Alright brethren, let's turn
to Isaiah 57. The title of our message tonight
is a command. Lay it to heart. Lay it to heart. At some point or another, I expect
most preachers have thought what I think from time to time. And
this is no slight on you. It's more my own heart, communing
with my own heart. I think, is anybody laying this
to heart? Does anybody lay this to heart? I pray God tonight will make
us lay it to heart. Lay it to heart. Verse 1, Isaiah
57 verse 1. The righteous perisheth, and
no man layeth it to heart. And merciful men are taken away,
none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil. He shall enter into peace, They
shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness. This was the text that Brother
Don preached from when he preached my grandfather's funeral. And
you've probably heard this text used at funerals before. But it's also applicable to God's
saints while we're in this earth. We'll see that from the context
of it. God graciously gathers His saints from the evil to His
peace. God graciously gathers His people
from the evil to His peace. First of all, notice the description
in our text. Notice how it fits our day. He
describes here they're being saved from the evil. They're
being saved from the evil. In those closing verses of chapter
56, we saw there last time that the Lord had sent a devouring
beast to devour those beasts in the forest. He had sent foreign
armies because of the preachers and because of the civil rulers.
He sent ravening beasts to devour ravening beasts. He said the
watchmen were spiritually blind. He said they were unfaithful
to give a warning to the people. He said they loved their dreams
and their pleasure. sleeping, lying down, loving
to slumber. He said they were greedy, covetous
dogs. And he said they were drunk on
the wine of Babylon's fornication, drunk on I will and we will,
and presumptuous that tomorrow be just like today. We'll just
go on in this day after day. And then after our text, the
Lord goes on rebuking these people, describing them as evil. He was
sending judgment to devour the nation and He was rebuking them
first because they did not lay it to heart and none considered
what the Lord was doing before as yet He poured out this judgment
upon them. Brethren, God's saints are not
being persecuted unto death, at least not in this country,
not yet. They are in other places in the
world, but not in this country, not yet. But judgment is upon
this nation. And there's coming a day when
judgment will be upon this whole world. Lay it to heart. Lay that to heart. Consider what
God is doing. Now, second thing here to notice
is we have a description of God's saints, of those He saves. Verse
1, they're called the righteous. And they're called merciful men.
True believers have been made righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever Christ is formed in
us, There's a new creature, a new man that's created, and Ephesians
4 says, in righteousness and true holiness. Not in our righteousness,
not in our holiness, in the righteousness and holiness of Christ, who is
our righteousness. That's what happens when Christ
is formed in us. We're recreated after His image
when Christ, who is the express image of God, is formed in us. That's the new man, Christ in
you, the hope of glory. And the fruit, the sure fruit
that's produced whenever Christ is formed in us is we cease looking
within and to our own works for righteousness, and we look only
to Christ our righteousness. In Isaiah 45, 24, he said, Surely
shall one say, In the Lord have I righteousness. and strength,
and even to Him shall men come. Christ is the one we come to,
because He hath made Him sin for us. Christ the Lord, who
knew no sin, He hath made Him sin for us. God the Father and
Christ Himself, He hath made Him sin for us, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. Lay that to heart. Consider being made the righteousness
of God. The righteousness of God. The
righteous God of heaven and earth says of His people that we are
the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God. And
then also from then on, whenever we're converted to believe on
Christ, God's saints follow after righteousness in our lives. Look
at Romans chapter 6. Some people deny this fact, but
this is true. Romans chapter 6. This is a certainty. He said this, Romans 6, 10, he says, In that
he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he lives
unto God. That's Christ now. He lives unto
God at God's right hand. And he's doing the will of God
right now, isn't he? That's what he's doing. He lives
unto God. He says, Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Now there's a therefore. Let
not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. He just says that
to me and you. Don't let sin reign in your mortal
body that you should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither
yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.
But yield yourselves unto God. as those that are alive from
the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto God. For, here's why, sin shall not
have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but under
grace. What then? Shall we sin because we're not
under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not that
to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are
to whom ye obey? That's just simple, isn't it?
That's easy to understand. Whoever we yield to, that's whose
servants we are. He says, whether of sin unto
death or obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked, you were
the servants of sin, but you've obeyed from the heart that form
of doctrine which was delivered to you. Being then made free
from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. Let me see
if I can illustrate this. Now you who believe, you suppose
a killer broke into your house and killed your father, murdered
your father. Well, would you then let that
murderer move in and live in your father's house and embrace
that murderer and love that murderer? Well, sin's the murderer. It
was our sin that put Christ on the cross It was our sin for
which He willingly suffered death. And now we're His house. He's
our Father and we're His house. And He tells us now, don't embrace
sin. Don't invite sin into His house. He says, but pursue righteousness.
Pursue, live unto Christ just like He lives unto God. He's
risen and He lives unto God. And so we live unto God. And
by experiencing this mercy, It's all mercy. Everything He gave
was mercy. And so by experiencing this mercy,
He makes us to be merciful men. He calls us there merciful men.
What does that mean? Listen to this text from Psalm
37. The wicked borroweth and pay,
payeth not again. But the righteous shows mercy
and gives. Those that are made righteous
by God, they've experienced the mercy that God's shown to us.
We know that nothing that we did, nothing that we did earned
us the favor of God. Nothing we did made God to show
us any favor. It was all according to His mercy. It was all according to His grace.
And so therefore, brethren, knowing that we were enemies in our minds,
Knowing that we hated God, we hated one another. Knowing that
in spite of all that, God still was gracious to us. Therefore,
believers now delight in mercy. They delight to show mercy. It
means believers are kind. to one another and to our enemy. Kind, generous, hospitable. Not should be, they are. Believers
are. Believers are forgiving and forbearing
and gracious. Believers love our brethren and
we try our best to love our enemies. because we've experienced the
mercy of God. Now that's God's description
of us. We don't look at ourselves personally and say, yeah, that's
me. Because if you're born of God,
you see your sin. You see what you are. You might
see it in your brethren, but you don't see it in yourself.
And we don't brag about that, but this is God's Word about
us. He says we're righteous in Christ and we follow after righteousness. And He says we're merciful. We're
merciful. Now, here's the third thing.
Let's see God's hand of providence upon His child. Here's God's
hand of providence. He says in verse 1, Isaiah 57,
1, "...the righteous perisheth,"
and He says, "...and merciful men are taken away." Now, this
refers to a believer's death, and we're going to get to that
in just a minute, but also in the context, brethren, it refers
to what God does for His people in this earth, in our life. It refers to that. God gathers
His child away from the wicked. When it said that word perish
it there, one of the meanings of it, it means to wander away. And when He says there, merciful
men are taken away, it means God gathers us. He gathers His
people. He gathers them away. He makes
them to wander away from the wicked and from the congregation
of the will-workers and the self-righteous. He gathers His people. Look back
to Isaiah 56.8. Remember the context? The Lord God which gathereth
the outcasts of Israel saith, yet will I gather others to Christ
beside those that are gathered unto Him. And God keeps us gathered
unto Christ. This is what He does in the world.
He keeps us gathered to Christ. We've seen this was a request
that Christ intercedes for. And that's why He does it. Christ
prays, I pray not that thou should take them out of the world, but
that thou should keep them from the evil. And that's what our
text says that God does. The merciful men are taken away
from the evil. They're taken away from the evil.
Paul said this in Romans 8. Let's look there. Is anything
going to be able to make us not be gathered with His people in
Christ, in His church? Anything going to be able to
separate God's people from Him? Look at what he says. Romans
8, 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sword? As it's written, for thy sake
we're killed all the day long, we're counted as sheep for the
slaughter. That's exactly how we are in this world. No, in
all these things we're more than conquerors through Him that loved
us. Our text says it's God who does
the gathering. It's God who does the gathering.
Paul says, I persuaded neither death nor life. Neither death
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers. We saw who those
are in our message on Sunday. No wicked fallen angels, unseen
fallen angels. They won't be able to separate
us. Nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature. shall be able to separate us
from the love of God. And where is it? Which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord. No nothing or no one can separate
us. But then our text also does refer
to death. It refers to our death. It refers
only to the death of the believer's body because Christ has said
we'll never perish. He said, I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. That's Christ's promise to His people. Lay that
to heart, brethren. Consider this. Lay this to heart.
The blessing of this text is great. It's a great blessing
to lay to our heart. He's saying there, by the hand
of God, the merciful man is taken away. He's gathered away by the
hand of God. God ordains the time, He ordained
the place, He ordained the means by which He's going to gather
His people to Christ in this life, in grace. He's ordained
it. It's going to be by the gospel,
it's going to be by His hands, it's going to be by Him making
the word effectual in our heart. And not only that, God has ordained
to keep us all through this life. And God has ordained the day
and an hour when we'll die, when He'll gather us to Him in glory. He's ordained that day. It's
appointed unto men once to die. Who appointed it? He did. In
Job 14.5 it says, His days are determined. My days and your
days are determined. God determined them. The number
of His months are with thee. The number of our months are
with God. Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass. That's so. That's God. And God's
ordained the place we're going to die. And God's ordained the
means of our death. He ordained He ordained the means
of our spiritual life. He ordained the time and place
when our physical, when our natural carnal body that we once trusted
in would die in grace and we'd see that we're alive in Christ.
He ordained that time and that place and the means so He has
done with our physical life as well. Now some of God's saints
die young. Some of God's saints die old.
Some die out in the world in places, some at home, some in
a hospital. Some die by disease, some die
by the hand of malicious men. But does any of that really matter,
knowing that God is the one who's appointed it, and God's the one
who's ordained it all? That gives me great peace, doesn't
it, you? Here's what matters to the believer.
What matters to the believer is that we die in faith. that
we die in faith and be found in Christ, not having our own
righteousness which is of the law, but that righteousness which
is by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ given to us
through faith, through the gift of faith. That's what matters
to a believer. And because Christ has ordained
it, God has ordained it, Christ has accomplished it, and the
Spirit has applied it, brethren, we can be sure of this. This
is true for every true believer. We can say, for me to live is
Christ, and for me to die is gain. Lay that to heart. Consider that. Lay that to heart.
That's true, brethren. That's the truth of God. Now
here's the next thing, and I want you to look at this specifically.
Consider the hardness of heart in the wicked. Isaiah 57-1, he says, The righteous
perisheth, and no man lays it to heart, and merciful men are
taken away, none considering. Now he's speaking about this
evil congregation of the wicked, the self-righteous, the will-workers.
He's talking about the evil congregation of this world in general. That's
what he's talking about. Whenever God gathers His saints,
and He's going to find us in this world, dead in our sins,
He's going to find us, sometimes He finds us dead in religion,
amongst will-workers. worship in the works of our hands.
But when He gathers us out of the world and out of will workers,
out from their midst, He makes us to wander away from them.
He gathers us out from away from them. And when He does that,
He says here, they don't lay it to heart. None consider. What do they not consider? It
says here that the righteous is taken from the evil. The natural man doesn't consider
when God has truly called his child out from their midst. The
natural man, he says, doesn't consider that God is saving them
from them. God is saving his child from
them. And they don't lay that to heart. They never consider it. And when
God gathers his saints to glory, And He gathers us to glory. And
sometimes He'll use self-righteous men to persecute us to do it. To bring us to glory. To kill
our physical body. He may use self-righteous men
to do that. But He says, they don't lay it
to heart. They don't even consider that
God is saving His people from the evil. Even in our death,
that's what He's doing. We've had people come here and
we've had people leave here. And you know what God has done
every single time somebody has left here? God has used that
to make me lay it to heart every single time. Every single time. God has made me want to look
and see Make sure everything I'm preaching is according to
God's Word. He's made me to be more diligent every time. He's
made me to look into His Word and say, I want to be sure I'm
stating things exactly how God says it in His Word, conveying
the true meaning of God's Word, because I don't want to speak
my Word, I want to speak His Word. I want to be honest with
sinners, because this is something to lay to heart. There's judgment
coming. We're going to all stand before
God, and this is serious, serious business here. But that's what
God does with His people. He makes us to consider, to lay
it to our heart, and to think on these things. That's what
He does. But He says here, He says here,
according to His own Word, that's not the case with wheel workers. And that's who He's speaking
to. That's not the case. When God takes His saint out
of religion, Will workers don't view it as a loss. They don't
view it as a loss. They certainly don't view it
as a warning from God. That's what he's saying here.
When I'm drawing my people out and gathering them out, consider... He's speaking to those who are
in vain religion. He's telling them. He's rebuking
them. You should lay this to heart and consider, I'm saving
them from the evil. And whenever he takes his saint
home to glory, there's very few that look upon that as a loss. It's a public loss, God says.
And there's very few people who look at it that way. And there's
fewer in this world that look upon it as God's warning of judgment
to come. When he takes his saint out of
this world, he's saving his people from the evil. Just like when
He saves us out of the world and out of religion, He's saving
us from the evil. And that's what He's doing when
He takes one of His saints out of this world in death. He's
saving us from the evil to come. But you know what's worse than
this? Not only do vain religions not lay it to heart, not only
do they not consider it, look what he says in our text. They
do worse than that. Look at verse 3. He says, But
draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed, the
children, the offspring of the adulterer and the whore, Against
whom do you sport yourselves? Now what is he talking about?
How do they sport themselves? Look at this. Against whom make
ye a wide mouth and draw out the tongue? He's saying here
they speak evil of his people and stick their tongue out at
them. when God's the one who's drawn them away. And he's saying
here, it's God said, Christ is saying, it's me you're speaking
evil of and it's me you're sticking your tongue out at, because I've
gathered them. Look at this. Are you not children of transgression,
a seed of falsehood, inflaming yourselves with idols under every
green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the cliffs
of the rocks? Slaying them with a false gospel,
slaying them oftentimes with a physical sword, truly slaying
him, physically. And so, whenever he takes him
out, God says, you don't even consider it, and worse than that,
you speak evil and draw out the tongue. You think people do that? I know
people do that. I know people do that. They get
together, I was at a table one time with some folks, fine Southern
Baptist folks. And some folks had left the church.
And I don't know where they went or what they... I don't know
if God drew them out or what happened to them. They just had
left. But the folks in the church talked about them the whole time
I was sitting at the table with them. This was when I was a teenager. They sat and talked about them
the whole time. And talked about how better off they were without
them. That's what God's saying they do. That's what God's saying
they do. I think God knows, don't you? That's what He's saying
false religionists do. But if God's made us wise, you
know what we're going to do? We're going to look upon the
death of His saints and death of anybody, but especially His
saints. We're going to look upon them
and we're going to think about this. We're going to lay it to
our heart. Because number one, when God takes a believer out
of this world, when he takes a believer out of this world,
every bit of influence they have in this world is gone. It's removed. And it has an effect on a family.
I remember When my grandfather was the, he was the, he was the
king and priest of my family, his immediate family and over
my family too. Because at the time, neither
my mother or my father, well before he died, but my father
didn't know the gospel then. And he wasn't the king and priest
of the house. But my grandfather was. He was
my spiritual father up until that point. And when he died,
it had an effect on our whole family. Our whole family. Not to mention the church. And
whenever the Lord takes righteous men out of this earth, what's
left? Wicked men. Malicious men. And
they have an influence over men in this world too. He said, consider
these things. Lay this to heart. It's something
to really consider. David prayed, help Lord, for
the godly man ceaseth, for the faithful fell from among the
children of men. And he said, here's what we're
left with. They speak vanity every one with his neighbor,
and with flattering lips, with a double heart do they speak.
That's what's left. And also consider, if the righteous
and the merciful die, Those that God's made righteous.
Those that God has saved by His mercy. If they die, that certainly
means the wicked will die. It certainly means the wicked
shall perish. Those who don't believe, they will certainly
die as well. That's something to consider. Solomon said it's
better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house
of feasting. For that's the end of all men
and the living will lay it to his heart. He'll lay it to his
heart. That's what the wise Solomon
said, and that's what Christ our Solomon says to us. And then
thirdly, consider when God has separated the last of his elect
and given them faith in Christ Jesus so that there's not another
one left to save. He's going to pour judgment out
on this whole earth then. His elect, His people, His saints,
they're the preservative of this world. And when He's called the
last one out, He's pouring judgment out on this world. You know what
I think? This comes to my heart. I lay
it to my heart. I consider this. It comes like
a lightning bolt to me every time a new believer confesses
faith in Christ. I think, I wonder if this is
the last one. One day, it's going to be the
last one. And He's not willing that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And He said,
you consider then that the longsuffering of God is salvation. Because
whatever God's willing to happen, that's what's going to happen.
And they're going to all come to repentance. Christ said, I
must bring them. And He said, and this is the
Father's will, that I don't lose one of them. And He said, I'm
bringing them. I'm bringing every one of them. And when He's brought
the last one, Brethren, judgment's coming. Judgment's coming. He
saved all His people from the evil, that evil to come, and
it's coming. He says, lay that to heart. Now
lastly, let's go home remembering why God does this for His people. Verse 1, He says, the righteous
is taken away from the evil to come. The righteous is taken
away from the evil to come. Now first of all this stands
as a warning to those who do not believe on Christ. He says
there is an evil that's sure to come. There is an evil that
is coming. That's what he was declaring
here in Israel in Isaiah's day that he was about to pour out
judgment on Israel. And that's what He's declaring
to you and me today. It's because in this life, this is what He
promises you, you won't ever have peace with God. As long
as you go on in unbelief, as long as you're not in Christ
by His grace, you won't have peace with God. We can't get
it by our works. We can't get it by anything we
do. We can't get it by any You can do all the benevolent deeds. You can do all the good works
to man and mankind that you want to do. You can even take a form
of religion and dot every I and cross every T as far as the letter
is concerned. But you cannot come to God by
your works. God won't have you. He won't
have me. He won't have anybody that way.
It's only by grace. And here's why we won't have
peace with God as long as we're not in Christ. It's because vain
men try to set their bed, they make their own bed, and they
try to set their own bed on high. Look there, he said there of
the righteous man, he said there he's going to enter into peace,
and he's going to rest in their beds, walking in their uprightness. But here's what he says of the
wicked man who won't believe on Christ, verse 7. He says,
Upon a lofty and high mountain thou hast set thy bed. You see,
thou set thy bed. That's what He said. Even thither
wentest thou up to offer sacrifice. Look at verse 8. He said, Behind
the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance.
Remembering Christ? Is it to remember Christ? Is
it to remember glory in Him? No. Look. For thou hast discovered
thyself to another to another than me. He's calling the vain
man an adulterer. He's calling the wheel worker
an adulterer. He's saying, you've flashed yourself. You've been
like a streaker. You've shown yourself to another.
Your nakedness to another. He says, other than me. And you've
gone up and you've enlarged your bed. Do you see that? You've
enlarged your bed. and made thee a covenant with
them, and thou lovest their bed where thou sawest it." You know
what he said about any covenant that you and I make with false
religion, with the will workers of this world, with this world
itself? He said, your covenant is with death and hell. And he
said, and that covenant is going to be dissolved one day. It's
not going to stand. You know, you men will think
that, you know, they're going to have this, it's going to be
gone. Like he said there of the self-righteous,
he said, they say, come, let us drink and have our fill and
tomorrow be just like today. It's not going to be like that
forever. Your covenant with death and
hell is going to be disannulled eventually. You see, it is. I was, when I was younger and
I had some friends I can remember saying this and some songwriter
friends, I remember them saying, you know, oh, we're going to
be young forever. We're going to be, we're going
to live like this forever. I thought to myself then, no,
that's not true. That's not true. Everything's
going to change. That's not true. And it's not
true. Any covenant we make with this world, with this flesh,
with our works, with religion, vain religion, with anything
like that is death and it's bound for hell. It's bound for hell. And here's the other problem
with it. Look here. This is why there'll be no peace. It's because
he said there that the righteous man walks in his uprightness. Well, the vain man walks in his
own uprightness too. But the vain man's uprightness
is the uprightness of his own hand. It's the uprightness that
he thinks is upright. It's the way he imagines to be
the way. And he said there in Isaiah 57,
12, I'll declare thy righteousness. God said, I will tell you what
your uprightness is. And in your works they shall
not profit thee. They shall not profit thee. You
mean not any? Not any. Not any. So death will
be the beginning of an eternal, never-ending woe, and just torment
for those who meet God outside of Christ. You know, the fire
is used in the Scripture to describe hell, and men are always debating
on how hell is going to be fire and all this stuff. The reason
fire is used is because it is the most painful thing you can
think about. It's fire. But I guarantee you
this, brethren, hell, fire won't even come close to describing
the torments of hell. To be separated from God, to
be without God's presence, for men to have all restraint taken
off of them, so they can do to you what they will, not to mention
the devil and all his wicked angels. You know, fire is just
a metaphor to try to get into our thick heads just how painful
and horrible it will be to be cast into outer darkness out
of God's presence, out of God's restraining hand, and from just
from being in His presence. Senator, lay that to heart. He
says, lay this to heart. Consider. Are you ready to die? Is everybody here tonight ready
to die? So that if God comes to you tonight and He says, it's
time, rise up, come now, stand before the judgment seat. Are
you ready to die? Are you ready to stand before
God who knows the thoughts and intents of the heart? God who
has the record books ready to be opened? If you stand there
outside of Him, He's going to open the books, the scripture
says. He's going to have the books, every thought recorded,
everything recorded. and it's all going to be made
known. But not so with God's saints. This is not what's going
to happen to God's saints. When God removes His saints from
this vain religion of this world, and when He eventually removes
us to go with Him to glory, we're taken away from the evil. We're
taken away from the evil. Remember the flood when God promised
the flood. For 120 years, He promised, the
flood's coming, the flood's coming. Noah stood up to preach. He was
no different than me. He stood up to preach to those
folks, just like I'm standing here preaching to you. And folks
thought 120 years, they didn't know at the time how far along
it was. We know, in hindsight, they didn't. They just thought,
oh, tomorrow will be like today. We can put that off. We don't
have to worry about that today. And he just kept preaching. The
flood's coming. God's evil's coming. Judgment's coming. They
just put it off, put it off. But you know what happened? Not
a single drop of rain fell until God put every one of His elect
in that ark. So He put His elect in that ark.
No judgment came. Abraham looked down there at
Sodom and God said, I'm going to destroy it. And Abraham said,
if there's just 50 righteous people in there, will you spare
it? Let me ask you one more time. What if there's just 40? And
he worked his way all the way down to 10. God said, if there's
a righteous man there, I will spare it. He's not going to destroy
the righteous with the wicked. God won't do that. He redeemed
His people with the precious blood of His Son. They're justified
and God's justice demands they must be brought out before He
pours out judgment. He's already poured out judgment
on them in His Son. He's not going to pour it out
on them again. But you know what? Not one fire, not one ball of
fire fell from heaven until God brought that righteous man Lot
out of Sodom. and then he poured out judgment.
And that's what he's telling us here, brethren. He's saying
that this is going to be well for the righteous. He's going
to call out his people, and then he's going to pour out judgment.
And for each saint that God gathers to himself in this life, verse
2 says, not only are we saved from the evil, he says, he shall
enter into peace. They shall rest in their beds,
each one walking in his uprightness. In this life, God gathers each
one of his saints into Christ our peace. Romans 5.1 says, being
justified, that is by God in Christ, being justified, by faith
we have peace with God. By faith in Christ who justified
us, by faith in God who justified us, we have peace with God. Peace
with God. And because we have peace with
God, right now in this life, we rest in our beds at night.
And we sleep soundly. Because we don't have to worry
about it. We got peace with God. Justice is satisfied. We're made
righteous in Him. We can rest in our beds. And
we walk by day in Christ, who is our uprightness, and we seek
to follow after righteousness, following after Him. And when
God gathers us through death, He's going to say to us, arise
and come away with me. I'm gathering you away to myself.
And we're going to enter into a world where there's nothing
but peace. A world with nothing but peace.
God, the Father of peace. God, the Son, the Prince of peace. God, the Holy Spirit, who is
the peace of our hearts. God's children who are all children
of peace. Everything there will be peace.
The angels of peace will be there. Everything there will be peace.
There will be nothing to interrupt our peace. Nothing. Nothing at
all. And our bodies, when we die,
our bodies are going to rest in the grave as peacefully as
we rest in our beds at night right now. until that day when
Christ calls our body and calls us by name out of that grave
and gives us a brand new body, a glorified body that will never
decay and never rot because it won't have any sin whatsoever.
But immediately when we die, we're going to walk in our uprightness,
in Christ our uprightness and with Christ our uprightness,
perfectly conformed to His image in glory. And there won't be
any sin there, there won't be any sorrow there, there won't
be any strife there, there won't be any sickness there, there
won't be any death there. Infinite riches and glory is
all that'll be there. And we'll be always and forever
with God our Father and with the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe and lay that to heart.
Consider it. Just think about being united
with Christ perfectly. Think about it. Think about the
whole Church of God singing His praises triumphantly. Think about
when, as we sang, the Church is one foundation, when that
vision that we've longed for, we finally have it. And that
the church triumphant will be the church at rest. We will be
resting in Christ. You hear these songs being sung
at the end of a conference or during a conference, you know,
and it's so loud because everybody's there. There's a bunch of folks
there and everybody wants to be there. Everybody that's there
wants to be there. And they're singing loudly. Just imagine
that day when everybody there will be a songbird. And we'll
all be singing together. Think about knowing Christ like
He knows you now. When I die, don't cry. Don't cry tears of joy, but don't
cry tears of sorrow. Here's what you can do. Lay it
to heart. Lay these things to heart. And
consider. And rejoice. Because there'll
be nothing to do but rejoice. Death's a birthday. Death's a
promotion. Death's a graduation. Death's
when life starts. Death's when death ends and life
begins. I pray God will make us now lay
that to heart. Lay it to heart. Amen.