There's times I wish those songs
were a lot longer. Lets my knees knock together
a little bit more before I get up here. It's a terrifying thing.
Speak on behalf of God, knowing what I am. We just sang two songs
in a row by Brother John Newton. He was a slave trader. That wasn't
somebody that had a bad tweet one time. They tried to cancel
him. That man knew God. They said,
you're wicked and evil. He said, that's right. And you
don't know the half of it. Hmm. The funeral of Jacob, the funeral
of Jacob, Genesis 50. We're beginning. Begin this last chapter in Genesis. Jacob pulled his feet up in the
bed and he died. There in chapter 49, verse 33,
it says, And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons,
it doesn't say recommending to his sons, not strongly encouraging
his sons, he commanded his sons. Commanded his sons, he gathered
up his feet into the bed and yielded up the ghost and was
gathered unto his people. Well, we're getting ready to
see his funeral, and they got a long way of going before he gets buried
where he was. How was he gathered to his people?
To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
We're going to be there with our people in comfort and joy
and everlasting bliss in his image, worshiping him, hearing
him, him sitting down teaching us and serving us at that wedding
feast. We'll be absent from this body
and present with Him in eternal judgment. I'm gonna enact every power I
have and my responsibility in the office that God put me in
to make sure everybody hears the best they can. They may not
listen and they may not hear in the heart, but I can at least
get it in your ears. I'm gonna swing for the fences and give
it all I got. I owe that to you. Least I can do. Least I can do. Stay with me this morning. You
may be dead today. You know why our numbers are
so low here? Maybe the Lord killed five or six people this morning
and took them to glory or took them to eternity, one or the
other. I don't know. I wonder those things. I prepare messages
for people, and I get up here, and it ain't there. I have them
on my heart when I'm writing it. And I thought, oh, that would
be good. And I don't see them. It's a
discouraging thing for me, but my job don't change. My motivation
is from emotion. Did you know that? Discipline
is an action. I pray God make me disciplined. Jacob died, and that soul went
to his people right then, but he still had a body. There was
still a body on this earth. The Lord's gonna raise that body
up someday, and it'll be incorruptible, and they won't have any blemishes
in it. Y'all know that I'm me, and I know that you're you. The
apostles did that, didn't they? They got on that Mount of Transfiguration.
They hadn't even met Moses and Elijah, and they said, that's
Moses. We're gonna know that. I know she's my wife. We won't
be husband and wife then, but we'll know each other, won't
we? He was gathered with his people right then, but that body had
to go on the ground. Verse 1, chapter 50. And Joseph
fell upon his father's face and wept upon him and kissed him. And Joseph commanded his servants,
the physicians, to embalm his father, and the physicians embalmed
Israel, and 40 days were fulfilled for him. Or so are fulfilled
the days of those that are embalmed. And the Egyptian mourned for
him three score and 10 days. 70 days they mourned for him. That was a lot of mourning going
on, wasn't it? You lost one of those that you just love dearly.
If we haven't, we will. We haven't lost father or mother
or I've never lost a spouse. I can't imagine what that pain
would be like. I've never lost a child. But if I live long enough,
somebody's gonna die. I've lost mother and father.
I know what that feels like. There's weeping involved, isn't
there? It's sad. Whenever I die, there's going
to be somebody crying. I imagine at least one that's sad. The
rest of them might be crying in joy. There's weeping involved,
isn't it? What kind of example do you think
Jacob set in Egypt for 18 years for the Egyptians to honor him
with 70 days of mourning? Do you reckon he was a pain in
the hind end? Do you reckon he was like, we're gonna celebrate
for seven days because he's dead? I don't think so. He was an example
in Egypt for that period of time so that his sons wept for him
and the Egyptians wept for him. A lot of weeping going on. And that's okay. That's okay. It's okay to weep. There's a
lot of reasons to weep, aren't there? Our Lord told us in Luke
23, he said, daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, that you weep
for yourselves and for your children, for those that you care for the
most. Why do we weep when the Lord was speaking that? We weep
over our sin. Do you struggle with that? How
in the world could you be a child of God? You ever look in the
mirror and say that? Do you mourn and weep over your
sin? Someone that's not absolutely
tore to pieces over their sin, God hasn't revealed who they
are to them yet. He hasn't revealed what we are
yet. If that don't just tear you limb from limb, and you hit
your face prostrate in the dirt, and you can't even get out of
bed, and you're like, there's no way, I only deserve death, hell,
and damnation. If that ain't how we are, God
ain't dealt with us yet. We're still playing church. Sinning, in doing so. We weep over our sin when God
shows us what we are. It's just in part. We think we're
just so bad, you don't know the half of it. And I ain't saying
somebody else don't know, because I know of all my sin. No, I don't.
If God revealed to you what sinner you were, you'd just go hang
yourself. You couldn't handle it, but he knows just in right
measure. That great physician knows exactly how to apply the
chemotherapy. That's a poison, you know? He
knows just how to show us in the right proportions. We weep
over that. Weep. We weep over love. When we see that sin, we don't
stay there. If that's all you got, you just
got a bad week ahead of you. We see the one that died and
gave himself for our sin and we weep for love. They were weeping for him and
he told them not to. I weep for him. Don't that just
break your heart? And he says, don't weep for me.
I did this on purpose. I'm the king. I'm on my throne right
now while this is happening. And then what love? What a man
that was. I ought to shave my beard so
nobody confuses me for a man when I see what kind of man God
was. Oh, it's something. He did that for me. For me. That makes me weep. I weep tears
of joy, tears of love, don't we? And when we're not experiencing
those two things, and if God saved us, they go hand in hand.
And so does the trials. Everybody's got trials. Everybody's
sad for doing bad. A heathen does that. He'd find
somebody never even heard of the scriptures and they feel
bad over that stuff. But when God convicts of sin
and he convicts us of his love towards us, and we admire him
and see him high and lifted up, we still have trials to go through.
We still have our own grief to go through. Job went through
a lot of grief. He was a righteous man. God killed
his seven sons and his three daughters and took everything
he had from him. And he rose and he rent his mantle. He just
tore his clothes off. And he shaved his head and he
fell down on the ground and he worshiped. Did he bellyache and
moan and fight against the sovereign God that's on his throne? No,
he did not. He worshiped. He said, thank you, Lord, while
he wept. Tears of pain, tears of grief.
And he said, naked I came out of my mother's womb, naked I
will turn thither, and the Lord gave, and the Lord's taken away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. And in all that, Job didn't sin,
and he didn't charge God foolishly. God did that, God gave him. God's
the one that killed him. He said, I kill and I make alive. We weep for lost souls. We ought
to. I have a little bit here and
there, and I ask the Lord to do it more for me. I wouldn't
even say it's infrequent. Get mad at people, don't you?
They won't listen. Call down fire and brimstone
on the Lord. He said, you don't know what spirit's in you. That's
why I told the Sons of Thunder, wasn't I? That's the wrong spirit,
boys. You better be praying for them.
That's the right spirit. Not to be mad at them, to pity
them. Absalom tried his best to kill his daddy, David, didn't
he? Over and over again, he was out to get him. David had a bunch
of heathen children, about 10 of them, and they got word to
David, and they said, Absalom's dead, and David wept. He cried out loud, he said, oh
my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I had died
for thee, oh Absalom, my son, my son. He knew where Absalom
was. Before God saves somebody, they
come out of the womb thinking they're saved, and they think
mommy and daddy's saved, and they think their brothers and
sisters are saved, and they think their children's saved, and their
neighbors are saved, and even the people they kind of don't
like too much, well, they're going to a better place. He takes that death off of our
eyes, gives us eyes to see, and we say, uh-oh. It ain't like
we thought. Mommy and Daddy hated God. Everybody
I know in their life, they may go to church 17 days a week and
they hate God. And I hated God too. Remember
when you hated God and you was at war with Him? Well, not me. Until God saves you, shows you
what you are, and cripples you in your own sin, then reveals
Christ to you, you see Him high and lifted up, we weep for joy,
the love He has before us, but we still have to go through trials.
And we reap for those trials, and we weep for those that don't
yet know God. And if there's breath in their
lungs, there's hope, so we command them to come and hear about a
man. Well, they won't like me if I make them. So what? They
ain't gonna like an eternity of damnation neither, will they? I want to be that weeping prophet.
Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet. He said, Lord, has anybody
believed our report? Our Lord came to this earth and
he said, who do men say that I am? And one of the things that
Peter listed was Jeremiah. Why do they think he's Jeremiah?
He was the weeping prophet. Our Lord cried. He did. He wept. He came near that city, Jerusalem,
didn't he? And he beheld the city and he wept over it. He
wept over it. Lazarus, he was in that tomb. And he went and he wept. Jesus
wept. And he did it so much so all
those Jews that were hired to come do the weeping, you can
pay people to go mourn for you. Like, I ain't got time to mourn
their death. Here, I'll give you 20 bucks. Go down there and cry
for a couple hours. Nobody sees this as preposterous.
They're doing it daily. It's what's happening right now.
Those Jews there hired to weep for Lazarus came up and said,
look at how he loved him. He wept tears of love. We weep for loved ones, don't
we? Well, look here in verse two, Genesis 50. Joseph commanded his servants,
the physicians, to embalm his father. The physicians worked
for Joseph. Remember, he's number two in
the land. And he said, you boys work for me. You go down there
and you embalm my dad. and the physicians embalmed Israel.
They embalmed him. This was an Egyptian practice,
embalming folks. And I gotta tell somebody or
nobody's gonna know. Some people, they worry about
being embalmed. I know believers that don't wanna
be embalmed. It's a way of the Egyptians and
those things. There ain't nothing wrong with it. I'm here to tell
you, embalming does not desecrate the body. It's fine. It's Israel. We're sons of Jacob. Jacob was
embalmed. It's okay, all right? I gotta
tell people that. Fire corrupts. That's where the
enemies go. To be cremated, that dishonors
the body. But to be embalmed, that does
not honor the body. And if God teaches us something
about embalming, we're gonna see that it honors God. It honors
him. We're gonna see that. What does
embalming show us? Why did Jacob need to be embalmed?
They got a long trip to make to get him in the ground, don't
they? It shows that the body starts stinking. And it's going
to start swelling up in that heat. What if I hit a big rock?
I saw a deer on this side of the hill the other day. And I
said, well, I might see a deer on the side of the road. I just
got through studying this. They swell up, don't they? You jolt
it too much, it's going to unswell. It's going to pop like a balloon,
isn't it? Can't make that journey. It had to be embalmed. What does
that show us? The corruption that death is.
The corruption that sin is. That's what we are. Spiritually
dead people cannot talk. They cannot walk. They cannot
hear. And it stinks. It just stinks. They think they're talking fine.
They think they're hearing everything. They think they're alive. And
they're not. It stinks. They smell bad. There's no emotion
there. There's no tears. You ever seen
a dreaded person cry? I can pop to you and they won't
dance. I can lament to you and they won't mourn. That's what
Christ said, wasn't it? If there's nothing, might as
well be talking to a wall. They're cold. They get room temperature. Don't you ever touch a dead body?
Hold somebody's hand? It's the same temperature as
the air around you. It feels like ice, don't it? Spiritually
dead people are cold. Spiritually dead people are vacant.
There's no life in their eyes. There's no calling out for mercy. There's no weeping over sin.
There's none of that. Life must be given. The Lord
must give life, or these old bodies start stinking real quick,
don't they? From birth, we begin dying. And
if he gives life, we're a brand new babe in Christ. Everything's
new. Think old John Newton might have
saw some things as new. He's like, look what I was, that
might be my brothers in that ship. Turn them loose. Let me
preach to them. Get a preacher down here. Everything's
new. We see, we have those eyes that
are blood covered, right? And we start seeing Christ and
everything. And we see the Lord's hand and everything. And he deals
with us. And we're babes though. And do
you take a baby and set it out by itself in a parking lot for
two weeks? They need companionship, don't
they? That new life that's in believers must have the companionship
of other believers. It's got to. Or there's no life in them and
they just got a lot of dead air coming out their mouth. It's
one or the other. This flesh is so corrupt, we
have to get it in the ground fast. That's what the children
of Ishmael steal to this day. If somebody dies, you got 24
hours to get them in the ground. All the Muslims, they gotta bury
it right then. Start stinking. Start stinking. That's what we
are, isn't it? The Lord said to those there at Lazarus, He
said, take away the stone. Take that thing that's a movable
object, move it. And Martha, the sister of him
that was dead, said to him, Lord, by this time he stinketh. By
this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days. Just
four days. Rigor mortis sets in. It's a stiffening of the
body after death. We literally, dead people are
literally hard. Hard, that's a type of here,
isn't it? Those grounds, I'm throwing a seed and it's just
bouncing off of four hands. They're dead, they don't know
no different. Hard. What's the Lord tell us in his
word? Harden not your hearts. Harden not your hearts. Dead
folks have hard, unemotional, cold, stoic, lifeless hearts
with no passion in them. And this embalming was to preserve
Jacob's body until they get it to the plot where he's going
to be gathered with his people, where he's going to lay with
his other people. Now he's already been gathered to his people right then, wasn't
he? Yes. But do you see what a good picture this is? This
embalming? What a beautiful picture this
is. I've heard people tell it different ways. The pea and tulip.
It's perseverance of the saints or preservation of the saints.
Which is it? Yes, it's both. The preservation of the saints.
The Lord provided a means in a heathen land for Israel to
be preserved until his body was gathered with his people. Isn't
that kind? Because on His own, He's incapable and He will rot.
And so God provided a means to keep us and preserve us until
we're with Him. Isn't that nice? That's a good
thing, isn't it? I had qualms about being embalmed.
I talked to Kimberly about it years ago. I just don't like
the idea of, I ain't gonna be there. I'll be with the Lord.
That gave me so much comfort and just sweet to me. Look at
verse two again. And Joseph commanded his servants,
the physicians, to embalm his father, and the physicians embalmed
Israel. And 40 days were fulfilled for
him. So are fulfilled the days of
those which are embalmed. And the Egyptians mourned for
him three score and ten days. If you're mourning for someone,
if a loved one you have dies, and you mourn them, what do you
talk about? Do you talk about the Padres?
Do you talk about where you want to eat lunch at? We're going
to Jersey Mike's today. Y'all going there? You don't talk about
that. You talk about that person, don't you? You talk about that
person. They talked about Jacob. What
did they talk about Jacob? The things he said while he was
there with them in Egypt. The stories that he told. Do
you remember that time Jacob told us that? Remember that story
he told? But him and his brother, he had
to wear that hair that looks like him. He told us those things,
didn't he? They talked about the God that lived in Jacob.
They did. He was a merciful man and a wise
man and a patient man. Had good common sense and wasn't
flustered over every little thing, including death. He just picked
his feet up and died. He's fine. He said, Lo, I gotta
go. Lo, I die. They talked about
him, didn't they? I was going to be real careful. I have Wayne wrote down in my
notes. I was going to be careful, because I thought, well, maybe
my brother will hear this. I hope he does. God may convict him.
When my dad died, we were at the funeral, one of the several
services that they had for him. And my brother wept, and he said,
I want to know the God that daddy knew. The way that man walked
through this earth. I want to know the God that Daddy
knew. And you know what? I told him. I said, well, it's
down there three miles down the road at the church house. Henry
preaches him every week and twice on Sunday. 26 years have passed
and he doesn't yet know that God. But there's air in his lungs
and I pray he does. I pray he does. Importance of
a funeral. This needs told, too. I didn't
know it. I had a conversation with somebody one day, and what
I think is common knowledge, people ain't lived my life, so
I've got to tell it. It ain't gonna hurt nothing.
The Lord recorded it in his scriptures. That's good enough for us. Jacob died, and they have a big,
big funeral for him. Some people say, I don't want
to have a funeral because I don't want a big fuss made. Oh, hooey. What an opportunity
it is, one more time, for this body of death to honor God. If I walk through this community
as a light of Christ in me, and I see things through looking
at Him, and I have grace on my lips, if He enables me, it's
His doing. And I thought of Kimberly working
at her schoolhouse. What if whenever the Lord takes her home, she
may be a superintendent by then? A whole district of teachers
comes down to the funeral. They're all gonna hear the gospel
preached. Just to be worldly respectful to a corpse, to someone
that was their friend, God may save somebody. I personally don't
know anybody that's saved at a funeral, but we ain't gonna
quit trying, are we? There ain't no other message to preach. Same
message yesterday, today, and forever, isn't it? God may save
somebody. I'd never see it. Maybe whenever
I die, the Lord will save somebody at my funeral. Wouldn't that
be good? Maybe there'd be so many people, you can't fit them
all in a building, so you have to have multiple services. And then there'd be
a grade-sized service. That'd be a good thing. Henry
died, they honored even 15 pulpits in this country, didn't they?
Talked about him. How God made him faithful. Not
a man that was just so good and so kind on TV. A faithful man
that was a sinner just like me. God made him faithful. They honored
God in it. A funeral's a good thing. A funeral's a good thing.
Here's a picture of our Lord, Joseph as Christ. That's what
we've been looking at, isn't it? Genesis 50, throughout all these
chapters, Joseph as a picture of Christ. Genesis 50, verse
four. And when the days of his mourning were passed, so it's
been 70 days now he's been dead, Joseph spake unto the house of
Pharaoh saying, if I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I
pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh saying, my father made me swear. That's a covenant. saying, Lo,
I die in my grave, which I have digged for me in the land of
Canaan. There shalt thou bury me. Now, therefore, let me go
up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again. And Pharaoh said, Go up and bury
thy father, according as he made thee swear. I find that so unique,
too. If people have a last will and
testament, they have dying wishes. Even if you don't like them,
you honor it, don't you? That's just for now. Times are changing. Throughout history, it's customary
to honor that. My mother and father, they told
me what to do, and that's what I did. My wife has given me instructions,
my bride has, and if I'm alive and she dies first, I will honor
that. I will do as I have swore. But
there's another reminder that Jacob was preparing for his death,
for his end, and that's a good thing, isn't it? The scriptures
say, oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, that
they would consider their latter end. I wish all men would consider
their latter end, instead of this just another day to go to
the beach, or I gotta get ready to pack my lunch for tomorrow.
You may not have a tomorrow, It's a good thing to understand,
not just know, to have knowledge and understanding. We have an
end. That's what Ecclesiastes 7 says,
better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting.
But this is the end of all men, and the living lay it to heart.
Those God made alive, they pay attention and they learn something.
He's made them teachable. We have an end. And Jacob told his
sons, he said, Lo, I die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die
someday too. And I want my children prepared.
And I talk to him about it often. Lord, may take me home today.
I want you to know some things. We ain't got time to dilly-dally
around with foolishness. This is a serious thing. Jacob
prepared his grave. Joseph of Arimathea dug his own
grave too, didn't he? But here's the gospel in this.
The obedient son, Joseph, on a covenant that was made, he
came to bury his dead and to honor them. Because of a covenant that was
made, Christ comes and takes his people, and he buries us,
just as the Lord buried Moses, and all the Old Testament prophets
and everybody else was buried, and he honors us. What a thought.
What a thought. And he will come again. He said,
I'm gonna go do this, and I'm gonna come again. I'll come back
again. And just like Joseph took Jacob's
body out of Egypt, Christ is gonna take his body to Canaan.
I'm going to go to a place, and the Lord's people are going to
go to a place that's prepared for me, a place of reconciliation.
I'm going to have a new body. I'm going to be like Him. I don't
know what none of that's going to be like, but I'll tell you
when I get there. We'll look at each other. You tell me what
I look like, I'll tell you what you look like. That's going to happen. It's going to happen. Here's
the funeral procession, verse 7. Genesis 50, verse 7. And Joseph
went up to bury his father. And with him went up all the
servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders
of the land of Egypt." That's a whole lot of important people,
isn't it? The whole high command of Egypt,
like all of Parliament or whatever they had, everybody left. Everybody. This ain't a holiday. The government
ain't shut down. The government's gone. They went
with him. and all the house of Joseph and
his brethren and his father's house. Only their little ones
in the flocks and their herds they left in the land of Goshen."
This is a huge funeral, a huge funeral. Oh, and I thought, I
wonder how many people in Egypt, because they mourned Jacob so
much, I wonder how many people came to know the Lord through
Jacob. I wonder how many people came
to know the Lord through Joseph. They weren't selfish people.
They told what the Lord did, because they're God's people,
right? They didn't just keep their mouth shut and hide in
a cave somewhere and not talk to nobody and close their blinds every
day. They were in that community and they lived in that community.
And this wasn't... All this happened Jacob says
in verse 20, but as for you thought evil against me, but God meant
it to good to bring it to pass. And this is that day. And he
said, to save much people alive. That wasn't just those physical
12 tribes, was it? That's some Gentiles too. That's
some Egyptians. Lord had people there and saved
some folks there. This is why you and I are living in this
land of Egypt, in the suburb of Hamel. You get that? Why are
we here? Just to feel warm and fuzzy?
Plus a week coming here? No, it's to be witnesses of Christ
and what he did. It's to be lights in this community.
To bear witness of our Lord. That's why we're here. That's
why Jacob was there. That's why Joseph was there.
To honor God. That's why I had a big funeral
procession. Even if the Lord don't save some
folks, at least we'll live peaceably with all men, as we're instructed
to do, right? That's what we're told, that's
what the word says. The Lord said, go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature. That's Egyptians, Europeans,
black, white, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, bond-free, young,
old, it don't matter. Go tell them what he did. Go
tell them, that's why we're here. Jacob and Joseph, they were good
examples. They were good testimonies, and
it's evident by this funeral. It's evident. Verse 9 says, And
there went up with him both chariots and horsemen, and it was a very
great company. Who was all this for? Let's not
forget that. This was for Jacob, supplanter,
deceiver. Remember when he had nothing
and he used a stone for a pillow? That same one. The Lord took
him and gave him the burial of a king, that same one that had
nothing, to honor his child, a great cloud of witnesses, the
king's servants and the soldiers and all that. What's that show
us? You have no idea the funeral
procession that awaits you in glory. The angels await our coming. Did you know that? Chariots of
fire. We're going to come down a bunch
of them and take us home. A heavenly host is coming. The
Lord puts importance on this, doesn't he? He does. Only because God is pleased to
take Jacob and make him an Israel and then give him the burial
of a king. That's who all this was for.
Verse 10 says, And they came to the threshing floor of Atad. which is beyond Jordan. And there
they mourned a great and very sore lamentation, and he made
a mourning of his father seven days." I looked this up and looked
this up and looked this up, and ain't nobody got a clue what
that means. And I know some faithful men alive preaching right now,
they don't know what it means, and they'll tell you, they say,
I don't know. I didn't see nothing in that, but Lord made importance
of it. And I thought, it just jumped
out. I said, Lord, show me what that is. And I think he gave
me some light on it. A threshing floor. What's that?
That's some big old circles they'd make, and they'd put that grain
out there, and they'd kind of toss it up in the air and beat
it, and as it went up in the air, the wind blew where it listed,
and it took all the chaff away, and the seed landed, right? They
stopped there for a while in this threshing floor, and it
was the threshing floor of Atad. You know what Atad means? A thorn. Oh, this was lovely. If God would
just let us get this part, I think it'd be worth the whole time.
The threshing floor, it removed all the thorns. They stopped
there where the wind moved where it listed and all the thorns
were removed. We have some thorns. Do you have
any thorns? God's people have thorns. Paul did. He said he had all this revelation
and he just understood everything. And God revealed so much to him
and showed him a third heaven and gave him his power to raise
dead people and all these things. And he said, lest I be exalted
above measure through the abundance of the revelations that I've
had, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of
Satan to buffet me. That accuser of the Brethren,
that line, lest I should be exalted above matter. And for this thing,
I besought the Lord thrice. In perfection, I've asked him,
Lord, take this way, that it might depart from me. And he
said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength's made
perfect in weakness. As we go through that threshing
floor of death, all these thorns, all these accusers, all this
pain, all these things that hinder us, and his grace is made sufficient
in us. You see that? His strength's
made perfect in weakness. Well, if that's weakness in this
body, how weak's death? His strength's made real perfect
in that, isn't it? He conquered death. That's a
blessing thing, isn't it? Blessing. For me to die is gain,
because my Lord was pierced, and because he wore a crown of
what? Thorns. My little thorn ain't
nothing. He wore a crown of thorns for
us, and we'll be purged from everything. Verse 11 says, And
when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the morning
in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous morning to
the Egyptians. Wherefore the name of it is called
Abimlazraza, which is beyond Jordan. There was a grievous
morning there. There's a grievous mourning over
sin, and that's what we started with, the weeping over sin, knowing
what is in us, too, and knowing what the Lord did. There's a
grievous mourning, a weeping out of joy. But this reminded
me, too, of church services. I was told one time, it seemed
like a funeral parlor. Well, you going to a funeral? I'm going to a reading of a will,
I can tell you that. Somebody died for somebody that wasn't
worth dying for. And we're here to honor him.
Not saying that the Lord's people ain't content and we're not jovial.
We ought to be the most jovial people on the face of the earth.
Just grinning ear to ear and happy with everything. It's what
we ought to be. And we are most of the time. But this ain't a
party. When we come to worship God, this ain't a restaurant.
This ain't a clothes handing out place. This ain't Salvation
Army. This ain't UNICEF. And this ain't a carnival either.
We're here to worship God. This is serious business. Great mourning ought to take
place here because God showed us what we are. This is a tremendous
thing, isn't it? There was a grievous mourning
there. Verse 12, and the sons did unto him according as he
commanded. For his sons carried him into
the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field
of Machpelah, which Abraham had bought with the field for possession
of a burying place of Ephron the Hittite before Mamre." That's
repeated over and over and over again. That's important. If God
said it once, it's important. If he's repeated it four times,
it's real important. Or was Jacob on a command? Where was he put?
In Mamre. in Machpelah. He had life and
victory. Remember that? That's what memory
means. What was Machpelah? Double. Double. He'd received double for all
his sins. Washed in the blood and made clean by the water from
his pierced side. That's precious, isn't it? Verse
14, and Joseph returned to Egypt, just as he said he would. He
and his brethren and all that went with him up to bury his
father after he had buried his father. When we bury a dear brother
or sister, we're gonna go to that grave, and we're gonna put
a body in the ground. And we'll mourn, and we'll reflect,
and there'll be the preaching of the gospel, and it'll be a
joyous time, and a sad time, and a whole bunch of different
times at one time, isn't it? We'll go through all those emotions.
But, we have to come back to this Egypt. We gotta get back
to work. God gave us something to do.
We don't just mourn and lament and curl up and wait to die.
We have to go back to Egypt until it's our turn to die. And if
we die with Christ on that cross, this is a happy time, isn't it?
We're reminded of our end. And when we lose a brother or
sister and the Lord takes them home, I always think, they gotta
go first. I'm right behind them, it ain't
gonna be long. It's gonna be good, isn't it? I hope that was
a blessing to you, a comfort. And we can remember these things,
not just remember them until we hit that door back there.
We can commit these, the Lord will commit this to our hearts.
And as our brothers and sisters, the Lord graciously takes them
home, What a good thing that is. We'll remember that's a good
thing, and we'll rejoice in it, and we'll remember we ain't got,
as Papa said, it ain't gonna be as long as it has been. In
the blink of an eye, I was doing math yesterday, and I told Karen,
I said, well, in this much time, I'll be 50. I thought when I hit 30, I said,
well, people quit picking on me, and I have something to say. People start listening when I
hit 30. I really thought that in my 20s. That didn't happen.
And I thought, surely, when I hit 40, I have something to say. The Lord's taught me some things.
I think people are going to start listening to me. That didn't
happen. And I was talking to her last night. I said, I really
think here in just a short couple of years, I'm going to be 50.
And I think people are going to listen to me and quit despising
my youth. And you know what experience
has taught me? Probably not. Somebody said, wait till you're
70. I don't know. But I hope we remember those
things that this life's a vapor. And what a privilege it is to
live in this world for Christ and to die and have that gain.
Most good, because he did it. And I hope we can have that attitude
as we go through all those trials. The Lord be with you. Brother
Michael.