I've got a few things that I'd
like to share with you this afternoon. And I'll give you my desires. This is what I want. If God would enable me, these
are the things that I want to happen due to these words that
I'm about to speak to you. First of all, I want to honor
God. Now that's the first reason for
doing anything, isn't it? Whatever we do, whether we eat,
whether we drink, the scripture says, do all for the glory of
God. I want to exalt God. That's what
I want to do. I want to magnify him. After all, he's the one who loaned
Aaron to his family. He's the one who redeemed him. He's the one who saved him. He's
the one who gave him to us. He's the one who took him home
to be with him. This is about honoring God. I'm thankful for Aaron, but really,
we want God to have the glory, don't we? We want God to be magnified,
because God is the great Creator. God is the great One who holds
all things together. He fulfills His will, that One
who ordained all things that will ever happen, and He's the
One who brought Aaron into the world, and He's the One who took
him out of this world. So we've gathered together to
honor God. That's my first goal. That's
my first desire. And here's my second desire. I'd like to honor the Lord by
speaking words that would be comforting to the family, to
those of us who grieve. And I'll tell you, that's got
to come from the Scriptures. It's got to come from God's Word. Our words to you, our words to
each other, you know, we're praying for you, we hold you up, we're
thinking about you. Those words are good to hear,
but there's another word that will reach the very heart. That's the Word of God. We need
to hear God speak. And He only speaks to us through
the Book. He speaks to us through the Gospel.
Listen, there is no good news, there is no comfort, there isn't
any consolation for anybody outside the Word of God. And so I take
you to the Scripture. Listen to this verse in 2 Corinthians
1.3. Blessed be God, even the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God
of all comfort. I direct you to our God. May He take His Word and put
it into our innermost being. And let us be like, you remember
in the Old Testament, I love that story where the Lord spoke
to Samuel. He was resting, he was asleep,
and the Lord said, Samuel, well, he thought it was Eli, who was
the high priest of Israel, so he goes to Eli, who was an elderly
man, and he thought he needed something, and he said, what
is it, what is it? What did you call my name for?"
And Eli said, I didn't call your name. Go back to bed. What are
you waking an old man up at night for? Go back to bed. So he went
back to bed. Well, it happened a second time.
He goes in. He says, Eli, what do you need? He said, I'm not talking to you.
I'm not calling you. Go back to bed. And it happened
a third time. He goes in and he says to Eli,
did you call me? Well, the old man perceived it
was the voice of God. He said, go back to bed. When
you hear your name spoken again, you say, speak, Lord, for thy
servant heareth. And this is the way it should
be for us. Anytime the Word of God is opened before us, and one speaks to us for God,
and speaks of everlasting things, speaks of grace, speaks of blood,
speaks of righteousness, speaks of salvation, speaks of everlasting
life, speaks of our great God, speaks of our great Savior, speaks
of the great Spirit of God. Whenever we speak the things
of God, let us say, speak, Lord, thy servant heareth. And maybe,
maybe, he'll speak to us today. Wouldn't that be wonderful? If
the Lord opened up the Scriptures and opened up our minds and opened
up our innermost beings and He spoke to us, that would bring
us great consolation. If I could hear God through His
Word, if I could hear Him say to me, I do all things well. If I could hear Him say to me,
if you could hear Him say to you, This is all according to
my purpose. If we could hear him say, my redeemed one is with me in
glory. Rejoice for him. I know your
hearts are heavy and my heart's heavy. I'm gonna miss him. But he has entered into the delight
of all delights. He's with the Lord of Glory.
He's with the Savior. Can you imagine that? The one
who redeemed Him? The one who washed Him in His
blood? The one who robed Him in the
garments of salvation? The one who sent his spirit,
who regenerated him, he quickened him, he drew him to the Savior,
and now the Lord has taken him home to glory, and he sees face
to face the Lord Jesus Christ. Indescribable joy. And I'll tell you, Those words
should help you, comfort you. I know there's a void left in
the family. And in this congregation, we'll
miss him. But I'll tell you, he's joined
the congregation above. And when he stepped out of this
life into heaven's everlasting glory, he started singing the
song of redemption. He learned it down here! And
he went to glory and he started singing, worthy is the lamb that
was slain, who has redeemed us unto God by your blood. He's worshiping with the saints
of glory. He never missed a beat. He knew
all the words. He sang salvation unto our God
and unto the lamb. He learned that down here. I
hope we learn that. Hope God's teaching us that.
So I wanna give some comfort to the family And then here's
the third thing. I want to speak to all of us
and tell you what the Lord said to a man in the Old Testament
many, many years ago. He said, set your house in order.
You shall die, not live. I'm going to speak to you openly
and honestly and frankly and simply. Death is serious business. Due to the effects of sin, disease
ravished his body. Death took him. at God's command. But as I think about that, there
are a few questions that kind of arise in my mind, and I'm
gonna raise these questions to you as we think about death. People like to make fun of death,
don't they? At other times. make jokes about death. No joking
matter, is it? God gave you a life. One life
He gave you. And He's going to take it someday.
He's going to take my life. He gave me my life like He gave
you your life, and He's going to take it away one of these
days. I want to know this God who gave me life. That's what
I want. I want to know Him. I want to
believe Him. I want to be found in the Lord
Jesus, the only Savior of sinners. I'm really interested in this
and I hope you are too. So let me give you, let me just
ask five questions here real briefly. What was Aaron's relationship
to God? That is, was everything all right
between this man and a very holy God. Well, after preaching to him
for a few years, after visiting with him several times, and listening
to his own testimony, I can say with great confidence, I can
say with assurance, This man, when he left this world, he went
into the arms of Christ Jesus. I visited with him lots of times. Never heard him talk about his
baptism. Never heard him talk about church
membership. Never heard him talk about good
works. Never heard him talk about his
faithfulness. Never heard him mention at all what he had done
for the Lord. He never said anything about
his Bible reading. He never said anything about
praying. He loved to talk about Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. That was his only hope. This
is a sinner's only hope. Listen folks, you're going on
into eternity. You're going to meet God. What's
your hope? What is your expectation of future blessing? Answer in
your soul. What is your hope? Why do you
think God will receive you? Why would I ever think God would
receive me? A sinner. One who's broken his law. Why
would God receive any of us? And this man's own witness was,
God receives me for Christ's sake. That's all. Oh, and he rejoiced in the grace
of God. He rejoiced in the Savior. I'm
very confident about his relationship with God. I told Bill back in
the office a little bit ago, we were talking, and I said,
you know, I've been pastoring since 1975. I visited lots of
folks who've been dying. People who died. People who were
right on the verge of eternity. I never met anybody who more
strongly exemplified the sufficiency of the grace of God than Aaron. He had tremendous testimony.
And I know it wasn't him. It wasn't him. It was the grace
that God gave him. Listen, if you can face death
without fear, and if you can think about meeting a God who's
absolutely holy, And you can think of that with boldness.
And all of your hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified
for sinners. And you have no, no confidence
in yourself at all. Not your works, not your baptism,
not your faithfulness. You count it all but done to
win Christ Jesus. Then you've got a good hope.
You've got a good hope. What was Aaron's relationship
with God? He was a child of God. Here's
the second question. Why is he with Christ Jesus now? Why is he in heaven? Everybody
talks about, I want to go to heaven when I die. Well, I do
too. I do too. Why is he in the very presence
of God? Why is he at the Savior's feet
worshiping and blessing the name of Christ Jesus? When he breathed
last Thursday morning, when he breathed his last breath here
on earth, why was he instantly taken to
the presence of God? Let me tell you. Because God,
before He made this old earth, ordained Him unto salvation. God gave Him grace in Christ
Jesus. Listen to this scripture, 2 Timothy
chapter 1, speaking of God who saved us, God who called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing
of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."
God chose him unto salvation. If you're a believer, I hope
you are. I hope you're resting in Christ
Jesus. You say, he's my only hope, preacher.
Great, that's wonderful. I rejoice with you. I'll tell
you why you're a believer. Because back before God ever
made anything, he put you in Christ Jesus. He chose you unto
salvation. Salvation is not something we
do. It's not something we bring about.
The Bible says, salvations of the Lord. He ordained Aaron to
everlasting life. He ordained him to be without
blame before Him. God predestinated him unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself. God did
that. I'll tell you why He's in heaven,
because God sent His Son to die in His stead. The Lord Jesus, God's own Son,
came into this world and laid down His life, a sacrifice to
God. He was the sin offering to God
because God couldn't do anything for us. He couldn't forgive us.
He couldn't embrace us. He couldn't welcome us unless
Christ Jesus did something for the Father. He had to honor His
justice and His law because we've sinned against God and the Word
of God says, that soul that sinneth, it shall die. And we've all sinned
against God. That means we gonna die. Wait
a minute. There's good news. The substitutionary
death of the Lord Jesus. You see, he came to save the
guilty. He came to die the death that
we deserved. And God put him on the cross.
I know the Jews did what they did, and the Romans did what
they did, and the soldiers did what they did, but all according
to God's eternal purpose of grace. God ordained the death of his
son, for in his death, that's where we see our life. In his
blood, that's where we see our forgiveness. In his righteousness,
that's where we see our acceptance by God. That's why he's in heaven. Christ
died for him. He offered to God the sacrifice
that removed all of the guilt and all of the transgressions
and all of the iniquities of his people. You see, our Lord
Jesus came to defeat all of the enemies against the soul of Aaron.
He came to satisfy justice. He came to do something about
his sins. He came to put them away. He
came to bury them in the depths of the deepest sea. He came to
put them behind God's back. That's what Christ did. The scripture
says, his name is Jesus. He shall save his people from
their sins. Did he do it? Isaiah said, he
can't fail. He can't fail. We're talking
about the God man here. The reason Aaron is in heaven,
because God chose him under salvation. Christ Jesus died for him and
arose for him and ever lives for him. But Aaron, like all
the rest of us, he's born dead and trespasses and sins. He's
born in spiritual darkness. He didn't have the life of God
and he didn't have the light of God. So God sent him a preacher. And as that preacher preached
the gospel of God's grace in Christ, The Spirit of God miraculously,
mysteriously opened his heart. That's what the Lord did for
Lydia. What the Lord did for Lydia, he did for Aaron. He opened
his heart so that he attended to the things that were spoken
to him. God the Spirit gave him repentance. God the Spirit gave him faith.
God the Spirit taught him about Christ Jesus. Who Christ is? He's the Son of God and the Son
of man. What he did, he lived a life
of obedience and died a sacrificial death that God might be just
and justifier of all who believe on him. Why did he do it? To satisfy God's demands. Where
is Christ now? Seated at the right hand of God.
That's the reward for him finishing the work that God gave him to
do. And the Spirit of God came to Aaron and gave him sight to
see the glories, the beauties of Christ Jesus, to see his own
need of such a Savior. The Spirit of God gave him ears
to hear the message, gave him a new heart to receive the Word
of God. The Spirit of God throughout
his life kept showing him Christ Jesus. That's what the Spirit
of God does. He takes us to the Savior over
and over and over again, revealing more to the soul of the great
Redeemer. The Holy Spirit gave Him the
willingness to be saved by grace alone. You see, the Scripture
says, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. God
made him willing. Well, you know about that. That
has to happen. It did happen. It did happen. God made him willing to be saved
God's way. By salvation, by substitution,
by satisfaction. The Lord drew him to Christ Jesus
and he believed Him. Here's the third question quickly.
What's Aaron doing in heaven? He's worshiping. He's worshiping. See, heaven's a place of worship
and thanksgiving. And I would say this. I fully believe that the nearest
we'll ever get to heaven in this world is in a worship service
where we're rejoicing in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's
the nearest we'll ever be to heaven on this earth. Because
you see, that's what they're doing in heaven's everlasting
glory. Every eye's on the Son of God.
They're not wandering around looking at, well, look at the
streets of gold, look at the walls of Jasper and all that.
Of course, that's figurative language anyway, I'm persuaded.
But they're not looking at those things. They're looking at him
who loved them and gave himself for them. Every eye's on Christ. Every voice is singing His praises. He's worshiping the one who was
wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. Heaven's a place of worship. Do you enjoy hearing about Jesus
Christ and Him crucified? I do. I truly do. Doesn't much matter to me who
the mouthpiece is, as long as he's saying the right message. Well, one of these days, we'll
hear this same message of redemption. Listen, from that one who is
the spokesman for God. The Word, the Word, the Word
of God. And He will speak to us. He'll
preach to us. He'll talk to us about grace.
He'll open up to us like He's opening up to Aaron now. An additional
understanding of the intricacies of the gospel. Oh, how glorious that must be. I can only imagine. What's he
doing in heaven? Well, he's worshiping the Lord. There he is, washed in the blood,
wearing a white robe. Of course, he wore that down
here, too. Because he has made the righteousness
of God in Christ Jesus. You see, the Lord Jesus has been
made to us to be wisdom, Righteousness, sanctification, that's holiness,
my friend. He'd say, are you a holy person? Christ is my holiness. That good
enough? Christ is my holiness. And redemption,
that according as it is written, he that glory of the lady, glory
in the Lord. Well, here's the fourth question
quickly. What happened to Aaron? Well, the moment he, He reached the end that God had
ordained for him, the end of his days on this earth. His soul
went back to God. And his body will be committed
to the grave here in just a little bit to await the final resurrection. You see, for each of us, we have
a body. But we are a soul. You see, really, and I know this
is his earthly tabernacle. Aaron's earthly tabernacle is
in the casket before us. But that's not Aaron. No, he
didn't die. Not Aaron. Well, but what about
his body, preacher? Fell asleep. There's no death
for the people of God. The body falls asleep, not his
soul. But his body fell asleep. And
we're going to take his body out here and commit it to the
ground. But he's gone to heaven, and
2 Corinthians chapter 5 tells us that God has prepared for
him a heavenly body, a spiritual body. See, when somebody dies,
it isn't a soul floating around. When we die, listen, we don't
become angels. You don't believe that foolishness,
do you? We don't become angels. We don't go up there and start
sitting on a star and strumming a harp and that sort of foolishness. No, God's got a body for us in
the heavens. And therefore we in heaven, we
still have our identity. Do you know that? Aaron is still
Aaron. and he'll always be Aaron. It's
like when our Lord went up on the mountain for the Mount of
Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared to him. Guess what?
Moses was still Moses and Elijah was still Elijah. It's an interesting
story, which I don't have time to go into it. Toward the end
of the book, 1 Samuel, King Saul, He wanted to see Samuel, and
Samuel was dead. And God, through His providence,
using first one and then another, it was this woman that He used,
and King Saul said, well, have you got Samuel? He said, yeah. He said, well, what did he look
like? And she described him, and now Samuel had been dead.
And she described him to King Saul. You know what the king
said? Yeah, that's him alright, just like you described him.
Because Samuel was still Samuel. And Aaron is still Aaron. Always
will be. And this body, it fell asleep. The Lord is going to come back
and take you to Him in the resurrection. a new body. The scripture says
we know that if our earthly house, this was his earthly house, is
dissolved we have a building of God and a house not made with
the hands eternal in the heavens. That word dissolved, it's a figurative expression
from many years ago and it means to put away for the night. It's like one who took a journey. They put away things for the
night. This body is going to be put away for the night. Guess
what's going to happen in the morning? Resurrection morning is going
to wake up. Because our Lord Jesus is coming
back. The soul will be joined back
to the body. I got one more question for you. What's going to happen to you
when you die? I face this question. When I
worked on this message, I thought about the question that I needed
to ask you, and I asked it of myself. What's going to happen
to me when I die? Well, who is my hope? That'll give you the answer right
there. What are you depending on? Your
baptism? Your works? Law keeping? Repentance? You're going to be in for a sad
disappointment. But I'll tell you, there are
so many of us here today like Aaron. We can say my hope is
built on nothing less. than Jesus' blood and His righteousness. You build on Christ Jesus, that's
a solid rock. But if you build on anything
else, it's sinking sand. Our Lord said, if you die in
your sins, where I am, you can't come. You can't come. No, it's impossible. Don't you
see? You need a mediator. You need
a go-between. And I ask God now, even as I
prayed yesterday when I was working on this message and this morning
again, and just before I came out here, oh God, take your word. Perform a miracle. That's what's
got to happen. I made this statement to our
folks here Sunday. I said, we're living, breathing,
walking miracles of His grace. We're trophies of God's grace.
Aaron is a trophy of the grace of God. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that You'd
bless this Word that's gone forth. We've tried to do these three
things to exalt You. magnify Your name, be a comfort
and a consolation through the Word of God to the family and
to those who've got broken hearts. And we've tried to address people
openly, simply, seriously concerning the things that have to do with
eternity. Now, Lord, You'll have to do
the work. I pray that You'll open hearts that are closed.
Lord, give a new heart of faith and confidence in Christ Jesus. We thank you for the life of
our brother. We rejoice that he's with Christ
Jesus, which we read in the scriptures is far better. Bless the family. Give continued
grace and strength. and bless all of these dear friends
who are in attendance, those who've been watching by way of
the Internet. Oh God, we need Your grace. We
need Your strength. I pray that You'll administer
mercy to our great needs through Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray.
Amen.