Now, this morning I want to bring
a message out of Ecclesiastes 7, verse 2. The title of this
message is Instructions from the House of Mourning. It is
written in chapter 7, verse 2, It is better to go to the house
of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is
the end of all men, and the living will lay it to his heart." Now
this sounds like strange language to most people. No one chooses
the house of mourning. No one wants to go to a funeral.
It's not a happy place. In fact, we try to avoid it.
We naturally like the house of feasting. That's the house we
would go to if we had the choice. And now, there's nothing wrong
with feasting in a proper way. There's nothing wrong with the
house of feasting if it's done in a proper way. But there's
not many lessons taught in that house. There in the house of feasting,
we have a tendency to let down our guard and to forsake watchfulness. Watch and pray is at the bottom
of the list in the house of feasting. There in the house of feasting,
the flesh is more at home and its appetites are more apt to
be indulged in the house of feasting. In the house of feasting, their
temptations are more readily available. In the house of feasting,
serious reflections of God are gone. That's also at the bottom
of the list. In the house of feasting, we
are most apt to forget God. It is written in Job 1.5 concerning
Job's children, which had gathered together, they would gather together
and celebrate birthdays, each sibling's birthday. And Job writes
this, this is written of Job, And it was so when the days of
their feasting were gone about that Job sent and sanctified
them and rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings
according to the number of them all. For Job said, it may be
that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus
did Job continually. What were they doing when Job
feared that they might have cursed God in their hearts? They were
in the house of feasting. But it's not so in the house
of mourning. There are great lessons in this house. And let me give you some of these
lessons that we learn are in the house of mourning. Here we
learn how frail we are. Psalm 39 forward, the Psalmist
writes, Lord, make me to know money and make me to know it.
Don't let me ignore it. or forget it, to forget that
I have an end in this world. There is an end to my life on
this earth. Make me to know my end and the measure of my days.
What it is that I may know how frail I am. We see right now
going on in this country, throughout this world, over this virus,
how frail the human race really is. Right now, they have no vaccine
for this virus. And when they do get one, another
virus will pop up, another one will come along. We are such
frail creatures that a germ can bring down the strongest of men
and women. In this house of mourning, we
learn our mortality. There is no place, no place that
teaches mortality like the funeral home or the graveyard. It becomes
very evident that we must die, that we have an end. In this
life, we have an end. And here we learn also that our
time is short. James said in James 4.14, whereas
you know not what shall be on tomorrow, You don't know what's
coming next. You don't know what disease is
coming next or what plague is coming. You don't know, I don't
know. God knows because it's his world and he sends what's
needed. All things are of God. Let us
not forget that. And James says, for what is your
life? That's a good question to consider.
Often, every day we should consider what is your life? It is even
a vapor. James said, I'll tell you what
your life is. It is even a vapor that appears for a little time
and then vanishes away. It's gone. Job said in one place,
I shall go the way of all the earth. I won't be on this earth
anymore. I'll be gone. David said in Psalm
39, five, thou hast made my days as a hand breath. Just so, so
short. So quick. I know modern medicine
is always trying to keep us living longer. So what if we live a
few more days or a few more years? We still have to die. Just read
in Genesis. They live 900 years. And at the
end of every one of those people that it is written, they live
900 years or 700 years. It says they died. They all died. We also learn in this house of
mourning that death comes to us all. Solomon said in chapter
9, verse 3 of Ecclesiastes, this is an evil among all things that
are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all.
Death comes to all. Death does not discriminate.
It doesn't discriminate. It doesn't pick a certain age
or a certain social status group. Death comes to everybody. And
I might add, it comes by appointment. All of us have an appointed time
to die and leave this world. Just as we had an appointed time
to be born into it, we have an appointed time to leave. Job
said, man's days are like a hireling. He punches in and he punches
out. It is written in Hebrews 9.27, And as it is appointed
unto men once to die, but after this judgment, but death is an
appointment. That right down to the second,
death is an appointment for us to leave this world and go before
God. And in this hour, this hour of
death, this hour of mourning, in this house of mourning, we
learn this, that all earthly ties are dissolved. All achievements
are gone. The grave is a great leveler.
In the grave, there is neither rich, poor, young, old, educated,
uneducated. All have one thing in common
in the graveyard. They are all physically dead,
all of them. You can dig them up a hundred
years from now and you cannot tell who was rich, who was poor,
who was smart, who was not, who was educated, who was uneducated.
Now it says here, though, that the living will lay it to heart.
When the living visit the funeral home, when they visit the house
of mourning, they lay it to heart. But now who are the living? Because
we know everyone that shows up is alive. The living here are
those who have been made alive in Jesus Christ. They are the
ones born of God. They are the ones who've been
given a new heart and a right spirit. They are the ones who've
been taught of God. And God teaches lessons every
time we go to the house of mourning. What do they lay to heart? What
is it they lay to heart? Well, the living know that this
day is coming for them. In Ecclesiastes 9.5, it says,
for the living know that they shall die. They know that. They
don't ignore that. They don't ignore that this day
is coming for them. You know, most people will not
talk about this day of death, of dying, of leaving this world.
They don't want to talk about it. But not so with the believer.
As Paul said, to be absent from the body is to be present with
the Lord. For the believer to leave this
world, to die as we know it, is to be with the Lord, is to
leave this house, this prison. I have learned that this body
of death that I have right now is like a prison. And this world
of sin and corruption is like a prison. And it's literally
like being let out of prison. That's what it's like. And the
living, the living know they shall die. He said here, but
the dead know not anything. Not only speaking of those who
are actually dead, they've died and getting ready to bury them,
but those who are spiritually dead, they don't know anything.
In fact, Not too long after they leave the funeral home, all is
forgotten. The family members will remember it much longer,
but sooner or later, that's all gone. They don't really sit down
and give a serious reflection that they too are gonna die and
meet God. The living know this, that when
men and women die, that's when they stand before God. They know
God is real. They know Jesus Christ is real.
They know that. And then the living know the
vanity of life without Christ. Not to know God, not to know
Christ is a vain, empty life. I can't imagine now, after believing
the gospel for over 40 years, I can't imagine having spent
my life on this earth without knowing God, without worship,
without singing His praises, without acknowledging Him, it
would be a vain, empty life. It's a useless life. This life
is totally useless. Listen to what Solomon says in
Ecclesiastes 1.14. He said, I have seen all the
works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit. Solomon's saying, I have seen
all the works that men and women do. The natural, he's talking
about the natural man. I've seen all their works. I've
seen everything that they have accomplished. And he's saying
here that all of it is vanity and vexation of spirit. Without
the Lord Jesus Christ, without knowing God in Christ, what is
life? What is the very purpose of life?
The very purpose of life is to know God. In fact, at the end
of Ecclesiastes, Solomon says the whole duty of man is to know
God, to keep His commandments, to worship Him. That's the whole
duty of it. If you miss that, your life and
my life, if I miss it, it's a vain, empty life. Then the living know
this. They know they are sinners in
need of a Savior. They know. They know that they
need a Savior. They know they're lost. They
know they came into this world lost and undone, and they need
a Savior. And they know that Christ is
the Savior they need. They know that in Christ they
have all that God demands. They have in Christ what they
do not have and cannot get anywhere else. First of all, they have
in Christ life. They have eternal life. And that
does not mean that they have a long time to live, that means
they have the life of God in their soul. Eternal life is the
quality of it, not the quantity of it. The living know that in
Christ they have wisdom. Christ is the wisdom of God and
Christ is their wisdom. It is through Jesus Christ we
know God. It is impossible to know God apart from Jesus Christ.
It is absolutely 100% impossible to know God apart from Jesus
Christ. They know that in Christ they
have righteousness. God demands righteousness. We
cannot produce it. Jesus Christ did. And in Him
we have it. And we have it through faith. It is imputed to us. Through
faith, it is imparted to us by the new birth. We have in him
the righteousness that God demands. We have in Christ sanctification.
We are made holy in him. It is written in the scriptures
that in that new creation, that new man that's created, he's
created in righteousness and true holiness. And in Christ,
we have redemption. We have been purchased by the
blood of Jesus Christ. And the living know that in Christ
they are complete. We don't produce anything. We
don't bring anything to the table in order to be saved. We have
in Christ everything God demands. In Christ we are complete. And
then the living The living lay to heart what is really valuable. They put value where it really
belongs. That's on eternal matters. That's
on Christ, the relationship to God in Christ. They know that
there's nothing greater in this world and to be joined to Jesus
Christ, to be made alive in Christ, to know God in Christ. They know
that their relationship to God in Christ is the most important
thing in this life. Then the living know that when
this hour of death, this hour of mourning comes for them, it
is well with their soul. we can lay down and die. We can
lay down. And as Paul said, I haven't a
desire to depart and be with the Lord. It's well with us. Our, our judgment is passed. It passed on Christ at Calvary.
The sting of death has been taken out of death by the death of
Christ in our place. That's why Solomon wrote in verse
1 of this chapter 7, that the day of one's death is better
than the day of one's birth. We came into this world lost.
We came into this world undone. We came into this world with
a natural enmity in our mind against God. But when God saved
us, when God made us whole, when he gave us a new life, that is
a new creation, When he did this, we know that the day we leave
this world is better than the day we came into it. Far better
day, far better day. Yes, the house of mourning is
a tough house, is a tough teacher, but this house of mourning is
an instructive house to the living. There we are taught our end. There we learn the end, it says,
of every man. And we lay it to heart. This
is the end of every man, the graveyard, as far as this life's
concerned. We are taught that our relationship
to Jesus Christ is far more important than anything else in this life.
The living, he says here, lay this to heart. They take this
to heart, they ponder it, they meditate upon it, and they seek
the Lord because they know in a little while it'll be their
turn. All right.