The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday morning, October 17, 2004, at Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. Many of you know that it was
eight weeks ago today, August the 22nd to be exact, that I
stood behind this pulpit and made an attempt to expound and
apply that marvelous text in Romans chapter 8, verse 28. And we know that all things are
working together for good to those who love God, to those
who are the called according to purpose. And when I finished
that effort of exposition and application, I made the announcement
to this congregation that I was beginning what I called an indefinite
leave of absence from the public ministry of the Word and from
most of my pastoral duties in order to give myself full time
and without distraction to caring for my dying wife. It had become
evident that she was rapidly failing and that my care was
needed at an entirely new level. Then again, as most of you know,
it was four weeks and one day later, on September the 20th
at 6.40 in the morning, that I stood by her bedside and watched
her breathe her last. Several minutes after her last
breath and the subsequent clear indications that she had indeed
died, it was my privilege, unspeakable privilege, to cradle her lifeless
body in my arms and to hold her up from the bed while my daughter
Heidi and my sister Joyce stripped the bed of its soiled linen,
put on fresh linen, and then together we tenderly prepared
her body for the visit of the hospice nurse who was on her
way to sign the death certificate and prepared her for the visit
of the undertaker who would subsequently come and take her away to prepare
her for her funeral. As best I can recall the time
frame in the moments between her last breath and my cradling
my beloved in my arms while staring death straight in the eye without
any ability to avoid the stark reality of the presence of the
last enemy. feeling keenly the many profound
realities that surround the intrusion of death, I asked myself this
question. What happened to my beloved from
the time she breathed her last and the moments later when I
lifted her from her deathbed and cradled her in my arms? And I bless God that as I asked
that question and my mind reflected upon passage upon passage that
I can say to the praise of God and to the great joy of my own
heart that I knew with unshakable certainty the sequel to her death. I knew what had happened from
the time of her last breath to the time of cradling her in my
arms. And this morning I want to preach
to you on the things that I knew then and know now and which if
you do not know and which you do not have grounds to expect
will be true of you then you are a fool of all fools, because
the hour is coming when that ultimate reality is going to
nail you to your deathbed. You may put death out of your
mind, out of your thoughts, immerse yourself in present toys or present
legitimate responsibilities, But the fact of common observation
as well as biblical affirmation is, it is appointed unto men
once to die. And you're going to die like
my beloved died. And I'm going to die like she
died. And so this morning I want to
speak to you on the subject death and its immediate sequel for
the one who dies in union with Christ. Death and its immediate
sequel for the one who dies in union with Christ. And in opening
up this subject, I will seek to do so under two major headings.
First of all, I want to speak for a few minutes on two foundational
facts of Biblical revelation crucial to a right understanding
of death itself. We cannot address death and its
sequel for the one in Christ unless we understand two foundational
facts of Biblical revelation crucial to a right understanding
of death itself. And then my second heading is
four wonderful realities that constitute the immediate sequel
to death for all who die in Christ. First of all then, two foundational
facts of biblical revelation crucial to a right understanding
of death itself. Fact number one is this. It has
to do with the essential nature and constitution of human beings. The essential nature and constitution
of human beings made in the image of God. And according to the
scriptures, mankind, that is, men and women, boys and girls,
made in the image of God, are created by God and composed of
two distinct entities. Now you've had no existence apart
from those two entities being joined, and in some areas interpenetrating
one another by their influence. But nonetheless, the scriptures
are clear that sitting here today, and my standing before you today,
we are all, in terms of our fundamental and essential nature and constitution,
comprised of two distinct entities. On the one hand, there is that
entity that we call our bodies. Physical, material, corporeal
entities. Touchable, visible, presentable,
killable the body that thing that's plunked in your puke by
means of which your eyeballs are able to see me and sound
waves strike upon your eardrum and go by the auditory nerve
to your brain and in the case of our deaf folks by means of
the signs that our brother Leslie makes and those things are interpreted
into words that register upon this pile of grey matter between
our ears called the brain. However, the Bible makes it abundantly
clear and everywhere assumes that we have a second entity. An entity that the Bible calls
our souls or our spirits. And while the Bible everywhere
assumes this, there are certain texts which are sheer nonsense
if this is not true. For example, when Jesus is commissioning
the twelve to go out on their preaching mission, and has surprised
them that they're going to face opposition, possibly even unto
martyrdom, he says these very, very significant words in Matthew
10, 28, and do not fear them that kill the body, the touchable,
corporeal, physical entity, but are not able to kill the soul,
the non-material, the non-corporeal entity, but rather fear him who
is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. in Gehenna. Those words of our Lord Jesus
are sheer nonsense if we are not composed of these two distinct
entities. Or take, for example, Paul's
prayer wish in 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 23. This is his prayer
wish for the Thessalonian believers. And the God of peace himself
sanctify you wholly, that is, through the entire range of what
makes you, you. Well, what is that range? He's
going to tell us. And may your spirit and soul
and body be preserved entire without blame at the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. And without getting into the
discussion of dichotomy, trichotomy, I understand soul and spirit
to be interchangeable terms. And the apostle, as it were,
is covering the bases to identify the non-corporeal, non-physical
entity, soul and spirit. the physical, the corporeal,
and he says, it is my prayer wish that the entirety of your
humanity, constituted of the material and the non-material,
experience the sanctifying and preserving work of the living
God. So that's fact number one. That
we've got to understand, if we're to understand what happens to
the believer who dies in Christ. But fact number two is this.
It has to do with the essence of death in the case of human
beings. What is the essence of death in the case of human beings?
The experience of death for human beings is basically this. It
is the radical separation of these two entities, the soul
and the body, for the first time in our existence from our conception
in our mother's wombs are radically separated the one from the other. James 2 in verse 26. He's going
to use this fundamental fact as an illustration of a more
profound spiritual reality. He says, as the body, apart from
the spirit, is dead, so faith without works is dead. He assumes
that anyone with any form of rationality and any contact with
biblical revelation would understand that the essence of death is
the body and the spirit separated. As the body, apart from the spirit,
is dead. and the example of our Lord's
death in Luke 23 and verse 46 he said father into your hands
I commit my spirit and the subsequent record is he breathed his last
and his lifeless body hung upon that cross was tenderly taken
down by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea and washed and wrapped
with wrappings and spices and laid in a tomb, two distinct
entities in the perfect humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Or
the case of Stephen, the beautiful account of his death in Acts
7, 59 and 60. and where it is said that he
called upon God, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And when the Lord received his
spirit, it says, he fell asleep. And the falling asleep is always
with reference to what we see in the body of the child of God. He is fallen asleep in union
with Jesus. Now, concerning this radical
separation of soul and body, two things need to be emphasized,
especially in our totally secularized, mechanistic, materialistic age.
Two things with respect to that separation of soul and body that
constitutes the essence of death. First of all, it is unnatural
and is the result of sin. Death is not a natural part of
life. with which we simply need to
learn to cope, as we cope with cutting teeth, and losing teeth,
and getting clowns, and false teeth, and all the rest. No!
The Bible is abundantly clear that that is a holy, unnatural
intrusion into human experience, an intrusion which has come as
the result of sin. Listen to the very perceptive
words of Mr. Venema. in his very excellent
book, The Promise of the Future, he writes, Contrary to many modern
myths about death, that death is a natural part of life, that
it marks the cessation of existence, that there's a natural dignity
in dying well, the Bible paints its portrait of death with the
most stark and sobering of colors. Nowhere in the Bible is death
treated as something natural, as something that can easily
be domesticated or treated as a, quote, part of life. No encouragement
is given us in the Bible to minimize the terror and the fearfulness
of death. It is called our last enemy in
1 Corinthians 15 26. The biblical understanding of
death begins with the fall into sin. Death is the divinely appointed
punishment of mankind's disobedience. In Genesis 2.17, as part of the
stipulation and probation of obedience, Adam was forewarned,
you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, for when you eat of it you shall surely die. Adam formed
from the dust of the earth and made a living soul through the
in-breathing of his creator, became liable to death through
his act of disobedience, a liability which now falls upon all whom
he represented as their covenant head. One of the more prominent
passages in scripture on the subject of sin and death is Romans
5, 12 to 21, and in that passage, sin and death are inseparably
linked. And therefore, as we think of
the essence of death, the separation of the soul from the body, this
unnatural separation of that which constitutes us image bearers
of God, we must always remember it is unnatural, and the result
of sin, and secondly, it is a temporary existence. that separation is
only temporal. Unnatural, yes. Temporal, yes. It is a temporal condition awaiting
the reunion of soul and body at the general resurrection when
our blessed Lord with the entourage of the host of heaven with the
voice of the archangel and the trump of God will come in glory
and in power and the scripture says when he does all that are
in the grave shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that
have done good to the resurrection of life and they that have done
evil to the resurrection of judgment so in summary if we're to think
biblically regarding death and its relationship to the child
of God, and what happens as the immediate sequel to the death
of one who is in Christ. We will only think biblically
if our thinking rests down upon these two vital elements of biblical
revelation, the essential nature of human beings, we are comprised
of the two entities, and the essence of death. The separation
of those two entities that is both unnatural and only temporal. But now we come to what is the
heart of the message this morning. Four wonderful realities that
constitute the immediate sequel for one who dies in union with
Christ. Now let me explain a couple of
the words that I'm using. I've used the terms the immediate
sequel. While the body is still warm,
as was my beloved's when I held it in my arms, and while there
is still some color upon the cheek, what has happened when
the soul of that one has left that body and they have died? What are the immediate sequels
to that experience? In other words, I'm addressing
this morning what the theologians call the intermediate state,
not the consummate state at the return of Christ, when the dead
in Christ shall rise first, living saints will be transformed in
a moment, in an instant, and together, caught up in the clouds
to be forever with the Lord. I'm speaking of the intermediate
state. And while the great focus of
scripture is upon the consummate state of redemptive grace, what
believers receive at the coming of Christ and the resurrection
of the bodies, that is what is called the Christian's hope.
Whenever you read about the believer's hope in the Bible, it is not
focused on the intermediate state. He has great confidence. He can
have great joy. He can face the last enemy in
faith and not be terrified. But that's never called the believer's
hope. The believer's hope is what he receives at the return
of Christ and the full possession of all that was purchased for
him by our Lord Jesus Christ. However, we do have from the
scriptures sufficient data that we may if we are privileged to
do so cradle a loved one in our arms and know exactly what has
happened from the time they breathed their last and before the undertaker
comes so that's why I'm using the term what is the immediate
sequel to death for the one who is in Christ now why do I use
that terminology? well for the simple reason that
the only one for whom death is a blessing is the one who's in
Christ. Revelation 14, 13 says, Blessed
are the dead who die in the Lord, from henceforth saith the Lord.
Those that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. In other
words, I could use the term for Christians, for believers, but
those terms have become so weakened and so neutralized in much of
their biblical vigor, I want to use what is the central phrase
concerning New Testament salvation, union with Christ. They die in
the Lord. If any man be in Christ, we have
been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in
Christ, that of him are you in Christ, who is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, etc., etc. So, that's why I'm using the
terminology. Now, with an understanding of that terminology, what are
the four wonderful realities that constitute the immediate
sequel to the death of one who is in Christ? Well, number one,
the one who dies in Christ is in the full consciousness of
his existence. And I'm going to use the masculine
pronoun so I don't have to keep saying his or her, but I'm referring
to my wife. All right. I'm just Miss Reynolds
is still with me, so you'll just have to forgive me. That's an
in-house statement. All right. The one who dies in Christ is
in the full consciousness of his existence, immediately made
perfect in moral likeness to Christ. Immediately made perfect
in moral likeness to Christ. According to Romans 8.29, the
great goal of God in redemptive grace is nothing less than the
restoration of his moral image after the pattern of the Lord
Jesus Christ, for whom he did foreknow, then he also predestined
to be conformed to the image of his Son. Moreover, Moreover,
the ones whom He has foreknown and predestined, He also called. Whom He called, He justified.
Whom He justified, He also glorified. And what is it to be glorified?
It is to experience total conformity to the moral likeness of Christ,
body and soul, at the consummation of redemptive grace. As J. I. Packer stated it so simply
and beautifully, it will be seamless souls inhabiting deathless bodies. That's it! But you see, for most
of us, we're going to get it in two stages. Those alive at
the return of the Lord, they're going to get the whole shebang
all at once. Boom! Just like that. An instant, in
the twinkling of an eye! Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15,
we're going to be transformed, soul and body. But what about
my beloved? What's happened to her? What's
happened to your loved ones in Christ? The moment they breathe
their last, and that unnatural and albeit temporal severance
of soul and body occurs, the Scriptures tell us that the one
who dies in Christ is in the full consciousness of His existence,
immediately made perfect into the moral likeness of Christ. How do we know that? Now look
at Hebrews 12. And verse 23, when the writer
to the Hebrews is enumerating all of the wonderful realities
to which we come in new covenant blessing, he says in first, in
Rome, I'm sorry, Hebrews 12, verse 23. Let's back up to verse
22. He's contrasted what they came
to in the circumstantial surroundings of the old covenant. Now the
contrast, but you are come with a perfect verb, you are come. Something has happened, the results
of which continue into the present. You are come, not you shall come,
you have already come and remain unto Mount Zion, unto the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable hosts
of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who
are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to
the spirits of just men, made perfect. And to the spirits of
just men, here a perfect passive participle of Palaeo, and to
the spirits of just men, having been and remaining in the state
of Palaeos, perfection. Now how'd they get that way? The moment their spirits left
their bodies, God in His grace puts forth a concentrated degree
of the divine energy of sanctifying grace that accomplishes more
in a millisecond than we have known of progressive sanctification
through a whole lifetime. I tell you that gets me shouting
happy. What did God do with my beloved? What did He do with
every one of you who's a Christian? There's a 19-year-old girl in
nurse's training. God brought her into contact
with some Christians. And they witnessed to her. And
opened up the Scriptures in little bits of seeds that had been sold
along her past. God caused them to germinate
and to spring forth into new life in union with Jesus Christ. And when I met her, she was in
the flush of her first love to Christ, as was I. Nothing mattered
but singing about Him and going out in the street and passing
out tracts and talking about Him and praying and reading the
Bible. It was evident that God had put forth the energy of divine
grace called regeneration. He had taken out the heart of
stone, given a heart of flesh, made Christ the pearl of great
price. implanted a passion to be holy
and to delight Christ. And as I was privileged to track
that initial work flowering out into progressive sanctification
over 52 years, marvelous changes. God dealing with this attitude
and this disposition and this perspective and that and the
other, so that as the tributes were given here from this very
pulpit, in her memorial service all who knew her saw her ripening
for glory but my friends everything God did from age 19 to age 73
could be put in the thimble for and God gave her the ocean the
moment she breathed her last she joined the company of just
men made perfect never again to have to feel the twinge of
grief for an envious thought, a prideful thought, an angry
thought, an irritated thought, an unkind thought, utterly rid
of anything that would be the fuel of repentance, on the positive
side, fully endowed with every grace that will make the soul
reflective of the moral perfections of Christ, capable of growth,
capable of development, yes! But as to its moral constitution,
it is the spirits of just men made perfect. Made perfect. Mind, affections, and will fully,
unreservedly conform to the highest standard of the law of God in
all of its breadth and depth, and in all of its penetrating
demands. I could not help but think when
reflecting on this early this morning, what happened to Isaiah
when he had but a vision, while still in this life, of the glory
of God's burning holiness. Cherubim, those strange creatures
that reflect the moral perfections of God. And he sees God enthroned
in... John 12 said it was the glory
of the pre-incarnate Christ that he saw. When he sees God in his
burning holiness, what does Isaiah do? He doesn't dance for joy. He's undone. He falls prostrate. He says,
Oh God, I've had it! I'm shattered! I'm undone! I find great comfort to think
the moment my beloved breathed her last. and her spirit was
ushered into that same throne room that Isaiah saw in vision,
she was released with nothing but unbounded joy, at home, fully
at home, psychologically, spiritually, morally, in every way, with an
utterly holy God, and not a twinge of discomfort. And my friend,
I got news for you. That's what God's going to do
for you. the moment you breathe your last. If you're in Christ,
that's what He's committed to do, to make you join the company
of just men made perfect. And I have found as I've been
trying to shape into little maxims how to handle the deep and crushing
grief of my loss, this is one of them that helps me. I say
to myself, Albert, Think more of what she has gained than of
what you have lost. She's gained what is the passionate
desire of every true believer. If you can dig down through to
get to the real stuff that makes us what we are, in every true
believer, the deepest subterranean passion is to be done with sin
and to be holy like Jesus. And my friend, you're going to
get it the moment you breathe your last. But then secondly,
here's the immediate sequel to the death of one in Christ. The
one who dies in Christ is in the full consciousness of his
existence, immediately brought into the presence of Christ. The one who dies in Christ is
in the full consciousness of his existence, immediately brought
into the presence of Christ. And here are two passages, you
ought to know them, I hope you're thinking about them. Are you
thinking about them? You're thinking 2 Corinthians? And Philippians
3? I'm sorry, Philippians 1? If
not, you ought to be. 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. Paul
has reflected on his sufferings at the end of chapter 4 and calls
them light afflictions that are working a far more exceeding
and eternal weight of glory. And then he says, we know, we
know, that if the earthly house of our tent, he calls his body
a tent, be dissolved we have a building from God, a house
not made with hands eternal in the heavens. He likens his glorified
body to a permanent dwelling, not this tattered tent that he
has down here. And he said now, to be honest,
I'd rather not be untempted, I'd rather not have my soul be
in a state of nakedness, the disembodied spirit, but I'd like
this treaded tent to be swallowed up and replaced immediately with
this eternal dwelling. But he said, on the other hand,
on the other hand, on the other hand, though that would be my
desire, he's confident of something, look at verse 6, being therefore
always of good courage and knowing that While we are at home in
the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith,
not by sight. We are of good courage, I say,
and are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be
at home with the Lord. Now, words could not be clearer.
Paul says, I've got two possible modes of existence. I stay around
in my shredded tent, I'm away from the Lord. Now remember,
this is a man who was caught up in the third heaven, heard
things it wasn't lawful to speak or write. One who had deep, intimate,
passionate communion and fellowship with Christ, yet he says, as
long as I'm in this body, there is a fundamental sense in which
I am absent from the Lord. He's there, wherever, wherever
the glorified body of Jesus is. Sometime I'll talk to you about
some things I've been thinking about along those lines. I'm
not ready to preach about it. He says, as long as I'm here
in this tent, I'm not there. If I'm at home in the body, I'm
absent from the Lord. However, if I leave this tent,
where do I go? I'm at home with the Lord. He
said, we are willing rather. This is the desire of our hearts
to be at home with Him. That's the text printed on all
the materials in conjunction with my wife's home going, willing
rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the
Lord. And then of course the second
passage, Philippians chapter 1, where the apostle speaks of
this internal struggle within his own soul. He says in verse
21 of Philippians 1, to me to live is Christ, to die is gain. But if to live in the flesh,
if this shall bring fruit from my work, then what I shall choose,
I don't know. I'm having an internal tug-of-war.
I'm in a state between the two. I feel pulled in two directions.
Having the desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is very
far better. He piles up superlatives, yet
to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake." Words
could not be more clear. He says there is this yearning
to experience that which is very far better, and that is to depart
and to be with Christ. not to go into some state of
soul sleep, the kind of permanent anesthesia to the day of resurrection
as the Jehovah's Witnesses and as the Seventh-day Adventists
teach. No, this man who knew intimate communion with Christ
could never desire a state where that communion was cut off, but
only where it would be augmented to entirely new degrees and heights
and depths of blessed reality. I desire to depart and to be
with Christ. That's the gain that death will
bring for me to live, is Christ. And why is death gain? Because
I get more of Christ in death than I could ever have of Him
in life. For remember, this is the man
who used we. We see through a glass darkly.
But then, face to face, we shall know as we are known. Child of
God, what can you know about the immediate sequel to your
death and the death of loved ones who die in Christ? You can
know from the Scriptures that their death is their gain. and
their gain is ravishing face-to-face communion with the one who has
captured their hearts, won their affections, and forever fastened
all that they are to himself in bonds of deepest love. To die is gain. The moment the
soul leaves the body, the prayer of Jesus is partially answered. Not fully. John 17, 24. Look
at it. In this that is commonly called
the high priestly prayer of our Lord. The end of the prayer, our Lord
uses a verb for the first time. All the other requests are in
the form of petitionary prayer. But here he exerts regal will. Verse 24. Father, I desire, I
will. that they also whom you have
given me may be with me where I am. Why? That they may behold
my glory which you have given me for you loved me before the
foundation of the world. Jesus knows that the fullness
of our joy awaits the fullness of his joy. And what's the fullness
of his joy? It's seeing our joy made full
in the face-to-face beholding of His glory. And so, as Spurgeon
in his inimitable way in Morning and Evening has a devotional
on this text, he says, Ah, believer, you would keep them with you,
but your Savior would have them with Him. And then he draws that
out, as only Spurgeon does, and the believer and the Lord. He
said, Now I ask you, dear believer, whose will will win the day? And what a comfort it's been
when I feel the crushing loneliness to say, Lord Jesus, you want
her so much. You couldn't stand for her not
to behold your glory. And Lord Jesus, you died for
her. I would die for her in my love. But you did die for her. You purchased her. You had every
right to say, I can't stand having her behold my glory through a
veil and darkly. I want her joyful by seeing me
face to face. How in the world could I complain
at a Savior like that? How could I profess to love her
and want to keep her from beholding His glory as He is at the right
hand of the Father? But I said, it's only partially
answered because, you see, Until she and I and all of us in Christ
look at His glory, which is the glory of the God-man in heaven,
and we look at it with glorified eyeballs that register His glorified
physical form on our retinas, the glory is still not fully
revealed. So she's got more to come. But,
oh, she's gotten so much, and I envy her, that I bless God. We're both going to have it all.
In the immediate sequel to death, that's what happens to the believer's
soul. Immediately passes into the presence
of Christ. And these are the words that
gripped me shortly after her death as I meditated upon this
verse. Look at it again. Father, I desire
that they also whom you have given me be with Me. Where I am. And the with and
the where got me excited. With and where. With me. Where I am. There's the locality. But the locality would mean nothing
if it were not with me. But the with me would have diminished
joy if it was not with me where. It's with me where. We've got
the best. Bless God. With me. Where I am. Well, I move on in the third
place. From the time she breathed her
last, I cradled her in my arms. Not only, not only did she experience
total conformity to the moral likeness of Christ, immediately
pass into the face-to-face presence with Christ. But the one who
dies in Christ is in the full consciousness of his existence,
brought immediately into the company of all the blood-washed
saints of Christ. Immediately brought into the
company of all the blood-washed saints of Christ. Well, each
one of us is born physically as an individual. I don't care
if you're one of Quintuplets. May all five of them come out
at once. Each one has a number. You were first, you were third,
you were second. You're born individually. Each one of us
is going to die individually. We may have people surrounding
us. We may be all along, but we came in individually and we're
going to go out individually. And God's salvation must be appropriated
individually. God has no grandchildren. Each
one must come to personal repentance faith. Each one must experience
new birth by the individual operations of God's almighty grace in Christ
and by the Spirit. However, though the Bible sets
forth this kind of very dominant individualism, God's salvation
is not individualistic. In planning and procuring and
applying his saving grace in Christ, God has something more
in view than getting individuals changed and fit for his presence. Rather, God has a desire for
new humanity in Christ. called his church, called his
bride, called his body, pictured as the new Jerusalem, pictured
as the city of God. All of the emphasis of Scripture
is that God in Christ wants a new humanity. And therefore, the
final state of the new heavens and the new earth is described
to us in the image of a city. And when Paul is describing the
return of Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4.17, he says, We that are alive,
that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be
with the Lord in this state of perfect togetherness. Now, If,
according to Hebrews 12, 23, all who die in Christ are already
in the fellowship of the spirits of just men made perfect, and
we on earth have some kind of communion with them, will that
relationship not be exponentially augmented in love? in the graces that sweeten human
relationships. You know what it's like when
here on earth there are times when the relationship and interaction
with fellow believers seems to be so utterly immunized from
the outcropping of sin that we instinctively say what? This
was a taste of heaven where perfect love will reign. I had a taste
of that in these weeks with my sister and my daughter. You can
imagine now, my daughter ordering her household under her husband,
with all her patterns, my sister who's been a widow for 14 years,
and a very competent, take-charge woman, and I don't think I'm
exactly milquetoast. And we're all under one roof,
for weeks together! It was precious. Not one time
was there any outcropping of any friction. If there was a
little something that could have created, we just looked at each
other in the eye and said, don't do that. That gets under my skin. Alright, I won't do that. Sorry.
It was wonderful. And it reminded me of what heaven
is going to be like. where everything that creates
friction and tension and suspicion and ill will and alienation,
not only will that all be obliterated, but those things we feel at times
as we interact with one another, where we can't keep our hands
off one another, the love so throbs through our being, we've
got to crush one another with an embrace. Imagine when that's
augmented to the perfection of the life of love in heaven, and
to some degree, When the saints leave this world and they enter
the world of the spirits of just men made perfect, they are gathered
into that fellowship of united glorified spirits in the immediate
presence of God and of the Lamb. And one can only imagine the
life of love that they already experience. I've been thinking much about
this in recent days. You read the biographies of saints
and martyrs. We pray for brethren we have
not seen, and yet what bonds of love we feel for them. Don't
you fall in love with David Brainerd when you read his journal? Don't
you fall in love with Spurgeon when you read the early years?
You say, man, where is he? I want to get him and hug him.
You read the works of those whose Thoughts are embalmed in printer's
ink and they become the very voice of Christ to us. And you
want to embrace them. You want to see them and tell
them how much you love them. If we can experience all that
with this dunghill still in us. Can you imagine what it's like
when the dunghill's all gone? And all that stuff breaks out
into its full capacity in the presence of our God and of the
Lamb. There's a stanza of a hymn that
I've sung many times that I didn't understand it. Now I do. The
church is one foundation, what's the last stanza? Yet she on earth
hath union with God, the three in one, and mystic sweet communion
with those whose rest is one. And as we have some dimension
of mystic sweet communion now, Bless God that the best is yet
to come. And then fourthly and finally,
the one who dies in Christ is in the full consciousness of
his existence brought immediately to experience the promised rest
of Christ. And here I ask you to turn with
me to the text I alluded to earlier, Revelation 14 and verse 13. The one who dies in Christ is
in the full consciousness of his existence, brought immediately
to experience the promised rest of Christ. And I heard a voice
from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord
from henceforth, yea, saith the Spirit, Hina, in order that they
die to this end. with this purpose, in order that
they may rest from their labors, for their works follow with them. Here is a blessing pronounced
upon those who die in the Lord. And the aspect of blessedness
that is highlighted is not that they are done with sin, that
they see Christ face to face, that they are gathered into the
community of all the blood washed perfected spirits of saints in
heaven, but in order that they may rest from their labors. In parallel language, we have
the familiar words of Matthew 11. So often preached evangelistically,
and I think rightly so, come unto me all you that labor and
are heavy laden. I will give you rest. And when
we come heavy laden with an accusing conscience, Burdened down with
the sense of the futility of life and our inability to put
the pieces together. And God breaks through with the
gospel word of promise in Jesus Christ. And we come in all of
our burden-ness and we cast the weight of our sin and our guilt
and our hopelessness and purposelessness upon Christ. He says, I'll give
you rest. I'll put my yoke upon me. You'll
learn of me. My yoke is easy, my burden is
light. Yet, yet, under that yoke that
Christ lays upon us, there is still the labor of life in general. It's life in a sin-cursed world.
And God has not yet removed the curse that came upon our first
father because of his sin. There is the labor of the Christian
life that is described in some places like an arduous race,
like a life and death battle, like wrestlers in agonizomai
and striving. There is the labor of the Christian
life. There is the labor of living
with a decaying outward man that is indeed perishing. That's why
Paul can say, we also groan. Paul can say, we that are in
this tabernacle do groan, being burdened. What happens the moment
a saint breathes his or her last? Their spirit leaves the theater
of all the remaining labor, all the remaining burdensome of life,
all the striving, struggling aspects of the Christian life,
and they enter into rest. One servant of God described
it this way, but rest, too, describing heaven, may be rest above all. Here, responsibilities, pain
and temptation. Here, harassment by the demonic,
persecution by the world, disappointment in friends. Here, relentless,
remorseless pressure requiring us to live at the limit of our
resources and at the very edge of our endurance. But there,
rest. The battles or the victories
won, the toil is behind us and the danger past. No more the
burden of the unfinished work or the frustration of inbuilt
limitations. No sin to mortify, no self to
crucify, no pain to face, no enemy to fear. But it's not all
negative. It's more than rest from. It
means sharing in the blessedness of God so that in the very depth
of our being there is contentment and joy and fulfillment. There
is total shalom, a sense of sheer well-being. Every need is met. Every longing is fulfilled. Every
goal is achieved. Every sense is satisfied. We
see Him. We are with Him. He holds us
and hugs us and whispers. This is forever. What can we know about our loved
ones? The moment they breathe their
last, this is what the Bible says we can know. We can know. their immediate transformation
into the perfect moral likeness of Christ, their immediate assurance
into the presence of Christ. They're being gathered with all
the blood-bought saints of Christ, and they experience the promised
rest of Christ. Now, let me say in my closing
applications, first of all, Well, we do not deny that death is
still an enemy. It's called the last enemy, and
it's ugly, and it's cruel. I know that now like I never
knew it before. When that enemy caused my beloved
to feed upon her own body for the last couple of weeks of her
life, it was ugly. I understood what I heard Dr. Tozer say years ago, and I didn't
understand him then. He was talking about our ability
to love will be in direct proportion to our ability to hate. Thou
hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. And he went on
to say, I hate the devil. And at that time, Khrushchev
was still banging his shoe. He said, I hate Khrushchev and
I hate sin. And he said, I hate cancer. I
didn't understand him then, I understand it now. Cancer was the tool of
the last enemy to take away the desire of my eyes and the bride
of my youth. That's not pleasant, especially
when it comes slowly, makes its presence known, and in a sense
challenges, says, do what you can. I'll be victor in this life. It is an enemy. It's ugly. It's
cruel. But I want you to look at two
passages of scripture with me. Three. First Corinthians chapter
three. First Corinthians chapter three. In the light of what I've
preached concerning these four realities of the sequel to death
for the one in Christ, listen to the words of the apostle.
Verse 12 of 1 Corinthians, I'm sorry, verse 21 of 1 Corinthians
3. Wherefore, let no one glory in
men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas,
or the world. Now, I can understand that. He's
saying, now, what are you getting up, lining up behind your favorite
preacher? They're all yours! Christ's gift
to you! Embrace them all! Receive the
word of God through them! Paul, Apollos, Cephas, they're
all yours! And furthermore, he says, life
is yours! The world is yours! In other
words, He who sits at the right hand of the Father with all things
beneath His feet is ordering and governing everything in this
world to advance His redemptive purposes in Christ. And if I'm
in Christ, I'm encompassed in that universal reign of Christ.
The world is mine. And now look at the next two.
For life, for death, for death, for death, or things present
or things to come, all are yours. You are Christ's and Christ is
God's. Death is mine in Christ. That's what it says. Did your
Bible tell you that? My Bible says it. I don't care
what translation you got. It's clear. Death is mine. The last enemy is mine? Yes.
Because in Christ, Pastor McDiarmid so eloquently underscored at
Marilyn's gravesite, Christ has removed the sting of death, which
is the condemning power of the law, and he has brought death
captive to his own redemptive purposes. And all death can do
is chase me out of this tattered tent. and release me to be fully
conformed to the image of Jesus, to know the exquisite joy of
the immediate presence of Jesus, to be found among the company
of the people of Jesus, and to know the rest of Jesus. That's
all death can do to me. That's all. Nothing more. Death
is mine. I shall never forget standing
in the graveyard of some of the Scottish Covenanters. These noble
souls who were willing to be martyred rather than submit to
the pressure of ecclesiastical systems that did not respect
the word of God. And they would refer to those
ecclesiastical officers as prelates. And I shall never forget a phrase
on one of the tombstones. You could barely make it out.
And these were the words. And prelates rage did not chase
them up to heaven. I've never forgotten it. When
they grabbed him and burned him at the stake, what did they do?
Just chased him up to heaven. Death was theirs. Death was theirs
in Christ. And then, of course, the familiar
words of Romans 8, where Paul could say it was his well settled
conviction and persuasion. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Verse 35. Shall tribulation,
or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril,
or sword? Even as it is written, for your
sake we are killed all the day long, accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us. Now, how do you get to that place?
For I am persuaded, and at the head of the list, that neither
death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I tell you, my
brothers and sisters, this passage was such a comfort to me. When
my wife lay in a coma, no ability to communicate, And to know that
this promise was true, knowing that there are unseen demonic
powers that would seek to drag her soul into hell. It was such
a consolation to pray and say, Lord Jesus. You have access to
the folds of her mind in areas where my words cannot go. You
have access to the texture of her soul while it's still in
that body. And you can wrap it up in yourself
and wrap it up in protecting angels and wrap it up in all
the things at your disposal and so preserve it that when it leaves
that body, it will be brought safely into your presence. I tell you, I wouldn't trade
that confidence for 10,000 worlds. Neither death shall separate
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And then one final text that
I'm still not sure I understand all of its significance, but
I've been sucking sweetness from it, and I hope you will. Because
your time's coming, my friend. My time's coming. John chapter
8. And our Lord Jesus says in verse 51, verily, verily, one
of these magisterial sayings, I say unto you, if a man keep
my word, he shall never see death. Now, the unbelieving Jews picked
up on that a few verses later, and they misquoted it. They said,
how can this man say, we'll never taste death? Abraham and the
others died. Who is he? He said, you'll never
see death. What did he mean? What did he mean? He that keeps
my word. That's the description of a true
disciple. Someone who is in life union with Jesus. And he said,
such a one will never see death. Well, I think what he's saying
is this. Because we are in union with Christ, and He has borne
the wrath of God, the wages of sin, which is death, we will
never see death as the naked avenger of the justice and holiness
of God. Christ has swallowed it up, buried
it in his tomb, and I'll never see it! Marvelous promise. Marvelous
promise. He that keeps my word shall never
see death. But my final application, many
of you know what it's going to be. And not a few of you here,
you're not in Christ. When it comes to death, you ought
to be scared witless at a sermon like this. Because death will
be the means by which your eternal state will be irreversibly fixed. It is appointed on the man once
to die. After this comes judgment. As
death leaves you, the judgment will find you. And as the judgment
finds you, eternity will hold you. Now, you may be very comfortable
sitting here this morning, living without Christ. But I want to
ask you, are you going to die comfortably without Him? If God
gives you a deathbed, You're going to be comfortable on that
deathbed knowing there is sin for which you must answer before
an all holy, just God in the day of judgment. Nowhere to hide. Every idle word, every unclean
thought, every dishonest relationship, every single violation of the
law of God in the books will be opened and you'll be judged
out of the books. My friend, listen. Listen, I
beg of you. I beg of you. Bring near your
deathbed and ask yourself, would I want to die as I'm living today? If you're honest, you'll have
to say, no, no. That's why I put away thoughts
of death. I keep myself busy. I dim the music in my ears. I
keep my feet and hands busy. I don't want to think about death.
You can't non-think it away, my friend. You're going to die. And the moment is coming when
your soul and body will be wrenched asunder and your eternal state
forever fixed. I plead with you, I beg you,
give to your loved ones the joyous confidence my beloved gave to
me. The greatest gift my wife gave
me is not my children, not her years of selfless service and
all the things I could extol until you'd say, oh, be quiet,
I've heard enough. The greatest gift she gave me
was to hold her lifeless form in my arms and to know that that
spirit that had left that body was now resplendent with likeness
to Jesus. She looked upon the face of Jesus,
however disembodied spirits see, I don't know, but I know they
do. She's with Him in the company of Moses and Aaron and Elizabeth
and Mary and Esther. and all of the martyrs and the
saints, and to know she's at rest. What a gift to give to
a loved one. My friend, whatever else you
give mom and dad, husband and wife, you don't give them that.
You're the biggest cheat on the face of the earth. I close with
a little story for you children. A young girl at Port Say, Hampshire. That's somewhere in England.
We've got some Brits here. You can tell me afterward where
that was. She died at nine years of age. And one day in her illness,
she said to her aunt with whom she lived. Now, this is a nine
year old girl talking to her auntie. And here are her words.
When I'm dead, I should like the pastor, Mr. Griffin, to preach
a sermon to children and seek to persuade them to trust in
the Lord Jesus, to love him, to obey their parents, not to
tell lies, but to think about dying and going to heaven. I've
been thinking, she said, what text I should like the pastor
to preach from at my funeral. It's one thing for a 73-year-old
woman to say, honey, I think it would be lovely if Pastor
Donnelly would preach at the funeral. And unknown to him,
one of the texts he chose to preach on is one of the three
texts we most frequently quoted to one another in her last days.
But there's a nine-year-old girl, and she's saying to her auntie,
I think I know the text I wanted to preach from, 2 Kings 4, 26.
That's the story of the Shunammite woman and the son and the prophet. You, the nine-year-old girl,
said to the auntie, you're the Shunammite. The pastor, Mr. Griffin, is the prophet, and
I'm the Shunammite's child. When I'm dead, I dare say, auntie,
you'll be grieved, though you need not be. The prophet will
come to see you, the pastor. And when he says, how is it with
the child? You may say it is well. I'm sure it will be well with
me, for I shall be in heaven singing the praises of God. And
you ought to think it well, too, auntie. Mr. Griffin accordingly
filled the wish of the nine year old child. Oh, dear children,
is that the kind of gift you'll give to your mommy and your daddy?
If the news should break in that you have a terminal illness,
and we hear in our prayer meeting letters, it's not just old people
who die, would you be able to say, it's
well? It's well with the child. Oh,
dear children, get into Christ. Look this seductive, lying world
in the face and say, I'll be done with it. All it can do is
capture my heart and my body and my energies and drag me to
hell. The world passes away and the
last thereof, but he that does the will of God abides forever. And this is the will of God,
that you believe on His Son, embrace Him in all the fullness
that is in Christ. And should God give you a lengthy
life, to die in peace and leave the legacy of the fragrance of
a Christ-tinged life behind you, may God grant that that will
be true of you. Our Father, what can we say when
you have so graciously opened up in your holy word? What is to so many dark, mysterious,
foggy, misty? Thank you that in Christ you've
blown away the fog and blown away the mist. You brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel. And we pray that
your spirit would seal to all of our hearts the things upon
which we've meditated today, and may they bear eternal fruit
in all of our lives. To the praise of your name we
ask. Amen.