There's a text that always comes
to mind when there's a memorial service or a funeral. The scriptures
speak often of funerals and observing them there in Genesis. So I don't really have a text
for you to follow along with me. I won't have you turning
anywhere, but I'd like for you to just hear me. Peter and John
told those in front of the temple, just look at me. I got a word
for you. This is a hard day. This is a
hard day for you that's lost a friend, for you that's lost
a brother, for you that's lost a son, or for you who mourn for
those that's lost their son, that's lost their brother, that's
lost their friend. It's a hard day for me too. It's
not just because I have a heart for this family, for these people
I know, but it's hard to preach sometimes and tell people the
truth. It's hard and I want to do that for you and I want to
do that in love because I care for people. I care for you. Much
like Daniel, he interpreted that dream for King Nebuchadnezzar.
And he said, I'd just like to have a good day. Let's just have
a feast. Let's have a big party. I don't
want to have a bad day. He said, but this message I have
Nebuchadnezzar is for you. I wish it was for your enemies,
but this is for you. I cannot do anything. I cannot
say anything. I cannot warn. I cannot comfort. I cannot be of any benefit to
Kevin Smith. And as God sent me here and he's
gathered you here today, This is a word for you. I hope it's
plain. I pray you're giving ears to
hear me. This is the wisest man, the Lord
said, ever born of Adam, King Solomon. He wrote three books
in the Bible and he was speaking about a funeral. He was giving
us instruction. This is what God says is the
wisest man. Let's listen to him closely.
He says it's better to go into the house of mourning That's
where we are right now. Then go into the house of feasting.
Now to you, to me, to what we would call a sane person, that
makes no sense. Why would it be better to be
here mourning than having a big party and having a good time?
He goes on, he says, for, because. That's the end of all men. And
the living will lay it to heart. were warned throughout this book,
throughout the scriptures, to know our end, to be concerned
of our end. David said in Psalm 9, teach
us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Deuteronomy 32 says, oh, that
they were wise, oh, that they understood this, that they would
consider their latter end, their end, their final day. We're in
this house of mourning. When we're here, we are reminded,
us, you and me, we have an end. None of us know when that time
will come, but there's going to be a service just like this
for every one of us sitting in this room, unless the Lord comes. It'll happen once but We go go
into eternity before Christ returns. There'll be a service just like
this for you and for me It's gonna happen and James said that
we know these things to be true. We can act like we don't but
we know it It's in our hearts He said you say I'm gonna go
into a city and I'm gonna do this and that and I'm gonna trade
for a year and I'm gonna buy and sell and I'm gonna get game
and He said you don't know what tomorrow is gonna bring He said
your life What is it? He said it's a vapor, a vapor. It appears for a little time
and then it vanish away. For y'all to say if the Lord
will, we will live and do this or that. If the Lord wills it. If he doesn't, this vapor can
be dried up instantly, just like a shadow. It leaves no trace.
There's no more. Just a little bit of coolness
is all it is. That's our life. Life is short, whether it's nine
years or 99 years. It's short and it's full of trouble,
it's hard. Job said that, he said, man born of a woman, a
few days, just a few days, and it's full of trouble, coming
forth like a flower. It might be some wonderful things,
it smells good, it's pretty, but it's cut down. That's every
one of us. And this short life is just like
everything else underneath the sun, it's appointed by God. The Hebrew writer said, is appointed
unto men, wants to die. We all have an appointed hour,
what then? What then? It says, appointed unto men wants
to die, but after this, after that death, at a point in time
that each of us have, the judgment, the judgment. The Lord puts it
in our hearts to know that he's real and his word's true. And we're going to come to that
judgment day, to his throne in our final day. We may suppress
those things. We may ignore them. We may fight
against them. But inside of each of us, we
know that that's so. The atheists could say they don't
believe in God, and they sure are mad at somebody they don't
believe in. I don't believe in aliens. I'm not mad at aliens
or anybody else that believes in it. Think what you want. But
it's so, we know it is. That's why, naturally, it's our
instinct to protect life and to not die. We do anything we
can to keep healthy and keep from dying. Why? Because if the
Lord allows us to be honest, deep down inside we know we're
going to meet the holy God we've offended. And when we're in the
house of feasting, when everything's so good, and just joy is all
about, and it's a sunny day, and we're out on the boat, and
everything's just wonderful, and all the people that we love's
together with us, and everything's happy, we don't think about God. We don't think about our end.
We just think happy things, don't we? But for those that's in a
house of mourning, we have to face these realities, the truth
that's in front of us in our bodies. and our souls, we're
gonna go into eternity. It's better because we're forced
to acknowledge we have an end. And we will meet a holy God of
heaven and earth at that end. When this happens, when each
of our lives are over, people say, what then? I'll tell you.
I'll tell you according to this word. Somebody wants the notes,
you wanna look up all his scriptures? I'll be glad to send it to you.
When our lives are over, we will either be found in Christ, our
substitute, we'll be wearing his robe of righteousness and
his worth, his perfection, his work, his merit, and if that's
the case, him as our advocate before that judge, as our lawyer,
as our representative. If that's the case, we will go
into eternal bliss and glory, be made like him, we'll look
like him, we'll smell like him, we'll have his mind, we'll have
a holy nature, Or it's one of the other. Or we'll be judged
in comparison to him. Our holiness in comparison to
his holiness. Our perfection to his perfection.
His virtue. Being our own advocates, our
own lawyers in a court that we don't speak the language. We
don't talk to that judge the way he ought to be talked to.
We don't know the rules there. and we will enter into eternal
condemnation and wrath and judgment. It's one or the other. How do
we match up on our own? David wrote in Psalm 39, Lord,
make me to know my end, it's another warning, and measure
my days, what it is that I may know how frail I am. How frail,
I'm just getting a taste of that in my 40s. I ain't as strong
as I used to be. vigorous as it used to be and
get sore easier. And that's a good thing to know.
Because in a hand breath in just a second, I could be paralyzed
or anything else, or the Lord could take me. We need to know
how frail we are. Behold, thou hast made my days
as a hand breath. You know what the days of our
lives are? That wide. Just an eternity of blink, of
vapor. And mine age is nothing before
thee. Verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity. And he says, Sela. That means
pause and think about that. Think about that. Every man at
the very best that we are, think of the best person you can think
of, at the very best they are, it's all together vanity. That
word means arrogant and empty. That's the best of born of Adam.
Arrogant and empty at our best state, at our best state. And
we all have an end. And we'll meet the Lord and we'll
either be judged on our merit or his merit. or we'll stand there, face judgment,
have eternity in front of us of wrath, or we'll see that our
judgment's already taken place at that cross of Calvary, that
it's done. There's no more condemnation.
There's no more judgment for those that are in Christ. He
has satisfied it, not us, but him. Paul wrote, said, the wages
of sin, wages what you earn. You go out and work at a job
and you earn your wages, which is right. The wages of sin. of not believing Christ, of not
worshiping Him, not finding Him your all in all is death, but
the gift of God. You don't do nothing to get a
gift, you just receive it, don't you? The gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Adam died in that garden,
but he didn't die. The Lord said, you eat that fruit,
you're gonna die. And he hearkened to his wife instead of hearkening
to the Lord, and the Lord cast him out of the garden, but he
lived for several hundred years later. because he was spiritually
dead. And we died in him. All of his
race, there's one race on this earth, it's Adam's race, and
we're all enemies of God. That's how we come into this
world. We come from the womb speaking lies. Nobody has to
teach our children how to lie. And to be guilty in one dot or
tittle in that whole law, jot or tittle, is to be guilty of
the whole law. And that's all of us. We're trouble. I have
good news, but we have to know we need good news before we hear
that, don't we? That's carnal mind. The thing we're born with
is enmity against God. It's warring against God. It's
not subject to law. God neither can be. So they that
are in the flesh cannot please God. We can't do it by ourselves.
He has to for us. I'm ruined by that fall in Adam,
but I can't blame it all on Adam. It's my fault. I come to this
world lying and cheating and stealing and loving all of them
that do. Murderous. But thanks be to God,
there's remission for that sin. There is blood. Something has
to die for us to live. There's blood of the lamb. God
provided himself a lamb. That's Jehovah Jireh, the Lord
will provide. Abraham's taking his son Isaac
up on top of that mountain. And the son said, Daddy, we got
the fire, and we got the wood, and we got the knives. We got
everything here to worship God, but we don't have a lamb. Isaac was
gonna be that lamb. His dad said, don't worry, son.
The Lord will provide himself a lamb. And I got up there and
there was a ram caught in a thicket behind them. They didn't even
see it. It had always been there. Christ
provided himself as that lamb. Whatever God requires is what
he provides for his people, for his children. There's redemption
in that blood. Christ died for sinners. If He
convicts us that we are sinners, we need a substitute, and that's
who He came to die for. He came to die for the ones that
hated Him, that were worn against Him, that are wretched, and that's
good news. That's who He came to save. That's the only comfort
a sinner can have facing eternity, is that Christ died for sinners
and I'm a great sinner. I'm a great sinner and I needed
a great Savior. He came to seek and to save those that are lost.
And all that blood of goats and of bulls and all those sacrifices
just pointed to Him. That saves nothing, the scriptures
say. And our blood don't do any good. It ain't worth nothing. I'm in debt and I can't get work
myself out of it. Men and women and children, we all die because
we have a terminal illness called sin. But we only see the effects
of it in this body. We see the wrinkles coming and
the gray hairs coming and the frailty of the body. But that's
all caused by what's on the inside. And we're sick. We're sin sick. And those that are sin sick,
they'll perish without a cure unless they meet the physician.
Christ is called the great physician. He said, they that are whole,
if you're doing all right on your own, you don't need a physician.
that they that are sick, somebody's sick, sin sick, they need a great
position. He said, I call them not to call
the righteous, those that's doing pretty good, that ain't that
bad. I ain't come for you. He said, I come to take sinners
and bring them to repentance, to turn them from their way of
thinking to my way of thinking. And if any man, woman, or child,
if they stand firmly, that I can meet God and I can satisfy his
requirements, I'm good, I'm spiritually healthy, they don't need the
great physician, and I'll tell you right now, you're gonna come
up short. It's an unbending law we're born
under, we're found lacking. But thankfully, when we read
Ephesians 1, the Father purposed all mankind deserves to perish. The Father purposed to save a
people, and Christ came and purchased those people, and then the Holy
Spirit comes and proclaims it to them through what we're doing
right now. Some of you might have ears to
hear me, hear this message. It'll be made effectual in the
heart. And we said, that's right. What God says is right. About
me and what he says about him is right too. and our proof that
his sacrifice, him laying down, he said, I'm a good shepherd.
I lay down my life for the sheep. I have these sheep, they're not
just this fold only in that generation, but throughout time, and I'm
a good shepherd. I'm gonna lay my life down for
the sheep. Well, did it work? We have an empty tomb. The father
accepted that sacrifice. He accepted his son when that
payment was made and all that guilt and all that courtroom
drama, we would call it. It's going to be faced in judgment.
It's satisfied. It's done in him. Paul and Silas,
they were in a jail, and an earthquake came and tore all the walls down.
That warden was there, and he thought everybody was going to
run away. And then it'd be on his head, and he's going to kill
himself. And I said, don't do yourself no harm, buddy. We ain't
going nowhere. I told him about God and I said, what must I do
to be saved? And he said, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. You will be saved. Believe he's able. Believe what
he says. Believe his word. What he says about man, what
he says about him. Not the God we've dreamed up in our head
and we think. What his word says. He's right, I'm wrong. Let every
man be a liar and God be true. That's what his word says. Do
I have to get my life in order before I come begging Christ
for mercy, before I come to Him? He delights to show mercy. There
wasn't a sinner ever that could come begging mercy that didn't
find mercy. He's being drawn to beg for mercy, but do I have
to do something right to get my life squared away before that
happens, to be healed by my sin? Paul said, for when you were
yet without strength, you didn't have the strength to do it, or
the wherewithal to ask for it. In due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. Not for everybody, but the son
of the ungodly, the sinners. That's who he died for. And he
said, Christ spoke, Matthew 11, said, come unto me. That means
come to him, believe him, rest in him. All you that labor and
are heavy laden, all you that's working real hard to do something
to debt God to you, to try to make God happy, you can't do
it. That's what his word says. He
said, now I'll give you rest. I'll give you rest, give you
peace, comfort. Rest is when you ain't working
no more. You stop working. How's someone gonna do that?
Well, the Lord has to send his spirit. He says he's gonna send
a great comforter. He's gonna send the Holy Spirit
to his people. He said, don't worry, I'm gonna go away, but
I'll send the comforter to you. That's who he's writing to, his
people. And it comes to a center through the preaching of the
truth, the preaching of the gospel. And that seems foolish to the
whole world. And that's what the scriptures say. By the foolishness
of preaching, God's going to save his elect. Not by foolish
preaching, but by this act of it. And they're going to tell
the truth about man. They're going to tell the truth about God.
And that Holy Spirit will convict of sin. What sin? What is sin? Because they didn't
believe on Christ. That's it, that's it. God said
something, we didn't believe it. That's the whole shooting
match. It's everything, but you can
categorize it, left, right, and center, all you want to, but
God says, don't matter what you think, matters what God says.
He said, sin, because you didn't believe me, of righteousness.
I don't have any. He's Jehovah Sitkin of the Lord
our righteousness. That's the name whereby he shall
be called. And you keep reading Jeremiah, and it says that's
the name where his bride shall be called. She shall be called
the Lord our righteousness. He's it. If I'm gonna go before
God, it has to be in front of Him. Convicts of judgment. Prince of the world's judged,
and all those that are in Christ, all those that love Him and are
committed to Him and married to Him because He first loved
us, we won't face that judgment. There'll be silence for 30 minutes,
the Lord will wipe away all tears, we'll never cry again, and there'll
be eternal bliss in Him. We'll be at that wedding feast.
No more houses of mourning. Sins removed from ever, and they
can never sin again. I hear a lot of people talk about,
well, the Lord's will. There's a song years ago, my
grandfather would say, if a good Lord's willing, then the creek
don't rise. What's the Lord's will? What's God going to do? If he wills, it's going to come
to pass. Paul said, remember the time, the days are ever.
Well, wherefore you be not unwise, but understanding what the will
of the Lord is. What is it? said in John 6, this is my father's
will, Christ was speaking. What's God gonna do? Christ said,
here's what his will is, here's what he's gonna do. He sent me,
and that all which he hath given me I'll lose none, but raise
them up again to the last day. And this is the will of him that
sent me, this is God's will, this is what's gonna happen,
take it to the bank. That everyone that seeth the son and believeth
on him, not just in him, on him, the foundation, he put me on
him and I believe on him because he made me believe on him and
I thank him for it. We're conquered by him. May have everlasting
life and I'll raise him up at the last day. He's already done
that and that's why we're doing this today. He said go in all
the world, preach the gospel to every creature. your sinners and you're a great
sinner and he's a great savior and we need him, bow to him,
come to him, quit working, rest in him, have rest for your souls. He'll get all the glory for that,
period. We didn't do nothing. A double L, all. He'll get all
the glory for that. And he that believeth that and
is baptized, shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall
be damned." To one or the other. There's no setting on the fence.
It's one side of the fence or the other. Why would all this
happen? That'll be a question, isn't
it? We learned that real early. That's
part of the line process. Why? Children ask their mom and
dad, you probably ask your parents, why? Why? Why? Why would all
this take place? When Peter and John healed that
lame man in Acts 3, everybody marveled and their jaws dropped
open. They couldn't believe it. They were saying, why did this
happen? He said, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God
of our fathers, hath glorified his son. This is for the good
of the Lord's people and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This house of mourning and the house of feasting, the rain and
the snow, the sunshine, the pain, the joy, no matter what it is,
it's for his glory and for his people's good. If the Lord is pleased to draw
you to Christ, to make you white as snow in His blood, regenerate
you by giving you a new spirit, a new creation in you, you'll
be thankful for every house of mourning you've ever been in.
And you'll be thankful for every feast because they're sin of
God. They're sin of God. I was supposed to read Ecclesiastes
3. I'll read it to you real quick.
We know this is popularized by a song years ago, We normally
stop at just a little bit short. I think it worked out better
to have this at the end. To everything there's a season, and a time
to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, a time to
die. A time to plant, a time to pluck
up that which is planted. A time to kill, a time to heal. A time to break down, and a time
to build up. A time to weep, and a time to
laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to
dance. a time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together,
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing, a
time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep, a time to cast
away, a time to rend and a time to sew, a time to keep silence,
a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time of
war, a time of peace. What profit Hath he that worketh
in all wherein he laboreth, I have seen the travail which God hath
given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. I've seen these
things. I've seen, why are you working?
It ain't gonna do you no good. It's all gonna burn and perish,
isn't it? I've seen this travail, which God's given to the sons
of men to be exercised in it, to go through this. Why? The next verse says, he hath
made everything beautiful in his time. I pray that this house
of mourning for each of you will be made beautiful because of
his time in his time. Let's pray together. Father, we're thankful for this
time of pain that you've given. This time of mourning, of heavy
sorrow, of weakness, of sense of hopelessness. We're thankful
for it because we know you'll make it beautiful in your time.
It will glorify your son. Lead every soul in this house
today of mourning to know our end. and to call on your son. Lord give us, take siege of your
people, give them ears to hear and hearts that desire to know
Christ. Lord be with us, forgive us our
sin. And it's because of your son,
his person and his work that we ask these things. Amen.