Thank you. Good morning. Isaiah chapter 40. Very familiar passage of scripture
around here. One of my favorites. Our hope
this morning is the Lord will fulfill this promise. Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. Speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem. Tell her that her warfare is
accomplished and her iniquity is pardoned for she has received
of the Lord double for all her sins. Those of us that knew Ed, we
want to welcome our visitors. I know we have several here from
Lexington and other places, and thankful Todd's going to be here.
Tricia and I are flying out at 2 o'clock to go be with Deb in
Kansas and to have a service for Ed tomorrow up there. And
we covered your prayers for that. Susan nor Ed have any. Ed nor Deb have any believers
in their family up there, and she's anxious to get home. But
she wants them to hear the gospel. So we're going to have a service
up there tomorrow. And Trish and I will slip out as soon as
Todd finishes preaching to get to the airport. But this is a
sad day for our fellowship. We're going to have a huge hole
in our family. Ed was a giver, a giver, a giver. I was telling the man this morning,
he never had his hand out for anything. He was just always
looking for an opportunity to help somebody. And he drove us
to Sarasota every Sunday for the last year and a half. You
know they live in New Smyrna, drove here for services, left
home at 7.30 on Sunday morning, got home at 11.30 on Sunday night,
and rejoiced to be able to do it. Lord called him home very
suddenly, unexpectedly for us, Wednesday. And we're going to
miss him. If you need Deb's phone number,
I can give it to you if you'd like to get in touch with her.
She'd be happy to hear from you. Like I said, she's told me on
several occasions she can't wait to get back to her family. She's
with her relatives right now, but she's not with her family. You pray for her, and if you
don't know what to say to her, just text her or let her know
you're praying for her and you love her. You look forward to
seeing her. It's good to have Chris and Ruth. And Grace and Rachel with us. It's a happy day for us, for
them to have moved here. We're very, very thankful for
you all. Tom? Number 62 in the hardback
tent. Let's stand together. We didn't spring anything on
Lynn, but she did volunteer, so take advantage. ? Crown Him with many crowns ?
? The Lamb upon His throne ? ? Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns
? ? All music but its own ? ? Awake my soul and sing ? ? Of Him who
died for thee ? and hail Him as thy matchless King through
all eternity. Crown Him the Lord of love, behold
His hands and side, rich wounds yet visible above, in beauty
glorified. No angel in the sky can fully
bear that sight. But downward bends his wandering
eye, that mystery so bright. crown him the Lord of life, who
triumphed o'er the grave, who rose victorious to the strife
for those he came to save. His glories now we sing. Who died and rose on high, Who
died eternal life to bring, And lives that death may die. Crown Him the Lord of Heaven,
One with the Father known, One with the Spirit through Him given,
From yonder glorious throne. To thee be endless praise, for
thou for us has died. Be thou, O Lord, through endless
days, adored and magnified. Please be seated. I truly do hope that the Lord
will comfort our hearts this morning and give us an understanding
of this thing called death that will give us hope in Christ. We just sang about it. I'd like
to ask you to turn with me in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter
2. Hebrews chapter 2. When our Lord came to the tomb
of Lazarus. Martha said, Lord, I know that
in the resurrection, and he should be made alive, and the Lord said,
I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth
and believeth in me shall never die, shall never die. We don't speak of death when
it comes to a believer. We rejoice. Oh, and how we rejoice
for Ed this morning. We grieve for ourselves, we grieve
for Deb, but oh, there's no room for grieving for our brother
who's seen the Lord and is in his presence. It doth not yet
appear what we shall be. We don't understand what he understands,
but we know that when he shall appear we shall see him as he
is and be made like him. And that's what our brother's
enjoying right now. I want to ask you a question. What do you
think about your death? About your passing? When your
soul, and you know it's not going to be long. It is appointed unto
man once to die. God has an appointed hour for
each one of us, and life truly, truly is a vapor. We're here
for just a moment. It's a shadow. It's brief, temporal. What do you think about your
passing, about that moment in time when your soul is separated
from your body and you enter into eternity? How do you feel
about that? What do you think about that? You have your Bibles open to
Hebrews chapter two, verse 15. And deliver them who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Now in a moment we're going to
turn to Psalm 72 and see what the reprobate's view of death
is. But here the Lord says that there
are those who have a fear of death. Now this is the same word
that's used when the scripture describes the fear of God. It's
to be understood in this passage as a awesome reverence for this
thing called death. We understand that there is an
eternity of glory with Christ in heaven or eternal judgment
in a devil's hell. We understand that. And so when
we think about Our death, our physical death, we have a deep
sense of reverence for it. And the Lord has come to deliver
us, not from that reverence of death, but from, as this scripture
says, the bondage that we experience. Now here's the bondage. Let's
read it again. And deliver them who through
reverence of death were all their lifetime, all their lifetime,
subject to bondage. Before the Lord is pleased to
reveal Himself in the hearts of His people, He causes them
to have a reverence for death. He causes them to understand
something about the eternal judgment that is to come. And after the
Lord is pleased to make himself known to his people, they continue
to have that reverence for death before they are under the bondage
of the law. They're seeking to relieve themselves
of this fear by something that they do. Some decision they make
or some work that they perform, they're desperately attempting
to escape this reality of judgment that they know is coming. After
the Lord is pleased to make himself known to them, the reverence
for death continues because The accuser of the brethren, Satan. This is every believer's, this
is my experience. This is my experience. I was thinking about
this message this morning, woke up at four o'clock this morning,
and this sense of death gripped my heart. I was held in bondage. There was an overwhelming sense
of fear in terms of reverencing the reality of my own mortality. And my experience is that Satan,
the accuser of the brethren, is always putting his finger
in my face and accusing me by saying, well, if you hadn't done
what you did, maybe you'd be a candidate for salvation. Maybe
you'd have hope for heaven if you didn't think the way you
thought. If you were really destined for glory, you wouldn't be the
way you are. And I experienced that bondage
all the time. When I'm confronted with my own sin and I look at
my sin, I have a fear of death. I have this sense of, I don't
know what's going to happen. I believe the gospel, but whether
it's for me, I'm not sure. I have this personal reverence
for the reality of my own mortality. What does the scripture say?
The Lord Jesus Christ came to deliver them from that bondage. He didn't come to necessarily
deliver us from the reverence of death. He came to deliver
us from the bondage that leads us to not have assurance in our
death. Now let me show you that. Turn to me to First Corinthians chapter 15.
The last thing I want to do is speak some high-minded, pious
platitudes that gloss over the reality of this experience that
we all have considering our own death, our own mortality. I don't want to just speak religious
platitudes that somehow everybody says, oh, that's sweet. Yes,
yes, that's what I believe. And then you go home and you
still struggle with this bondage, this reality of life after death. First Corinthians chapter 15,
verse 25, for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under
his feet. The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death. Now you and I have an enemy.
And he's pursuing us. He's lurking behind. It's called
death. This is our last enemy that must
be defeated. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the only one that can deliver us from this judgment of death. He's the only one that can do
it. Turn to me to Jeremiah chapter 12. Someone said, why are we talking
about death? In real life and learning how
to be a better person and living a better life in this world,
and someone told me one time, life is hard. And it is hard. But the hardships of this life
cannot be compared. Cannot be compared to the experience
of death. And I'm much more concerned.
I'm much more concerned in how you and I die. You know, it... Do you have your Bibles open to
Jeremiah chapter 12? Man's way is to say that the
way you live determines how you die. The truth is that your preparation
for death will have everything to do with how you live. Look at verse 5 in Jeremiah chapter
12. If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied
thee, then how canst thou contend with the horses? And if in the
land of peace, wherein thou trustest, they weary thee, then how wilt
thou do in the swelling of the Jordan? If the trials and troubles
of this life are more than you can bear, what are you going
to do when it comes to die? What are you going to do? This
thing of death is real. It's in the end, in the end. When all is said and done, and
you and I are lying on our deathbed, nothing else will matter. I've
been there on several occasions. I've watched people die. And
nothing matters at that moment in time, that moment of truth.
What you've done, what you haven't done, what you've accomplished,
what you haven't accomplished, what you've acquired, what you
possess, whatever reputation you have, all out the window,
every single bit of it. When you take your last breath,
the only thing that will matter is are you ready to meet God? And all the emphasis that men
put in this life, it's just vanity. Vanity of vanities is what Solomon
said about it. Turn with me to Psalm 72. Psalm
73, I'm sorry. Verse one, God is good to Israel,
even to such that are of a clean heart. So you've got to have
a clean heart. You've got to have a pure heart.
You've got to be right before God in your heart. You've got
to be a man after God. You've got to have a new heart
in order to stand in the presence of God. But as for me, David
said, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped.
For I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked. For there are no bands in their
death. but their strength is firm. They
are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like
other men. Therefore, pride can pass at
them about as a chain, violence covers them as a garment. Men,
if you have these thoughts about your own mortality, and your
own death, and the reality of your eternal life, That's not
the way most men think. Most men deal with death by ignoring
it. They just ignore it. They just
put it out of their mind. I know people in their late 80s
that still think that they're going to live forever. They just
don't want to talk about it. They don't want to think about
it. They don't have any bands in their death. Their strength
is firm. They're not in trouble like I
am. Sin for them is an occasional
problem that they can atone for themselves. For me, it's a constant
sickness. It's a constant plague. It's
a body of death that I can never get away from. And I can't comfort
my conscience by anything I do. I just can't do it. Psalm 73 is talking about the
natural man, the reprobate, the one that has no fear of death.
They have no bands in their death. And if they ever do have any
thoughts of death, turn with me to Isaiah chapter 28. Look at verse 15, Isaiah chapter
28. Because you have said, we have
made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.
When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall
not come unto us, for we have made lies our refuge, and under
falsehoods we have hid ourselves. We've asked Jesus to come into
our heart. We've decided to follow Jesus.
We've given our lives to Christ. We've made our decision. We've
prayed our prayer. We do our works. We've made a
covenant with death. We're not worried about it. It's
all good. We're fine. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried
stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth
shall not make haste. Oh, what a glorious picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He was tried by the law, he was
tried by the fire of God's wrath, and he came out purified. He
satisfied all the demands of God's law and put away God's
wrath once and for all for his people. He is the rock upon which
we stand. Judgment also will I lay to the
line and righteousness to the plummet, and the hail shall sweep
away the refuge of lies, and the water shall overflow the
hiding place, and your covenant with death shall be disannulled,
and your agreement with hell shall not stand. When the overflowing
scourge shall pass through, then you shall be trodden down by
it. Now those whom the Lord, go back with me to our text. For the natural man, sin is just
an occasional problem that he can fix. He can do something
good. Somebody told me recently, they
said, well, I know I make mistakes, but I ask God to forgive me.
As if God's obligated to forgive, he just sees his problems as
an occasional mistake. That's not my problem. That's
not my experience. I don't know anything about occasional sinning. My sin is ever before me. I can
find no comfort in anything that I do to soothe my conscience. And Satan takes advantage of
that. And my unbelief and my sin accuses me. To the natural man, the world
is their home. It's their home. Perfectly comfortable
here. They indulge themselves in its
pleasures. They're at home with its values. The world is the playground of
the natural man. He just thinks this is life.
It's just grab for all the gusto we can get. To us, to the child
of God, the world is a dry and thirsty land. It's a lifeless
wilderness. contrary to everything that we
value, as true and as holy and as good. We don't speak the language
of this world. We're, as the scripture calls
us, pilgrims, strangers. We're at enmity with this world. Friendship with the world is
enmity with God. We can't find a place to lie
down and be comfortable in this world. All the religions and
the gods of this world have one thing in common. They require you to make a contribution
in order for you to escape the judgment of God. And so they're
able to coexist. We can't find any common ground. I had someone say to me recently,
well, let's just agree to disagree. And I said, I'm sorry, I can't
do that. I can't agree to disagree. I find no point of agreement
with you and your religion and your God whatsoever. My God stands
exclusive from all the other gods and religions of this world. Our relationships with the men
of this world can never go deeper than a superficial acquaintance
even our own family members. The friendships that men have
are built on a common interest. We can't find any common interest
with the men of this world. We hate the things they love.
We love the things they hate. And so men either have ignored
death altogether or they've attempted to make a covenant with death
of which God says, I'm going to disannul that covenant. It's
not going to stand. You have your Bibles open still
to Hebrews chapter 2. I want to try to make my point, if I can. The Lord Jesus Christ, verse
14, for as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
as the children of God, he also himself likewise took part of
the same, born of a woman, born under the law. The Lord Jesus
Christ left the glories of heaven. and took on the likeness of sinful
flesh and lived out a perfect life before God in this world,
satisfying all the demands of God's righteous law, offered
himself up on Calvary's cross as the sacrifice, the sin bearer
for his people. It's the only hope we have. We can't find any comfort in
ignoring death. The Lord won't let us ignore
it. We can't find any comfort like the people in Psalm 73.
They have no bands in their death. We can't find any comfort in
making a covenant with death and trying to satisfy by ourselves
the demands of God's righteousness and justice. We can't do it.
And so what did the Lord Jesus Christ do? Through death, through
his own death, He destroyed him that had power of death, that
is, the devil. He conquered death. O death,
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, where is thy sting? Where is
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? For the sting of death is sin,
and the strength of sin is the law. Thanks be to God. Through Christ Jesus, we have
been given the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. He satisfied
the demands of the law. He put away our sin once and
for all. The only place when this reverence
for death, this fear of death grips our hearts and we find
ourselves trying to find comfort somewhere else and we find none.
The only place we can find any hope The only place we can find
any comfort and any assurance of our salvation is not by looking
at what we've done or what we haven't done or anything, it's
looking to Christ. And what he did in conquering
death, look what he says, the devil had the power of death,
but the Lord Jesus Christ destroyed the works of the devil. God told
Adam and Eve that Satan would bruise the heel of the seed of
the woman. And that's exactly what happened
on the cross. But at the same time that Satan was bruising
his heel, the seed of the woman was crushing the head of Satan. He defeated our enemy. That accuser
of the brethren has been defeated. Death has no more power, it has
no more strength. The Lord Jesus Christ has conquered
it, and he came to deliver them. who threw reverence of death
all their lives. It never goes away. He came to
deliver us from bondage. We would be in bondage if we
tried to find hope and assurance for our salvation
and for our immortal souls anywhere other than Christ, we're going
to find ourselves in bondage. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made you free and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage. That's what the Lord came to
do, to deliver you from that bondage. I can't tell you what encourages
me more than for a young person to tell me that they're afraid
to die. That encourages my soul. Most
young people don't think about it. It's the furthest thing from
their mind. They're just going along in this
world. I would say to that young person,
The Lord Jesus Christ died in order to deliver you, deliver
you from the fear of death. All your life, you're going to
be subject. The key word in verse 15 is the
word subject. All your life, your experience
as a believer is that you are constantly subject to bondage. You are. Between your own guilty
conscience and the accuser and the world in which we live, you're
just subject to bondage all the time. That's what I want you
to be delivered from. I want you to be delivered from
being subject to bondage. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the only one that can do that. Verse 9. But we see Jesus. If you're going to be delivered
from the subject of bondage, which comes as a result of your
reverence for death, you know it's real. You know there's heaven
and hell. You know you have an immortal
soul. And if you don't know those things or don't want to think
about those things or don't want to talk about those things, then
I fear that you are described in Psalm 73. But if you're a
child of God, you know these things. And because of that reverence
of death, you are subject to bondage. And you need to be delivered
from that bondage. And the only way to be delivered
is to see the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't look anywhere else
and be delivered. Nowhere else. But we see Jesus, who was made
a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste
death. Now that, I don't know why the
translators put every man there. The word is all. He tasted death
for all, all of God's people. Every man, every one of God's
elect. The Lord Jesus Christ did not waste a drop of his blood. He didn't die on Calvary's cross
to make an offer of salvation for man to make effectual by
his decision or by his works. The Lord Jesus Christ succeeded
in saving his elect when he bowed his mighty head on Calvary's
cross and said, it is finished. Father, into thy hands I commend
my spirit, everything necessary for the salvation of those whom
God chose in the covenant of grace before time ever began
were securely saved. That's what he accomplished. That's what he accomplished. For it became him. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things? Isn't that what the Lord said
to those disciples on the road to Emmaus? Oh, you slow of heart
to believe. Ought not the Christ to have
suffered these things? And beginning with Moses and
all the prophets, He expounded unto them from all the scriptures
those things concerning Himself. He revealed to them that this
is why He came. He came to die to deliver us
from the bondage of fear. That's what he came to do. For it became him for whom are
all things. Everything belongs to him. He's
the creator and sustainer of all of life. All things belong
to him by whom are all things in bringing many sons into glory
to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. The Lord Jesus Christ was made
perfect to the Father. It pleased God to bruise Him,
and God was satisfied with the sacrifice that He made on Calvary's
cross. He died in our stead! So that
the accusations of our conscience, the accusations of Satan, the
plague of our own flesh that never departs us, all these things
that would cause us to be held in bondage, to this reverence
of death. He came to deliver us from them. He put away our sin once and
for all by the sacrifice of Himself. You see, we never ever get... You say, well, I can't see that.
Ask God to give you the faith to see it. If He gives you the
faith to see it, you'll see it. You'll see it more clearly than
you see things with your physical eyes. If the Lord's pleased to
show it to you. Verse 12, saying, I will declare
thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while
I sing praise unto thee. That's what the Lord's doing.
He's declaring the name of God to his brethren. And he's not
ashamed to call us his brethren. Look at the next verse. And again,
I will put my trust in him. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking. He trusted the father to his
dying breath. Father into that. When God the
father forsook the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross, the
Lord Jesus Christ still trusted God. He still trusted him. Behold, I and the children which
God hath given me, for as much then as the children are partakers
of flesh and blood, and he also himself likewise took part in
the same, that through death he might destroy him that had
the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through
fear of death were all their lifetime subject, subject to
bondage. Did we skip verse 11? Will you go back with me to verse
11? For both he that sanctifyeth. Who is that? It's the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the one that makes us holy
before God. For he that sanctifyeth, and
they that are sanctified, those are the ones, Paul said, I'm
crucified with Christ. When the Lord Jesus Christ hung
on Calvary's cross, all of God's elect were seen by God in him. All of them. I am crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but it's Christ that liveth in me. The life that I now live,
I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and died
for me. His faith, he's faithful to God. For both he that sanctifieth
and they that are sanctified are all of one. I had a man mention this to our
congregation, and we have a lot of visitors here today. In his
80s, has a purple heart from engaging in hand-to-hand combat. The wounds that he sustained
in that kind of battle, I can't imagine what it'd be like in
the Korean War. I was talking to him recently. And his wife is dying. He's been here. I've shared the
gospel with him. He's been here and been to our
services. And he told me, he said, I asked
him about his wife, and he said, well, he said, I'm a survivor.
I'm a survivor. He said, I'm going to survive
this. I survived hand-to-hand combat. I've survived all kinds
of conflicts in life. I'll survive. And I said to him,
I said, Wayne, I said, the thing that you need to survive is death. The thing that you need to survive
is death. Surviving everything else, what's
that? How are we gonna survive death?
Only if he that sanctifies. and they that are sanctified
are all as one. For which cause he's not ashamed
to call us his brethren." He's not ashamed. God, as shamed as
I am of myself, and I don't see near what he sees, he's not ashamed
of me? Why not? Why not? Because he that sanctifieth and
they that are sanctified are all as one, so that as he is,
so are we. You want to escape? Do you need
to be delivered from the fear of death and the bondage that
comes that you're subject to all your lifetime? Look to Christ. Trust Him. Trust Him. Believe
Him. Rely upon His substitution and
atonement on Calvary's cross for you. Let's pray. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we thank You that in the experience of our
lives, you've not allowed us to be comforted with false hopes. You've not allowed us to rely
upon the covenant that we would make with death. And you've not
allowed us to ignore the reality of it. You've confronted us with its
truth, and then you've delivered us. with the one who died in
our stead, bore our sins, we ask, Lord, that you would comfort
our hearts in him. We pray for Deb. We ask, Lord,
that you would continue to put your hand of strength and mercy
upon her and continue to give her grace and that you would
bind our hearts together more closely as a fellowship, as a
church, as a congregation, as you remind us of our own mortality
and our own brevity. And, Lord, we just pray that
you would strengthen us in your grace, for we ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. We're going to take a brief
break, and Todd will be preaching, and I won't have a chance to
fellowship with you afterwards. th th Yeah, yeah.