people's sin, that he truly was the Son of God. He was the spotless one. But then our Lord must come to
death. If he is to put away the sins
of his people and to realise that promise, that he shall bruise
the serpent's head, his head would be, his heel would be bruised,
then he must die. To fulfil the types of all those
sacrifices, the blood of bulls and of goats, he must die. To
satisfy the law without the shedding of blood, there is no remission,
he must die. For justice sake, he must fulfill
that very sentence that had been put against man. And so our Lord Jesus Christ
has death set before him, not for anything, in himself, no
cause in himself, no necessity. No man taketh my life from me. I lay it down on myself. I have
power to lay it down. I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received
from my Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. The Lord Jesus Christ is brought
as a lamb unto the slaughter. He must go through this. But
what is afterwards? He intimated it by a power not
just to lay it down, but to take it again. Our text states that the righteous
have hope in his death. The Lord spoke to his disciples
again and again. telling them of what was to come,
that the Son of Man must suffer, Peter understood it well. In
fact, really, it was Satan speaking through Peter that would not
have the Lord go through that. If anyone knew what was to be
achieved and done at Christ's death, it was Satan. But our
Lord must go. And he reproved Peter for speaking
in that way, to keep him back from that. In the garden with
the sword, put up the sword within its sheath. The cup that my father
hath given me to drink, shall I not drink it? But in all that
the Lord was going through, there was a hope beyond death. Who for the joy that was set
before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God. He had that joy,
he had that crown, the crown of being the Redeemer, the Saviour,
of delivering his people, being able to say, Behold I and the
children whom thou hast given me. What love brought him to
suffer, bleed and die, that same love, that brought the blessings
that were to be unlocked at his rising again. The empty tomb,
a risen saviour, led forth captivity captive, a host of captives,
those that were bound by sin and Satan, those that were captive. He looseth the captives and he
looses them by paying their debt for them, redeeming them, atoning
for their sins. And this is what follows in the
death of the Lord Jesus Christ. If our Lord is to have the honour
and glory due to his name, those for whom he died must also have
hope in their death. The Apostle Paul says when he
writes to the Corinthians, that the Lord has obtained that victory
over death, a great victory, that Christ has risen from the
dead. In that chapter, he emphasizes
the importance of the resurrection from the dead, life from the
dead. We sung of it in our first hymn. And in the Lord Jesus Christ,
in the gospel, is lifted up and raised up a hope for sinners,
a hope for those that had the expectation of looking at those
promises that followed the execution of the sentence in the Garden
of Eden. There in the Lord Jesus Christ
is our hope, and that hope is in His rising from the dead. Not only did He rise, but He
ascended. He ascended up into heaven. There He is on the throne. There
He is appearing in the presence of God for us. There He is, our
Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. All of
this would not be so unless He had died, is through the cross,
and through his death that this hope is raised up. And the Lord saw this, the Lord
knew it before he suffered, was able to speak and comfort his
disciples and to tell them what even he should do. I will pray
the Father and he will give you another comforter which shall
abide with you forever. And so may we remember this hope
after death, hope in what our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
has done. We do not worship a dead Christ,
one upon a crucifix, one in the grave. No, he's not here. He's
ascended and he is in heaven. And even before he suffered his
intercessory prayer in John 17, Father, I will that they whom
thou hast given me Be with me where I am that they may behold
my glory. Anticipating after death where
he shall be at the Father's right hand. May it be with us that Christ,
who is our hope, or if he is, then there'll be another occasion
This is our third point, hope after death, in the conviction
of sin. The Apostle Paul, when he writes
to the Romans, he says how he was as he was a Pharisee. In a state,
we might say, of unregeneracy, state of being dead in trespasses
and sins, and yet religious, a religious man, a very religious
man, and yet still being dead in trespasses and sins, not knowing
that he was a sinner, not knowing that he had broken the law of
God, not knowing that the sentence of God was upon him, thinking
that his life, his works, were enough to deliver him from that
sentence, and that didn't belong to him. I wonder how many of
us are like that. We are by nature, you know. We
think, well, these things that are written, these solemn things
about the sentence against sinners and those that are wicked, that
belongs to people that are not in the gospel standard or that
are in some other denominations, or those that are not going anywhere,
those that are just walking in the world. And our secret thought
is, well, because we attend upon the means of grace, then that
will somehow make atonement for our sin. That will not. The Apostle
Paul is a living witness of that. He lived after the strictest
sense, the Pharisee of the Pharisees. according to all of the law and
ruling of the Jews. In fact, he, with the zeal of
God that he had, persecuted the true people of God, hated those
who called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a real
example of how one can be very, very religious and yet very,
very lost. And yet he was one. that God
had chosen, that God had died for, the Lord Jesus Christ had
died for, whose name was in the Lamb's Book of Life. And so like
me, sad, the Lord began. The Lord began with Adam, the
Lord began with Paul. The Lord begins with each of
his people. We think of the woman at the
well of Samaria. She came to draw water, the Lord
was there. And he drew her on to want living
water. And when she decided, then the
first thing that he began with her, he brought her to come face
to face with her life. with her sins, with the five
husbands that she had, and the one that was not her husband
then. He brought before her the very
thing that she knew about Messiahs, that when he came he would tell
us all things. But this is what happened with
Paul, because Paul says that, I was alive in Romans 7 verse
9, I was alive without the law once, But when the commandment
came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was
ordained to life, that is, the law is spiritual, it was ordained
to life, it was for the purpose as a schoolmaster to bring him
to Christ. He said, I found to be unto death,
for sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and by
it slew me. If we think that if we can nail
the commandments to the wall, put a whole lot of rules, and
by those rules, that we will mend our lives and make a better
living. And some of us have tried to
do that. We thought, well, if we can organize
our lives enough and we can exclude every occasion where we're likely
to sin, then we'll be better off and more pleasing to God.
But as soon as you start to lay down rules, as soon as the law
comes, and it comes in all its force and spiritual nature, then
it extends to the thoughts and intents of the heart, and it
brings us in as guilty. This is what the apostle was
saying to him. The law of God stirred up the
sin within. Before the law of God, then he
thought he was all right. But then after the law came,
then he was a sinner. We can even find this in natural
ways, can't we? We might think we're probably
quite a good driver. And then someone says, well,
I know someone that's a policeman or a driving instructor. Just let him drive with you for
a day. And after the day, they came
back and said, well, You know this occasion? You break the
law. That occasion, you break the law. That occasion, you break
the law. And they're labeling the laws
that you've actually broken. And all your ideas that you're
a good driver and you never break the law has suddenly gone out
the window because someone has brought the law to you and shown
you how you've broken that law. And this is what the Holy Spirit
does. He shall convince of sin. He shall bring the law as a schoolmaster,
so that it slays, it kills, it takes away our hope of saving
ourselves. This is the message really in
Ruth, where Boaz said there is a nearer kinsman. You've got
to seek him out first, see whether he can redeem you. That nearer
kinsman is our own flesh, ourselves. We're told no man can redeem
his own soul. We cannot redeem a blood brother.
If we were, and it demands blood, as soon as our blood is shed,
then we're lost. We're dead. There's no hope of
redeeming ourselves. And so that needed to be dealt
with first by Boaz, not Ruth. Ruth wasn't the one that sought
out that other one as soon as she heard him. It was Boaz that
ordered him. And it is the Lord, and the Lord's
purpose, and Paul knew it here, as to bringing the law of God. Well, if Paul died, where was
the hope in that? We might say hope after death,
hope after conviction of sin. Hope after we've been brought
in as a guilty, hell-deserving sinner. But there is, because
Paul here, he says that this commandment which was ordained
to life, it was for that end. God convicting any sinner of
their sin is not to crush under feet. This is the day of grace. This is not the great judgment
day. This is the day of grace in which
sinners are brought to see their sin, to fall before it, to confess
their sin, to seek for mercy and to find mercy and grace and
redemption that is in the Lord Jesus Christ while here below. The malady is to be known first
and then there is the remedy. So I say it to the encouragement
of any who come under conviction of sin, that there is hope in
that death. Where you feel death, like the
hymn writer says, death within me, all about me. But then he
goes on, but see, the remedies without thee, see it in the Saviour's
precious blood. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. It's important for us to have
hope. A solemn thing where there is
no hope. The psalmist, when he got so
low, he said, Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who
is the health of my countenance and my God. Dear friends, look
for those things that give hope after death. When we feel so
deathly, so cold, so lifeless, so far off. You think of those under chasting. Nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Those that fall down, like in
Psalm 107, there's none to help. Then they cry unto the Lord in
their trouble, and He delivereth them. out of their destructions. He saves them. Hope after death in conviction
of sin, like the Apostle. I want to look at a further, a
last one. And that is hope after physical
death. The Apostle Paul, going back
to Romans 7, After he speaks of how sin was working in his
members, the good that he would, he did not, the evil that he
would not, that he did. And he said, O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I
myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of
sin. And in the beginning of Romans 8, there is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Now this is known
in this life. In this life, the Lord convinces
of sin and then brings to view the Lord Jesus Christ in suffering
for them, and causes that soul, like the many that the Lord wrought
on on earth, to follow Him, to be disciples indeed. Like the
Apostle Paul, didn't continue on as a Pharisee, but he then
was numbered amongst those persecuted for the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And may we remember that all
of those that are so blessed, like the Apostle Paul, they still
do remain sinners. All our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. It's important to realise this,
that those that are bringing forth fruits made for repentance,
those whose lives are changed, those who are new creatures in
Christ, that are walking after the Spirit, after the things
of God, not after the flesh, who had the struggle like the
Apostle did here. They are not sinless. They're
still in the body. They are still sinners. They
still groan. They still mourn. They still
have to, as often as sin defiles, confess their sin. And the Lord
has said, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive
us. our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We
have a picture, one that is a change character, whose works, whose
life is different. There's a different aim, there's
a different worldview, there's a different hope. The hope is
in what Christ has done and not what they might do. The hope
is also a hope beyond the grave. Because Paul says that if in
this life only we have hope in Christ, we've all been most miserable. If the Lord has truly saved us
and saved us from death, it will be spiritual death first, and
though we still must die, yet that death, there is a victory
in it, because death is the way that that soul is brought to
be. with Christ and delivered from
this body of death. Even the creature, we are told
in Romans 8, 20, for the creature was made subject to vanity not
willingly, but by reason of him is subjected the same in hope. Because the creature, that is
our flesh, itself also shall be delivered from the bondage
of corruption into the glorious liberty are the children of God. And he says, not just the whole
creation groans, but not only they, but ourselves also, which
have the first fruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to win the redemption
of our body. For we are saved by hope, but
hope that is seen is not hope, For what a man seeth, why doth
he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see
not, then we do with patience wait for him. And there is hope,
and there is a hope, a good hope through grace, a hope beyond
the grave, a hope that he that has quickened us, given us spiritual
life, given us to seek after him and to follow after him,
has also prepared a place for us. The people of God are those,
as we have read, that are justified by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They are free from condemnation. They are already accounted sinless
through the Lord Jesus Christ, those sinners in themselves. And if we are to have that hope
beyond the grave and to look forward with joy, and the dear
saints of God certainly have and do. The Lord has said, in
my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for
you, I come again and receive you unto myself, that where I
am, there ye may be also. There is the apostle Paul willing
rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the
Lord. And as we said of our Lord's
intercessionary prayer, Father, I will that they whom thou hast
given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. So what happens at death? What
is beyond death? Death is a separation of soul
and body. The soul is eternal. It does
not know a change in that way. Its consciousness is still the
same outside the body. And so the Apostle can say, absent
from the body and present with the Lord, at death a disembodied
soul. So the Lord says to the dying
thief, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise. His body was still on the cross. His soul was with the Lord in
paradise. And we think of Stephen as he
was being martyred, the first Christian martyr, and he looks
up and he sees the Lord standing to receive him, standing at the
right hand of God. We're told he went and he sat,
but he is receiving Stephen. There's no intermediate place. There's no sleep, there is no
gap, as it were. There is immediate presence of
the soul with the Lord. There's no further judgment or
deciding where that soul will go, because that has been decided
here below. And we might say even before
that, With our Lord Jesus Christ dying upon Calvary's tree for
His people, all of those that should ever live, all their sins
that they would ever commit, all put away, that side of the
judgment is already committed. The Lord has settled one part
of the debt, those for whom He died, then They're quickened
and called by grace in time. So he's paid the debt, he's received
his people. But what about the others? What
about those that are not his? Those that are still in their
sins? Those for whom that debt is still not paid? That of which
justice still saves. There must be justice executed
for them. there is the judgment day. But
we are told as well that all of us, all must appear before
the judgment seat of Christ to receive the deeds that are done
in his body. Sometimes we may be very fearful
when we read these words because in many parts of scripture it
is very evident, the very rising from the dead is told as giving
assurance unto all men There shall be that judgment day. There must be a day when it is
seen clearly before all worlds that this is what the Lord has
done. There's been a people He has
died for and He's brought them to believe on His name. Those
that rejected Him, did not believe on His name, had no time for
Him, they die in their sins. They must pay their sins. They
are under condemnation at the Last Great Judgment Day, but
His people, though they are sinners, they are counted righteous and
shall be seen before all worlds as His people. Now we do notice
in some of the words, especially when it speaks of being judged
according to our works, that there are degrees of reward,
as it were. We know that the Apostles were
to be judging the twelve tribes of Israel. We know our Lord told
of the talents, the parable of the talents. Those that are given
much is required much. And when the Lord gives us grace
and he gives us talents, we are to use them to his honour and
glory. The way the judgment is set before
us in the word of God is that we do live our lives with the
fear of the Lord, not a terror fear, not a slavish fear, but
a living in his presence and seeking that we might serve him
acceptably with reverence and godly fear and that we might
be able to lift up our head with joy among the children of God. We know that whatever the Lord
deals with his people after death, it will always be lovingly It
will always be graciously. There will not be, as before
the throne, great sorrow in looking back at sins that we have done
and committed, and with shame at how we didn't improve one
situation or another situation. That cannot be. Enter thou into
the joy of thy Lord. It shall not be that the Lord
is gracious here, but not gracious beyond the grave. that the Lord
is loving here but not loving beyond the grave. The people
of God hear below. They know what it is under conviction
of sin. They've known what it is to be
dead in sin and then to be converted. They know what it is to love
the Lord and to desire to follow Him, constrained to follow Him,
and to want to be where He is. And their trouble and their sorrow
often is that they come short of His glory. and do not attain
that promised rest. And to this end, the Lord gives
that hope after death, after the physical death appointed
unto man once to die, and after death, the judgment. And that
judgment, the people of God have known here below firstly. And that justification by faith
can never change that sentence There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus, will never change, not for all
eternity. The Lord has eternally put away
the sin of his people. And so we have that hope, a hope
in the fall, a hope in Christ's death and rising, a hope when
there is the conviction of sin that brings us under the sentence
of death feelingly, personally, and a hope beyond the grave,
based upon the word of God, upon what the Lord has done for his
people. What a solemn thing, if the Lord
had suffered, bled and died, and called the people, but they
haven't got a good hope beyond the grave. They've got fear, and they don't have that comfort
in a dying bed. No, the Lord has said otherwise
and encouraged his dear people, even when the Lord comes again
the second time, without sin, unto salvation, when he comes
with power and great glory. We have the wicked, they shall
call upon the rocks and the hills to hide them from the face of
him that sitteth on the throne. But his people are told, look
up, for your redemption draweth nigh. The Thessalonians were
very concerned because they thought that the resurrection was past
or that those that had died, that they had perished, you might
say, Why does the scriptures use sleep? Well, in one sense,
the body is sleeping in the grave. That is what will awake, that
is what will be quickened again. Soul sleep is not something that's
taught in the Word of God. The soul remains alive, conscious,
and with the Lord immediately after death. But the body is
sleeping, and that resurrection day, joins then again the body
with the soul. Paul says we groan, not that
we would be unclothed, but clothed upon with our house which is
from heaven. And in that one, Corinthians
15, he explains in various types and illustrations how that resurrection
will be. There is a terrestrial body,
there is a celestial body, We have, like the daffodils, there
is the bone that is dyed and put in the ground, and then in
spring it rises up again. It's still a daffodil, but how
different, how glorious, how wonderful. And Job says that,
though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall
I see God, for myself and not another. It wouldn't be another,
it would be Job, raised again and to see the Lord. So we read
that at the end of 1 Thessalonians 4, of how that if we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, even so then, also with sleep
in Jesus, will God bring with him. And he gives the picture
of that last day. that there shall be those that
upon the earth are the Lord's people, they'll be like Enoch,
they'll be like Elijah, that don't die like we die, but they
shall be changed and meet the Lord in the air, so shall we
ever be with the Lord. And the design of this passage,
in time, to a church, to a Thessalonian church, is to comfort them, wherefore
comfort one another with these words. This is the message, the
word that is before us that gives us that hope in death. But the righteous hath hope in
his death. Lord, give us that hope. Give
it while we yet live, that we might desire to depart. and be with Christ which is far
better. Amen.