I shall see him by and by. I told you that today we would
have something of a memorial for our dear brother and my pastor
and father, Henry Mahan, who passed away on Friday. But this is the Lord's day, and
we reserve this day, as always, to worship our Lord. My father would not have us devote
this day to talking about him. Funerals, and as I said, this is not a
funeral, this is a day of worship, but yet, Funerals are by tradition. There's nothing in the scriptures
that tells us to observe a funeral or how to. There are no instructions
whatsoever, no commands. So we do funerals by tradition. And down through the years, funerals
have generally been a eulogy, that is to say some things about
someone you love and their honor and their memory, and then a
message from God's Word. That's traditionally how funerals
have been held, and that's what we're going to do tomorrow. You
count up what I'm going to do today. Eulogy is a good thing, I believe.
Our Lord told us to honor those to whom honor is due. He did. He did himself. He honored those
who honored Him. The whole 11th chapter of Hebrews
is our Lord's memorial to those who laid down their lives for
His cause. So it's scriptural to honor those
who have served our Lord. He certainly does. So we can do both here this morning. We can do both. and preach God's
word, worship our Lord and honor this man who was such a servant
of our Lord. 2 Timothy chapter 4. Go over
there. 2 Timothy chapter 4. Four or
five years ago, I was sitting with my father in his house,
and he opened his Bible, and he opened it to this passage,
and he said, this is my funeral message. He said, this is what
I want you to preach. This is the text. 2 Timothy 4, verses 6 through 8. I read these
verses with you. 2 Timothy 4, 6 through 8. He said, I am now ready to be
offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good
fight. I have finished my course. I
have kept the faith. And henceforth, there is laid
up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, But
unto all them also that love is appearing. Paul says, I am
ready to be offered in verse 6. I am now ready to be offered. Not to God. Christ did that. Christ by one offering perfected
forever. We don't offer our works or our
goodness or anything, even our faith to God for Him to be pleased
with us. We're accepted in the blood in
Christ. That offering that Christ made
is our offering. What Paul is saying here is,
I'm ready to die for the cause of Christ. I'm ready to lay down
my life for Christ. Look at Philippians 2. You may
remember this in our studies in Philippians. Philippians 2. And Paul did. He had his head
cut off. Like John. And like so many others whose
lives they laid down their lives for the cause of Christ. Because
he laid down his life for them. And in Philippians 2.17, Paul
said, Yea, if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of
your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. He said, If I lay
down my life for the cause of Christ, for preaching the gospel,
so be it. He said, I'm ready. I'm ready
to do that. As were so many others, and you've
heard me say before, we feel like such poor witnesses of our
Lord, we feel like we've denied Him so much that wouldn't you
love to be able to literally go to the stake for Him or something?
So Paul said, I'm ready to be offered. I'm ready to die. And he did. He did. Because there's a cause. And
it's David. You remember David came? And he said, is there not a cause?
And nobody was willing to fight. They were all afraid as the enemy.
And David said, somebody's got to fight. There's a cause. The cause of God and truth. The cause for God's people. And
David said, I'll fight. I'll lay down my life. And he
did, didn't he? He sacrificed himself. But God
won that battle through him. David fought for God. He fought
for Israel all his life. Brethren. We're all in this fight. You
know that? Not just the preacher. We all
are. The people of God are called
the army of God. And we're in this battle. Our
Lord Jesus Christ won the battle for the souls of his people.
He took captivity captive. He slew our adversary, but they
are still. We just sang that song. Did you
sing with the understanding? Are there no foes for me to fight?
Paul told young Timothy, fight the good fight of faith. Battles,
this struggle with sin, with temptation, with this world.
We can't do that in our own strength. But through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who giveth us the victory. My dad was ready to depart. He
said in verse, look at verse 2 Timothy 4 verse 6, time of
my departure is hand. I'm ready. I'm ready. My dad
was ready to depart long ago. He thought, he began fighting
this fight. And by the way, in Titus chapter
1, Paul said to young Titus, he
said, There's some foes, some enemies of the cross of Christ."
He said, their mouths need to be stopped. They're enemies of
the cross of Christ. He said, they need to be rebuked
sharply. You know, they're firing off
all these volleys against the truth of God and against the
people of God. There is a fight against false
gospel and Satan's kingdom. My father took up that fight.
The Lord put him in the fight, like David when he was a young
man, about 25, 24 years old. And David, from 18 years old
to 70, he fought the enemies all his life. He fought for the
freedom of Israel, didn't he? For the cause of God and truth,
didn't he? All his life, until he was 70
years old, And then he died, said the Lord delivered him round
about from all of his enemies. When? When he died. And so it
is with my pastor, preacher. But he was ready to depart. Paul
said, I'm ready to be offered time of my departures at hand
over in Philippians. He says, I have a desire to depart
and be with the Lord. Those that know him, those that
have seen his face already, the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Christ. They want to see him face to
face like we just sang. David said, Whom have I in heaven
but thee? There is none on earth I desire beside thee. He said,
I'll be satisfied when I wake with thy likeness. And only those who know him really
want to go be with him. My dad, he wanted to leave this
life a long time ago. They moved here eleven years
ago, he and my mother, planning to die. They thought about eleven
years ago that this was it. And we kept telling them, you
might live another ten years. And sure enough. But it was all
the time, he kept saying, you know, I'm old, I want to die,
I'm ready to go home. Several times I'd go in, he's
lying on his bed, weak, his heart's acting up. Not too long ago,
I went in there and he wanted me to feel his pulse. He said,
it's getting weak, isn't it? I felt like saying, it just stopped.
He would have said, great. He wanted to go. Who in the world would say that?
Nobody in the world. Only those who are not of this
world, who have no here, no continuing city, who have a desire in part
to be with the Lord, which is far better. You talk about old
blissful moment. He's lying there, his dead body,
and I thought, he has perfect peace. No thoughts at all of
sin, of worry, of doubt, of fear, of responsibilities, of anything. Perfect, unbridled joy, peace,
contentment, bliss. No peace. I can't even describe that. We
don't know anything about it. He said, I'm ready to depart. He said, I've fought a good fight.
Now you know when Paul said this, that he's not boasting. He said,
boasting excluded, this cross of Christ. He said, God forbid
that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ Jesus my
Lord. I don't boast. Paul didn't boast
of anything he did. He said, by the grace of God
I am what I am. He said, the life I now live,
I live by the faith of the Son of God who loves me. And that's
what he's saying. You know that. You've read him
too many times to know that he's not saying, I've done a good
job. He's just stating the fact that by the grace of God, I've
fought a good fight. One time he said, yet not I,
but Christ which strengthened me. I've fought a good fight. You know, Christ, as I said,
Christ won the war, but every believer fights, struggles, and
if not, I don't think you know anything about this cause of
Christ. Scripture says he is a friend
of the world. He's an enemy, a traitor. He said, I fought a good fight.
And he had many enemies, didn't he? That's why he's dying. Just
like our Lord said. take up my cause will be hated."
He said in verse 7, I finished my course. I finished my course. Look at Acts chapter 20. This
is Paul's closing farewell to the church at Ephesus. Acts chapter 20. Look at this.
Acts chapter 20. He's parting words to the people
of that church that he loved and loved him so much. Acts chapter
20 verse 22. He said, Behold, I go bound in
the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall
befall me there, save except the Holy Ghost witnesses in every
city, saying that bonds or imprisonment and afflictions abide me, but
none of these things move me, neither can I my life veer unto
myself, so that I might finish my course with joy in the ministry
which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel
of the grace of God." And people, that's the course of every believer,
not just preachers. Right? Right? We're not here. The Lord doesn't... give birth to His children, put
them in this world just so they can have a good old time? No,
they're in the cause of Christ. It's all for His glory and honor.
His kingdom. He said, pray this, thy kingdom
come, thy will be done. This is the course, this is the
purpose of all of God's people. And Paul said, I've finished
my course. It's over. So I've kept the faith. What is the faith? Well, the
scripture says it's the faith of what? God's what? Somebody
say it loud. The faith of God's elect. The faith delivered to the saints.
This is not a faith that you decide to have, you choose to
have. It's the gift of God. It's the
faith of all of God's elect, given to them to know the true
and living God. To know the true and living Christ. Who He is, why He came, what
He did, where He is now, who He did it for. To know themselves,
what they are. Unworthy. Unable. Insufficient. Not unto us, but
unto thy name give all the glory. Not by works of righteousness.
The faith of God's elect, all God's people have it. He gave
it to them. They're all taught of God, who
He is, who Christ is, what they are, what salvation is. Salvation
is not by our will, by our works, by our choices, it's by God's.
Anything else is not being gospel. This is the faith of God's elect. And Paul preached that everywhere.
My pastor preached that everywhere. From the day that God revealed
the truth to him through a preacher from North Carolina, to the day
he died, this is the faith. He said, I've kept the faith.
I haven't departed from it. I haven't compromised. I haven't
compromised one word. You know, you can quit fighting
by just not saying things that offend people. Go and have some
peace and some quiet. Just don't fire any shots. Hold up a white flag of truth. Okay, let's get along. We'll
just let you believe what you believe and I believe what I
believe. You can't do that. People die in believing the false
gospel. He said, I've kept the faith,
kept preaching the truth, going to it. I'm Lord willing, Lord
help me to pick up the mantle and keep the faith. The gospel
of God's sovereign electing love, mercy, and grace and salvation
is only of Jesus Christ and Him crucified alone, without man. to the praise of the glory of
his grace. God help us to hold that flag high until the day
we die. My father could have been given
a full military honor funeral. He was in the Navy And World
War II brought in some major battles, and he refused. He said he did not want any honor
as a soldier. He said, I did what I should
have done, what I wanted to do, what it was my duty to do for
my country, what every other man did, and some women. He said, but I don't want to
be remembered as a soldier in this country, but I want to be
remembered as a preacher of the gospel. So this is the flag we fly. You
don't see an American flag up here. Nothing against that, but
that's not what the church is all about. The flag, the banner
we fly is the Lord Jesus Christ. We pledge our allegiance to Him. So he said, I've kept the faith.
Kept the faith. And he said, there's laid up
for me, verse 8, a crown of righteousness. A crown of righteousness. Which
the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day. A
crown of righteousness. Let me read to you from Henry
Mahan's commentary on this verse. A crown of righteousness. You
know. that God's not going to put a
little crown on every one of our heads and say, you've done
a good job. It's like a medal. We watched
our granddaughter, some award ceremonies, and they put these
medals around their necks. They want to encourage all the
kids, so they practically put a medal around every kid's neck
to keep from offending. Our Lord doesn't do that. It's symbolic. This is symbolic. If there is a crown that's being
worn, it's on one hand. And that's why the song says,
we cast our crowns at His feet. The scripture says that. They
cast their crowns at His feet. All glory, all honor, all accolades,
all everything, whatever we've done, we cast it at His feet.
It's unworthy. He alone is worthy of all glory
and honor. But here's what my pastor said.
This crown of righteousness. This crown of righteousness is
the happiness, the glory, the state of all believers that's
signified or typified by this crown because, number one, because
of its glory. I haven't seen the crown jewels
of England, but they say they're something to behold. They're
worth billions of dollars. But they're going to look like, what's
it, costume jewelry. according to the crown jewels
of the King of Heaven. Do you know what the crown jewels
in His crown are? Us! It's a crown because of the glory,
because of the excellency of it. Oh, the excellency, the riches,
the unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus, my Lord. And it's a crown
because this crown of righteousness is a crown because it's in keeping
with the character of saints, my pastor kid continues to write,
of kings. We're called kings. He's made
us to be kings and priests. Now, we don't reign over anything.
We never really will. But, you see, by virtue of our
Father being the King, what does that make us? Princes. So we'll
reign with Him. Meaning, if He reigns, we do
too. We're with Him, on the throne,
there with Him, beside the throne, because we're sitting among princes. And every one of God's people
in this room, they're wearing a crown of righteousness. You can't see it. You can't see
mine. It's not a halo. We're not going
to have a halo around our head. That's man-made stuff. But there
is this typical crown of righteousness which the Lord has placed upon
the head of all His people. That is, it's called a crown
of righteousness because the Lord God through Jesus Christ
put this righteousness on all His people. Back in the old days
when they used to dub a knight, As a servant, a valued servant,
they would take the sword, the king would take the sword and
put it on his shoulder and say, I dub thee Sir of this and Sir
of that. And someday, all of God's people
are going to be in glory and he's going to say, I crown thee,
no literal crown, he's going to say, thou art righteous. And
they're all going to say yes because of him. The crown of righteousness. Crown
because it's the end of life. Crown of life, Paul said. Crown
of life. And not only me, Paul said, verse
8, but all, verse 8, who love his appearing. Do you love this
gospel? Do you love what you've heard
thus far? Do you love? Do you love? Turn with me to Psalm 116 that
Brother Ron read. to Psalm 116. That is, as it were, the eulogy. That's what Dad said. I want
that preached. And I fought a good fight. I
kept the faith. There's a crown of righteousness
laid for me. Not something I earned, but something
Christ earned for me. And he's there now. There now. Psalm 116. One verse, look at verse 15 with
me, Psalm 16 verse 15. It says, Precious in the sight
of the Lord is the death of his saints. Precious in the sight
of the Lord is the death of his saints. My father preached many
funerals. I've preached well over a dozen
or more. He preached dozens. I remember
one time he was coming from a grave and he said, I'll be glad when
we all quit dying. It is a sad time. We're going
to miss those who have gone before us, but it won't be long. It's
just not long at all. That's why we redeem the time.
That's why nothing else matters, really. But he preached many
funerals. He preached Ralph Barnard's funeral.
Barnard was the one who he first heard the gospel from. I'm going
to quote some things in the eulogy tomorrow that he wrote or said
in that funeral message concerning Ralph Barnard. The first thing
he did was recount that meeting in 1950 where he first heard
the gospel. as a young man. And in Barnard's
message, listen to this. Talking about keeping the faith. Brother Barnard's message, my
dad's, the message, the funeral message, the biggest part of
it was on six stubborn statements. This was the funeral message.
Six stubborn statements. Number one, God's sovereign or
He's not. God can't be sovereign and man
be sovereign. God's will is sovereign or man's will. It can't be both.
Number two, man's either dead or he's not. This was his funeral message
of Ralph Martin. Number three, God chose the people or he didn't.
He chose them or they chose him. It can't be both. Somebody chose
somebody. God's either chosen people or
He didn't. Number three, Christ either died
and paid for the sins of all of His people, put away their
sins, or He didn't. There's no halfway ground there.
No gray area there. One's the truth and one is not.
There's no straddling the fence here. The Spirit of God is He
the Sovereign. He gives birth to whom He will,
when He will, because He will, by the power of His will, by
the power of His Word, or He doesn't. It's up to man. It can't
be both. This was His funeral message,
and I'm preaching it now. This is the faith. And lastly,
God's people are saved forever by the blood of Jesus Christ,
by the Holy Spirit keeping them, by the sovereign power of God,
or they're not. It's up to them. Which is it? One's true, one's not. But I'll
tell you which one's good news to a helpless sinner. It's this
one, it's the truth, on my right hand. And it is the truth. That
was his message at Rob Martin's funeral. Then he preached his father's
funeral. This is his notes from my grandfather's funeral. And
I'm going to preach that to you right now. Exactly like he said,
okay? He preached from Psalm 116.15. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his saint. He said, As the years go by,
we find ourselves more and more at this business of burying our
dead. As the family of believers get
older, and I was asking everyone's age at my mother's house last
night, and there wasn't any young, there was one young person in
that room. As the family of believers gets
older, we find ourselves concerned less with living and more concerned
with dying. As we should be. For every believer,
number one, death is inevitable. It's appointed unto man, wants
to die. It's appointed. It's an appointment
that we all must keep. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter
3. Go over there. After Proverbs. Ecclesiastes chapter
3. Go there. Death is inevitable. It's appointed unto us, unto
all of us, every one of us, to die. That appointment is of God. We don't know when it will be.
It's inevitable. The young die, the old die, the
rich die, the poor die, the wise die, the unwise die, the believer
dies, the unbeliever dies. It's appointed unto all flesh.
Wouldn't we be wise more than anything to look into
that? Ecclesiastes 3 verse 2, a time
to be born, a time to die. You know what Ecclesiastes 7
says? A day of one's death is better than his birth. Do you know what that means?
God's people did. My father did. Every one of God's
people did. Ecclesiastes 8. Look at this. He wrote this down. Ecclesiastes
8, verse 8. He said, There is no man that
hath power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit. No matter
how much we want to stay here, we can't. No matter how much
we want someone to stay here we love, we can't. They've got
an appointment. Verse 8. Neither hath he power
in the day of death. There's no discharge in that
war. Death is inevitable. He wrote
this. To the believer, death is acceptable. Paul said, I have a desire to
depart from you. It's acceptable. Because God determined it. Job
14, Job said, the number of my months are with the Lord. My
bounds are set. I cannot pass. And Job said,
that's fine with me. To God's people. I thought about
this. If you knew, if you could know
the future, would you? No. We couldn't live in the present.
We know when this person is going to live, when this is going to
happen. No, you couldn't. You'd be miserable. It's all up to
God. So what we do is we live by faith,
don't we? We just go on. Who's next? Whoever the Lord has chosen.
And God is sovereign, and we'll be thankful. Death is acceptable. We sorrow not as those who have
no hope. He said, the Lord giveth. The Lord giveth those we love,
those we enjoy, they belong to Him, He taketh away. Why do you say that? Yes, blessed
be the name of the Lord. God's people all say that. Blessed
be, blessed God He gave me a wonderful pastor and father, her a wonderful
husband, blessed God, but blessed God He took him to me. Aren't
we thankful the Lord finally took him? It's acceptable. To the believer,
death is valuable. The psalmist in the text says
precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saint. Precious. Of great value. Precious. Man doesn't think death
is precious. Man thinks death is the worst
thing that could happen. But to God, it's precious. Why? His child's coming home. You
ever thought about that? That God loves his people so
much that when the time comes, he says, I don't want to be without
them anymore. They're coming home. And in a
moment, the quickening of Iowa is going to follow. It's not
long. Valuable. Valuable. Blessed are
the dead who die in the Lord. Blessed. It's a blessed thing
to die. I thought about, as we were standing
around, this old man, withered and frail and waiting to die
in this hospital room while the world's going on about its business. Who would envy that man? Who
would trade places with that man? Could you raise your hand? If not, then I don't believe
you understand anything of the vanity of this life and what
God has prepared for them that love Him. My father did. Others have. My mother-in-law, others have.
Your mother. To the believer, death is valuable.
To live is Christ, but to die is what? Gain! The world says,
listen to this, the world says, blessed are the rich and famous.
The world will take you into a rich country club where they're
laughing and singing, all luxury and nothing is beyond their reach.
They love to give and take autographs from smiling heroes. They say,
this is blessed. Hobnob with the rich and famous
and have all of this world. Now, the Lord will take you to
the room of a dying believer. There a wife sits holding the
hand of a husband. His life's battles are fought
and are over. The children stand about the
foot of the bed, and silent tears drop down their cheeks. But in
a moment, his eyes widen, a smile crosses that man's face, and
he says, When I can read my title clear in mansions in the sky
I'll bid farewell to every tear and wipe my weeping eye There I shall bathe my weary
soul in seas of heavenly rest And not a wave of trouble roll
across my peaceful rest There's another verse I didn't know.
It says, when you see these eye strings break, you know, when the light goes
out of the body. Here's proof of it. Proof of life after death
is that if you've beheld a dead body, When that life goes, when
that soul is gone, it's totally different. The eyes sink in. The face pales. The body becomes
rigid. No feeling. There's nothing there. There's no one there. Where have
they gone? Well, if you could see that soul
who knows the Lord, rather, is known of the Lord, Now they've
got a new body. And this incorruptible, this
poor broken body lies there. And here it says, when my eye
strings break, how sweet my moments roll, mortal paleness on my cheek,
but glory in my soul. God says, blessed. God says,
blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, precious in His
sight, because they come home. And you can't write blessed where
God writes cursed, and you can't write cursed where God writes
blessed. If He says it's blessed, it's blessed. What man says blessed,
that is highly esteemed among men as an abomination to God.
But what men say, no, that's awful. It's, generally speaking,
it's blessed. Three things he said, you need
to remember, three things, about this preciousness of death. Death
is precious to God and to us because it's not a penalty for
sin. It's not punishment for sin. It's a privilege. To the unbeliever, death is a
penalty. The wages of sin is death. But
Christ said, I die that you may live. He suffered the penalty. He's the one that was punished.
God laid on Him the iniquity of all of His people. Death is
not even called death by our Lord, is it? What is it called? Sleep. No one in here dreads
going to sleep unless it be a teenager. But the older you get, the more
you want to go to sleep. Well, so it is with those who
know our Lord, who long to fall asleep in the Lord Jesus Christ,
don't you? It's not a penalty, it's precious,
because it's not a penalty, it's a privilege. The sting of death
is sin, and Christ hath removed that sting. Death is now a privilege. We enter into our inheritance.
Secondly, he said, death is precious because it's not lost, but it's
gained. And then he said about his dad.
And I saw my grandfather, I knew him. I have fond memories of him all
my days, and he lived until I was about, I think I was 21 or 22
years old. But no, I was 20. He died in 75. I have fond memories
of my grandfather, John Carey Mayhem. And here's what my dad
said about him. He said, this precious It's precious
because it's not lost, it's gained. He said, my dad lost his weary,
broken body and gained a perfect body. I remember seeing my grandfather,
called him Pop, and he was in a nursing home. His mind was
gone. They didn't call it Alzheimer's
then, but it was. His mind was gone. His body was frail. He said,
my dad lost a tired, confused mind, but he gained perfect understanding
and knowledge. By the way, my grandfather and
grandmother both heard the gospel from their son. He said, my dad lost his weakness,
but he gained great strength. He said he lost his loneliness.
My grandfather died. No one was around. He was in
the hospital room alone. His wife had died several years
before that. He died alone. It was a Sunday
morning. Dad was preaching. Dad wasn't at home. He was preaching
the gospel. What he was doing was supposed
to be done. His dad, while the Lord came
for his dad, he died alone. Or did he? You know, Moses, I told this
to Mindy, I just walked in a few minutes after Dad passed him,
nobody was there, I came in, it was obvious he had just passed
him. And I told Mindy, I said, you
know the Lord buried Moses, just he and Moses. He wouldn't let
anybody around. He said, no, I'm going to take
you, Moses. He had Moses come up, and the Lord killed Moses
and buried his body. He wouldn't tell anybody where
it was. I said, well, that's our Moses.
He was our Moses. He led many people there. He
led me. See, my dad lost his loneliness. Now he's gained an
eternal family. He laid aside faith, and now
he has entered into reality. We all keep thinking, this just
doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem real. But it
is real. Death is a reality. This life
is a soap bubble. It really is. All of its riches,
everything, are deceitful and tell us something that they're
not, promise us things they can't give us. Christ, who cannot lie,
God, promised eternal life to him in Christ. We can't see it,
we can't really feel it, but it's so. It's real. More real than you and I sitting
here now. He said, my dad lost all the
cares he had for this earth and entered into eternal rest of
glory. Someone visited a dying preacher
one time in his last hours of his earthly life, and they asked
him, Mr. So-and-so, how are you? And he
replied, I'm almost well. Death is precious, lastly, because
it's God's decree to bring forth life. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
15 in closing. 1 Corinthians 15. Some of you
know where we're going with this. 1 Corinthians 15. Our Lord Jesus Christ said of
himself, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,
it abideth alone. That was speaking of him, of
him being crucified, buried. Unless Christ had been crucified
and buried and rose again, there'd be nobody in glory. But everybody
is in glory because Christ died. Yea, rather than risen again,
who's even at the right hand of God, who ever lived. Because
I live, you live also. Because He died. You understand
that, don't you? Well, except we fall into the
ground and die, we're going to abide alone. But if we fall asleep
in Christ, if we die in Christ, if we are crucified with Christ,
you understand that, if we are crucified with Christ, nevertheless,
we are going to live. Men and women don't understand
that. God's people do. They all do. Look at 1 Corinthians
15. And this is what my pastor wrote
down here. It says in verse 35, well verse,
let me read this. Verse 19, if in this life only
we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. If
Christ is not real, if death, if it's not precious, the death
of His people, if it's not an eternity to look forward to,
what are we doing here? Let's close the doors and go
out and eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. But no. Verse 35, some will say, well
then how are the dead raised? With what body do they come?
He says, fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, made
alive, except it die. That thou sowest, thou sowest
not the body it shall be, but bare grain, by chance of wheat
or some other grain. In other words, you put a little
corn of wheat in the ground, you take a little corn of wheat.
We're going to put that old, broken, wrinkled body of my father,
Emaciated body, down in the ground tomorrow, just like we put the
bodies of some of your loved ones, okay? We're going to put
it in the ground. But that's not the bodies that
come out of that ground. They didn't recognize our Lord.
They saw His visage marred more than any man. They did not...
Last time they saw Him, He was disfigured. And the next
time they saw him, they thought it was a young man. They thought
he was a gardener. But he was. He was the one in
the garden on the floor that Adam and Eve spoke to. Look at
verse 38. God giveth it a body as it pleased
him, every seed his own body. I was talking to somebody yesterday. I said, you know, We're all going
to retain our identity. We're going to know each other
like the disciples knew Moses and Elijah, but yet we're all
going to look like Jesus Christ. We're all going to bear the family
resemblance. John Sr. and John Jr. were sitting there,
looking at the profile, and I punched somebody and said, look at them.
They're just alike. They look just alike. But we'll
look somehow. We're going to look like our
Lord. And yet, I'm going to be me. And you're going to be you.
And we're going to know each other. It's going to be a perfect
Bible. Read verse 39. All flesh is not
the same. Well, 42. Go down there. This
is the resurrection of the dead. It's sown in corruption. It's
raised in incorruption. It's sown in dishonor. It's raised
in glory. Sinless. It's sown in weakness.
It's raised in power. By whose power? His power. It's
on a natural body. It's raised a spiritual body.
There is a natural body, and there's a spiritual body. Go
down to verse 51. Let's read to the end of the
first chapter. Behold, I show you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. Somebody's
going to be here when Christ comes. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump, the trumpet shall sound. You know what, like Rahab, God's
people, it's going to be music to their ears. And the dead shall
be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this
corruptible must put on incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality. And when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, the end shall be brought to pass the same that
is written. Death. Death, death, death, death,
is swallowed up in victory. Swallowed up in that it will
not even be remembered. Won't come to mind. Oh, death,
where is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin. Christ put that away. The strength
of sin is the Lord. He fulfilled the sin. But thanks
be to God, see, He fought the warfare. He giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, and here's the warfare,
my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in
this work of the Lord, for as much as you know, your labor
is not in vain in the Lord. So, keep the faith. I thank God for my pastor, my
father, my brother, my friend, my dear husband, and most of all, I thank God for
the Lord Jesus Christ, who took him home and shall soon take
all of his people home or come for us all. Even so, come quickly. Let's sing in closing, 514. Let's
think about marching to Zion, shall we? 514, the standard. Come we back, love the Lord And
let our joys be known Join in a song with sweet accord Join
in a song with sweet accord And thus surround the throne And
thus surround the throne We're marching to Zion Beautiful, beautiful
Zion, we're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God.