Wow. Dad would be gratified but
a little bit embarrassed by how many people have reached out
since his passing and by how many people are here this morning.
For those of you that don't know me, I'm Joe's oldest child, Ben. Dad started out as a Navy brat,
born in Key West, Florida, the youngest of three kids. He was
the only boy, and his sisters did a lot to build him up. They
were eager to help him grow. And as he grew, he and other
neighborhood kids would spend a lot of time at his house. His
mom would welcome any kid that wanted a good lunch and to know
what love was. He carried that same attitude
with him when he was a parent, welcoming any and all of our
friends that wanted a safe place to stay and a good meal. He was
always eager to help. And as a friend has said to us,
dad loved to talk to people and sometimes stop long enough to
let you talk too. God used that gift of gab and
eagerness to help and formed him into a preacher. And God
used him to great effect. My dad knew from a young age
he loved Jesus, even though he didn't know the gospel yet. When
he finished high school, he went to Bible school and then college.
He got good grades. And he saw a girl named Bonnie
that caught his eye, and he was eager to get a kiss. Eventually,
his relentless pursuit paid off. He got that girl to say, I do,
and they started a family. Three kids named Benjamin, Nathan,
and Mary were later born, and while they were building an earthly
family, God was using him to build a church family. He pastored
a church in Rock Valley, Iowa for the longest, over 35 years. He preached the same gospel the
entire time. You could find his writing in
the newspaper, hear him on the radio, and catch him live right
here. He was eager to feed God's sheep
however he could. His legacy on Earth, though,
wasn't just his preaching, which is what most people know him
for. It was his eagerness to help every lost soul that came
to him for help, mostly young relatives and friends of his
kids. One of his nephews, we know as Rusty, was kind enough
to share what my dad meant to him from his perspective over
the past 50 years. My dad appreciated Rusty's writing
abilities so well, he had asked him to write the eulogy for each
of his parents when they passed away. So Rusty says, my Uncle
Joe was my mom's brother and my grandparent's son, but to
me, he was just Uncle Joe. Always has been, always will
be. I was still very young when he moved from the West Virginia,
Kentucky tri-state area to Iowa. And visits seemed irregular and
spontaneous. But I knew what to expect, welcome
attention and genuine consideration. He never failed to look right
at me as a little person wandering through the world and to somehow
convey that things were okay. Back then, I rarely felt that
anything was okay. I started on drugs and alcohol
when I was 15 and grew a full-blown disdain for anything related
to God. I had solid and justifiable reasons
for feeling that way, and I concluded that everyone who spread the
gospel was lying. Well, except Uncle Joe. I knew
him. He had no reason to lie and nothing
to gain. I began to pity him intellectually. I was, after all, a reasonably
successful scientist who needed no religious crutches. Maybe
he did. I still didn't feel okay. The
alcohol and the drugs stopped working, and no matter how hard
I would think or plan or reason, I rarely accomplished much more
than the next fix. My life was falling apart and
I found myself a bit jealous of people who could believe,
especially Uncle Joe. It made no sense. He was happy
and I didn't know how it worked. A series of miraculous, unfortunate
events brought me to being clean and sober, homeless, and lying
in the field of a man who had taken pity on me. He told me
that I could only get better with God's help, and that I clearly
had zero idea of who God was. He encouraged me to give it some
thought, and so I did. I laid there, wracked with Lyme
disease, muscle spasms, and withdrawals, and guilt, and shame, and fear.
My air mattress, it went flat, and sharp rocks were stabbing
me in the back. My only remaining friend, my
dog, ignored my calls and chased a skunk in circles around me.
I had nothing, and I had no hope. The clouds cleared, and I saw
through them to the stars. What if, I thought, there was
something greater out there that could help me? A god, maybe. The thought woke something up
deep inside me, and I remembered Uncle Joe's god. That was the
one I wanted. Since then, I've come to learn
that everything I needed to know about the reality of God had
always been shining at me through the lives of people around me
and the blessed teachers like Uncle Joe, whose lives were examples
of the truth. He had no reason to lie and nothing
to gain. Only the good news of eternal
life to give to those who would see and hear. That was from my
cousin. It was dad's eagerness to help
out that got him out of bed early on Monday morning, April 22nd,
and that was the last time we saw him. While his last moments
on earth shocked and saddened us, we know it was his time. It was the time that God chose
for Joe Terrell to come home. All indications point to a mercifully
quick passing. My friends, don't hold anger
for his manner of passing in your heart. Dad would tell you
it's not gonna do any good. And I can tell you from experience,
holding onto the burden of anger only hurts you and the closest
loved ones around you, so let it go. Instead, follow Joe Terrell's
example and remain eager to help one another through life. Show
up to help others in person. Minister to other people as God
gives you grace to do so. And pray for others without ceasing. Pray even for those that mean
us harm. Be like Joe and have deep conversations
until the wee hours of the morning. Give others your time without
expecting anything in return. And don't forget to eat plenty
of brownies and ice cream. May God grant us grace to see
his glory and mercy through this trial. Thank you all for coming. Thank you all for coming. Don't know that I've seen it
this full before. My father spent a lot of time
improving our childhood house in Iowa, right here. But the only problem was, he
left many of his projects unfinished. There's a little evidence back
there in that bathroom. But there was evidence of this
all over the house. There was drywall mud that he
never sanded. He just painted over it. Holes
that weren't filled, wood that wasn't stained. It was just a
running joke. And you wouldn't know this by
looking at him, but my father had a perfectionist streak in
him. If he was going to do something,
it had to be done right. He would never abide by his half-hearted
attempts, even though they seem to be out there. It is hard for
a perfectionist to finally start that last task, knowing that
when it is done, You have to be able to say, it's perfect.
It's perfect. But he did finish one project. Back in the 70s, 77? I'm bad
with dates. 77. All right. He started a project
with his bride to raise a family. And I attest this day that he
finished He finished that project, and by the grace of God, he did
it well. I am glad to be known as that
man's son, and even more grateful that God spoke through him to
reveal Jesus Christ to me. I will miss his guidance and
his wisdom and his comfort. But I know that Jehovah's Echidna,
the Lord, our righteousness, has removed all my father's hurt,
and he is now rejoicing in the presence of the Heavenly Father.
May the Lord grant a healing hand to his people today. Let us pray. Our Father, this is a very bittersweet
moment for us. Bitter because of our loss of
our beloved Joe. Sweet because of his gain with
you. But our Bitterness is made sweeter
by the fact that, as David said of his loved one, he cannot come
to me, but I can go to him. And we thank you for the blessed
hope that is ours, that one day we shall be where Joe is, and
Joe is where Christ is, and that makes it all worth the while.
We long to be with your Son, Jesus Christ, more than any place
in all this universe. Now we pray that you be pleased,
our Father, to comfort those who mourn this morning. Be pleased,
we pray, to now bless the gospel of your Son that we hope now
will be preached Be pleased, we pray, to bless our worship
of your Son, in whose name we humbly pray. Amen. I invite your attention to the
epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11. Hebrews, chapter 11. As you locate your passage, let
me bring to your mind that there are, in various places across
this country and across the world, many halls of fame. A hall for fame for this and
a hall for fame for that. And if you'll go to one of these
halls of fame, you'll find statues and pictures of famous people
associated with this or that, paraphernalia equipment that
they used. There is no officially sanctioned
Christian Hall of Fame, neither do we want one. We are not a
people given to statues and relics and paraphernalia. regarding
those who have gone before us. But there is a hall of faith. Not a hall of fame, but a hall
of faith. And it is recorded in this 11th
chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. And you can hear read
of some of our heroes. Great men they were, and great
women they were. We're going to look at just about
five of them this morning, because I'm going to begin in chapter
11, verse 1 of the epistle to the Hebrews, and we'll take you
down to verse number 13, wherein is found my text and the subject
of my message. All died in faith. These all died in faith. Now
what is faith? If you would like a very succinct
definition, I could give to you the acrostic F-A-I-T-H. Forsaking all, I trust Him. that briefly describes faith. It forsakes all that I am, all
that I have, and it puts all my hope and confidence in Jesus
Christ, forsaking all I trust Him. But the writer to the Hebrews
here tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen. Now that's strange language.
Hope has no substance, but faith puts substance to our hope. What
is our hope? It's Jesus Christ. More than
anything else, our hope is Jesus Christ. Have you ever seen him? No. Has he ever physically appeared
to you? No. But you can lay hold of him,
can you not? In faith, you lay hold of the
substance of Jesus Christ. He's the substance of all our
hope, the evidence of things not seen, the proof of them. How do I know that I have an
inheritance in heaven? Paul says, I have already obtained
it. It's mine. How can it be mine
if I have never set foot on it? I have laid hold on it. It's
mine. Christ is mine. I've never seen
him, but I have embraced him. How did I embrace him? By faith
and never to let him go. We read that by faith the elders
obtained a good report, a good testimony. We're talking about
the heroes of our faith. They go all the way back to the
morning of creation. If Adam and Eve lived in the
dawn of creation, and they did, this one Abel we're going to
read of, he was in the early morning of it. And you're going
to read about various others in the Old Testament times. And
then to them, you could add those who lived in New Testament times. The heroes of our faith, they
obtained a good report all the way down from Abel until, if
you will, Joe Terrell. And then beyond. By faith we
understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so
that the things which are seen were not made of things which
are visible. Were you there when the world
was created? No. How can you be sure it was
created? God said so. That suits me. I've embraced it. By faith I
understand. that God made the heavens and
the earth and all that is herein. Now we come to the first of five
individuals who exemplified this faith. We read in verse four, by faith
Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. through
which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying
of his gifts and through it he being dead still speaks. In Abel
we're going to see by faith worshiping God or if you will by faith approaching
God. The only way to worship Him,
the only way to find acceptance with him and to approach him
is through faith. Now let me tell you about Abel.
He's the second of Adam and Eve's sons. The first is Cain. When he was born, his mother
said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. The commentators will
tell you that her words could mean, I have gotten a man, even
the Lord, as though she thought Cain was the fulfillment of the
messianic prophecy of the seed of the woman who would crush
the head of the serpent. Well, she was wrong. Parents
are not infallible in naming their children. Cain He was not
the Messiah. He was the hope. Now comes Abel. Now he's got an interesting name.
His name means breath. Breath. This word throughout
or in the scriptures is also translated vanity and nothing. It is though she looked at Cain
and said, our hope was in him and Abel, he's not much. He's just a breath. Well, there
came a day when these two were going to approach God, making
an offering for their sins. Abel is a farmer and a good one. Of course, he lived in the day
before the curse of the ground had become full, and it was not
as polluted then as it is now, but he has tilled his ground
He has harvested his crop. He's just as pleased as he can
be. The melons and the leeks and
the onions and whatever else he desired, he has grown them
and they look good. The fruit from his trees, he's
probably filled some cornucopias of the produce of my hands. I did this. I raised these. And he puts them there, displayed
for God when God walks by and he looks over. Abel, what are you doing? Well, I have gathered some rocks,
uncut by my hands, and I have made an altar, and I went out
into the flocks that the Lord gave to me, and I looked among
the firstlings, and I found the best lamb there is. I mean, it
has no spot, it has no blemish, and I'm sacrificing this best
lamb the Lord gave to me. I'm gonna sacrifice it to him.
Who told you to do that? Nobody. But I do know this, that
when God was going to make our parents acceptable in his sight,
this is what he did. He made an altar. He brought
a lamb and sacrificed it and clothed them. Now, if it was
good enough for God, it ought to be good enough for me. And
he does. He sacrifices. That lamb that
is there without blemish and without spot of the firstlings
of his flock, and God comes by and says to Cain, that might impress you but not
me, walks over to Abel and says, I accept your offering. I accept
your offering. Let me tell you, friend, If you
want to rightly worship God, if you want to approach God,
if you want to be accepted by God, do not come with the works
of your hands. Come through the Lamb who takes
away the sin of the world. Joe Terrell was a man gifted
with skills in mechanics and carpentry and other things. He
could have impressed us. with these skills, but he never
tried to impress God with them, did he? No. What was he doing? Trusting in the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world. And if you want to worship God,
you'll have to do it like Joe Terrell did, through faith in
Jesus Christ. Second, by faith Enoch was translated
so that he did not see death, and was not found because God
had translated him. For before his translation he
had this testimony that he pleased God. In Abel we find by faith
worshiping God or approaching God. In Enoch we find by faith
pleasing God. His name means dedicated or consecrated
Oh, he was. He was. He was so dedicated to
God and so consecrated to God that even God was pleased. Even God was pleased. And God
took him. It is as though one day God came
down and knocked on Enoch's door and says, let's go for a walk.
So Enoch and God go for a walk. He walked with God, this scripture
says. And as they walk, Enoch is pleasing
God. He pleased God. What pleases
God? God is a father. He is the father. I have learned this. If you want
to make a father happy, make much of his son, make much of
his daughter. You want to make me happy? Talk
about my son. Talk about my daughter. I will
be happy. That pleases me. What pleases
God when you talk about his son? When you exalt his son? Joe Terrell
did that. He pleased God. I hope you're endeavoring to
do so. Hope you're walking with God, walking before Him and pleasing
Him. How do you do it? Make much of
His Son. Third, Noah. By faith, Noah, being divinely
warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared
an ark for the saving of his household by which He condemned
the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according
to faith." Noah. He is evidently the only man
before the deluge, the flood, who was said expressly to be
named by his parent other than the three children of Adam and
Eve. The others, after Adam and Eve's
children were evidently named after their birth, but here,
Noah's father named him, named him a name meaning rest because
his father said, this one, Noah, he will give us comfort regarding
the curse that this world is under. Well, Again, parrots are
not infallible in naming their children. Oh, Noah, he was as
wicked as all the rest of them, for we read that in that day
God looked down from heaven and could not find a righteous man
in all the earth. And then Noah found grace in
the sight of the Lord. Did not earn it, did not merit
it, he found grace. And then the Lord said, Noah,
I'm going to destroy the world with water. What kind of water? It's going to rain. Lord, it
has never rained. No, it will. It will. Now, I want you to build me an
ark, a huge boat. It's going to take you a long
time to do it. But my long suffering will last until you've finished. I want you to build an ark for
the salvation of your family and for the condemnation of those
who will not believe you. And I want you to preach the
whole time you're doing it. And here they come. Hey, Noah,
what are you doing? Building an ark. Why? It's gonna rain. and God's gonna
flood this entire earth. Noah, you're a fool. It has never
rained. It will not rain. Enough water
to cover the earth. You're a fool, Noah. He did this
for years, obeying God. He obeyed God when all around
him mocked him and scorned him. Here's a man who is faithful,
in obeying God, regardless of what is said about him, regardless
of whom says it. And then he finishes. He finishes
that ark. It is made exactly and precisely
as God had said it should be. And then God said, get into the
ark, bring your family with you, and he did. Got into the ark
and God shut the door, then God opened the heavens, and the rains
descended, and the fountains of the earth opened. Noah condemned the world, but
through his obedience was the means by which God saved his
family. That's all God requires of us,
obedience. Obey Him. Joe Terrell did. He's known for
it, renowned for it, his obedience to the Lord in the face of mockery
from others around him. He obeyed. Fourth person, verse
8. By faith, Abraham obeyed when
he was called to go out to the place which he would afterward
receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where
he was going. By faith, he sojourned in the
land of promises in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with
Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. for he waited for the city which
has foundation, whose builder and maker is God." All right. In Abel, worshiping God by faith. In Enoch,
pleasing God by faith. In Noah, obeying God by faith. In Abraham, following God by
faith. Not knowing where you're going,
The Lord came down to Abraham. Abram was his name in that day.
There was not a gospel preacher anywhere around in Ur of the
Chaldees. So Jesus Christ went down himself
and preached the gospel to Abram and saved him and said, now follow
me. Where are we going? You do not need to know. Just
follow me. But I do not know where I'm going? No, you'll know when you get
there. Follow me. Okay. He packs his tent. He gathers his herds and his
flocks, and off he follows the Lord. Abram, where are you going? I do not know. How are you going to get there? I'm
following the Lord. Wherever he says to go, that's
where I'm going. And off he went, following him,
living in tents the whole time. Perhaps wakes up some morning,
and the Lord said, let's go. Yes, sir, I'm packing. We're
going. And off he went. That's what
faith does. It follows the Lord. You may
not know where you're going, but you'll know when you get
there. And the Lord will tell you when
you have arrived. That's how Joe Terrell ended
up in Rock Valley, Iowa, following the Lord. Then we find Sarah, verse 11. By faith, Sarah herself also
received strength to conceive seed and she bore a child even
when she was past the age because she judged him faithful who had
promised. All right, in Sarah, Abraham's
wife, we find trusting God through faith even to do the impossible. The Lord comes down and says
to Abraham, Sarah's going to have a son with
you. The scripture says that Abraham fell to the ground laughing. Lord, Are you sure? I'm a hundred years
old. She's 90 years old. She has never
been able to bear a child and now you say we're going to have
a child in our old age when it's physically impossible? Sarah
is over inside the tent and she heard this and she's laughing. God was not laughing. He was
serious. And they did. She trusted God,
not only to go where God would lead Abraham, her husband, but
she said, well, I'm 90 years old. I am past the age of childbearing. My womb is bearing. My husband
is too old to conceive with me. But God said it. That settles
it. I believe it. Now that's what
faith does. It trusts God regardless of the
circumstance. Then what do we read? Verse 13, these all died in faith. That's my text. That's the subject
of my message. My message is short. You just
heard my introduction, but the message is short. Two points.
First, these all died. Well, of course they did. That's
the common end of every one of us. You are either dead or you're
dying. and about to die. I have descended
from hundreds of generations of my forefathers, and every one of them is dead.
My father and my mother, my grandfather, my grandmother, my greats, my
great greats, all the way back, they're all dead. And I'm going
to follow them soon. These all died in faith. But
the first point is they died. Every one of us is gonna die.
You're not going to escape it. Now you may say, but wait a minute,
preacher. Enoch did not die. Well, let's consider him for
a moment. He did not see death, the scripture
says. he is the exception to the rule
he is the exception that proves the rule but in another sense
he did indeed die he departed this earthly temporal life to
enter into the heavenly eternal life furthermore he is typical
of us if we are alive when Jesus Christ returns when he comes
back The dead in Christ shall rise first and they that are
alive shall be caught up together with him. So you're gonna die
unless you are alive when Jesus Christ returns. Even so, come
Lord Jesus. These all died. Ah, how did they
die? The circumstance of their death
is quite unimportant except for this, they died in faith. Matters not where they died.
Matters not how they died. The important point is they died
in faith. It does not say they died in
the faith. There is no definite article
before the word faith. They died in faith. Well, yes,
they died in the faith, Not everybody who's in the faith will die in
the faith because we're told some will depart from the faith. But if you are ever in faith,
ever in faith, you're going to die in it. You're going to die
in it. These all died in faith. Looking to the promises. Looking
to the promises. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
Sarah looked to the promise of the land that God gave before
them. Abel, and Enoch, and Noah did
not have that promise, but they had another one. They had a promise
that God made in the dawn of creation. When the gospel was
first preached, in the pro-evangelium, when the gospel was first preached,
God himself preached it. And he said, the seed of the
woman will have his heel bitten by
the seed of the serpent, but the seed of the woman shall crush
the head of the serpent. And that's the gospel. That's
the gospel. God himself preached it. And all these, from Abel, Enoch,
and Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Sarah, and all the
rest of our heroes in this hall of faith, they all embraced that
promise. Messiah's coming. He's gonna
suffer death for us, but he will crush the head of our oppressor. He will crush the head of Satan
and we shall be saved. I want you to embrace that promise
if you never have before. I want you to embrace that promise
right now. I have put my faith in Jesus
Christ. He's the substance of all my
hope. He's the evidence of everything
I have never seen that I desire. Trust Him right now. In a few minutes, you're going
to walk out those doors. Do not walk out those doors until
you have put your hope and faith and confidence in Jesus Christ,
saying, forsaking all, I trust Him. For you may never have an
opportunity to come through those doors again. It may be that some of you who
leave this building today will never rent for another building,
never have another opportunity to hear the gospel. But I hope
that for every one of you, when we come to an occasion like
this, in your memory, we can say that he or she Died in faith. Nothing else matters. Nothing
else matters. Died in faith. If you've never
trusted Christ, do so now. If you have trusted Him before,
keep on trusting. Die in Him. Oh God, our Father,
to the glory of your name, to the honor of your son, Jesus
Christ, bless this gospel, we pray. We thank you for this good
report of this elder who died in faith. We pray that the same
may be true of us as well. Be pleased, we pray, to bless
our memory of him. Be pleased, we pray, to bless
our worship of your son who has made all these blessings possible
unto us. To your glory in Jesus' name
we pray. Amen.