Okay. Thank you all for coming. I know
I speak for Deanna and Robert and Cherry, and they're very,
very, very thankful, very appreciative that you loved RG. And I want
to read a passage from God's Word in the Book of Revelation. If you have a Bible, you'd like
to turn there with me. Revelation chapter 21. If you've
ever had the experience of reading a book and your favorite character
is in a difficult place and you're tempted to want to find out if
they survived, you might go to the end of the book and read
the last chapter. And the Lord has given us the last chapter
of the story in his word and what comfort it is to know that
all is well with our favorite brother. Revelation 21, and I
saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away and there was no more sea. And
I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And
I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle
of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall
be his people. and God himself shall be with
them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former
things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne
said, behold, I make all things new, And he said unto me, right,
for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me,
it is done. I am alpha and omega, the beginning
and the end. And I will give unto him that
is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. And he that overcometh shall
inherit all things. And I will be his God. and he
shall be my son. Let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly father,
we find great hope and comfort in knowing what you have provided
for your children and knowing that our dear brother has seen you in the splendor
of your glory and that you have made him like thyself. Lord, we depend upon you to speak
comfort and grace and hope to our hearts left here behind.
Lord, we ask that you'd be pleased to bless your word this afternoon. We thank you for the life and
the testimony of Robert and all that he meant to this congregation
and to each of us individually. Lord, we pray for Deanna. We
ask, Lord, that you would fill her heart with your grace And
with your mercy, as only you can. Thank you for Robert and
Sherry and Lord. Bless them. In their time of
grief. Reveal Christ in our hearts.
We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Tom. What is it 514? Let's stand together. Tom is
going to lead us in number 514. Come we that love the Lord, and
let our joys be known. Join in a song with sweet accord. Join in a song with sweet accord. And thus around the throne, and
thus around the throne. We're marching to Zion, beautiful,
beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. Let those refuse to sing who
never knew our God. But children of the Heavenly
King, But children of the Heavenly King, They speak their joys abroad,
They seek their joys abroad. We're marching to Zion, beautiful,
beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. The hill of Zion yields a thousand
sacred sweets Before we reach the heavenly field Before we
reach the heavenly field Or walk the golden streets Or walk the
golden streets We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful
Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. Then let our songs abound and
every tear be dry We're marching through Emmanuel's ground We're
marching through Emmanuel's ground To fairer worlds on high To fairer
worlds on high We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful
Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. Please be seated. Adam. When peace like a river attendeth
my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught
me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. Though Satan should profit, Though
trials should come, Let this blest assurance control That Christ ? Hath regarded my
helpless estate ? ? And hath shed his own blood for my soul
? ? It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. My sin, oh the bliss Of this
glorious thought My sin not in part but the whole Is nailed to the cross ? And
I bear it no more ? ? Praise the Lord, praise the Lord ? ?
O my soul, it is well ? with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. For me, be it Christ, be it Christ, If Jordan above me shall roll, no pain shall be mine. For in life, death as in life,
thou wilt whisper thy peace to my soul. It is well. with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. And Lord, haste the day when
the fay shall The clouds be rolled back as
a scroll. shall resound and the Lord shall
descend. Even so, it is well with my soul. It is well. with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. Thank you, Adam. At a time like this, only the
Lord can speak that hope and truth and comfort to our hearts
where we can say with sincerity, it's well, it's well. I can say what I'm sure everyone
in here would testify to. that I have never known a man
in my life that was more respected by men and at the same time more
loved by women and children than Robert Horton. He was such an example of strength
and grace. And I know we can all rejoice
and be grateful for the opportunities that we've had to know him and
to be influenced by him. He always went out of his way
to speak to us. And though he was mostly blind
and couldn't hear, he seemed to have a sense of who needed
a word of encouragement and what to say. And what a What a blessing
that has been these years for each of us. Even his corny jokes
seemed appropriate at the moment. This church, I know this from
what he told me on multiple occasions, this church was everything to
him. He ordered his whole life around coming here and being
able to worship with you. He was in so many ways a grandfather
to our congregation. I meant what I said last Sunday.
that maybe, and most of us here are part of this fellowship,
but maybe if all of us pay a little more attention to one another
and love each other a little more and pray for one another
and encourage each other a little more than we have, perhaps we
can cover a little bit of the space that he's gonna leave in
our church. We're gonna miss him sorely. I'm going to miss him personally.
I can say from my own personal experience that either Robert
was a really good liar or he had no discernment because if
you could hear some of the things he would say to me about my preaching,
I'm embarrassed to even repeat any of it, but talking to Sean,
Sean was here and preached for us just a few weeks ago and Robert
came to him after he preached and tears in his eyes rejoicing
in the message that he had just heard. Robert loved the gospel. He loved Christ. He loved to
hear the message of God's free grace in Christ preached and
he loved anyone that preached it. And I'm thankful for the
encouragement that he has been to me and to you. Deanna, you
were the love of his life, no question about that. And he did
and would have done anything for you. We were at the funeral
home the other day making arrangements and the lady that was helping
us, me and Tricia and Deanna, were sitting at a table with
her and she wasn't married, but she expressed a desire to be
married. And Deanna said, well honey,
let me tell you, don't be interested in any man to marry unless he,
and she began to recount the way that Robert treated her.
And I watched this woman and she looked at Deanna like, like
she was an alien. I mean, she looked at her like,
and she paid attention to every word that Deanna said. And when
Deanna was finished, she said, Mrs. Horton, those kind of men
don't exist. Well, they existed with Robert.
Remember what she said? And she knew it, she'd been around. What an example this dear brother
has been to all of us. Robert Cherry, he loved you all.
Held you in such high esteem. I want to go back to this passage
of Scripture in Revelation 21 for just a few moments and ask
the Lord to to comfort our hearts and to encourage us. Only he
can. You know, we're in need of a
word from God right now. We ought to encourage one another
and love one another and recount our experiences with Robert and
one another. Those things are good, but only God's word can
speak peace and hope and grace to the heart. And so, Pious platitudes
won't do. Wishful thinking won't do. We hear people oftentimes at
a time like this say, well, he's in a better place. And most of the time, those people
are whistling through the graveyard. They're wishful thinking. We can say with confidence and
with hope Because Robert had a good hope in Christ. That he's
not just in a better place, he's with the Lord. And here's what
our Lord tells us in these verses of scripture. And this is, you
know, these kind of services are not for the deceased. I also hear people say, well,
you know, I loved ones looking down from heaven. Robert's not
looking down from heaven. Heaven would not be heaven if
he had any knowledge of this world and the things that we're
going through. He's not doing that. And this is what God's Word assures
us of. In Revelation chapter 21, I saw
a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away, were passed away. No more sin, no more struggles
in this world, no memory of this life. when we go to be with the
Lord. Time is no more. We see him as
he is, the scripture says, and we're made like him. And that's our hope for our brother. And that's our hope for each
of us. This is a time for each of us
to reflect on our own mortality. And two, I know that Robert would
want you to hear these words and that he would want you to
believe them. The old earth passed away. And in verse one of Revelation
21, it says, and there is no more sea. No more sea. Now, the sea in
the Bible represents two things. It represents tribulation. The
scripture says the way of the Lord is through the seas. And
oftentimes the Lord, like he did with his disciples, puts
us on turbulent waters and stirs up a mighty wind and causes things
to be difficult. And here's what our God says
about heaven. There's no more C. He goes on to tell us in the
same passage, no more tear, no more death, no more sorrow, no
more crying, no more pain, for the former things are all passed
away. The second thing that C represents
in the Bible is separation. just as the continents on the
earth are separated from one another by great bodies of water. The believer, though he's united
to God through faith in Christ and though God gives him glimpses
of his glory and enables him to enter into a spirit of worship
by his grace, We look through a glass darkly now, the Bible
says. We see in part. We've not yet
apprehended that which has apprehended us. And the believer's desire,
and I can tell you from Robert's personal testimony to me, and
I'm sure he shared this with you, his desire was to see the
Lord Jesus and to be made like him. And that desire has been
filled. There's no more see, there's
no more separation. like there is for us. Isaiah chapter 65 verse 17 says,
behold, I create new heaven and new earth and the former shall
not be remembered. It shall not be remembered nor
come into mind. Now that's what God says. That's
a hopeful truth for a child of God. not going to remember or
even come to mind any of the things of this world when the
Lord takes me home to be with Him. What is it that separates us
from our God? It's our sin. The Bible makes
that clear. It is our sin. And we bear in
this sinful flesh an old man, a nature that keeps us from being
what we would be and what we desire to be. Paul, in expressing
that frustration that every believer knows, said, oh, wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
I'm living in this body of flesh, and I'm bearing the burden of
all of my unbelief. And then he says, thanks be to
God. Thanks be to God, through Christ Jesus, I am free. And
the Lord gives us, as I said, those moments of peace and hope
when by his grace we're able to look to the person and the
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and find our deliverance
from our sin. But it's still there, isn't it? And only when the body goes back
to the earth can And the corruptible becomes incorruptible. And the
mortal becomes immortal. No more C. In verse 2 of Revelation
21, and I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming
down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. We refer to Orlando, Florida
as the City Beautiful. The world refers to that land over there in the Middle
East as the Holy Land. Truth is, every city and every
land in this world could be dubbed with the infamous title of Las
Vegas, the Sin City. This is not the beautiful city. This is, the city is corrupt
and we live in it. And John, when he sees the end,
he said, I saw, look what he said. I saw the holy city, the
only city that's been set apart coming down from God out of heaven. And this new Jerusalem that God
has prepared is setting contrast to the city of works that men
try to build. You remember the story of Babel,
the city of Babel? That's what men by nature do.
That's what we all do. We try to work our way to heaven
with bricks made with our hands. And what did the Lord do? He confused the language of those
people and they were never able to build. Let us build a city
and let us build a tower that reaches up into heaven. No, we
can't do that. We can't do that. Heaven must
come to where we are. And that's exactly what heaven
did when the Lord Jesus Christ was made flesh and dwelt among
us. And we beheld his glory as the
glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and
full of truth. Heaven came down. The new Jerusalem, the holy city,
that city that's been set apart, prepared by God What did God do to prepare that
city? Well, the Lord Jesus tells us
in John chapter 14, he says to us, let not your heart be troubled.
Child of God, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God,
believe also in me. For in my father's house, there
are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. The Lord Jesus said, I go and prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, so that
where I am there you may be also." This past Thursday, our God sent
his angels to take our brother to that place that he had prepared. Robert didn't do anything to
prepare that city. You and I can't do anything to prepare that city.
God has to prepare it. And not only does he prepare
the city, but he prepares our hearts to be made part of that
city. He gives us faith and he gives
us the nature of Christ. And he, he enables us to be fit,
fit for the kingdom of God. He does that in the miracle of
the new birth. This new city, this new Jerusalem,
this heavenly Jerusalem, prepared by God. He does all the preparing. God prepares it, it's prepared
right. You know, we prepare things and there's always some unforeseen
circumstances or there's always some things that we didn't prepare
for, but God prepares it. When the Lord Jesus ascended
back into glory from the Mount of Olives, He took with him all
those for whom he lived and died. And he took his rightful place
at the right hand of the majesty on high. And when he sat down,
the father said, sit down here at my right hand until I make
all thine enemies thy footstool. And everything required for heaven,
everything, was made sure by what the Lord Jesus did. We can't add anything to it.
He made it. He gets all the glory. Robert believed that. He believed
that all of his salvation was dependent upon what the Lord
himself had done in preparing him and in preparing heaven for
him. And I, John, saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. prepared as
a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out
of heaven saying, faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the word
of God. And the Lord Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice and they
follow me. John heard a great voice. This
wasn't the voice of a man, this wasn't the voice of some hopeful
thinking, this was the voice of God. You hear the voice of God, it's
the loudest voice you ever heard. Not talking about an audible
sound, talking about something a whole lot louder than that.
A voice that speaks to the heart so that all other sounds are
drownded out by that voice. And any voice and any sound that
would contradict that voice, that voice overrules it all. Oh, what a loud voice it is.
I heard a great voice out of heaven. A great voice. This voice is none other than
the voice of the Lord Jesus who speaks to the heart by his word.
He makes his word effectual to our hearts. He gives us faith
to believe what he has said. You remember when Saul of Tarsus
was going to persecute the church and he was on the road to Damascus
there in Acts chapter nine. And the scripture says that those
other men that were with him They stood speechless, for they
heard a voice, but they saw no man. They didn't know who was
speaking. Whereas Saul said, who art thou,
Lord? Who art thou? There's the question,
who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, whom thou persecuteth. Oh, Lord, what would you have
me to do? He heard the voice of God. And the evidence of that
is that he bowed. And that's always the evidence
of hearing God's voice. We hear God's voice, we just
bow. Just say, Lord, what would you have me to do? Behold, the tabernacle of God
is with men. In John chapter 1, scripture
says that the word, the Lord Jesus, was made flesh and he
dwelt among us. And that word dwelt is tabernacled.
He tabernacled among us. This is a reference back to that
Old Testament tabernacle. Everywhere the children of Israel
went, the tabernacle was with them. And the Lord Jesus fulfilled
that type when he came as the tabernacle of God. And he said
this to his children, to his disciples. And he says this to
me and you, I will never leave you nor forsake you. That's our
hope. The tabernacle of God is with
men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people
and God himself shall be with them and God will be their God. That's the promise of God. Verse four, and God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,
for the former things are passed away. Oh, my brethren, it doth not
yet appear what we shall be. Paul said when he was caught
up in the third heaven, he saw things that were unspeakable.
There was no words in any language on earth capable of expressing
what he saw. And then he went on to say, I
has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has it even entered into
the imagination of man, the things that he has prepared for us.
You see, heaven is more than just the absence of pain and
sorrow and sin and death. Heaven is the presence of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And there's no words capable
of expressing his glory. The former things are all passed
away. And he that sat upon the throne
said, behold, I make all things new. How do you make them new? Well, no sin in heaven. He put that
away by the sacrifice of himself on Calvary's cross. Scripture
says that he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised
for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. And when the Lord Jesus went
to the cross, they put that crown of thorns on his head and beat
it into his skull because he was wounded for our transgressions. Our thoughts are so far from
God's thoughts. He said, your thoughts are not
my thoughts. closest we can ever have to God's
thoughts is to believe what He has expressed. He was wounded
in His hands because the works of our hands are sinful. He was wounded in His feet because
our feet are swift to shed blood and we are not able to stand
and walk as we ought. He was wounded in His side with
a Roman spear because The heart is deceitful, wicked above all
things, desperately wicked. Who can know it? Only the heart
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So he went to the cross and suffered
those wounds to say to me and you, all those places where you
demonstrate your sin, I put them away once and for all by the
sacrifice of myself. And God saw the travail of his
soul and God said, I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. Your sins been
separated from you as far as the East is from the West. God
says, I remember it no more, no more. There's our hope. Verse five, he that sat upon
the throne said, behold, I make all things new. And he said unto
me, write, for these words are true and faithful. True and faithful. Faith is not believing that God's
going to do something that hasn't been done yet. Faith is believing
God, period. You're just believing God. Or
whatever you've said, I've got no place else to go. When the
masses left the Lord Jesus, the Lord said to his disciples, will
you leave me also? And what did they say? Lord,
to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal
life. We know and are sure that thou
art the Christ, the son of the living God. We are dependent
for the salvation of our souls for every word that proceedeth
out of thy mouth. Lord, just speak and thy servant
listeneth. He makes all things new in a
moment in the twinkling of an eye. He raises the incorruptible
and they shall be changed. The corrupt must be made incorruptible. The mortal must be made immortality,
immortal. Death must be swallowed up in
victory. First Corinthians chapter 15,
O death, O death. Where is thy sting? O grave,
where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law. We're not under the law. The
strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God. Christ Jesus
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. He
has satisfied all the demands of God's holy law. He makes all things new and we
shall be changed. Verse six, and he said unto me,
it is done. It's done, it's finished. The
first words recorded out of our Lord's lips is when he was 12
years old and he said to his mother, did you not know that
I must be about my father's business? And he lived his whole life.
He lived his whole life fulfilling the will of his father. And on
Calvary's cross, he bowed his mighty head and he cried with
a loud voice, it is finished. It's finished. What did the father
send him to do? To save his people. The Lord
Jesus fulfilled everything the father sent him to do. He accomplished
the salvation of his people. He didn't make salvation an offer
for us to accept or reject. He made himself an offering of
sin to his father and his father accepted that offering and put
away all the sin for whom Christ died. What hope? The father was satisfied with
the son and faith is satisfied with the son. Faith is satisfied
with Christ. I can't do anything to add to
what he has done. I am the Alpha, and the Omega,
the beginning and the end. We were chosen in Christ Jesus
before the foundation of the world. We were redeemed by the
accomplished work of Christ Jesus on Calvary's cross. We are kept
by him. We are regenerated by his grace. We believe on him and we'll be
brought into glory by him. All of salvation. That's what
Jonah said. Jonah said, salvation is of the
Lord. It's all of him. He did it all
and he gets all the glory. Robert believed that. What hope? We were in hospice the other
day and the doctor was there and he said to Deanna and I and
Tricia, he said, He said, well, you know, we're all going to
go down this road. And I thought, you're exactly
right. You're exactly right. And the only hope that we'll
have is Christ. I will give unto him who is a
thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. Now God's
not saying, I'm going to give you, if you will, if you will
thirst, I will bless you with the water of life. No, he's saying
that the blessing is to thirst. He that hunger and thirst after
righteousness shall be filled. Blessed is he who hungers and
thirst after righteousness for he shall be filled. The blessing
is to hunger and thirst after righteousness. The blessing is
to need Christ. Robert did not want to miss a
single service because he had a desperate need for Christ. And unless he was just completely
unable He was here. One reason, he needed Christ. He needed to hear the gospel. And he knew that this was the
place where he could have that hunger and thirst filled. He that overcometh. Religious
people talk about being an overcomer. An overcomer in the Bible is
just simply a person who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ to the
last breath. They've not turned away. They've
not gone back. They've looked to Christ and
trusted in Christ. And that is the evidence of salvation. The gifts and the calling of
God are without repentance, the Bible says. When God gives true
saving faith, he doesn't take it back. So if a person says
they believe and then they don't before they die, and they have
no need or interest in the gospel before they die, they're only
proving that whatever confession they made wasn't a work of grace
by God. If it had been, they would have
believed to their dying breath. Our brother died believing. He died believing. And to him,
here's God's promise. He that overcometh shall inherit
all things and I will be his God and he shall be my son. You know, we hear men say, well,
I will believe and then God will reward me with salvation. Notice in this verse, I will
be their God and they shall be my son. When God says, I will,
then you shall. If I will save you, you shall
believe. If I will forgive you, you shall
repent. If I will bless you, you shall
follow me and serve me. You see, it's not, well, I will
and therefore God shall. No, God says, I will and you
shall. And the evidence that he did. is that we shall. We shall. We shall believe. We shall repent. We shall follow. Robert was especially blessed every time we had a baptism. And after the baptism, we would always
sing Amazing Grace. And I didn't know it. He never told me that. Deanna
told me that was his favorite hymn. His favorite hymn, Amazing
Grace. I want us to close this service
by singing that together. And I want to encourage you to
pay special attention to the words, because this is a hymn
that People who don't believe on Christ sing but they don't
believe it. God give us the grace to sing
with some understanding and to believe what we're saying because
this is an offering of worship to God for his grace. 236. Let's stand together. We don't need the music, but
lost the power there for a second. Let's see if it's back. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. Was grace that taught my heart
to fear And grace my fears relieved How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed Many dangers, toils, and stares
I have already come. Tis grace that brought me safe
thus far, and grace will lead me home. We've been there 10,000 years,
bright shining as the sun. We've no less days to sing God's
praise than when we'd first begun. We're gonna have a time of fellowship
in the fellowship hall if y'all would like to stay and encourage
one another. Deanna, we love you. I know I speak for our congregation
in assuring you that we'll be remembering you in our prayers.
62, 63, 63 years, Robert was going to turn 88 this Monday,
this Monday. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, thank you for the encouragement, the testimony, the life of our
dear brother Robert. Thank you for the ministry of
grace that you used him in this fellowship. Lord, might we be
encouraged to follow his example in so many ways. We pray for
our dear sister. We ask Lord that you would keep
her, comfort her, encourage her, bless her with the hope of knowing
where her soulmate is and long to be with you. Lord, enable us to to be an encouragement
to one another. Even now, as we spend this time
together, we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.